Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bill clinton. Show all posts

July 31, 2008

Rove Confronted With Second Attempted Citizen's Arrest

Rove Confronted With Second Attempted Citizen's Arrest

Karl Rove, allegedly a traitor and complicit with war crimes planning and election fraud, was the target of another citizen's arrest in Iowa. Rove is alleged to have been complicit with Nuremberg-like war crimes planning, illegal retaliation against prosecutors, and illegal domestic propaganda.


In written responses to the House Judiciary Committee, Rove provided incomplete denials to questions about his alleged complicity with illegal prosecutions. Rove's legal counsel are members of the President's domestic military analyst program.

DOJ OLC memos reminded civilian policy makers and advisors they could be subject to war crimes indictments. If convicted of these alleged war crimes, Rove could be sentenced to the death penalty.


In Rife, he Iowa Supreme Court reviewed the applicable Iowa statute:
"Iowa Code section 804.9 governs the arrest of persons by private individuals. . . .A citizen may make an arrest for any public offense if the offense is "committed or attempted in the [citizen's] presence." . . .

However, if the public offense is a felony, a less stringent standard
is imposed
. If the offense constitutes a felony, the citizen must only
possess reasonable grounds to believe the person to be arrested
committed the felony." (Rife v. Corner,641 N.W.2d 761, Iowa Supreme Court, Filed 2002)
Earlier, in March 2008, Rove's arrest warrant was referred to as a "Citizen's Arrest Complaint" and specifically mentioned allegations of treason, fraud, and conspiracy. The written complaint had a typographical error, citing the US Code, calling it 19.371, instead of 18 USC 371.

COMMENTS

Oh brother. Be careful what you ask for.

The Clintonistas invented extraordinary rendition (torture), declared war and bombed Iraq, and indulged in domestic wiretapping via Carnivore. Whatever crimes you come up with can likely be followed back to them. Is that what you had in mind?

shooter,

Yes, it doesn't matter in the slightest which administration breaks the law and ignores the constitution. Whether it be democrat or republican, they should be prosecuted.



That's a lovely sentiment and all, but politics is the art of the possible. "Should" is not equivalent to "could." In a fantasy world all the men are handsome, the women strong, and the children, above average. It's nice to fantasize but don't confuse it with reality.

As for "breaks the law," you mean ALLEGEDLY breaks the law. Moreover, since the basis for Bush's alleged wrong doing is Article 2 of said Constitution - you are pretty much out of luck trying to wave the Constitution around as an indictment.

Like it or not, no future President is going to criminalize a prior President for doing what they thought best for the country, no matter whether you agree with it or not. Why? Because it is entirely possible for the future President to find himself in exactly the same position when a new regime steps forward.



Politics is irrelevant, art of the possible or not. It doesn't take politicians to successfully prosecute a malfeasor.

Forget this faux realism you are waving as if it were an all-powerful solvent for the criminal difficulties the administration is in.

Nothing is required of the next administration other than allowing the courts to do their work.

Just sit back and watch what happens.



jimmie dean,
maybe what you do not choose to understand is that there actually will not be a polarized GOP base that will spring to the defense of turdblossom in the context of this upcoming general election . There are many ,many former gwb43 supporters who are now openly calling for criminal indictments for the Bushies. Witness the Ron Paul Revolution in the GOP primary - and now see Bob Barr appearing in Congressial Hearings calling out the gwb43 ongoing criminal conspiracy . Liberterian Presidential Nominee Barr is polling consistently in the 8% range for those who are disaffected with gwb43.
This is not about revenge jimmie this is about holding Rover and the rest of the criminals accountable-and yes we can - in the context of the general election . Go google what Bruce Fein has to say about impeaching gwb 43 - there will be no polarized base of the gop to save turdblossom et al ...
jimmie rant away your still stuck at the five & dime soda stool ...

Wow... This post hit the Tollfecta.

Bulldog, your continued persistence here at TPMCafe belies your flippant remark and shows just how serious you and the rest of your Republican gang take this site and its "nutjobs". Must be tough for you to keep coming back. But hey, a job is a job.

I also find it amusing that one would admonish the asking of a legitimate question by basically saying, shush... or you'll wake the sleeping Republican base and sweep McCain into power.

Bull shit... Some of our current and former "Public Servants" should be prosecuted and shown to be the miscreates I believe they are. And now is the time, not later. The greater public knows the distinction between a witch-hunt and true pursuit of justice. Though, I guess, the blurring of the line seems to be the role of some of the local trolls.

The pursuit of Rove and others isn’t about getting the Democratic Party into the White House. (Though that is an end that I will work my best to assists, because I believe in the social, economic and civil government that I think Obama and the Democratic Party BEST represents.)

No, this is about efforts greater than one party or the other. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but it seems that testing’s continued posts are about the rule of law and the Constitution over partisanship.



Dave Kahn ,
You are correct , testing seems to be getting "TROLLVILLE " riled up -especially the one troll that keeps saying don't wake up the scary Republican base ( jimmie dean are you reading this buddy ?) - . I agree with you - Dave - this is about defending the country and its values -we must have accountabilty for this lawlessness , we cannot let war crimes -such as starting illegal wars go unpunished .

Testing -please keep bringing these excellent post -maybe we can arrest turdblossom in some state jurisdiction soon ,,,

May 25, 2008

WAR CRIMES - ex-veep of Congo arrested on war crimes charges

Now this IS interesting !!

The US doesn't subscribe to the ICC (and PLENTY of people have complained about them overlooking US/UK/Israeli war crimes - amongst others).

BUT as the ICC gathers steam and comes up with the names involved in the GENOCIDE, I think we are going to see some big time US officials (and UK, too) get dragged down with the mess.

I saw the Hague come through this week and read my article about who invested in the CONGO.

This is maybe the first step in DOING something about the ongoing war crimes by the "coalition of the willing" cast of characters making huge buck$ off war profiteering. One can only hope, eh?

Veeger

May 24th, 2008
Posted: 07:05 PM ET

(CNN) –An ex-rebel leader who served as a vice president of Congo was arrested near Brussels, Belgium on Saturday on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to International Criminal Court.

The independent high court — based in The Hague, Netherlands — issued an arrest warrant on Friday for Jean-Pierre Bemba. The court alleges that between October 2002 and March 2003, Bemba’s rebel group carried out a widespread attack against civilians in neighboring Central African Republic, primarily with rape — though the rebels also pillaged, tortured and committed “outrages upon personal dignity,” according to an ICC statement.

Bemba’s forces instigated the attack at the request of Ange-Felix Patasse, president of the republic, said Beatrice Le Fraper, deputy prosecutor with the ICC.

Some good AFRICAN BACKGROUND BELOW: (See also John Bredenkamp)

Darfurism, Uganda & US War in Africa: The Spectre of Continental Genocide


November 1, 2007
keith harmon snow / All Things Pass.com

President Bush meets with Uganda's President-for-life Yoweri Museveni on October 30, 2007. Meanwhile, a broad swath of Africa is engulfed in interrelated genocides and covert operations involving both the US and Uganda. There is a growing demand to probe the accounts of "Save Darfur" to find out how the tens of millions collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and bribery. The SAVE DARFUR movement has become the false flag action of the West people who know little or nothing about what it is they are supporting.

http://www.allthingspass.com/uploads/html-234DARFURISM%20UGANDA%20AND%20US%20WAR%20IN%20AFRICA%20%5B3%5D.htm

(October 29, 2007) —When President George Bush met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni at the White House on October 30 they certainly discussed much more than “Uganda's leadership in Somalia, the Lord's Resistance Army, and President Museveni's development plan for northern Uganda” or their “strong partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS in Uganda,” as announced by the White House Office of the Press Secretary.

The role of Yoweri Museveni and his “government” in service to the Western economic neoliberalism and the shock doctrine of deconstruction and chaos is greatly misunderstood and deeply camouflaged by simplified establishment narratives like those above. Bush and Museveni will discuss the U.S.-Uganda military relations and bilateral involvement in the ongoing wars in Sudan, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (“Congo” from here on refers only to DRC). The “partnership to combat malaria and HIV/AIDS” is camouflage language for military vaccination and bio-warfare programs involving pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer. (A vaccine for malaria was developed for the U.S. military some time ago and this is shared only with certain U.S. client state partners.)

The “development plan for northern Uganda” is euphemistic language for the ongoing depopulation and massive natural resource extraction (oil, gold, uranium) that today proceeds in northern Uganda in parallel with the genocide of the Acholi people and the militarization in Uganda’s border regions to support covert programs in Sudan and Congo. And they will discuss other things they don’t want the American public to be aware of.

The Darfur conflict rides along the fault line of continental warfare spread from Niger to through Chad to Djibouti and Somalia, and from eastern Congo and Rwanda, through Uganda and Sudan, to Eritrea and the Red Sea. Congo is at war with Uganda and Rwanda. Ethiopia is at war with Somalia, and poised to reinvade Eritrea. Ethiopia, Uganda and Chad are the three “frontline” states militarily destabilizing Sudan. Uganda is internally and externally at war.

Uganda has intervened secretly in Burundi and Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) and recently re-occupied towns in eastern Congo. Rwanda is internally at war, fighting in Eastern Congo, meddling in Burundi, and has some 2000 troops in Darfur. Khartoum backs guerrilla armies in Uganda, Chad and Congo.

The U.S. is all over the place, with both covert and overt military programs. All these conflicts are intertwined, and the targeted populations have allegiances and alliances dictated by the pre-colonial boundaries demarcated in 1885 by the imperial doctrine of divide and conquer.

