Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
http://breakallchains.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-low-intensity-warfare-how.html
Thursday, February 22, 2007
WHAT IS “LOW-INTENSITY WARFARE”? HOW “COINTELPRO” WORKS
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News Feb. 21, 2007.
Some reasons why Onkwehonwe across Turtle Island are having difficulty breaking into professions is because of systematic prejudice that is being instilled in the dominant society. Sports figures are being fired after achieving success. High level Onkwehonwe hockey players are sitting on benches. Professionals are not invited into jobs where they can have authority and can do something worthwhile. This is not accidental. It's part of a long term plan.
The Counter Intelligence Program of the 1960’s and 1970’s, dubbed COINTELPRO, was a systematic use of fraud and force to sabotage reputations, rights and activities. In re-reading “War at Home” by Brian Glick, Southam Press, he says, “Low intensity warfare starts early to neutralize potential opposition before it can take hold”. It appears COINTELPRO not only lives on but has been here for a long time. The government is still setting up agents that expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or neutralize specific targeted individuals and groups. It is coordinated with local police and prosecutors, news media, business and foundation executives and university, church and “patriotic” organizations.
Over the past 50 years clandestine work became an essential part of the government’s mode of operation. Today there are many trained specialists on covert action.
Any social order based on inequality of wealth and power depends on political repression to control the disadvantaged majority. Modern elites must use covert measures.
Canada boasts it’s “legally decolonized”. It must effectively promote this image to the”free world” and comply with free speech and the rule of law. Shows of dissent within its borders would undermine its image abroad. If Canada is seen as unduly repressive, it will have trouble maintaining the support of its citizens and its effectiveness worldwide.
The “war at home” is primarily the responsibility of the federal government which is supposed to look “democratic”. Business and industry now rely on the government to do unprofitable work like run post offices, airports, roads, job training, pacifying workers and covert operations. They can’t maintain an expensive apparatus for oppressing political dissent as they once did. Provincial, state and local governments don’t have the funds. The job falls on the federal government.
Where did this system come from? It is not indigenous to Turtle Island. It’s not new! The European nation state system is based on a monarchial model with control by a small elite. Propaganda and espionage was used to control the people. The Germans and French could set up a million soldiers to attack and kill each other. Over the past 50 years on Turtle Island clandestine work has become an essential part of European-inspired government policy. Today the multi national corporations on Turtle Island are controlled in European centers. People here are unaware of this effort and are easy targets for the coming take over.
The idea for the KKK, Skinheads, the Nazi Party and other racist groups also come from Europe. In the 1930’s Germany and Japan were setting up fascism. There were mass demonstrations in the U.S. supporting the Nazis until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. At the end of the war the movement stopped for a while but is now reasserting itself. It’s now under Homeland Security, the Minutemen and all the other militia groups who are being given encouragement and guns to go after targeted people and groups.
COINTELPRO is not new. One of its jobs is to erase the Onkwehonwe system of achieving peace through egalitarian and consensual relationships. One method to undermine us is through infiltration of their agents and informants to spy, discredit and disrupt our activities. One of their objectives is to scare off our supporters.
For the last one hundred years there has been an exerted effort to eliminate our traditional governing systems and our blood lines that attach us to our land. The Europeans want to claim title to Turtle Island. We are the target because we are the legitimate government of Turtle Island. Our resistance is getting in the way of turning Turtle Island into a police state dominated by a small group of people.
This covert project to foment anti-Onkwehonwe hysteria among the public has not worked. We have been able to push Canada and Ontario into the wall by bringing out our documents and precedents to support our legal positions over our lands. They have become desperate.
The Six Nations Confederacy Chiefs are now in charge of land and development on the Haldimand Tract. There are many strangers suddenly showing up trying to infiltrate the Six Nations to “give us advice”.
One man, for example, came on the scene at Six Nations. We can’t find out who he is. The trail always runs cold when we inquire among the Tuscaroras in North Carolina and the Tuscaroras in New York State where he professes to come from. He went to Texas and started a legal action on behalf of the Mohawks, without our knowledge. He also copyrighted the “Halidmand Tract” in his name. He also claims to be a “trustee” to all Mohawk possessions. Last year he wanted $110 million from whoever to relinquish his rights to our property. Why is the action coming from an oil well state? We don’t believe the Onkwehonwe who are fronting these actions are aware of the overall strategy.
Could the U.S. be orchestrating this operation in Canada? We caught some officers of the U.S. police known as the “ATF” (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) sniffing around Six Nations. They’d been there since February 2006 when we reclaimed our land. Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Stockwell Day, said it was perfectly alright with him to have the ATF, FBI and CIA operating in Canada! There was no criticism at all.
We’ve been made aware that in the 1980’s there was a “war room” within the Indian Affairs “Tower of Terror” in Hull Quebec run by a Canadian army officer.
We are stereotyped in the mass media as hardened criminals and welfare bums or beneficiaries of reverse discrimination. This distortion is meant to legitimize our arrest and imprisonment. They scapegoat us as the cause of the working people’s problems.
The police instigate the violence and fabricate the horrors. Dissidents are deliberately criminalized through false charges, frame ups and offensive stories publicized in the corporate media.
The police promote the stresses until we start to turn on each another. Our people are attacked and neutralized by phony charges and scandals so that we can’t carry on our work. We are being manipulated into turning on each other. Psychological warfare tactics include charging us with phony crimes. By the time we are cleared, many of our supporters and financial backers have been scared away and our work is in ruins.
The cops bring the vigilantes into the region. Several days ago the Ontario Provincial Police announced that they are putting in 55 to 70 police in Caledonia, the town next to Six Nations. This is absurd. Ontario and Quebec policing is being centralized by getting rid of small police forces. Local control is being removed. The elite want to maintain strong central control.
