by Laura Donnelly, Telegraph

Read more at this link.

Coming soon to an America near you.

Conscription typically means compulsory military service. That’s not necessarily the case here, but it’s close enough.

Will there be arm bands? Happy Hope and Change.

Via: GovTrack:

HR 5741 IH

111th CONGRESS

2d Session

H. R. 5741

To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, and for other purposes.

What’s going on with the Tea Party?  Remember the good old days when TEA was an acronym for “Taxed Enough Already?”  Today, it’s starting to sound more like “Terminate Every Arab!”

It could be argued that the once noble Tea Party has been thrown to the wolves.  In its place is a political machine that has hijacked the Tea party name and is using it to stage a NeoCon-Republican comeback.

Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) spoke at a press conference in Washington D.C. to announce the formation of a 44-member Tea party caucus in the House of Representatives.  All of the members are mainstream NeoCon Republicans with an allegiance to the state of Israel and an insatiable appetite for war.  As a matter of fact, of the 44 members, almost half of them have recently signed on to HR 1553, which endorses Israeli military action against Iran.  The resolution states that Israel should be allowed,  “to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the use of military force.”

Bachmann is a frightening woman who recently stated—at a Republican Jewish Coalition event—that “I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play.”

Sure, we all got excited when anti-incumbent fever swept the nation and wrangled to unseat many longtime Senators and career Congressmen.  But what did we get in return?  Let’s take a look at some of the big primary winners—who have been dubbed “Tea Party candidates”—and hear what their position is on foreign policy issues like Israel, Afghanistan, Iran and the “so-called” war on terror:

Robert Hurt (R-VA)

‘On September 11th thousands of innocent Americans were attacked by Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist regime known as Al Qaeda. This terrorist regime has only one goal–destroy America and end our free and prosperous way of life.’

‘We need to ensure that fully funding our anti-terrorism efforts at home and abroad is the top priority for our government. As we wage this effort for freedom and security of the American people, we need to stand behind our brave soldiers who are fighting and dying for us. The United States needs to remain vigilant and do everything in our power to monitor, track and defeat these terrorists at home and abroad.’

Mike Lee (R-UT)

“The government currently ruling in Iran presents a threat to the security of both the United States and Israel. I will therefore support efforts to place pressure on the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with an eye toward persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions. Should those efforts prove unsuccessful, military action would be justified.”

“I support direct talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority based on the fundamental principals that Israel should remain (and be recognized by the Palestinians as) a Jewish state, Israel must have safe and secure borders and the ability to monitor and protect those borders, and any peace treaty must bring a permanent end to any and all claims of the Palestinians.”

Sharron Angle (R-NV)

‘Israel, a democratic nation, is the United States’ strongest ally in the Middle East. Israel’s sovereignty, stability and security are in the best interests of the United States, especially when dealing with radical Islamic terrorism.’

Tom Graves (R-GA)

In reference to H.R. 5501, the “America Stands With Israel Act” that he helped co-sponsor:

‘Our alliance with Israel is of great importance and I strongly support their right to defend their interests. America’s commitment to Israel must be solid, and I am proud to join Rep. King and co-sponsor this important legislation.’

Jon Runyan (R-NJ)

‘The special bond between the United States of America and Israel must never be broken, and believe strongly that the first step to peace in the Middle East is ensuring that Israelis and their Democratic way of life is secure. First and foremost that means that Israel’s neighbors must recognize their right to exist.

The United States must stand with Israel in preventing Iran from achieving nuclear capabilities that can threaten Israel and further de-stabilize the region, and continue cooperative efforts both militarily and economically. As a member of Congress, I will strongly support continued foreign aid to Israel to ensure they have the tools necessary to stand strong in the face of hostilities by their enemies.’

Scott Rigell (R-VA)

From a press release reprimanding Congressman Nye for being one of 54 Democratic representatives who called upon Israel in a signed letter to lift travel restrictions in Gaza:

“Having just returned from a fact-finding visit to Israel, where I met with senior Israel leadership and saw firsthand the rockets that have terrorized the city of Sderot and neighboring cities in the south of Israel, I am stunned by our freshman congressman’s decision to sign this letter.  By signing the letter and aligning himself with the most liberal members of our Congress, including John Conyer, Jim McGovern and Barbara Lee, Congressman Nye seems more concerned about the rights of Hamas than innocent Israeli citizens.  Our freshman congressman fails to fully understand that Hamas is an organization that openly calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and has used Israel’s voluntary withdrawal from Gaza to turn schools into terrorist bases, homes into rocket launch pads, and market places into battlefields.  The travel restrictions on Gaza are reasonable given Israel’s right, indeed its duty, to protect its citizens.  Our freshman congressman has made clear that he has a naïve world view and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and scope of the threat posed by Hamas to the citizens of our ally, Israel.”

And let’s not forget the darling of the Neo-Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin, whose positions on Israel and foreign policy are well known to us all.

Jane Fryer of the Daily Mail has been touring the American mid-west on the trail of the tea party movement.  Jane is an ardent left-winger, but nonetheless prudent in her reporting on things I’ve witnessed myself.