Conflict involving U.S. covert forces and nomads in Niger and Nigeria, for example, impacts Sudan: the history of the Sahara revolves around the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad, a Sudanese man who led the indigenous resistance against Britian in 1875. ‘Abdallah at-Ta‘ishi, the Mahdi’s “Khalifah” or successor, who took over as leader of the independent Sudan when the Mahdi died in June 1885, was a native of Darfur.

PEACE IS WAR IS PEACEKEEPING
On October 24, 2007, the United Nations awarded Lockheed-Martin subsidiary Pacific Architects and Engineers a $250 million no-bid contract to provide “infrastructure” for the United Nations “peacekeeping” missions now unfolding in Sudan (Darfur), Somalia, and Chad/Central Africa Republic. The newly announced contract is to build five new camps in Sudan's Darfur and Kordofan regions for 4,100 U.N. and African Union personnel. Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest and most secretive aerospace and defense corporation.

This is not Pacific Architects and Engineers’ first contract in Darfur, or in Africa’s “peacekeeping” missions. PAE won the contract for staffing the deeply compromised “Civilian Protection Monitoring Team” (CPMT) in Sudan under a U.S. State Department contract. In 2004 the CPMT office was being run by Brigadier General Frank Toney (retired), who was previously the commander of Special Forces for the United States Army; General Toney organized covert operations into Iraq and Kuwait in the first Gulf War.

Pratap Chaterjee reported in 2004 how “Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Bittrick, the deputy director of regional and security affairs for Africa at the State Department, flew to Ethiopia to hammer out an agreement to support African Union troops by committing to provide housing, office equipment, transport, and communications gear. This will be provided via an ‘indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity’ joint contract awarded to Dyncorp Corporation, and Pacific Architects & Engineers (PAE) worth $20.6 million.” PAE also set up MONUC operations in Congo.

Meanwhile, the “Save Darfur” advocates pressing military intervention in Darfur as a “humanitarian” gesture have escalated pressure in the face of mounting failures, including allegations that millions of “Save Darfur” dollars fundraised on a sympathy for victims platform have been misappropriated.

But the players, the private military companies, the arms dealers—and a handful of missing SRAM missiles armed with nuclear warheads dumped by an American B-52 before it crashed—are mostly unknown to the general public. These covert wars all involve different propaganda strategies to provide cover and deflect attention through “perception management”—managing the perceptions, stereotyping and creating false belief systems—of the North American and European public.

Ranking the humanitarian catastrophes, at the top by a long shot is Eastern Congo, followed by northern Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Chad, Central Africa Republic and—somewhere in the line but nowhere near Congo—Darfur, Sudan.

These humanitarian emergencies involve massive depopulation and death, internally displaced persons and trans-national refugees, all of which provide a lucrative business opportunity for Western “relief” and “development” organizations. Millions of people across the region are dying, while millions more are homeless, set adrift in a sea of nowhere, with no rights, no possessions, no protection and very little prospect for survival; their only hopes come from the false belief that the Western “humanitarian” AID enterprise is designed to rescue them.

The engagement of the world’s premier war-making industries—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Bechtel, SAIC—behind a so-called “peacekeeping” platform is not new, and something is seriously wrong with this picture.

THE 'SAVE DARFUR' NARRATIVE
“Save Darfur” is the predominant propaganda front running on Africa and it has overwhelmed the public consciousness with deceptions. In this establishment narrative Arabs on horseback, the Janjaweed, backed by the Sudan government seated in Khartoum, are the purveyors of genocide.

This mirrors the establishment narrative of Rwanda, 1994, which said that the Hutus and the nasty Interahamwe militias committed genocide against the Tutsis in 100 days of killing with machetes. The Rwanda genocide narrative—combined with the narrative about “humanitarian” intervention in Yugoslavia, where the final blow to dismember the country came with the NATO bombing campaign—set the stage for the Darfur genocide narrative.

All over the United States, Britain and Canada advocates and activists who claim to be concerned about human rights, and even those who otherwise would not get involved, have supported the “Save Darfur” movement, a political movement similar to the anti-Apartheid movement mobilized against South Africa in the 1980’s. The “Save Darfur” movement has resulted in a huge outpouring of funds, and it has mobilized support from people in all walks of life, and across the political spectrum, on the “never again” platform of “stopping genocide.”

Hollywood personalities dubbed “actorvists,” including Mia Farrow, Don Cheadle and George Clooney, have helped to whip up the “Save Darfur” hysteria. From Elie Wiesel to Barak Obama, people are “outraged” by genocide that the Bush Administration, we are told, is reluctant to stop. And it is hysteria, in the true definition of the word, but it did not simply rise out of a sudden concern for a bunch of Africans in some far off God-forsaken place (as it is portrayed).

At a “Voices for Darfur” fundraiser held on October 21, 2007 at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, for example, the local chapter of the Congregation B’Nai Israel Darfur Action coalition, raised over $14,000 for “humanitarian” aid to Darfur. The B’Nai Israel Save Darfur Coalition had a broad array of public and organizational support, including other Jewish organizations, Smith College, Northampton Mayor Claire Higgins, Massachusetts’ Senator Stan Rosenberg and Representative Peter Kocot.

The campaign organizers claim that “more than 90% goes to direct-on-the-ground AID.” Working with big humanitarian groups like Doctors Without Borders and Save the Children, it is impossible that 90% of funds will hit the ground in Darfur.

Behind the “Save Darfur” movement are fundamentalist organizations and think tanks with a deeply nationalistic, militaristic, religious fundamentalist agenda. One of these is the Center for Security Policy. The CSP, for example, supports the “star wars” Strategic Defense Initiative, Homeland Security—which is nothing more than expanding militarism and emasculated public rights—and the Biometric Security Project.

The BSP centers around emerging biological technologies that will be used to register, identify, monitor, track and control each and every U.S. citizen. They call it “identity assurance,” it involves state-of-the-art recognition equipment, sensors and security technologies, and it is a central component of the evolving national security and “counter-terrorism” apparatus.

The Center for Security Policy is part of the nerve center of the U.S. military and intelligence apparatus, a deeply nationalist, neoliberal think-tank and flak organization promoting the all-out attack against non-cooperative governments—dubbed “rogue states”—peripheral to Western economic control.

These, of course, are primarily Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, North Korea and Cuba. Zimbabwe is a special case that has joined the list to some degree. What these states have in common is that they are all targeted for divestment by the Center for Security Policy brainchild, www.divestterror.org. Sudan is another of the “rogue states” targeted.

The establishment narrative on Darfur motivates U.S. citizens to take action to “Save Darfur,” thus facilitating popular support for heightened U.S. military involvement. The truth is that the United States military is already there, in its various incarnations, and it is involved in atrocities.

THE UGANDA NARRATIVE
In the northern Uganda region—involving South Sudan and northeastern Congo—another conflict has boiled for over 15 years between the government Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), led by Yoweri Museveni, and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony. This war offers yet another one-sided Western establishment narrative that says that Kony and the LRA—always described as a Christian fanatical cult that captures and drugs children—is the primary problem in northern Uganda. (Usually African savages are not Christian enough for America’s liking; here we find that they are too Christian.)

The establishment narrative has been furthered across the popular culture, in everything from Vanity Fair to the BBC to the journal The National Catholic Weekly (America). The newly established ENOUGH Project (ENOUGH “genocide” and “not on my watch” etc. etc.) picked up the mantle of LRA atrocities and, like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, has supported the establishment narrative which shields the Museveni government from the kind of criticism and international action that is called for in keeping with the scale of the atrocities the Uganda government has committed.

In other words, Human Rights Watch has addressed torture in Uganda, and other problems, but they have not named names or corporations and they almost never link the conflict or the atrocities to Western interests. The net effect of these policy and human rights positions is genocide denial on Uganda.

The Museveni war machine and its state terror apparatus have perpetrated massive atrocities in the region and it has evolved into genocide against the Acholi people of the north. The indigenous Acholi people have been forced onto concentration camps over the past 15 years, and these camps have become places of death. In the establishment narrative, the people are the victims of Kony’s “rebellion.”

Yoweri Museveni and his business and military partners are responsible for millions of deaths, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Eastern Congo. The U.S. military invasion of Zaire (now Congo), involved U.S. covert forces, U.S. military communications, logistical and weapons support, and Ugandan and Rwandan forces. Humvees, C-130’s and black-skinned U.S. Special Forces entered South Sudan and northeastern Congo through the Gulu and Arua Districts of Uganda, the heart of Acholiland and the center of atrocities against the Acholi people.

Ugandan and British interests living mostly in Britain and aligned with the former dictator Idi Amin have always backed the Lord’s Resistance Army. Support also came from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The LRA stepped up its military actions in parallel with the UPDF invasion of Zaire (1996), and the subsequent years of warfare and plunder in Congo (1998-present).

According to the investigations of the United Nations and the humanitarian law work of lawyer Karen Parker, the war in Uganda involves massive rapes, killing, tortures, and extrajudicial executions as a policy by the Ugandan military. Some 1.3 million people have been displaced in the Gulu, Kitgum and Pader districts of northern Uganda. There are over 73 camps with from 1000 to 50,000 people in them, all forcibly displaced by UPDF soldiers, with over 350,000 people out of some 400,000 people displaced from the Gulu district alone.

THE US-UGANDA INVASION OF ZAIRE
The forced displacements of Acholi people began with Museveni’s ascension to power in 1986, but major forced displacements occurred throughout the 1990’s and again in 2002-2003. However, there was a massive displacement operation in 1996 that appears to have been coordinated in part with the planned U.S. invasion of Zaire from Northern Uganda and Rwanda.