We have learned that the U.S. is carrying out surveillance and covert operations for Canada “in support of national foreign policy objectives abroad”. Canada cannot legally spy on its own people. However, covert action by foreigners can be endorsed at the highest levels of government.
Low intensity operations was practiced on the Mohawks in Kahehsatake when Col. Musgrave of MI-5 was brought in to develop tactics to break us down. He did not understand us, so it did not work and he’s still wondering why.
Provocateurs are government agents. They are trained to “seize every opportunity to carry out disruptive activity everywhere possible, even social and other contacts. they've been known to come in and have father children with local women and then leave. They expertly spread rumors and make unfounded accusations to inflame disagreements among activists and provoke splits. Their proposals are divisive, sabotage important activities, squander scarce resources, steal funds, seduce leaders, promote rivalries, provoke jealousy and publicly embarrass their opponents. They lead people into unnecessary dangers and set them up for prosecutions”.
Their favorite is “bad jacketing” a target. That’s calling one of ours a government or police agent. It’s meant to draw attention away from the provocateur. It causes confusion, fuels distrust and paranoia, diverts time and energy from a group’s political work, turns co-workers against each other and provokes expulsion and violence.
The government actually subsidizes arms, directs and protects a sordid array of racist, right wing thugs. The minutes of a meeting in Caledonia that was called to organize an attack on the Six Nations, was attended by an Ontario member of parliament, local officials, the "Brown Shirts" and rioters. They got the nod from the Ontario Provincial Police to buy weapons with government grants.
We are always supposed to know who everybody is, their grandparents, their parents, their families and all their relations. Clandestine repression will only end when the race it targets is eliminated. It’s interesting. It’s scary. Beware of strangers.
Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News
Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com
For updates, speakers, workshops and to sign up, go to
www.mohawknationnews.com
at 11:57 AM
http://www.google.com/search?q=Italian+Lecce+Defendants+trial&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Mapuche+people&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.google.com/search?q=Anarchist+Informal+Federation&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://breakallchains.blogspot.com/2007/02/police-try-to-link-lecce-defendants-to.html
Saturday, February 03, 2007
Police try to link Lecce Defendants to FAInformale
ELP has just received the following update about the Italian Lecce
Defendants trial.
=======
Update Nottetempo
The hearing held on January 25 was once again focused on the
depositions of witnesses for the prosecution: the managers of
Benetton shops in Lecce, which had been targets of anarchist demos in
solidarity to the Mapuche people, and the Digos chiefs from Viterbo
and Turin. The latter’s statement was particularly astonishing: first
he made a connection between the anarchist paper ‘Tempi di guerra’
(‘correspondences of the struggle against the detention camps for
immigrants and the world that produces them’) and a few incendiary
attacks recently carried out in Turin; then he boasted that
anarchists can be divided in two categories: those who practice
direct actions and belong to the FAI (Anarchist Informal Federation)
and those who do not practise it. He also revised the thesis of
anarchist ‘subversive associations’ aimed at committing acts of
terrorism.
The next hearing will take place on February 8.
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/library/blog/?cat=3
Kennedy School Library Blog
Spotlight on library, research and information news
Archive for the 'E-Resource' Category
Memoir of Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates’ CIA Years is Now Online.
From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How they Won the Cold War (Simon & Schuster, 1996) is a candid account of intelligence operations during the height of the United States’ war against Communism. Mr. Gates generously donated a copy of the original manuscript to the KSG Library with permission to provide unrestricted access to an electronic version, should we digitize it. With his current appointment as Secretary of Defense, there has been renewed interest in the manuscript. As a result, we have had it digitized and made a link in the HOLLIS catalog to the fully searchable text.
Read the manuscript From the Shadows: Eyewitness to the Cold War: From Vietnam to the Soviet Collapse (1993)
http://pds.harvard.edu:8080/pdx/servlet/pds?id=6141090
http://wikileaks.org/index-en
Have you knowledge of this, I did not find any pages, but they want you to leak your governments papers to them........
I hope it is a sting operation, as this will have to get awfully close to the treason department.
Works for me.
Not really want any significant level of violence . . . but I wouldn't have cried buckets of tears if somehow the pranksters had have shocked themselves in setting the devices up.
http://aviationweek.typepad.com/ares/
February 21, 2007
Ready to Rumble?
What kind of action can the U.S. Air Force F-22 pilots now in Japan expect to see in the coming weeks? Well, according to the Japanese defense ministry, there’s plenty of activity in its skies to keep an air-to-air fighter busy.
The F-22 deployment got off to a somewhat delayed start, since the fighters’ arrival in Japan had to be postponed to fix a software issue associated with the aircraft’s navigation equipment. But now, the U.S. Air Force has finally gotten the first of a dozen of its top-of-the-line fighters to Kadena Air Force Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa as part of the first excursion for F-22s overseas.
Lieutenant Colonel Wade Tolliver, commander of the 27th Fighter Squadron (pics!) the F-22’s belong to says that “to opportunity to fly it here in the Pacific with the F-15s and other aircraft is something we are looking forward to.” There’s certainly seem to be ample amounts of “other aircraft.”
Although somewhat historic, data compiled by the Japanese Air Self Defense Force shows that in the first part of the fiscal year, there’s been a lot of activity to keep air-to-air interceptors busy. In the six months ending September 30 – Japan’s fiscal year starts in April – the Japanese air force had to scramble 149 aircraft to patrol its skies because of potentially hostile intruders.
What’s particularly interesting, and maybe reflective of a geopolitical shift in the region, is the source of most of those transgressions: Russia.
Russia has historically been the largest source of responses, but the scale of activity in those six months is notable. The figure is almost 20% higher than the number of times Japan’s air force had to take to the air to deal with Russian aircraft during the entire 2005 fiscal year.
