Isn't it funny that the worst offenders (Islamic countries to be specific) aren't mentioned; but somehow Americans are expected to report it when we see it.
I think I'm more likely to see Elvis, than a slave here in Texas.
ICE
Bump!
On a semi-related, snatch and do whatever you want note:
Pentagon Considering Assassination and Kidnapping Special Forces In Iraq
MSNBC | January 10, 2005
Comment: Practicing terrorism in the name of fighting terrorism. We used to be told that terrorists kidnapped and killed people, I guess it becomes moral when the 'authorities' are behind it.
What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out.
Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)
Following that model, one Pentagon proposal would send Special Forces teams to advise, support and possibly train Iraqi squads, most likely hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers, even across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions. It remains unclear, however, whether this would be a policy of assassination or so-called "snatch" operations, in which the targets are sent to secret facilities for interrogation. The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries, officials tell NEWSWEEK.
Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government—the Defense department or CIA—would take responsibility for such an operation. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon has aggressively sought to build up its own intelligence-gathering and clandestine capability with an operation run by Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone. But since the Abu Ghraib interrogations scandal, some military officials are ultra-wary of any operations that could run afoul of the ethics codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That, they argue, is the reason why such covert operations have always been run by the CIA and authorized by a special presidential finding. (In "covert" activity, U.S. personnel operate under cover and the U.S. government will not confirm that it instigated or ordered them into action if they are captured or killed.)
Meanwhile, intensive discussions are taking place inside the Senate Intelligence Committee over the Defense department’s efforts to expand the involvement of U.S. Special Forces personnel in intelligence-gathering missions. Historically, Special Forces’ intelligence gathering has been limited to objectives directly related to upcoming military operations—"preparation of the battlefield," in military lingo. But, according to intelligence and defense officials, some Pentagon civilians for years have sought to expand the use of Special Forces for other intelligence missions.
Pentagon civilians and some Special Forces personnel believe CIA civilian managers have traditionally been too conservative in planning and executing the kind of undercover missions that Special Forces soldiers believe they can effectively conduct. CIA traditionalists are believed to be adamantly opposed to ceding any authority to the Pentagon. Until now, Pentagon proposals for a capability to send soldiers out on intelligence missions without direct CIA approval or participation have been shot down. But counter-terrorist strike squads, even operating covertly, could be deemed to fall within the Defense department’s orbit.
The interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is said to be among the most forthright proponents of the Salvador option. Maj. Gen.Muhammad Abdallah al-Shahwani, director of Iraq’s National Intelligence Service, may have been laying the groundwork for the idea with a series of interviews during the past ten days. Shahwani told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the insurgent leadership—he named three former senior figures in the Saddam regime, including Saddam Hussein’s half-brother—were essentially safe across the border in a Syrian sanctuary. "We are certain that they are in Syria and move easily between Syrian and Iraqi territories," he said, adding that efforts to extradite them "have not borne fruit so far."
Shahwani also said that the U.S. occupation has failed to crack the problem of broad support for the insurgency. The insurgents, he said, "are mostly in the Sunni areas where the population there, almost 200,000, is sympathetic to them." He said most Iraqi people do not actively support the insurgents or provide them with material or logistical help, but at the same time they won’t turn them in. One military source involved in the Pentagon debate agrees that this is the crux of the problem, and he suggests that new offensive operations are needed that would create a fear of aiding the insurgency. "The Sunni population is paying no price for the support it is giving to the terrorists," he said. "From their point of view, it is cost-free. We have to change that equation."
Pentagon sources emphasize there has been no decision yet to launch the Salvador option. Last week, Rumsfeld decided to send a retired four-star general, Gary Luck, to Iraq on an open-ended mission to review the entire military strategy there. But with the U.S. Army strained to the breaking point, military strategists note that a dramatic new approach might be needed—perhaps one as potentially explosive as the Salvador option.
Approximately 800,000 to 900,000 victims are annually trafficked across international borders world wide. Victims include homeless and runaway children, children "sold" to traffickers by their parents, as well as young women who mistakenly believe they are being taken to another country to work at a legitimate job. Between 18,000 and 20,000 of those victims are trafficked into the United States and half of those are usually children. Victims are subjected to forced prostitution, sexual exploitation and/or forced labor.'trafficked'?
Let's not be PC here, let's call this what it is: slave trade.
A bit more from tomflocco.com:
Caribbean sex-trafficking threatens women on vacation
The other missing American woman: same Aruba nightclub linked death of Holloway teen to missing Bradley woman seen in nearby Curacao island brothel
With the Associated Press breaking the news last night at about 11:45 pm Eastern that one of the three incarcerated suspects has reportedly given a statement to police regarding the alleged death of missing 18 year-old high school student Natalee Holloway, U.S. news outlets said earlier that the search for the Alabama beauty had already extended to other islands and mainland South America where police officials were contacted.