The UPDF Army barracks at Masindi and airstrip at Gulu, both in Northern Uganda, served as the staging grounds for the U.S. invasion of Zaire. The Museveni government organized the closure of northern Uganda in October 1996 ostensibly because of heightened LRA attacks. The UPDF, in chronological coincidence with the U.S. invasion, forced hundreds of thousands of Acholis into concentration camps in the fall of 1996, often by bombing and burning villages and murdering, beating, raping and threatening those who would not comply.

According to testimony from eyewitnesses, on Oct 26, 1996 the top Ugandan brass behind the invasion of Zaire met at the village of Paraa, in the Murchison Falls National Park, near Lake Albert, in the Gulu District. At the meeting were: [1] UPDF Brigadier General Moses Ali—Idi Amin’s right hand man who later became Minister of Internal Affairs, Minister for Disaster Preparedness, and Deputy Prime Minister in the Museveni administration; [2] Museveni’s half-brother Salim Saleh; [3] then Colonel James Kazini,; and [4] Dr. Eric Adroma—head of Uganda National Parks. Salim Saleh is perhaps the leading agent of terror in the UPDF Zaire/Congo wars, but both Saleh and commander James Kazini led UPDF troops involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against millions of people in Eastern Congo (1996-2007).

The meeting was ostensibly about security and it was announced that due to a recent LRA rebel attack at Paraa, the UPDF would be placing parts of Northern Uganda off limits to all non-military personnel. (There is some question of the perpetrators of the Paraa attack being LRA or UPDF disguised as LRA.) The main road from Karuma to the border town of Pakwach was closed. This road apparently served as a primary transport route for Ugandan and non-Ugandan military—including black U.S. special forces—who invaded Zaire.

On November 6, 1996, Bill Clinton was elected. Around 10 November 2007 an armored 4x4 Humvee (HUMMWV)—heavily rigged with sophisticated communications equipment inside and out—was encountered carrying two black U.S. special forces in the Murchison Falls region: the soldiers were wearing UPDF uniforms. Two busloads of black U.S. special forces were encountered at a UPDF checkpoint on the Karuma-Pakwach road; wearing civilian clothes, with duffel bags, the muscled and crew-cut “civilians” showed U.S. passports and claimed they were “doctors” heading to the tiny Gulu hospital.

From November 21-23 Boeing C-130 military aircraft passed over the region every 30 minutes, 24 hours a day, heading both north and south. The C-130’s apparently landed at Gulu airstrip—closed by the Museveni government for a two-week period—and offloaded military equipment then moved by roads—closed by the UPDF—to the border. Some C-130’s were charted on a course believed to take them to Goma, Zaire.

From mid-November to February 1997 access to northwestern Uganda regions was highly restricted. On 1 March 1997 another wave of C-130’s passed over the region. The UPDF used the LRA threat as cover for massive military operations involving the invasion of Zaire for the United States of America.

The in-country U.S. Ambassador to Uganda at the time was E. Michael Southwick (October 1994-August 1997). Oil surveys began in 1998 and the entire Northwestern Uganda region is now designated as oil concessions controlled by Heritage Oil and Gas, Hardman Oil and Tullow Oil, three Anglo-American companies connected to British mercenary Tony Buckingham (founder of he mercenary firms Sandline International and Executive Outcomes) and his partners.

Nexant, a Bechtel subsidiary, is involved with the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline. South African firm Energem—tied to Tony Buckingham through Anthony Texeira, the brother-in-law of Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba—is also involved. Another Energem and Buckingham affiliated company tight with the Museveni regime is Branch Energy, involved with the oil pipeline and mining in Uganda.

On September 5, 2007, UPDF troops—and rebels reportedly aligned with Jean-Pierre Bemba—had occupied the DRC’s oil- and gold-rich Semliki Basin on the western shores of Lake Albert. Heavily armed foreign forces occupied the villages of Aru, Mahagi, Fataki, Irengeti and the Ruwenzori mountains. The international press and the United Nations Observers Mission in DRC (MONUC) remained completely silent about the Ugandan incursions.

By September 8, 2007, Ugandan troops were heavily massed on the DRC border while Kabila and Museveni were signing oil and gold sharing agreements in Tanzania. UPDF forces and “rebel” troops alleged to be Bemba’s remained in DRC as of October 25. The United Nations Observes Mission in Congo (MONUC) information offices were claiming by mid-October that UPDF had pulled out, but Congolese citizens in eastern Congo continued to report a huge UPDF military presence.

The China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company is also involved in the Uganda-Kenya pipeline, offering an interesting comparison for people concerned about China’s involvement in atrocities in the Darfur region. And, after much scrambling, Libya was cut out of the Kenya-Uganda pipeline deals.

Uganda’s representation at the International Criminal Court exploring war crimes in Congo has included at least two very high-profile lawyers from Foley Hoag LLP, an influential Washington law firm deeply entrenched in the proliferation of the mainstream narratives and the victor’s justice doled out—through the ICTY and ICTR tribunals—on Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Pentagon seconded its lawyers from the Judge Advocacy General’s (JAG) Corp to the ICTR to “try” those unfortunate “enemies” both arbitrarily and selectively accused of genocide.

The people most responsible for atrocities in the region—unprecedented human bloodletting, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide—are protected. These include Yoweri Museveni, Salim Saleh, Paul Kagame, James Kazini, Moses Ali, James Kabarebe, Taban Amin, Jean-Pierre Bemba, Laurent Nkunda, Meles Zenawi…a long list of people whose culpability is without question, many of whom have been named for atrocities again and again.

U.S. Special Operations forces know what happened and should be deposed under oath in a legitimate International Criminal Court, which at present does not exist, and is not in the making. Ditto for Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, Thomas Pickering, Susan Rice, John Prendergast, General William Wald, General Frank Toney, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Roger Winter, Andrew Young…another short list.

Foley Hoag LLP is also tied to the U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council. On May 6, 2002 in Washington D.C. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and wife Janet were special guests at U.S.-Uganda Friendship Council event sponsored by members Coke, Pfizer and Chevron-Texaco. Museveni also met with President Bush at the White House.

Coke director Kathleen Black is a principle in the Hearst media empire, while Coke directors Warren Buffet and Barry Diller are directors of the Washington Post Company, and these are the media institutions that whitewash client regimes, corporate plunder and Pentagon actions. Of course, Coca Cola covets the gum Arabic of Darfur, and Coke is a client of Andrew Young’s PR firm Goodworks International (see below).

Uganda’s image is sanitized by one of the world’s largest PR firms, London’s Hill & Knowlton. In 2005 Uganda spent some $700,000 on a Hill & Knowlton contract to facilitate and “encourage dialogue between the Ugandan government and people like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, Oxfam.”

THE RWANDA NARRATIVE
Museveni’s bush war began in 1980. Paul Kagame, current President of Rwanda, was Museveni’s Director of Military Intelligence in the mid-1980’s. Museveni and Kagame led the invasion of Rwanda in 1990. The two military commanders utilized terrorist tactics that assigned blame for atrocities they committed—against both their enemies and their own people—on their enemies. They used psychological operations, embedded international reporters, and fabrication of massacres. These tactics have continued to the present.

While Rwanda is billed as a major “success story” of recovery and development after a devastating genocide—see for example the PR “documentary” film Rwanda Rising produced by Andrew Young’s Goodworks International—the country is ruled with an iron-fist and a finely tuned intelligence and torture apparatus involved in political assassinations, suppression of information and disappearances. Huge areas of Rwanda were entirely depopulated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front and UPDF as they hammered away at Rwanda beginning in October 1990. The invasion culminated in a coup d’etat that succeeded, with broad U.S. military support, in capturing Kigali in July of 1994.

From 1994 to the present President Paul Kagame has used the genocide card and the establishment narrative to institutionalize repression, criminalize or assassinate anyone who challenges the regime, and further depopulate rural areas for “development” benefiting corporate interests.

Another member of the U.S.-Uganda Friendship council is the Honorable Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta and U.S. Ambassador. Andrew Young and his firm Goodworks International have helped whitewash the image of the Rwanda government and its state apparatus of terror.

Andrew Young, Quincy Jones and other wealthy Americans are building (have built) mansions on the shores of Rwanda’s Lake Mwazi in areas where peasants were driven off the land or killed by the Kagame terror machine before, during and after 1994. State terror and depopulation is ongoing along Lake Kivu and in the Volcanoes National Parks regions for methane and high-end tourism development.

Rwanda gains currency and good press through big HIV/AIDS projects run by Paul Farmer but funded by the Clinton AIDS foundation. Rwanda was overthrown by and for the Pentagon on Clinton’s watch. Hillary Clinton toured Uganda in July 1997, wore African clothes, danced African dances, and spoke about “democracy” and “development” and a “partnership” against HIV/AIDS.

The Kagame regime has recently awarded petroleum concessions to Canada’s Vangold Resources for the project titled “White Elephant” in northern Rwanda—2700 sq. kilometers of land depopulated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army between 1990 and 2007. Contracted to provide “feasibility studies” of petroleum infrastructural development in Rwanda is the San Diego firm Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

SAIC has ongoing collaborations with Bechtel—another of the world’s most secretive aerospace technology, energy infrastructure and defense contractors—both known for their involvement in U.S. beyond top-secret “black” programs. SAIC works closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Recent SAIC directors have included: U.S. Navy Admiral B.R. Inman (Ret.); U.S. Army General W.A. Downing (Ret.); and U.S. Air Force General J.A. Welch (Ret.).