By contrast, encounters between Japan and its other large neighbor, China, are on a major downturn and headed to more traditional, low levels. In 2005, Japan scrambled aircraft 107 times to deal with Chinese flights. That was a spike from the modest number of incidents in 2003 and 2004.
There’s been a modest number, five to be exact, of Japanese fighters scrambled to deal with Taiwanese aircraft, too, as well as four such actions for “other” countries that weren’t further identified. Whether the U.S. Air Force, or the Japanese for that matter, will let the F-22 get in on any action remains to be seen.
--Robert Wall
Posted by Madhu Unnikrishnan in Wing and a Prayer | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/gwinnett/stories/2007/02/22/gwxplane0222.html
Pilot remains grounded in county custody
By LATEEF MUNGIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/22/07
[Comment below]
Remember the young man who was arrested for allegedly stealing a million dollar jet and landing it in Gwinnett?
TIMELINE
* Oct. 8, 2005: A plane owned by Pinnacle Air Jet Charter of Springdale, Ark., lands at St. Augustine, Fla.
* Oct. 8 or 9: Wolcott flies the plane from Florida to Gwinnett County Airport/Briscoe Field. Once in Gwinnett, Wolcott calls five friends and takes a short joy ride before returning the plane to Gwinnett airport, authorities said.
* Oct. 10: An investigation is launched when the plane is discovered in Gwinnett.
* Oct. 12: Wolcott is arrested in Gwinnett County after his passengers alert authorities. The passengers are not charged.
Source: Gwinnett County Police/AJC research
Gwinnett Sheriff Butch Conway remembers him. In fact, Conway says he can't get rid of him.
Since Daniel Andrew Wolcott's now infamous 2005 plane joy ride, the 23-year-old Buford man has remained in Gwinnett custody, even though he faces federal charges.
Wolcott's stay in local custody, now more than 15 months, has cost Gwinnett taxpayers close to $20,000, Conway said.
Wolcott has remained in jail in lieu of a $175,000 bond.
"We are just not supposed to be housing him," Conway said. "And when I call the FBI, I cannot get any answers. And are they going to pay us back for the money we spent to house him? I bet not."
Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said he has agreed that he will drop charges against Wolcott and will allow the U.S. attorney's office in Jacksonville to prosecute him on charges of interstate transportation of a stolen aircraft.
U.S. Marshal Richard Mecum said his office usually moves an inmate from a county jail to a federal facility if the suspect is being prosecuted by a federal agency.
Mecum, who works in the Atlanta office, said he did not know why Wolcott had not been moved.
continues................
Row over Dutch Muslim ministers
By Geraldine Coughlan
BBC News, The Hague
The appointment of two Muslim politicians to the new Dutch cabinet has
reawakened a row in the country over dual nationality.
Nebahat Albayrak and Ahmed Aboutaleb are both Dutch passport holders,
but
also have Turkish and Moroccan passports respectively.
Right-wing opposition parties want to see an end to dual nationality.
The row has led to a call for Princess Maxima, the wife of the Crown
Prince,
to give up her Argentine nationality.
Ahmed Aboutaleb, from Morocco, is to be the State Secretary for Social
Affairs in the new cabinet.
Nebahat Albayrak is Turkish and she will become the State Secretary for
Justice.
Lowered popularity
They are the first Muslims to reach the heart of Dutch politics.
The opposition right-wing Freedom Party has objected to the new
centrist
government being allowed to have members with dual nationality.
The outgoing right-wing Integration Minister, Rita Verdonk, said
Princess
Maxima, who is married to the heir to the Dutch throne, Prince Willem
Alexander, should give up her Argentine passport.
Opinion polls show the row over dual nationality has lowered the
popularity
of the new government.
But Ahmed Aboutaleb is credited with helping immigrants to find jobs as
well
as pushing for more integration.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/europe/6385463.stm
Published: 2007/02/22 10:45:48 GMT
C BBC MMVII
http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2007/02/crackpot-dhiren-barot-redacted-evidence.html
[There photos of pages, charts, and screens here, plus hidden urls....granny]
Thursday, February 22, 2007
CRACKPOT DHIREN BAROT: Redacted evidence provides riches of embarrassment
In the war on terror one can reliably count on authorities and experts to exaggerate the powers and savvy of al Qaeda terrorists. Having dealt with it at length, it's accurate to say that such claims are often dependent on the public not getting a close look, or an accurate interpretation, of gathered evidence. And even when the evidence is produced for examination, the mainstream media will not look at it, prefering to rely on its interpretation by lawmen or experts who'd lose their livelihoods if they became known for conservative views on the subject.
The evidence gathered from crackpot dirty bomber Dhiren Barot, presented as an extensive list of files on the website of the London Metropolitan Police under the heading of Operation Rhyme, provides an opportunity for a close look.
Before we travel out to that locale, however, it is worthwhile anchoring it by showing how experts use cases like Barot's to make points on how enemies are preparing to bite us again. (Here's a fairly representative piece on the mythology of Barot at CBS News. The reader will notice it relies entirely on he said/she said reporting, not on any actual examination of Barot's jihadi files.)
In this case, now have a gander at terror expert Bruce Hoffman's op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, Remember al Qaeda? They're Baaack.
With it's infantilized title taken from the old horror movie, Poltergeist II, one conjurs images of al Qaeda staking out your living room, preparing to kidnap your kid and move the furniture around. Drubbed by critics as "elaborately pointless" and a "rehash of the first movie's story," it sort of fits many discussions in which al Qaeda is said to be coming. The writers of Op-Ed's don't assign the titles to their pieces, editors do, and this is just about the worst choice imaginable.
"...the truth is that the organization is not on the run but on the march," Hoffman writes.
Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. Toss a coin, heads they are, tails they ain't, and you might have as good a divining.
Hoffman appears to drag in Dhiren Barot, not by name, as part of reading of the tea leaves by looking at al Qaeda plots.