One of the three men, unidentified at this time, who said "something bad happened to Natalee Holloway," will reportedly lead authorities to Holloway’s body sometime on Saturday morning, according to the Associated Press, CNN and Fox News--at the scene of the teen’s death near the California lighthouse‘s Arashi beach.
While the tragic death of Natalee Holloway--missing in Aruba since May 30--tops news headlines, congressional response to kidnapped 23 year-old Amy Lynn Bradley’s now seven-year plight since 1998 indicates little is being done to prevent global sex-trafficking of vacationing females--taken from cruise ships, island hotels and bars for sale to South American brothels as sex slaves.
The presence of numerous unregulated and unrestricted "gypsy boats" sailing in and out of Aruba and Curacao’s ports to market produce and "other commodities" from the South American mainland [some 19 miles to Colombia and 35 miles to Venezuela] provides the means to abduct women--even as high-speed Colombian cigarette boat drug-runners also ply Caribbean island waters and seaports heavily frequented by American families.
It used to be different--before the age of international political correctness and off-shore, bank-laundered narcotics currency for congressional campaigns, derived from ill-gotten gains of lawless Caribbean and South American drug factories and bordellos.
In 1821 U.S. Marines went in and cleared out the Caribbean of pirates regardless of which country’s waters and islands were sought as refuge after plundering American shipping. The Marine hymn extols exploits "from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli," where campaigns to attack and defeat the Barbary pirates of North Africa proved the United States would go anywhere to protect its citizens.
Aruba’s Carlos and Charlie’s bar linked the two missing American women
Iva Bradley, mother of Chesterfield, Virginia’s Amy Lynn Bradley--missing from the Royal Caribbean Rhapsody of the Seas cruise ship off Aruba since 1998 and last seen in a house of prostitution by a U.S. Navy petty officer on the nearby island of Curacao in 1999--was interviewed Thursday by MSNBC host Dan Abrams.
"We came to find out that the same bar [Aruba’s Carlos and Charlie’s] that they [three men on her ship] wanted to take Amy to was the same bar as Natalee Holloway was in." [MSNBC, 6-9-2005]
Curiously, the Bradley-Holloway link is seldom mentioned, save for the Abrams Report and a CNN report at 5:45 pm Eastern on Friday which quoted the Bradley family as believing their daughter Amy is "being held in servitude" somewhere in the Caribbean.
CNN reporter Brian Todd told host Suzanne Malveaux that the Bradleys said "crew members on the ship [Royal Caribbean’s Rhapsody of the Seas] were hitting on Amy and wanted to take her to a bar on Aruba." [CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports, 6-10-2005]
Mrs. Bradley added, "the Naval person who went to a brothel on Curacao [1999] said that Amy asked him for help, told him her name. She said, ‘my name is Amy Bradley. Please help me.’ He didn’t know she was missing. He told her there was a naval ship five minutes down the dock that she could leave."
"But she said, ‘No, you don’t understand. Please help me. My name is Amy Bradley,’ " said Iva Bradley. At that time, two men in the bar removed her, told her to move and go upstairs, according to the U.S. Naval officer.
Two Canadians also told Bradley they saw her daughter Amy on the beach in 1998, described her tattoos and her demeanor but did not know she was missing.
Ron Bradley told MSNBC, "...we’ve maintained from the beginning that someone saw Amy and took Amy from that ship in some way [when it was docking in Curacao], there are several ways...by boat, through cargo, the cargo doors that open and close."
According to the Bradleys who alleged cruise ship negligence by Royal Caribbean International, the vessel’s personnel opened the gangway, allowed passengers to go ashore despite their pleas to wait, and refused to use the ship’s public address system to aid the frantic family during the critical first minutes of the search for their daughter "because it would disturb the passengers."
Originally, Debra Opri [Michael Jackson family lawyer] told CNN attorney-host Nancy Grace on Wednesday, "My gut is telling me this [Holloway case] is part of a transport, a prostitution business with the country of Columbia. I hear too many stories. I know too many people who have gone down to Aruba." [CNN-Headline News, 6-8-2005]
"There are many instances where women will go down there, that age, that type, blonde-haired, and they are drugged and transported to Colombia, period, bottom line," she said.
Opri continued, "...it may lead to, in fact, Aruba being a way station for some sort of activity in drugs or prostitution movement to 17 miles away to a country call Colombia," such was the thinking by informed attorneys who are aware of sex-trafficking in the Caribbean.