SAIC also has an ongoing collaboration with the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical giant Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). Unsurprisingly, through shared directorships, BMS is economically and politically aligned with the New York Times Corporation. SAIC has also been flagged for involvement in highly questionable U.S. mercenary activities and human rights violations in Africa.

Petroleum, defense and mining interests connected to the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International programs in “gorilla conservation” led to the production of high-tech satellite prospecting data, gathered by remote sensing over-flights (1994-2000), delivered to the Rwandan Ministry of Defense.

The Pentagon has been involved in building military bases in Rwanda, installing military and civilian communications infrastructure, and training Rwandan Defense Forces; a military-communications radar installation has been constructed with U.S. support on Mt. Karisimbi in Ruhengeri Province.

The installation is being built by the Rwanda Ministry of Defense in partnership with the “Rwandan” company Terracom SPRL and Rwandatel. Terracom is owned by U.S. businessman Greg Wyler; Rwandatel is 99%-owned subsidiary.

It is believed that Rwanda Defense Forces (RDF) sent to Darfur on the African Union “peacekeeping” mission include black U.S. Special Forces disguised as RDF—just as the black U.S. Special Forces were disguised as UPDF during the invasion of Zaire.

LOCKHEED MARTIN PEACEKEEPING
Lockheed Martin is a California-based aerospace and defense giant involved in classified black programs that are beyond “top-secret” and shielded from government oversight. In September 2003, CNN—a corporate-military “news” agency deeply embedded with the Pentagon—reported “[a]ccording to the U.S. Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) classified or black programs account for about $23.2 billion or 17 percent of the 2004 budget request for the Department of Defense.”

According to United Nations spokeswoman Michele Montas the six-month Darfur contract with Lockheed-Martin subsidiary Pacific Architect Engineers, Inc. was awarded without competitive bidding “because of complex requirements and a short timeline.”

Reporting from the United Nations, Inner City Press said the terms of the contract will not be public and the United Nations has violated numerous UN charter laws in the tendering of this award.

The no-bid award process followed the United Nation’s issuance of an official “Expressions of Interest” notice on October 9, 2007. “The United Nations is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from experienced Multi Functional Logistics Services (MFLS) contractors,” the UN’s EOI notice reads, “for the provision of a wide range of services at headquarters, logistic bases, military and police camps, airfields and water resources at various locations in any or all of the following: the Darfur Region of Sudan, Chad/Central African Republic (CAR), and Somalia.”

Inner City Press reported that the EOI solicitation, made after the rules had already been waived to allow the transfer of $250 million to Lockheed Martin for six months in Darfur, is intended to try to clean up the process after-the-fact.

Another multinational aerospace and defense corporation directly benefiting from this regional U.S. war is Boeing Aircraft Corporation. The U.S. military used Boeing Chinook helicopters in the U.S. invasion of Somalia in 2006. Tom Pickering, former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, is senior vice president for International Relations and a member of the Boeing Executive Council since January 2001.

Pickering played a decisive role in the Clinton Administration overthrow of Rwanda (1990-1994) and Congo (1996-1997). He is a leading advocate for the “Save Darfur” propaganda. He is also a member of the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa along with Ed Royce (R-CA), former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, Donald Payne (D-NJ), and Andrew Young.

While the New York Times reported in December 2006 that the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia began in late December, military involvement of U.S. covert forces had been ongoing, and was heightened significantly in the early spring of 2006 when the U.S. Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency openly complained about cross purposes in Somalia. Private military companies were all over Somalia, as were known international arms syndicates, including of course the criminal networks of John Bredenkamp, one of Britain’s fifty richest tycoons and one of the primary financial backers behind the rise and fall of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

John Bredenkamp reportedly acquired three SRAM missiles with nuclear warheads jettisoned in shallow water off the coast of Somalia by a U.S.A.F. B-52 that soon after crashed into the Indian Ocean near the U.S. military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The U.S. invasion of Somalia is believed to have been partly an aborted attempt to recover the lost nukes—called “broken arrows” in Pentagon speak. While the story of the dumped nukes “lost” by Dick Cheney has received some attention, no one has publicly identified John Bredenkamp as the likely weapons dealer involved.

COVERT OPS IN SOMALIA
The war in Somalia dates back to deep U.S. involvement in the 1980’s, where major oil concessions were awarded to four Western multinational petroleum giants: Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Philips petroleum. The infusion of Western “AID” provoked destabilization of Somalia, leading to the U.S. military invasion that culminated in the October 3, 1993 mission where scores of U.S. Special Operations Forces were killed when their Blackhawk helicopter was shot down over the capital city, Mogadishu.

The mythology of U.S. involvement was indelibly inscribed in the popular consciousness through the Hollywood/Pentagon film Blackhawk Down. Part of the consistent propaganda on Africa is that “the U.S. does not want to get involved and potentially face another Somalia.” But the U.S. pullout of Somalia occurred in perfect synchronicity with the heightened military involvement in Rwanda (1994).

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) did not cease Special Ops deployments in Somalia with the U.S. withdrawal and covert operations have proceeded on and off, with heightened activity through the late 1990’s. The Pentagon confirmed in November 2006 that SOCOM forces were in Somalia as of October “providing military advice to Ethiopian and Somali forces on the ground.” The U.S. Navy moved “additional forces” into waters off the Somali coast, where the Pentagon said they “conducted security missions, monitoring maritime traffic and intercepting and interrogating crew on suspicious ships.”

These included the USS Ramage guided missile destroyer, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, the USS Bunker Hill and USS Anzio guided missile cruisers, and the USS Ashland amphibious landing ship. On June 2, 2007, a U.S. Navy destroyer shelled northern Somalia. Somali media reported that News media reported that the strikes destroyed farms, flattened hilltops and killed or injured an unknown number of villagers.

The British Navy’s newest warship HMS Bulwark was also stationed off the Somali coast in early 2006. The HMS Bulwark deployed to the Indian Ocean on 9 January 2006 for the first live operation of this “unique Commando Assault ship” (as it is described by the British Navy).

However, sources in Kenya and Eritrea reported “snatch and grab” terrorist operations involving massacres and torture that were run by SOCOM forces inside Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. There are at least 52,000 U.S. special operations forces on active duty and reserve military worldwide, including SEALs, Green Berets and commando-style troops from the 10th Mountain Division and others.

The establishment narrative was that Ethiopia invaded Somalia to displace Al-Qaeda terrorists and check the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, both of which are propaganda themes that misrepresent the reality of U.S. and allied military interventions. Ethiopia is considered an essential partner of the U.S. in its “War on Terrorism” and Ethiopian bases have been used for attacks on Somalia.

In 2003, the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division (SOCOM) completed a three-month program to train an Ethiopian army division in “counter-terrorism tactics”—code language for covert operations. Operations are coordinated through the Combined Joint Task Forces-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) base in Djibouti. In January 2004, SOCOM forces from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment replaced the 10th Mountain Division forces at a new base “Camp United” established at Hurso, northwest of Dire Dawa, near the border with Somalia.

Since 2003, under the U.S. State Department-sponsored Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, CJTF-HOA provided instruction to thousands of Ethiopian soldiers at a base in Legedadi. CJTF-HOA forces from the U.S Army's 478th Civil Affairs Battalion also operated in Ethiopia (Somalia) in and around Dire Dawa, Galadi and Dolo Odo, among other areas.

Ethiopia seeks to control Somalia to gain access to a much-needed deepwater seaport. Ethiopia’s oil concessions are contiguous with the oil reserves in Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Yemen. Hunt Oil, the Chinese National Petroleum Company and many others are active in Ethiopia.

The U.S. military used Ethiopian air bases modernized by infusions of millions of dollars of “AID” funds to launch attacks against Somalia. Ethiopia now has the largest standing army on the continent and this was achieved through the conversions of millions of dollars in “AID” to weapons and militarization; even “debt forgiveness”—where foreign “debt” was canceled—benefited the militarization of Ethiopia.

U.S. spy satellites were used provide intelligence to Ethiopian troops as they swept across the Oganden basin and Somalia. Presidents Bush and Zenawi both denied that the invasion was coordinated and well planned, and both denied the involvement of the U.S.

The Ethiopian government retained former U.S. Republican house majority leader Dick Armey as a lobbyist in Washington to whitewash the Ethiopian regimes’ crimes.

ETHIOPIA’S GENOCIDES
The Ogaden, Oromo and Anuak regions of Ethiopia have seen massive military occupation and state repression. The Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi has perpetrated mass starvation and scorched earth policy in the region. There has been very little international media coverage and most is favorable the Zenawi regime or pressing the upside-down stories about “relief” and “starvation” that serve the Western “humanitarian” business sector.

The Ogaden basin is a bloodbath today. Applying the same legal standards as in Darfur, all three Ethiopian regions qualify as ongoing genocides against indigenous people. Failure to apply the genocide standards constitutes genocide denial.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1778 (2007) on 25 September 2007 established the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT). According to the UN’s October 2007 Expression Of Interest, “[i]n it’s Presidential Statement of 30 April 2007, the Security Council requested the Secretary General to ‘immediately begin appropriate contingency planning for a United Nations mission to Somalia’.

At this early stage it is planned to have a UN logistics base at Mombassa, Kenya to support the main supply line from Mombassa to Kismayo, Mogadishu and Hobyo, which will serve as secondary logistics bases in Somalia. At this early stage the number and location of these sites is unknown, but it is envisaged that approximately 24,000 personnel may be required.”