"Ongoing investigations increasingly suggest that recent terrorist threats and attacks — the foiled 2004 plan to stage simultaneous suicide attacks in the United States ... " reads the article.
If one scans the rap sheet on Barot at GlobalSecurity.Org here one immediately sees the charges on plotting to blow up US financial institutions. One also reads a US terror alert was prompted, and "...later criticized because it was several years after [Barot's] casing had taken place." Barot's videos of his NYC scouting trip are also available on the Operation Rhyme site.
In Britain, Barot is more well known for the evidence taken from files on his computer. These are compilations of public texts taken from the Internet, cut and pasted together in attempts to pitch to al Qaeda higher-ups a ludicrous dirty bomb plot employing smoke detectors and another half-baked scheme to pack limousines with gas cylinders in the hopes that they could be driven into a parking garage and detonated. In no case had Barot accumulated any actual materials. These were virtual plots and in his files the al Qaeda man reveals he hasn't even been able to secure a hand grenade.
The London Metropolitan Police posted Barot's files in its display for Operation Rhyme here.
Your friendly neighborhood GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow will be primarily dealing with the dirty bomb and gas cylinders/limousine files, the latter also containing a focus on Barot's yen for a radiological weapon. (These presentations are entitled terror65-04mas11, terror65-04mas12 and terror65-04gaslimos.)
Examination of them isn't something newspapers, or for that matter brief TV news shows, like to do. To understand why these documents are ludicrous, one has to show them and then perform some cross-referencing to materials from which they were derived. It's graphically intensive but, by nature, dry and dusty. It's simply not as exciting as blurting out that al Qaeda's on the march and we nabbed Dhiren Barot just in time.
If you download these files you'll see they're heavily redacted. In fact, most of the content in them is blacked out, mindlessly so, as will be demonstrated.
"Some information has been concealed," reads the website, understating it a bit. This was because the files "[contain] information regarding security measures, positions of cameras, smoke detectors, etc and other information potentially of use to those who would wish to exploit them."
In other words, one is asked to believe that a dirty bomb can be made from thousands of smoke detectors.
However, making a dirty bomb from a lorry full of the household items wasn't Barot's only wish. He also fiddled with other really stupid ideas.
One involved used exit signs as a weapon of terror. In the United States, exit signs containing a very small amount of tritium, a radioisotope of hydrogen, have been smashed in buildings and thrown into landfills for years. It's thought to be a slight hazard but no one really cares about the issue as the danger is negligible. The EPA posts a fact sheet here.
One of Dhiren Barot's dirty bomb plots proposed the throwing of exist signs into the middle of rooms.
Barot also dallied with getting tritium for a dirty bomb from wristwatches.
"Two types of radioactive materials I did not investigate are Uranium and Plutonium," Barot writes. "Not available off the shelf I decided to leave these radioactive materials out of this research."
Throughout his files, Barot returns to the idea that his terror weapons should be made from off the shelf items, and that -- Allah willing, inshallah -- his plans will come true. In this quest, he cast around aimlessly on the Internet, cobbling together files on radiological hazards from common public sources. It is work on the lines of what a high school student might be able to accomplish over a weekend.
Barot is, in other words, dumb as dirt. His files reveal him to be a wishful man with no capacity for critical thinking and absolutely no acumen in science or demolitions. If he is an example of al Qaeda tutoring, it is difficult to come to the conclusion from fairly judging him that such training was worth anything.
" . . . home smoke detectors would not pose a security risk but smoke detector factories could," writes Barot, in one his files. At this point, he apparently starts to develop his plan for a dirty bomb made from lots and lots and lots of smoke detectors.
Smoke detectors contain a vanishingly small amount of americium-241, a man-made radioactive element indicated as radioactive ammunition for potential dirty bombs.
However, a smoke detector contains only about 1 millionth of a Curie of the element.
That figure is a merciless barrier with regards to terror planning, one Barot ignored because he is a stupid man. He would have had to buy ten million smoke detectors. That's ten, followed by six zeros, to make the small dirty bomb payload envisioned in dirty bomb analyses furnished by physicists.
Next up, here are the excerpts from Barot's journal files. These segments are not redacted, probably because they were necessary to make the case against him.
Note the "inshallah" invocation. God willing, we will make smoke detectors into a dirty bomb.
However, another interesting feature of Barot's files is their use of common articles which most scientists and reasonably educated people wouldn't bat an eye at. They contain no information that is immediately helpful to dirty-bombing terrorists. Instead, they are forthright discussions on various aspects of radiological hazard, necessary to public understanding of the subject.
These portions are all heavily redacted. However, since DD is familiar with the literature, moreso than the Brit anti-terror men who did the redacting, some of the blacked-out parts will be reconstructed for purposes of this discussion.
A great deal of Barot's presentations are taken from a Monterey Institute publication, Commercial Radioactive Sources: Surveying the Security Risks, by Charles Ferguson, Tahseen Kazi and Judith Perera. It is here.
In Barot's files, we see the Brits have blacked out the following flow chart. Could it be a very dangerous terror plan?
Nothing of the sort! It's Barot's almost exact copy of an illustration from the Monterey paper. Mindless!
If that was not sufficiently perplexing, here is another meaninglessly redacted excerpt from Barot.
In this instance, the police have blacked-out the figures from a publicly available table on the health effects of ionizing radiation. For his journals, Barot put it in upside down. Here is the original.
It comes from Dr. Rosalie Bertell's, "No Immediate Danger, Prognosis for a Radioactive Earth" and it's here.
And for a more sufficiently absurd redaction, please to look at the following.
Here, the Metropolitan Police redact the name of physicist Steven E. Koonin and a brief discussion by him, published in the letters section of the journal of the American Physical Society in 2002. It's here.