During a visit to a small town in Kansas, Jane ran into a burly fellow at a Tea Party rally who spoke to her through a cheek full of tobacco:

‘I love Sarah Palin, I just LOVE her. She’s bright, she’s clever and she thinks like we do, she acts like we do and she lives like we do.  She listens to the people, and she has a proven track record. She talks the talk and walks the walk and she’d make a wonderful president.’

And he’s not the only fan.  The big guy’s neighbor couldn’t wait to throw his two cents in:

‘What’s more, she’s got good old common horse sense, as we call it round here. She tells it like it is. And she can shoot and skin a moose! Not many world leaders can do that.’

O.K., I admit, that was only two out of the 26 attendees.  You’re probably thinking there were at least a few who had a less than favorable opinion about the good ship Mrs. Palin, right?

Let’s hear from 63-year-old Dee Sadler, the organizer of this humble Tea Party event:

‘I just hope she runs for president. She’s the only person who can unite the Tea Party movement and the Republican Party. Sarah Palin is America’s last hope!’

To which the entire groupof 26 chimed in with a chorus of:

‘Amen.”

‘Sarah Palin for President.’ Think about that.

If you took this woman’s brain and transplanted it into the body of a middle aged homeless man, you’d have a disheveled vagrant standing on the corner—somewhere in Anchorage, Alaska—hoisting a cardboard sign over his head that reads: ‘Jesus is coming…and he’s pissed!’

I guess a Sarah Palin-style theocray is precisely what some people want.  It certainly is in this sleepy little Kansas town.

But I know—you’re going to tell me that this is only one small group of people who don’t really represent the majority of Tea Party activists, right?  Maybe it is—but I’m not finding evidence of real anti-war sentiment among the ranks of the Tea Party members I’ve run into!  Could it be that the only reason the Tea Party has any press at all is because the Tea Party movement is now predominantly comprised of war loving, Arab hating NeoCons who reminisce about the good old Bush-Cheney days?

For those infiltrators who are now emerging as Tea Party leaders, it’s no longer about taxes.  It’s about where those taxes go.  Government run health care, Wall Street bailouts and cap-and-trade schemes are just things that are competing for that precious war dollar.  Is this the same Tea Party that you and I enthusiastically put our endorsement behind?

The Tea Party began as a suggestion by CNBC’s Rick Santelli, who called for a “Chicago Tea Party” to revolt against the Obama Administration’s mortgage bailout plan. That suggestion became a reality when Ron Paul supporters adopted the Tea Party moniker to advance the ideals of their great statesman.

If you want to know what the Tea Party was all about, just follow the career of Ron Paul.  Ron Paul is about limited government, abolishing the Fed and bringing an end to these never-ending—needless wars.

But that’s not what it has become.

Today, the Tea Party has become a branch of the GOP.  And whose fault is that?  Mine…yours, and everyone else who didn’t step up to the plate and take an aggressive stand against the warmongering infiltrators who came to silence our message of peace.

What did we expect would happen when we let Israel’s favorite shiksa, Sarah Palin, feel welcome at our Tea Party functions?  We should have been there from day one calling her out and sending her home!  We should have stepped in front of news cameras and made it nice and sparkling clear that these hijackers were only here to poison the well and stake a claim on a movement they had no part in creating.

Now I fear that it just may be too late to get it back.  The problem now is that public perception of what the Tea Party is about is relegated to this faction of NeoCons, who are the only ones whose voices are being heard.

Do we really want to spend our time defending ourselves against the missteps of others or trying to explain that our Tea Party is not the same Tea Party that everyone is used to hearing about?  That’s exactly what they want us to do.

Maybe it’s about time we just started identifying ourselves as Americans.  What’s wrong with that?

I submit that we should distance ourselves from parties and affiliations.  We’re not part of a movement, a rebellion or a revolution.  Our war was won over 200 years ago and we emerged victorious.

The GOP, the Democrats and many of those who now identify themselves as Tea Party activists are the real rebels and revolutionaries.  They have rebelled against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and everything else America stands for.

I’m an American, plain and simple—and from now on, that’s the only thing I’m going to identify myself as.

Nothing illustrates the utter craziness of our society in the post-9/11 era than the controversy over the “Ground Zero mosque.” To begin with, the proposed Islamic center – not a mosque, but the Muslim equivalent of the YMCA – a nonprofit foundation wants to build in New York City isn’t at “ground zero,” it is four blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. But that doesn’t deter demagogues like Newt Gingrich and various other unsavory opportunists from making it into a political issue.

Never mind the fact that there is already a mosque four blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center (see here), which has been there for many years. If we follow the “logic” of Newt and his fellow crusaders, then this should be torn down – along with all the other hundreds of mosques in New York City. And don’t forget Washington, D.C., the site of the attack on the Pentagon: surely symbols of the “enemy” religion must be banned there, too.