Ethiopia’s war in Somalia has taxed the government drawing widespread criticism. The U.S. is pressing for an African Union mission as a proxy force to replace the Ethiopian troops and further U.S. interests. Mombasa, Kenya is a U.S. military port. Kenya is also awash in oil development, poverty and destitute refugees. The U.S. war in Somalia is ongoing.

In March 2007 the Pentagon deployed an additional 150 SOCOM Forces in Uganda. The troops were part of the Combined Joint Task Force Horn-of-Africa, an “anti-terrorist naval force” deployed around the Horn of Africa with support points in Bahrain and Djibouti. Ugandan sources divulged that the SOCOM troops would be dispersed “around the country” to “support UPDF troops” and “provide support to distribute humanitarian aid.”

It was openly reported that the SOCOM are “possibly training the South Sudanese army, which has just signed an agreement for this with its Ugandan counterpart, strengthening Ugandan capacity to fight terrorism.” The U.S. military has also modernized the old Entebbe airport for UPDF operations, and the Entebbe airport supports a small but permanent U.S. military contingent.

It is believed that U.S. SOCOM troops are operating in blood-drenched Eastern Congo. Ugandan opposition sources have reported that SOCOM forces in UPDF uniforms have joined the more than 2000 Pentagon-trained UPDF forces sent by Museveni to Somalia. The UPDF troops operating in Ethiopia behind a “peacekeeping” propaganda front have been accused of widespread atrocities. More than 1000 people die daily in Eastern DRC where fighting since 1996 has claimed at least 7 million lives. The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen multiple genocide campaigns, and multiple genocide denials are ongoing.

SOCOM forces have been openly reported in Niger, where operations are billed as “humanitarian” and “human rights” training of Nigerienne troops. But the insurgency and “rebellion” by the Tuareg and Toubou nomads has always been about uranium and depopulation: Exxon (Esso) and French corporations have exploited the Agadez and Air regions for over 40 years, dumping radioactive sickness and social devastation on another indigenous population. Yet another genocide?

DARFURISM
The Darfur region of western Sudan has been a hotbed of clandestine activities, gunrunning and indiscriminate violence for decades. The Cold War era saw countless insurgencies launched from the remote deserts of Darfur. Throughout the 1990’s factions allied with or against Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Congo, Libya, Eritrea and the Central African Republic operated from bases in Darfur, and it was a regular landing strip for foreign military transport planes of mysterious origin.

In 1990, Chad's Idriss Deby launched a military blitzkrieg from Darfur and overthrew President Hissan Habre; Deby then allied with his own tribe against the Sudan government. Sudanese rebels today have bases in Chad, and Chadian rebels have bases in Darfur, with Khartoum’s backing.

When the regime of Ange-Félix Patassé collapsed in the Central African Republic in March 2003, soldiers fled to Darfur with their military equipment. Khartoum supported the West Nile Bank Front, a rebel army operating against Uganda from Eastern Congo, commanded by Taban Amin, the son of the infamous Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, who heads Uganda’s dreaded Internal Security Organization.

Darfur is another epicenter of the modern-day international geopolitical scramble for Africa’s resources. Conflict in Darfur escalated in 2003 in parallel with negotiations “ending” the south Sudan war.

The U.S.-backed insurgency by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the guerilla force that fought the northern Khartoum government for 20 years, shifted to Darfur, even as the G.W. Bush government allied with Khartoum in the U.S. led “War on Terrorism.” The Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)—one of some 27 rebel factions mushrooming in Darfur—is allied with the SPLA and supported from Uganda.

Andrew Natsios, former USAID chief and now US envoy to Sudan, said on October 6, 2007 that the atmosphere between the governments of north and south Sudan “had become poisonous.” This is no surprise given the magnitude of the resource war in Sudan and the involvement of international interests, but the investigation should center on the involvement and activities of Andrew Natsios and Roger Winter.

Roger Winter, USAID chief in Khartoum today, is directly linked to the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army and U.S. military campaign that destabilized Rwanda and decapitated the leadership of Rwanda and Burundi. USAID’s affiliations with the Department of Defense are now openly advertised with the propaganda peddling AFRICOM—the Pentagon’s new Africa Command. AFRICOM combines U.S. CENTCOM, PACIFICOM and EUCOM operations in Africa; it is nothing new, merely the consolidation and expansion of widespread and ongoing involvement.

Darfur is reported to have the fourth largest copper and third largest uranium deposits in the world. Darfur produces two-thirds of the world’s best quality gum Arabic—a major ingredient in Coke and Pepsi. Contiguous petroleum reserves are driving warfare from the Red Sea, through Darfur, to the Great Lakes of Central Africa. Private military companies operate alongside petroleum contractors and “humanitarian” agencies. Sudan is China’s fourth biggest supplier of imported oil, and U.S. companies controlling the pipelines in Chad and Uganda seek to displace China through the US military alliance with “frontline” states hostile to Sudan: Uganda, Chad and Ethiopia.

Israel reportedly provides military training to Darfur rebels from bases in Eritrea, and has strengthened ties with the regime in Chad, from which more weapons and troops penetrate Darfur. The refugee camps have become increasingly militarized. There are reports that Israeli and U.S. military and intelligence operate from within refugee camps in Darfur. Israel is all over the Sahara, from Burkina Faso to Ethiopia and Uganda. Israel’s clandestine actions are partly funded by Israeli-American diamond magnates involved in Angola, Sierra Leone and Congo, especially Dan Gertler (G.W. Bush’s unofficial Ambassador to the DRC), Beny Steinmetz and Lev Leviev.

African Union (AU) forces in Darfur include Nigerian and Rwandan troops responsible for atrocities in their own countries. Ethiopia has committed 5000 troops for a UN force in Darfur. AU troops receive military-logistic support from NATO, and are widely hated. Early in October 2007, SLA rebels attacked an AU base killing ten troops. In a subsequent editorial sympathetic to rebel factions (“Darfur’s Bitter Ironies,” Guardian Online, 10/4/07)

Smith College English professor Eric Reeves espoused the tired rhetoric of “Khartoum’s genocidal counter-insurgency war in Darfur,” a position counterproductive to any peaceful settlement. To minimize the damage this rebel attack has done to their credibility Reeves and other “Save Darfur” advocates cast doubt about the rebels’ identities and mischaracterized the SLA attackers as “rogue commanders.” However, there is near unanimous agreement, internationally, that rebels are “out of control,” committing widespread rape and plundering with impunity, just as the SPLA did in South Sudan for over a decade.

Debunking the claims of a “genocide against blacks” or an “Islamic holy-war” against Christians, Darfur’s Arab and black African tribes have intermarried for centuries, and nearly everyone is Muslim. The “Save Darfur” campaign is deeply aligned with Jewish and Christian faith-based organizations in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel. These groups have relentlessly campaigned for Western military action, demonizing both Sudan and China, but they have never addressed Western military involvement—backing factions on all sides.

Christian and Jewish involvement in the “Save Darfur” campaign centers on a long-running but deeply manipulative narrative about slavery and genocide in South Sudan. The Holocaust Memorial Museum furthered the establishment narrative about Darfur in keeping with the genocide theme; no one ever examines the interests behind the Holocaust Memorial Museum, it is merely some apolitical institution with the championing of supposed “universal” human rights of all people everywhere as its raison d’etre.

The new political and propaganda doctrine that uses “genocide” as a political tool is morally ambiguous, it attacks the crimes of some and passes over the crimes of others. It uses as its universal principle the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its complementary covenants and proclamations. On the one hand, however, this involves genocide inflation, and on the other hand genocide denial. But the USA—with good Christian and Jewish foot soldiers—is always the final arbitrator: global cop, judge, jury and executioner all in one.

Christian organizations involved in Sudan for years include Servant’s Heart and Christian Solidarity International. On Servant’s Heart’s “Board of Reference” is British Baroness Caroline Cox, who is also closely affiliated with Christian Solidarity International (CSI)—one of the main Christian allies of the SPLM/A war in southern Sudan.

The propaganda system advocates in favor of the “rebels” in Darfur using a handful of techniques developed in their propaganda campaign behind the “rebels” in South Sudan. Rebels are supported partly by never mentioning them, partly by decrying abuses against them, partly by providing sympathetic one-sided accounts of Khartoum government attacks, and partly by defending their excesses if and when—infrequently—the rebel abuses come to light.

Christian Solidarity International (CSI) in 2006 issued press releases claiming that the Lebanese organization Hezbollah “is using Christian villages to shield its military operations in violation of international law.” These reports appear to be fabrications to begin with and the CSI accusation a projection of their own involvement with the SPLA in South Sudan, where the SPLA for over a decade used the civilian population as human shields, used the Western AID apparatus (Operation Lifeline Sudan) as cover for military support, and used food as a weapon.

If Hezbollah did this during the recent U.S.-Israeli invasion they [Hezbollah] certainly learned it by studying SPLA (CSI) tactics in Sudan. Thus we have twisted triple-standards where the establishment propaganda accuses Hezbollah of violating international law, but the SPLM/A—and the “rebel” groups in Darfur—while doing exactly the same thing, are never anything but poor, defenseless Christians under attack in a “genocidal counter-insurgency” run out of Khartoum government.

Who are the rebels in Darfur? Where do they get new uniforms and modern weapons? It was the same with the establishment propaganda on Rwanda and the invading Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army from 1990-1994: abuses were covered up, the government of Juvenal Habyarimana was blamed for everything, and the “rebels”—backed by Washington, partnered with the Pentagon—were never exposed for their nasty, outrageous abuses.

There is growing dissent within the “Save Darfur” movement as more supporters question its motivations and the Jewish/Israeli link. “Save Darfur” leaders have been replaced after complaints surfaced about expenditures of funds. Many rebel leaders reportedly receive tens of thousands of dollars monthly, and rebels emboldened by the “Save Darfur” movement commit crimes with impunity.