DD could go on but believes the reader gets the picture. The dissection of Barot's journals show that the man, while deserving of jail for his scheming and wishful thinking, was not the type of person who can easily be used to make the case that al Qaeda is on the march. If their marchers are all like him, one might be moved to come up with a different assessment of the terrorist organization's powers.
Is al Qaeda on the march? DD doesn't know. He knows Dhiren Barot was a malicious crackpot with busy and ridiculous plans. Barot was not a breathe-a-sigh-of-relief victory in the war on terror but, more accurately, a piece of detritus rightly swept off the street.
However, this discussion shows once again that public perceptions about terrorism rely on their symbolic interpretation by mass media and experts.
In this particular case, it's still a mystery why so much of Barot's files were ridiculously blacked-out by British counter-terror men. Could it be because the true nature of them is somewhat less than fear-inspiring? Possibly. But one supposes bureaucratic ignorance, the embracing of the abundance-of-caution mantra and stupidity are as good an explanation as any.
posted by George Smith at 9:02 AM
Thanks to Milford421 and Mark Taylor for this update:
Update: Inconsistent details reported in produce hauler’s death at loading dock
Thanks to Mark Taylor. Something seriously amiss here:
-The police report details strange circumstances surrounding the
incident.
-Dole officials reported that cameras inside the warehouse were not
working the night of Ross' disappearance. Ross' husband offered to
finish his haul before coming back to search for Sheila. And, there
was disagreement between Dole employees on where Sheila had been and
whether forklift operators would notice if they hit a person.
-Dole officials reported that cameras inside the warehouse were not
working the night of Ross' disappearance.
Inconsistent details reported in produce hauler's death at loading
dock
Dane Ross frantically asked Dole employees to call police and stop
loading trucks. He climbed into several trailers parked at the
loading dock and called out "Sheila! Sheila!" the night his wife
died.
On Tuesday, Feb. 20, the Yuma Police Department released a 139-page
report detailing its investigation into Sheila Ross' death on Jan.
27 – a death the department has classified as accidental.
The police report details strange circumstances surrounding the
incident.
Dole officials reported that cameras inside the warehouse were not
working the night of Ross' disappearance. Ross' husband offered to
finish his haul before coming back to search for Sheila. And, there
was disagreement between Dole employees on where Sheila had been and
whether forklift operators would notice if they hit a person.
When he couldn't find her, Sheila's husband reported her missing
that night. She had stepped away from truck to get paperwork for a
load they were scheduled to haul out of the Dole plant in Yuma, AZ.
Three days later, workers at a Hy-Vee distribution center in Iowa
found Sheila's body between several pallets of lettuce when they
were unloading another trucker's trailer. An autopsy showed she died
in Arizona from compression asphyxiation.
Yuma police later said that Sheila was pushed onto the trailer in
Arizona, which was attached to Hugh Ort's truck, as she stood or
walked in the loading dock area.
The report states that police wrote down cell phone numbers of
drivers at the Dole plant, and that Ort later opened his trailer and
checked his load on the side of the road before stopping in Iowa.
The couple's small trucking company regularly did business at the
Dole plant in Arizona. Alvaro Garcia, a Dole Food Co. dock worker
who regularly loaded produce onto Sheila and Dane Ross' trailer, may
very well have been one of the last people to see Sheila alive and
shared impressions with authorities. Garcia told police he believed
he would have felt it at the time if he hit a person with the
forklift he was operating. He also told police he thought she may
have been on drugs, based on his impression that she looked "very
jumpy."
Other than Garcia's statement, police had no other reason to believe
Ross had used drugs, said Clint Norred, a Yuma Police spokesman.
"I honestly think that if there would have been some indication,
that the medical examiner would have said that," Norred said. "It
would have said, `impaired judgment.' It didn't come down to that."
An autopsy was performed on Ross in Lucas County, IA. Lucas County
Sheriff Delbert Longley said he didn't know whether the autopsy
revealed drugs in Ross' system.
"I cannot confirm or deny it," Longley said. "I have no idea at this
point. I have not seen the report."
Garcia told police he saw Sheila walk out of the plant's
refrigerated area with a yellow sticker in her hand that would
indicate she had visited the Dole dispatcher. That statement was
contradicted by Dole supervisor Luis Portillo, who said he didn't
think Sheila ever entered the warehouse, because loading documents
were never picked up from the dispatch office.
Two other Dole forklift operators also disagreed with Garcia's
assessment that he would feel the impact of hitting someone's body
with a loaded forklift.
The police report showed that dock workers Dennis Plumber and Jose
Zarate told police they didn't think they would feel it if they hit
someone with a loaded forklift. those two workers also told police
they didn't think they would hear screams if they hit someone
because of noise in the warehouse and ear protection worn by dock
workers.
Yuma police investigators watched trucks being loaded at the Dole
plant and noted potential hazards in the bustling dock area,
including the small amount of room allowed to see in between pallets
of produce already loaded onto trailers.
The forklift that struck Sheila was driven by Jose Parra. Parra, who
worked at Dole for 14 years, was in tears when he told investigators
he didn't see Ross or remember how the pallets were loaded into
Ort's truck. Parra apologized and said he didn't know how anyone
could have been accidentally loaded onto the truck with the produce.
Dane Ross told police that he and Sheila had a good marriage and
were co-owners of D&S Trucking. The couple, from McCloud, OK, did
not carry life insurance policies, the report stated.
The Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health is
investigating Ross' death. Phone messages left by Land Line at the
agency Wednesday, Feb. 21, were not immediately returned.
http://www.landlinemag.com/todays_news/Daily/2007/Feb07/022007/022107
-01.htm
Thanks to Milford421 for this post:
Religion of Plastic: Credit Card Jihadist Sentenced; Apparent Hezbo
http://www.debbieschlussel.com/Connection
By Debbie Schlussel
"This is from a deliberately tiny, tiny blurb in today's Detroit
Free Press:"
DEARBORN: Credit car scammer gets 74 months, fine, loss
The last of 17 defendants indicted in a scheme that defrauded banks
and credit card companies of $3 million was sentenced Wednesday to
six years in prison.