Regarding Amy Bradley’s case, the petty officer was not supposed to be in the restricted brothel area, so he did not report the incident, waiting some time until contacting Ron and Iva Bradley to apologize after seeing Amy’s photo and story in a major magazine.
"I have seen your daughter. I have seen her. I have talked to her. And she was in trouble, and I apologize for not doing anything about that," the retired officer said.
The FBI has not called Bradleys since the initial search for their daughter, offering an ominous warning to American taxpayers expecting assistance from federal officials.
Iva Bradley told Abrams that "Venezuela, on a good day from Curacao or Aruba, is in sight. We have been told by investigators, there are boats incoming. They come and go freely...there is a tremendous drug trade...so we’re putting our families and our children in danger, and because they [United States government] say they have no jurisdiction, it hurt us terribly, and it hurt Amy. And we’re not gotten the help that we need."
Night-time beacon for drug and sex-trafficking boats?
According to Fox News reporter Rick Leventhal, three young men recently arrested by Aruba authorities on suspicion of kidnapping and/or the murder of Natalee Holloway said they drove the Alabama high school teen on a 15 minute ride to Aruba’s well-known Arashi Beach next to the California lighthouse at the north-end of the 19.6 mile island. While the Holloway death confession has not yet been released, this beach is likely the site of the crime.
Worldwide news reports say bartenders from Cancun to Aruba to Jamaica regularly spike the drinks of unsuspecting women with drugs such as Rohypnol (roofies) and GHB (Liquid Extacy) for the purpose of "date-rape," but reports also indicate the increasing use of narcotics to place women in a submissive state to move them into position for transportation to Caribbean island and South American brothels for indefinite periods for use as drugged prostitutes in known white slavery rings.
Leventhal said last night that the hotel manager of Aruba’s Holiday Inn-Sunspree Resort and Casino where Holloway stayed reported that all hotel security cameras were working properly.
But they do not verify the claims of the three men who said they returned Holloway to the Holiday Inn after driving her to the California lighthouse where one of the three said he "made out" and "was intimate" with Holloway while she was "intoxicated," according to Leventhal.
The evidence indicates Holloway never made it back to the Holiday Inn before failing to show up for her morning flight; moreover, the Alabama teen was unable to refute testimony destroying her moral reputation as a victim.
Other news reports also said Holloway was intoxicated; however, date-rape drugs are known to exhibit symptoms where individuals seem extremely intoxicated after consuming only a small amount of alcohol--more than the amount would warrant.
American FBI agents watched as Aruba authorities allowed the three men from wealthy and influential families to go free for 10 days without impounding their car and knowing that they were the last individuals to see Natalee Holloway alive.
Late at night, Aruba’s California lighthouse could easily serve as a beacon to guide boats to the deserted beach to quickly drop off and pick up narcotics--but news show guests intimated that submissive females, possibly drugged by bartenders or other patrons at a popular club like Carlos and Charlie’s could be victims of sexual transport.
"Spotters," paid to watch for attractive women on vacation as potential sex slaves could guide them into a bar to be drugged and then out into a waiting car and boat for transportation to mainland or island bordellos.
It is likely that Aruba authorities and FBI agents have also inspected phone records, bank accounts, evidence of narcotics residue on cash, wire-taps and area tourism crime records involving the owners and employees of Carlos and Charlie’s or the incarcerated men.
Natalee Holloway’s tragic and untimely death will undoubtedly serve as a warning to parents who allow their inexperienced young people to travel outside the country; however, evidence indicates that Amy Bradley is a victim of sex slavery in the Caribbean--perhaps as tragic as that which befell Natalee Holloway, but Ron and Iva Bradley's daughter can still come home if they can only find her.
+++
It is truly a jungle out there.
A customer came into my father's shop the other day, and after chatting with him for a few minutes, he revealed that he suffers from a particularly virulent form of lymphoma. The gentleman has gone through chemo and is now awaiting a bone marrow transplant. He said he's got a fairly nice pension and some retirement money put away so he's going about doing whatever he wants to for the time being.
One of the things he said he's done is to go to Africa to do some hunting. This is where his story got... odd. He says to my dad, "You know you can buy a person?" HUH???? Yeah, he said you can buy a person in some places in Africa. Apparently, some places are so poor, if you have a few chickens or a goat or something worthwhile to them, you can buy, for your hunt, what is known as "lion bait." Hmmm... I wonder if Danny Glover is aware of this.
"Lion bait"... I heard that and didn't excatly know what to say. A family or a villiage elder will sell you a human being to be lion bait, today in Africa, but American corporations are expected to pay reparations for any profits they may have earned while operating in a society where slavery was legal.