There is a growing demand to probe the accounts of “Save Darfur” to find out how the tens of millions collected are being spent due to allegations of arms-deals and bribery—rebel leaders provided with five-star hotel accommodations, prostitutes and sex parties.

“Save Darfur” is today the rallying cry for a broad coalition of special interests. Advocacy groups—from the local Massachusetts Congregation B’Nai Israel chapter to the International Crises Group and USAID—have fueled the conflict through a relentless, but selective, public relations campaign that disingenuously serves a narrow policy agenda. These interests offer no opportunity for corrective analyses, but stubbornly press their agenda, and they are widely criticized for inflaming tensions in Darfur. This is what we might call Darfurism.

The latest Lockheed Martin contract with the United Nations illustrates the final stage in the transformation of international conflict whereby military-industrial giants are openly engaged, rather than clandestinely, as has been previously the case. This development parallels the rise of Darfurism— a mass movement in the West designed to channel popular sympathy and agitate people to act on a cause they know nothing about, but think they do.

Darfurism is a pathological mix of fear, patriotism, social immaturity, opportunism and unconsciousness akin to fascism. Under the current climate of apathy, fear and public opinion, anything goes, and warfare involves humanitarian agencies as active players in the mix. Like the Holocaust Memorial Museum they are seen as neutral, described as apolitical, but nothing could be further from the truth.

The United Nations and African Union serve as pseudo-privatized military forces backing a hegemonic, corporate, political and economic agenda. The future has arrived, and it uses human rights institutions, the label of genocide and accusations of atrocities, and the ever-expanding international AID and charity industry—operating out of pure profit motives—as pivotal elements in the Western portfolio of soft and hard weapons used to further the prerogatives of Empire and clear the land for absolute corporate exploitation.

keith harmon snow—www.allthingspass.com—is an independent human rights investigator and war correspondent who worked with Survivors Rights International (2005-2006), Genocide Watch (2005-2006) and the United Nations (2006) to document and expose genocide and crimes against humanity in Sudan and Ethiopia. He has worked in 17 countries in Africa, heavily focused on the Great Lakes region, and he recently worked in Afghanistan.

Please take action today:

EXPOSE UGANDA’S GENOCIDE:
http://www.exposeugandasgenocide.blogspot.com/

Further info and resources:

• CEGUN: Campaign to Stop Genocide in Uganda Now
http://www.cegun.org/

• UNIGHT: FOR THE CHILDREN OF UGANDA
http://www.unight.org/

Footnotes
[1] Pratap Chatterjee, “Darfur Diplomacy: Enter the Contractors,” CorpWatch, 21 October 2004, < id="11598">.

[2] See: Michael Maren, The Road To Hell: The Ravaging Affects of Foreign Aid and International Charity, 1996.

[3] From the BSP web site: “As biometrics becomes an increasingly important component of physical and logical security systems there is a need for an authoritative and regularly updated reference and data base on virtually all aspects of biometrics and identity assurance.” .

[4] “Hezbollah is Using Christian Villages to Shield its Military Operations in Violation of International Law,” Christian Solidarity International, 1 August 2006, <>.

[5] Karen Parker, Forced Displacement in Northern Uganda, United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, .

[6] Wayne Madsen, Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993-1999, Mellen Press, 1999.

[7] Private interview, eyewitness, October 2007.

[8] See: Tullow, Hardman and Heritage Oil concessions maps: .

[9] Angelo Izama, “How badly did Libya want the Kenya-Uganda oil pipeline deal?” Alexander’s Gas and Oil Connections, Vol. 11, Issue 12, November 24, 2006.

[10] Ralph G. Kershaw, “Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: International Justice According to Washington,” Covert Action Quarterly, No. 74, Fall 2002.

[11] Jeevan Vasagar, “Uganda hires PR agency to buff up its image,” The Guardian, May 21, 2005.

[12] The Rwandan Patriotic Army was renamed the Rwanda Defense Forces.

[13] “Uganda: Kampala-Kigali Oil Pipeline Estimated at $ 193.6 Million,” 16 October 2007, Rwanda News Agency, .

[14] keith harmon snow and Georgianne Nienaber: “Gorillas ‘Executed’ Stories front for Privatization and Militarization of Congo Parks, Truth of Depopulation Ignored,” ZNET, August 3, 2007; and “King Kong: The Map, The Mad Scientist, and the Mayor,” .

[15] Mathew Russel Lee, “At UN, Darfur No-Bid Contract Spun by UK, Chad and Somalia Preemptively Bid Out,” Inner City Press, October 24, 2007, .

[16] Mathew Russel Lee, “At UN, Darfur No-Bid Contract Spun by UK, Chad and Somalia Preemptively Bid Out,” Inner City Press, October 24, 2007, .

[17] See, e.g., Wayne Madsen, “The CIA's Counter-Proliferation Division (CPD) and British intelligence have evidence that then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney lost three nuclear weapons in 1991,” Madsen Report, May 2, 2007; Alexander Cockburn, “Broken Arrows and Iran,” Counterpunch, August 3, 2005.

[18] Pauline Jelenek, “U.S. special forces in Somalia,” Associated Press, November 1, 2007.

[19] Stephanie McCrummen, “U.S. Warship Fires Missiles at Fighters in Somalia,” Washington Post, June 3, 2007.

[20] “HMS Bulwark welcomed home after Lebanon operations,” defense news, 15 August 2006.

[21] See: keith harmon snow, Today is the Day of Killing Anuaks, Genocide Watch and Survivor’s Rights International Report, February 25, 2004.

[22] Xan Rice, “US military 'used Ethiopian base' to attack Somali militants,” Guardian Unlimited, February 23, 2007.

[23] See: Livelihoods and Vulnerabilities Study, Gambella Region of Ethiopia, UNICEF report, December 13, 2006.

[24] “Uganda: American Advisors Being Deployed,” Indian Ocean Newsletter, No. 1209, March 3, 2007.

[25] AFRICOM .

• For More Articles, see the All Things Pass Web site.

April 07, 2008

commentary on Hillary's campaign manger stepping down

Down to BRASS TACKS, guys.

The idea is to create an entire hemispheric FREE TRADE ZONE.

And Stephen Harper (The Harper, as I like to call him) has been sent by the NEOCONS to Columbia (human rights violator) and Chile to accomplish the task for BuZh. Part of a sort of brutal regime diplomacy effort and a real chance to set up retirement funds for the Big BoyZ should things get out of hand with We the People.

Guitterez is rushing around facilitating "trade talks" with all sorts of people as the sun sets on the NEOCON empire (if they manage to avoid elections - and declare martial law, well, it might be another story) The US Department of Commerce is acting as a sort of franchise handing out agency with the US taxpayer paying for this tremendous "service" .. real niiiice.

So The Harper was ORDERED to send shock waves into the election whereby the Magicians get the attention away from Urgent Matters at Hand and rather discuss the past - which as time will show is truly the past.

Trust me, with any of the candidates coming to power there will be NO discussion of NAFTA or the Security Prosperity Partnership/Protocol and NO discussion on the coming North American Union - excuse me ! - on the North American Community. One imperative is to keep changing the alphabet soup so everyone remains confused. NAU/NAC - it's confusing and meant to be, dear reader.

This is a deal that has already been inked. Signed 25 May 2005 and the ink is barely dry on the CENTCOM/Central Canada Command Treaty ..

The Plan is for North America to keep fueling the jets used in the FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE paradigm. Armaments must be made for Fearless Leader and his thirty chosen handmaidens/lords of commerce, already selected.

Who were were last years primary speakers to the Competitiveness Council . .why none other than George HW BuZH and William Jefferson Clinton!!

Now that is a FACT.

In any discussion of NAFTA or in the election do you see any signs of the press asking questions about Bill's conflicts of interest? No you do NOT. How handy for THEM. Niiiiice.

Transglobalism is a FACT OF LIFE now. How do We the People deal with that?

We face the increasing balkanization of the world that just might resist AND at the same time move towards implementing Global Agenda 21.

The election of one of these handy dandy presidential candidates offered up to "us" look much to your tastes?

Get real everyone!! There is no CHANGE to come unless We the People make it so!!

When I heard the news of a shakeup in HiLAIRy's campaign management I said to myself this, without knowing the "released" reason -

What? Didn't she offer up enough money to keep them quiet? My lord!
She hardly needs ANOTHER STUMBLE"

Well, blow me down and call me toothpick!! It's the nice divisive Cheneyness at work!!

Remember our rule: When analyzing anything US or Canada "policy" - always remember CHENEY BACKS ALL SIDES AS HIS WONT.

The insanity of what happens will therefore NOT stun you so much as the weeks and months click by.

Just remember I've tipped you all off in advance as to the next phase of THE MATRIX as planned by Fearless Leader.

We will all be GREENED - having a softer form of fascism and half of you will support it and the attendent doping by Big Pharma more pronounced, increased militarization (always a new enemy to be invented by Fearless Leader), new politicians to make their way into the kleig lights, more disharmony in all institutions to surface (KIDS ARE TERRORISTS!! Report them now - before they commit crimes) --

Do you like your fascism hard and mean with obvious torture tactics - or do you like soft, with the leafy meter detecting if you turned your lights off while MONSANTO continues to poison your children, but you get a much better FEELING from this new way of caving in. Everyone will be submitted to an ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT. Fearless Leader will get on TV and ask everyone NICELY, to see that that is done as the times demand it. All that is asked you is keep on aworking, not complaining so that the idiot box must cover your protests as they grow too large AND that you snitch on your neighbor and your parents.