U.S. District Judge John O'Meara sentenced Ali Abdul Karim Farhat,
42, of Dearborn to 74 months in prison and ordered him to repay
$669,125. Farhat also must forfeit his business and $72,621 in cash.
The sentence starts immediately.
"Farhat, one of three ringleaders, pleaded guilty to federal
racketeering charges.
Of course, what it doesn't say is his religion or that of the other
16 defendants. You guessed it: The "Religion of Plastic, er . . .
Peace." What it also doesn't say is where the money went. Farhat and
others defrauded credit card companies and department stores out of
millions of dollars in merchandise which they charged on credit
cards, never paid the card companies for, and then sold for cash on
the black market.
Federal agents believe they sent some of the money "back home,"
likely to Hezbollah.
Just details not important enough to publish in a cowed Detroit
newspaper near Dearbornistan."
Security chief fears airport staff infiltration
Dan Milmo
Thursday February 15, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2013203,00.html
The terrorist threat against British airline passengers is evolving
constantly and could involve inside help from airport employees, a
senior
government official has warned. Restrictions on hand luggage are likely
to
remain in place after the disruption last year of an alleged plot to
blow up
US-bound aircraft with liquid explosives.
John Parkinson, the Department for Transport's head of aviation
security,
said security experts feared that a future terrorist attempt to target
planes "would have the components available airside with the help of
people
who work there". He added: "The threat remains very serious and it is
likely
to endure for the foreseeable future. We continue to face very real
challenges, but we remain determined to meet them."
A spokesman for BAA, owner of Heathrow airport, said airport employees
posed
no greater threat than passengers and were subjected to the same
security
checks, including a ban on carrying large amounts of liquids into
terminals.
"All airport staff have to go through security checks as well. Anything
passengers go through, all airport staff have to go through," the
spokesman
said.
Prospective airport employees, including staff at retail outlets, also
require a criminal records and counter-terrorism check before they are
hired.
The enhanced security checks were implemented after the security scare
last
summer brought Heathrow to a near-standstill and forced the
cancellation of
more than 1,000 flights.
Speaking at a transport security conference in London yesterday, Mr
Parkinson said hand luggage restrictions which limit UK passengers to
one
bag and a small amount of liquids would remain in place until airport
owners
submitted proposals for more effective security measures, including new
screening machines.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/11075442/detail.html
Delta Apologizes For Mishandling Aftermath Of Crash
POSTED: 5:28 pm EST February 21, 2007
UPDATED: 6:48 pm EST February 21, 2007
CLEVELAND -- Delta Airlines has never admitted what happened Sunday at Cleveland Hopkins Airport was a crash, saying only that the plane landed and came to a stop.
But now the airline has confessed it mishandled passenger complaints after the incident and said it is sorry, reported NewsChannel5's Paul Kiska.
Airport Commissioner On Crash Investigation | Passengers Get Scare During Landing
An hour after Delta Express Jet 6448 crashed through a fence at Hopkins, Billy Forester found out what happened to his wife's plane.
"I found out from baggage it went off the runway, so for that I'm (expletive) off," he said.
continued...........
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/11080605/detail.html
Bombs Go Off In Mailboxes Of 2 Teachers From Same School
POSTED: 6:13 am EST February 22, 2007
MINFORD, Ohio -- The state fire marshal's office is investigating two pop-bottle bombs that exploded in the mailboxes of two teachers from the same southern Ohio high school, the agency said Wednesday.
The Scioto County sheriff's office reported the explosive devices, made in two-liter Faygo bottles, were put in the mailboxes outside the homes of Teresa Hayward and Barb Day north of Minford on Monday. No one was injured.
Hayward teaches home economics and Day teaches art at Minford High School, about 80 miles south of Columbus. Both are also student advisers.
School officials are not aware of any link between the two that might cause someone to target them, and aren't sure the attacks were related to the school, Superintendent Dennis Meade said.
continued..............
It took a person with a sick mind to set those up in the church, or so I would think.
http://lanr.blogspot.com/2007/02/ex-guerrilla-senator-puts-colombian.html
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Ex-guerrilla Senator puts Colombian President Uribe in hot seat
Colombia's Senator Gustavo Petro speaks during a Senate speech in Bogota in this Tuesday, Sep. 19, 2006 file picture. Since Petro first aired his allegations in Senate testimony, eight members of Congress have been jailed on charges ranging from creating illegal armed groups to homicide. The latest included the brother of Foreign Minister Maria Consuelo Araujo on kidnapping and other charges, prompting her resignation Monday as Uribe sought to contain the damage to Colombia's international image.
By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer
Wed Feb 21, 1:22 PM ET
BOGOTA, Colombia - The political scandal that forced Colombia's foreign minister to quit this week and put other close allies of President Alvaro Uribe in jail is being driven in large part by a rebel-turned-lawmaker who has become the opposition's chief provocateur.
Sen. Gustavo Petro accuses the law-and-order president of letting a poisonous alliance prosper between the political class and right-wing militias that are responsible for brutal massacres and the theft of millions of acres of land from poor peasants.
Colombians who fear taking explosive information to police or prosecutors often turn instead to Petro, who has nine bodyguards, wears custom-tailored bulletproof jackets and has twice foiled paramilitary assassination plots. In an interview with The Associated Press, he casually mentioned that it would be nice to die of old age.
Now the 46-year-old Petro is turning up the heat on Uribe, calling for a debate in Congress next month on his claims that the president's brother, Santiago Uribe, helped form paramilitary groups in the 1990s and was personally involved in murders.