They will be a common currency as quickly implemented as they can possibly "mint" it in your mind.

There is an eighteen month delay in THEIR plans due to opposition to real ID.

The TransAmerica highway AND the border crossing regulations did not fly causing a "bit of a setback" in the timetable.

Now the border fence being built to KEEP US IN not the Mexicans out has been stopped because of concerns to the environment caused by RAYTHEON's radar being used. Just perhaps it was NEVER MEANT to be built! The contracts were important and lead to the DJIA staying up, but why have a fence when you can use chemtrails and bioweapons to kill?

The language laws in Quebec must be repealed to get true harmonization - what if there is a repeat of the 1970's Montreal riots? How will Canadians act to the US command of the putdowns and MARTIAL LAW? So what's few quebecers being offed if The Grand Scheme of socialism for the rich is achieved? Remember: they share the profit$ and we share the lo$$es, in fact for generations to come. May I remind the reader: if nothing CHANGES, nothing CHANGES been like that for millenia seems like.

The fraudulent voter machines must be "sold" to the Canadian public and delivered by Diebold and other cos. Stockwell Day says his timeline, which MUST BE ADHERED TO is for elections in Canada in fall, 2009.

I"ve read The Plans THEY mean to have about oil - the free enterprise system in Canada is "to their liking" as long as Israel gets its cut. But the Mexican oil nationalization must be undone.

This not all tickedy boo, folks!! Much as the PTB/ illuminati / NWO folks - whatever you care to call THEM - would like to be so and particulary the Competiveness Council as those folks are ITCHING to get their hands on ALL THAT LOVELY MONEY and lots of CONtrol.

But surely Hills and Bill are having their PROBLEMS. And it must be causing the Rothschild's a bit of discomfort. C'mon old HILLS - ya better get with it!!

What happens NEXT?

YOU can change The Cast, but you can't change

The Characters in this Immortal Play

we are living.

And this time we are Playing for KEEPS.

Stay tuned!!

(Things are REAL interesting right now.)

Veeger

(ps, do you think this all for SHOW?)


Hillary Clinton strategist quits amid Colombia trade flap

"How can we trust that a President Hillary Clinton would stand strong against this trade deal when her top advisor is being paid by Colombia to promote it?" he asked in a statement.

Obama also has criticized Clinton saying she has close ties to lobbyists who might undue influence shaping policies, should she become president.

The controversy prompted an angry reaction from Colombia, which took offense at Penn's statement in which he called the meeting "an error in judgment."

The Colombian Embassy in Washington announced it was ending its contract with Burson-Marsteller, which had been hired a year ago.

The Clinton campaign has asserted that Penn's meeting was "independent of the campaign."

The two Democratic candidates have been sparring over the issue of trade, with each questioning the other's credibility in their pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

(Editing by Chris Wilson)


January 24, 2008

President Hillary: Paul Craig Roberts

It's all rigged. The vote in 2008 is a foregone conclusion in my mind -- Hillary v McCain so that we just here the TACTICAL differences and then back to "business as usual" wearing a dress with no cum on it. Same game, a slightly different sex "playing". "Ho, hum, I've dropped my nail file I am so bored."

No, not really I am a human rights activist and I am well and truly pissed off - and I have my own personal ax to grind about "this woman".

Paul Craig Roberts has drawn up the same conclusions I have.

Now go about yer business of discrimination and subjugating woman (slavery lives! Hoooorah for stoopidity!) and just forget about the Democracy experiment. Enjoy your television and gas guzzlers whilst you may . THE DYNASTY HAS ARRIVED and it'll keep giving retards like George W. Bush time after time and the mugging "codependents" that go with them.

George Bush supports Hilary and has said so - right on the boobtube. Palast says as many as 2 million votes are already caged. She wants NO debate with Dennis Kucinich on it thus showing her "true colors" already as to what she thinks about democracy, Her husband has SERIOUS conflicts of interest, she doesn't care if anyone's "liberties" are taken away and has done nothing about the Protect America Act fiasco nor Guantanamo nor the State Department's excess NOR the CIA war crimes .. and on and on and on!

Do I seriously mistrust her, yes. Have I had reason to distrust her since 1994, yes. Am I warning tomorrow's diplomats that the damage she will do will be enormous . yes, I am.

And at the bottom I am posting commentary on the Peter F. Paul scandal that the media won't cover - a reminder ONCE AGAIN - of the biggest campaign fraud ever run and full of SUFFERING.

Human rights ACTIVISTS, sharpen your pens and prepare for very long nights at your computers - that is if she lets us online.

See this link! http://prorev.com/legacy.htm.
Some of it is the land of "conspiracy theory" - some of it is just plain THE TRUTH. It is now 2007 - I was persecuted in 1994. My story remains "covered up" after I beat them in court! Now why is that?? This HERE will take you to tons of links covering Clinton corruption.

So all you American crackers and political-correct "feminists" keep on turning in those noon times shows and listening to the Bill O'Reilly's - they've been supplied their "marching orders".

Here is a report on doners to the Clinton Foundation. I am sure you wil note the AIPAC groups donations - and those from the telecoms, not counting Bill Gates (think internet clampdown) and all the other people of note.

Why do I not support the Green Party of Canada? They are cozy with Bill Clinton,

(although some branches do have scientology ties. The Scientologists are with Ron Paul. Read up on Operation Clambake.)
Veeger

President Hillary

By Paul Craig Roberts

If polls are reliable, Hillary will win the Democratic nomination. The Democratic groups that prefer Obama are not sufficiently numerous to give him the nomination.

Of course, anything can happen in a political campaign, but the latest Field Poll of likely California Democrats and independent voters gives Hillary a 39 to 27 percent lead over Obama. This is bad news for Obama, because California is a progressive state where race is less likely to be a handicap.

Obama is favored by those who rank the Iraq war and foreign policy as the most important issues, by blacks, college graduates, and those with higher incomes.

Hillary is favored two to one by women, two to one by lower income groups and three to one among Latinos. Hillary has a further advantage. At the 2004 Democratic National Convention approximately 50 percent of the delegates were women. As Democratic delegates are invariably feminists, they are not going to miss the chance of putting a woman in the presidency.

Are the Democrats choosing Hillary because she has the moral integrity to stop an unjust war and to hold war criminals responsible for leading America into war based on lies and deception? Are they choosing Hillary because she defends the US Constitution from usurpation by executive power? Are they choosing her because she is public-spirited instead of personally ambitious?

No. The Democrats are choosing Hillary because of gender and race. Despite all the efforts of Democratic activist groups, the majority of Democratic voters are more concerned with race and gender issues than with their country’s reputation and their civil liberties.

If elected president, Hillary will bring no more change than did the Democratic congressional majority elected in 2006.

Obama might not bring any change either. But he is the only candidate in the running who has expressed concern over Israel’s mistreatment of the Palestinians and who voted against the Iraq invasion. Clearly, he is a better bet for change than Hillary. However, Democrats are more attuned to race and gender issues than to war crimes and loss of civil liberties.

This is not to argue that Republicans are an improvement. Their likely nominee is McCain, who has recently said that he is OK with a hundred-year war in Iraq. McCain is as willing to attack Iran as Bush and Cheney, and he would not be adverse to conspiring with Israel and the neoconservatives to pull off an attack. Republicans don’t even have a “change” candidate in the running. They have worked to marginalize Ron Paul precisely because he would be an instrument of change.

Even if Obama were elected and was sincere about change, what could he do? Probably very little. The pool of candidates from which he could staff an administration is not that much different from that of any other candidate. He can pass over a neocon architect of the Iraq invasion and settle on an architect of President Clinton’s bombing of Serbia.

Moreover, Congress will still be controlled by the same interest groups. If Obama were to appoint people opposed by the military-security lobby, the Israel Lobby or the offshoring lobby, the Senate would be unlikely to confirm them. No president wants to nominate people who cannot be confirmed. Presidents have to staff their administrations according to who can get the approval of powerful interest groups.

This makes if difficult to change the status quo. It only takes one senator to put a hold on an appointment. Change in Washington requires breaking many iron grips.

In the presidential race, Hillary would defeat McCain, who without any doubt is the war candidate. Hillary will get the women’s vote, the minorities’ vote, and the anti-war vote. McCain will get the vote of angry macho white males.

What Hillary has to worry about is a major terrorist attack, whether real or orchestrated, that would revive the 9/11 fears and send voters scurrying to put the presidency into the hands of a war hero. As Hillary is not regarded as a threat to Israel’s territorial expansion or to the interests of the military-security complex, the only wild card is some terrorist action that would require the failure of US security in order to succeed.

Of course, all of this ignores the salient fact: No one knows how the Diebold electronic voting machines programmed by Republican operatives with proprietary software will count the votes.

If it hasn’t become a stolen affair, the American presidency has become a family affair, one that is passed from a Bush to a Clinton to a Bush and back to a Clinton. The interest groups are satisfied, and nothing of importance changes.

After Hillary will we have Jeb?

COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.




December 11, 2007

Justices Restore Judges’ Control Over Sentencing

Think this is no big thing?

This is indeed a big thing, a big step towards defeating systemic racism.

The guidelines gave widely divergent sentencing between crack (ghetto, 'hood use) and powder cocaine (burbs, urban elite, hispanics) by as much as 100 to one!




Lest you think this is overturning some Bushista plot, I'll let you know all this started under Billy Clinton and Janet Reno's reign of terror for drug addicts (who are SICK, not criminals). While the Reagan administration started this phenomena, the Clintonistas applied it. Ruthlessly.