The president was governor of Antioquia state at the time, and Petro suggests he may have helped cover up for his brother: "Nobody is asking, was the case shelved at Uribe's behest?"
(click here to view entire report)
Labels: Colombia
posted by Justin Delacour | 10:23 PM
[interesting blog] [photos and article in middle of page]
http://lazerbrody.typepad.com/
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Abir Aluf meets Melitzer Rebbe
Aluf_abir_and_melitzer_rebbe
Our neighbors in the Chassidic Rova Chet neighborhood of Ashdod couldn't figure out whether to panic or rejoice. A Jerusalem-based taxi pulled up in front of the modest apartment where the Melitzer Rebbe shlit'a resides, the door opened, and out came a figure that could have been either Bin Ladin or - vive la differance - our forefather Abraham. Dressed in traditional Habani-Yemenite-Jewish garb was none other than Mori Yehoshua Sofer shlit'a, the Abir Aluf.
The next 45 minutes were spell-binding. The Melitzer and the Abir Aluf sparred in Torah. They traversed the arena of Torah, the Prophets, Gemorra, Jewish ethics, Zohar, the Tosefos, and the Malbim. The Melitzer threw questions at the Abir Aluf, and he answered by heart as if the volumes were open in front of him. It was amazing. The Aluf then told the Melitzer the history of his family, whose documented lineage goes back 100 generations to the first Holy Temple. He told the Melitzer about the Abir tradition and how the secret was preserved in the Sofer family.
Abiraluf_melitzer_rebbe
The Melitzer Rebbe then probed the Abir Aluf about the specific techniques of Abir, the traditional Israelite combat art that goes back to our forefather Abraham. The Aluf discussed not only a variety of techniques, but elaborated on the source of each technique in the Torah.
Rav_abir_and_aluf_abir
Abir Ro'im, the father of the Abir Aluf, is blind and 100 years old. Nevertheless, he still exercises daily and - eyesight or not - wields a swift sword.
1922sayeed_sallah__and_saadia_sofer_prot
The Melitzer Rebbe was amazed to see this rare photo from 1922, proof of something that history finds incredible: King Abdulla Ibn Hussein of Transjordan sits under the watchful eyes of his Jewish bodyguards, Habani Yemenite brothers Sayeed, Salaah, and Saadia Sofer (notice Safeed's especially long sidecurls, left), uncles of today's Abir Aluf, Grandmaster Yehoshua Sofer.
The Melitzer was intrigued to hear about the traditions of the Habani Jews, which the Sofer family has so zealously guarded against the winds of time. The Abir Aluf is the type of walking example of azut d'kedusha, the boldness of holiness that our forefathers were known for. The meeting terminated with the Melitzer Rebbe blessing the Abir Aluf, and presenting him with a wholehearted letter of support that endorses the Abir Aluf personally, and implores anyone who seeks to learn combat arts to pursue it in a way that is compatible with with Torah, holiness, and spiritual purity.
For an example of Abir techniques, see the Naftali tribal combat style here.
Posted at 12:53 AM in Geula and redemption, Giants of Judaism, Health and Fitness, Jewish history and tradition, Lazer's friends,
Friday, February 23, 2007
Fake voter's ID used for NBI clearance, passport
By Ulysses Israel & Bong Garcia
ZAMBOANGA CITY -- The recent discovery of fake voter's identification cards being manufactured locally led initial probe to discover that they are used by non-Zamboanga residents to get a National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) clearance and secure passports from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
The Commission on Elections (Comelec), in an initial probe, said "they (fake voter's IDs) are not intended for the coming May elections, but for seeking clearance and passport purposes."
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
Comelec Election Officer for District I Roy Cuevas said in an interview that fake voter's identification cards are proliferating in the city due to the increasing demand from applicants who are seeking clearance from the NBI and passports from DFA for domestic and overseas employments.
He said the Comelec was alerted by the local NBI office of dubious voter's IDs from those applying for NBI clearance. The Comelec immediately instructed NBI agents on how to distinguish fake from genuine voter's IDs, he said.
As a result, he said the NBI was able to confiscate more than 200 fake voter's IDs.
"What those responsible for manufacturing these fake IDs don't know is that each voter has his own voter's code with own identification number. But the syndicate has no idea how to make these codes, that's why their cards can be easily distinguished from genuine ones," he said.
He said even if a voter was able to secure a voter's ID, still he could not vote in a particular precinct if his name is not listed in the list of voters. This scheme could not be used for rigging the elections, he said.
The Comelec has requested the NBI to monitor and arrest those found manufacturing fake voter's IDs.
The victims are believed to have paid up to P500 for each voter's ID, the Comelec officer said.
He said the NBI personnel began to suspect the authenticity of the voter's ID when they noticed that applicants without voter's IDs were able to secure them after going away for several minutes.
When they checked the papers of the applicants, they found that they are residents of Sulu or Tawi-Tawi, making it impossible for them to have secured the voter's ID within a short period of time.
Mayor Celso Lobregat said he is not worried over the reported proliferation of fake voter's IDs in the city.
Lobregat said a voter's ID, fake of not, is not a guarantee that voters could cast their vote on May 14.
The mayor issued the statement a day after the Comelec announced the discovery of fake voter's IDs in this city.
District II election officer Jesus Posadas said the NBI has so far seized several blank fake voter's IDs in a raid on one of the local printing press firms.
Lobregat said he is not worried over the discovery, saying all the political party watchers will have a copy of the voter's master lists in the precincts where they would serve on the day of elections.
The mayor said he is not interested in knowing who are behind the proliferation of the fake IDs.
"They are faking everything, including senior citizen's ID, sanitary permits and others," Lobregat said.