In many, many cases, juries (to which one is entitled) were simply done away by prosecutors, opening up judges who have no chemical dependency or addictions training to "just following orders" from the Federal government. They can be greatly affected by the testimony of cops and the persuasions of the prosecutors (who want to win elections based on their prosecution records) which made the accused and convicted victims of very bad federal sentencing guidelines in thousands of cases.

In a hysterical and ill considered move, Billy and Janet never attempted to overturn the decision to be just about sentencing guidleines. It flew in teh face of the U.S. Sentencing Commission! Afraid of seeming to be "soft on crime" (hey! remember that!)

For five grams of crack cocaine, those convicted (regardless of having family obligations or showing remorse and recovering, the convicted would get a minium of five years. Yet, that mandatory minimum only applied to 500 grams of cocaine powder.

This is a decision long overdue, to put it mildly. Much damage has been done to those given long sentences and the taxpayer paid so many dollars to pay for incarcerations it is a waste and a travesty.

So much for hard on crime Clinton's legacy as a civil rights champion. Like BuZh, the guy was a chimp . I mean chump.

Now wait until the Court tackles privacy violations and the handiwork of the dismantlement of the Constitution comes under perview for that. Why do you suppose that warrantless surveillance is so pervasive. Hmmmmmmmm......??

This will go a long way towards helping people turn their lives around (maybe), rather than building prison populations. That phenomena is a legacy of Clinton&Co and may make a least a few of these presidential candidates take a good look at the Courts rulings on subjecting people to unwise, uncounselled opinions about "what people deserve" in retribution.

Can you spell

S A N I T Y S O M E T I M E S R E T U R N SS

with some very hard work on the part of attorneys.

p.s. have a look at them dissenters. Warned you all about racist Alito. Clarence Thomas is another mattah altogether.

Veeger


Justices Restore Judges’ Control Over Sentencing


B
y LINDA GREENHOUSE
Published: December 11, 2007

WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 — The Supreme Court on Monday restored federal judges to their traditional central role in criminal sentencing.


In two decisions, the court said federal district judges had broad discretion to impose what they think are reasonable sentences, even if federal guidelines call for different sentences.

One decision was particularly emphatic in saying judges are free to disagree with guidelines that call for much longer sentences for offenses involving crack cocaine than for crimes involving an equivalent amount of cocaine in powdered form.

Both cases, each decided by the same 7-to-2 alignment, chided federal appeals courts for failing to give district judges sufficient leeway. The appeals court had in each case overturned a sentence that was lower than that provided by the guidelines. The two dissenters were Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Taken together, the decisions reflected the remarkable trajectory the court has traveled in the seven years since it overturned a New Jersey hate-crime statute on the ground that the law gave judges an unconstitutional degree of authority to make the crucial factual determinations that added a hate-crime “enhancement” to an ordinary criminal sentence.

Along with their diminished function under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which set up the federal sentencing guidelines system, federal judges appeared to have been all but ejected from their role at the heart of criminal sentencing.

Judges still may not impose sentences above the range written into law by Congress or state legislatures. But the decision on Monday gives judges broad discretion to impose sentences higher or lower than the guidelines, which are not statutes and are issued by the United States Sentencing Commission.

The two decisions answered questions left hanging in 2005, when the court ruled in United States v. Booker that the federal sentencing guidelines could be constitutional only if “advisory” rather than mandatory. Appeals courts were to review sentences for “reasonableness,” the court said then. But the court did not say what it meant by either “advisory” or “reasonableness.”

Last June, in Rita v. United States, the court ruled that appeals courts could choose to presume that sentences within the guidelines range were reasonable, but that such a presumption was not binding. But that opinion was quite opaque and said relatively little about the trial judge’s role.

It is now clear that while judges should consult the guidelines, they are just one factor among others and do not carry any special weight. It is also clear that an appeals court must have a very good reason of its own to displace the trial judge’s judgment.

“The guidelines should be the starting point and the initial benchmark,” Justice John Paul Stevens said in one of the decisions on Monday, Gall v. United States, No. 06-7949.

But Justice Stevens went on to say that the guidelines were just one factor in the “individualized assessment” that a judge must make in every case. The judge “may not presume that the guidelines range is reasonable,” he said.

In that case, Brian M. Gall, who had briefly been involved in an Ecstasy distribution ring while a college student, received a sentence of three years’ probation rather than 30 to 36 months in prison called for by the guidelines.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, in St. Louis, ruled that such an “extraordinary” variance from the guidelines range required an equivalently extraordinary justification.

That judgment was erroneous, Justice Stevens said, in failing to give “due deference” to the district judge’s “reasoned and reasonable decision.” He added that “if the sentence is outside the guidelines range, the court may not apply a presumption of unreasonableness.”

Nor, he continued, should a sentence be overturned just because the appeals court “might reasonably have concluded that a different sentence was appropriate.”

The defendant in the crack cocaine case, Derrick Kimbrough, received 15 years instead of 19 to 22 ½ for several cocaine and gun-related offenses. The sentence was the lowest possible, given the statutory mandatory minimum sentences.

The trial judge said the higher guidelines term would be inappropriate for Mr. Kimbrough, a Marine veteran of the Persian Gulf war with an honorable discharge. The judge also disagreed with the relative treatment of crack and powdered cocaine, a disparity that he said led to “disproportionate and unjust” results.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., overturned the sentence on the ground that it was “per se unreasonable” for a judge to depart from the guidelines “based on a disagreement with the sentencing disparity for crack and powder cocaine offenses.”

The Supreme Court took the unusual step of reinstating the original lower sentences, rather than simply instructing the appeals courts to reconsider the cases under an appropriately deferential standard of review.

Prof. Douglas A. Berman of the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, an expert on sentencing, called the decisions a “stinging rebuke of circuit court micromanagement of district court discretion.”

The decision in the crack cocaine case, Kimbrough v. United States, No. 06-6330, was particularly pointed in this regard. In her majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that ordinarily, “closer review may be in order” when a judge’s sentence is based on a policy disagreement with the guidelines.

But she went on to say that this higher level of appellate scrutiny should not apply to a sentence based on a district judge’s critique of the crack-powder disparity.

Justice Ginsburg’s opinion took account of an important policy development since the case was argued on Oct. 2. On Nov. 1, amended guidelines for crack cocaine that the United States Sentencing Commission had long advocated took effect when Congress, which had the power to block them, let the moment pass without acting.

Justice Ginsburg said that “this tacit acceptance” of the amendment by Congress “undermines the government’s position” that judges should not have discretion to depart from the guidelines themselves.

The amendments put into effect a relatively modest change that will reduce sentences for crack by about one-quarter, resulting in sentences that are two to five times longer than for equivalent amounts of powdered cocaine.

The commission was limited in what it could accomplish on its own. A 1986 federal law, enacted at the height of public concern about crack, incorporated a 100 to one ratio into mandatory minimum sentences — that is, the same sentence was imposed for a given amount of crack and 100 times that amount of powder.

The Sentencing Commission guidelines operated as an overlay on that statutory framework. But as the commission studied the impact, it grew concerned. A 2002 report noted that 85 percent of defendants convicted of crack offenses were black, a fact the commission warned was leading to a loss of confidence in the fairness of the system.

Bipartisan bills are pending in Congress to address the disparity. On Tuesday, the Sentencing Commission will vote on whether to make the Nov. 1 amendment retroactive to the 19,500 inmates imprisoned for crack offenses.

The court’s endorsement of judges’ discretion raised the prospect that higher sentences, not only lower ones, would now be upheld on appeal.

Current statistics indicate that defendants benefit the most when judges depart from the guidelines. Below-guidelines sentences have been given in 11.9 percent of cases, and above-guidelines sentences in 1.6 percent. Criminal defense lawyers regarded the decision on Monday as good news.

“The court has taken the handcuffs off and told judges that ‘you are free to apply your mind,’” said Graham Boyd, director of the Drug Law Reform Project of the American Civil Liberties Union.

LDF Applauds Supreme Court Decision in Kimbrough v. United States
PR Newswire (press release), NY - 12 hours ago
... Inc. (LDF) today applauds the Supreme Court decision in Kimbrough v. United States. The 7-2 decision by the court allows judges to impose a sentence ...
Court Restores Sentencing Powers of Federal Judges New York Times
Justices Widen Sentencing Powers of Federal Judges New York Times
Given the Leniency to Show Leniency, Judges May Not New York Times
Financial Times - Bloomberg
all 739 news articles »
Court gives nod to sanity in sentencing
DesMoinesRegister.com, IA - 1 hour ago
The Supreme Court's rulings Monday in Kimbrough and Gall said that presumption is unacceptable. One of Monday's rulings - Derrick Kimbrough v. United States ...
A Plea of Temporary Sanity, or so it seems for the moment.
Capitol Hill Blue, VA - 12 hours ago
In Kimbrough v. United States and ingall v. United States, by identical 7-2 votes, truly outrageous laws (or their application) were tossed. ...
Court sides with defendants in sentencing cases
Baltimore Sun, United States - 17 hours ago
In Kimbrough v. United States, the court held that judges may make a "downward departure" from sentencing guidelines that give a trafficker in crack a ...
US High Court Gives Judges More Power on Sentences (Update1)
Bloomberg - 18 hours ago
The cases are Kimbrough v. United States, 06-6330, and Gall v. United States, 06-7949. To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at ...

On the issues involved see,
http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2007/2007_06_6330/

and Thomas' dissenting (and highly confusing legally) option here.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/06-6330.ZD.html

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