Posadas announced that they would replace the voter's ID with tamper-proof ones after the May 14 elections. (Sunnex)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/net/2007/02/23/fake.voter.s.id.used.for.nbi.clearance.passport.html
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/cag/2007/02/23/news/npa.exec.denies.owning.explosive.html
Friday, February 23, 2007
NPA exec denies owning explosive
By Stephen Capillas
THE Provincial Government Thursday called for an investigation into the defection of a Civilian Auxiliary Forces Geographical Unit (Cafgu) member to the communist New People's Army (NPA) last Monday.
In a radio interview, Misamis Oriental Governor Oscar Moreno said that while the defection is alarming, there are conflicting reports on the incident, which also saw the Cafgu member's theft of two M-16 rifles and several ammunition clips.
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
This came even as a suspected top finance official of the NPA denied owning the grenade found in his possession during his arrest at sitio Solo, Barangay San Juan Balingasag town also in Misamis Oriental over the weekend.
Suspected communist NPA finance officer Eusebio Elave, in a radio interview, accused the military of placing the grenade in his possession though he admitted to being with the communist rebels.
But Elave, who was transferred to the Provincial Jail Thursday, said he was only involved in community work and not in offensive operations.
"Dugay-dugay man ko uban sa NPA (I was with the NPA for a long time)," he said.
In response, Fourth Infantry Division spokesman Major Samuel Sagun said Elave's denial is expected since he is trying to avoid aggravating his case.
Aside from a grenade, a cell phone and subversive documents were supposedly found in Elave's possession.
The Provincial Jail management assured that security measures are in place following Elave's transfer.
Provincial Jail Warden Dominador Tagarda said these security measures would help prevent a breakout similar to what happened in Sultan Kudarat that resulted in the escape of suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels.
Meanwhile, Moreno said he will talk with military officials particularly those in the Eighth Infantry Brigade stationed in Salay town, Misamis Oriental where the Cafgu detachment is located.
The 4th ID has earlier said it may conduct some "house-cleaning" of sorts at the Cafgu detachment in Barangay Alipuaton, Salay town in Misamis Oriental following the defection of one Cafgu member at 12:30 p.m. last Monday.
Eighth IB commanding officer Colone; Eric Benoya admitted this possibility in a radio interview, saying they have yet to finish the investigation into the incident.
"We have yet to finish the inquiry and we may pursue the Cafgu though from initial reports gathered, the Cafgu member was pressured by family members who have connections with the NPA rebels," Benoya told dxIF Bombo Radyo.
The investigation into the incident, which includes interrogation of some Cafgus in the detachment, came amid unconfirmed speculations that there are other members planning to defect to the communist NPA rebels.
Benoya said they have yet to verify that possibility, though he added that this was not entirely impossible, owing to "past experience."
He also did not rule out the possibility that the family of Cafgu member Parai Gonzales may have to pay the M-16 rifles and several ammunition he stole from the Cafgu detachment, which amounts to more than P90,000.
"Contrary to charges leveled by militant groups we did not harass local officials or the Cafgu's family, though they have been generally less than cooperative during the investigation," Benoya said.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Davao.
(February 23, 2007 issue)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/man/2007/02/23/news/military.shows.proof.of.link.between.communists.groups.html
Friday, February 23, 2007
Military shows 'proof' of 'link' between communists, groups
ARMED Forces Chief Hermogenes Esperon Jr. on Thursday presented a video clip that showed that the party-list groups Bayan, Gabriela and several others are affiliated with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).
The video showed CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison explaining the establishment of the CPP, NPA, and the NDF. He said the CPP was established in 1968 as the "Marxist-Leninist vanguard party of the working class."
Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo
"This party is supposed to be the standard bearer of the working class which is the class that is the most progressive, productive and political force in the Philippines," said Sison in the video while admitting that the communist movement cannot win the revolution all by itself.
"Anyway, even while there are the forces of the armed revolution, there are the legal democratic forces in the Philippines, the biggest of biggest of these is Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or Bayan in short," said Sison.
Sison said Bayan has at least two members and has more than 1,000 1000 member organizations.
He later said that Bayan's "component organizations" are Kilusang Mayong Uno, which is the labor center; the Pambansang Kilusang Magbubukid or the Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP); Gabriela, the women' alliance; League of Filipino Students; Alliance of Concerned Teachers and Kadena, among others.
Gerry Albert Corpuz, spokesman of another left-leaning group Pamalakaya who saw the video played on a national television, said: "I have seen that video on national TV 18 or 19 years ago."
"That interview on Joma Sison was shown on national TV when the old political party Partido ng Bayan ran in the 1987 elections, fielding six senatorial candidates. It was not kept to public, it was shown even in forums and gatherings. How come Esperon is misrepresenting it as something else?" he added.
"This is stranger than fiction. Take note I was not an activist then when I saw that interview on national TV," said Corpuz. He said the interview showed Sison's views on Edsa I and the participation of the left-leaning Partido ng Bayan.
Esperon played the video during a press briefing where he questioned the findings of UN special rapporteur Philip Alston and the Melo Commission on the rash of extrajudicial killings of activists.
After playing the video, Esperon said "I would like to give a caveat, a warning, and a reminder especially to our soldiers that there are legal organizations that have been mentioned. What we are going after are the underground organizations that are actually supporting or popping up these legal organizations."
Esperon later asked the legal organizations mentioned by Sison to "denounce the violence of the New People's Army, to denounce cruelty in the countryside and the perpetration of human rights violations against our countrymen."
"What is important is we have the videotape. Because of operational considerations we will not tell you how we got the tape. We are just presenting this. It's for you to judge. See for yourself what he is saying about democratic
Revolution," he said.
Esperon said the military showed the video to "simply to explain" that there is the Communist Party of the Philippines, there is the NPA and the National Democratic Front "that are the components of the revolution."
Asked what was the relevance of the video to the extrajudicial killings, Esperon said "it's up to you. We got this tape so we feel that it might be of value to you. If you don't find any value to it, then it's okay." (VR/Sunnex)
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