Of course, that would suit the haters, like Pamela “Shrieking Harpy” Geller, fuehrer of the “Stop the Islamization of America” movement, just fine. Geller is a self-proclaimed “Objectivist,” a follower of Ayn Rand’s philosophy, whose blog – “Atlas Shrugs” – is named after Rand’s famous novel. It’s a case of intellectual expropriation both obscene and absurd, since Geller’s style of “argumentation” is as emotion-laden and out of control as Rand’s was cool, objective, and rational. Geller’s “argument” is that all Muslims are inherently and irredeemably evil, and out to destroy America: there are no “moderates,” and those who pretend to be so are merely biding their time until the day they can reveal their true colors and impose Sharia law on the rest of us. Reading her tracts is kind of like perusing the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, only with Muslims taking the place of Jews as the sinister, all-powerful Forces of Darkness. Geller herself is a nobody, a publicity-seeker with no real arguments to make, so I won’t burden my readers with too much of her incoherent shrieking, but here’s a sample:

“Another stab in the eye of America……….’Muslim Family Day’ on September 12th. Vile. Six Flags hosts the annual Muslim Brotherhood front, I.C.N.A., for Muslim Family Day on September 12. ‘This event offers fun for the entire family and will also offer halal food stalls.’”

Had enough? I thought so.

Geller’s “intellectual” mentor, Leonard Peikoff, the founder of the Ayn Rand Institute, and Rand’s “intellectual heir,” however, is a different story. He does make arguments, if you want to call them that.

Asked if he supported the right of the builders of the mosque to their own private property, this alleged advocate of reason and property rights answers with an emphatic no:

“Let’s start with property rights. Property rights are limited and they are contextual. You cannot do anything you want with property even though it is yours, not if its ramifications objectively entail a threat to the rights of others. You can’t build a bomb in your home. You can’t even build a big bonfire in your backyard legitimately because the principle of rights is that property rights are a derivative of life as the standard and there can be no right to threaten anyone’s life nor indeed to threaten anyone’s property.”

How does a mosque, or, more accurately, a Muslim community center, “objectively entail a threat to the rights of others”? According to Peikoff, all manifestations of Islam – the very idea of Islam – is “objectively” a threat to the United States. Therefore, by his “logic,” it’s okay to violate the property rights of Muslims – any and all Muslims. Indeed, killing them all would be a good thing, according to his sick perversion of Objectivism. Not that he has the intellectual honesty to follow his own murderous “logic” to its “rational” conclusion….

“Second,” Peikoff continues,

“Rights are contextual. In any situation where metaphysical survival is at stake all property rights are out. You have no obligation to respect property rights. The obvious, classic example of this is, which I’ve been asked a hundred times, you swim to a desert island – you know, you had a shipwreck – and when you get to the shore, the guy comes to you and says, ‘I’ve got a fence all around this island. I found it. It’s legitimately mine. You can’t step onto the beach.’ Now, in that situation you are in a literal position of being metaphysically helpless. Since life is the standard of rights, if you no longer can survive this way, rights are out. And it becomes dog-eat-dog or force-against-force.”

Peikoff’s example has nothing to do with the reality of the issue: indeed, it is so far removed from it that his answer seems completely unhinged. Unless one assumes the premise of his argument, which is that Islam – and, specifically, this Muslim community center four blocks from Ground Zero – represents such a grave threat to the US that our “metaphysical survival” is at stake. Given this demented and demonstrably untrue premise, his diatribe makes a kind of Bizarro World “sense” – but of course it isn’t true, and so what comes out of his mouth is the intellectual equivalent of vomit from a drunk.

“Rights are contextual.” “You have no obligation to respect property rights.” “Rights are out”! Where have we heard this before? Wesley Mouch – is that you talking?

So much for Peikoff and his misnamed “Ayn Rand Institute” as defenders of capitalism, property rights, and the sanctity of the individual.

If you thought Peikoff couldn’t get any wackier, you didn’t anticipate this:

“Now, let’s apply this to the foreign relations issue. The context today is that we are at war and not a cold one. A real one. We are facing widespread terrorism sponsored by a number of governments with tremendous popular backing in virtually every Mid-East Islamic country. Even Turkey, the one priding itself on its secularism, has now gone Islamic.”

(Note how he seems to have gotten the neocon memo that Turkey – once one of Israel’s few allies in the world – is no longer kosher, and must be vilified. Okay, back to Peikoff:)

“Now, the United States’ response, the western response to this is a continuation of the appeasement that was started back in the ’50s with Eisenhower when Iran seized western oil companies. The Americans, the British, and the Israelis, as I remember, launched an attack to try to reclaim it and – or at least the British and the Israelis did and Eisenhower vetoed it.”

Say what? When a senile old hater says “as I recall,” the result, as in this case, can be unintentionally funny. What Peikoff is “recalling” here isn’t a joint US-British-Israeli assault, or an assault vetoed by Eisenhower, but the CIA-sponsored overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government of Mohammad Mossadegh, who was making noises about nationalizing British and American oil interests. As anyone who knows anything about the history of the region can tell you, this led to the imposition of the Shah Reza Pahlavi, whose tyrannical regime slaughtered thousands, jailing and torturing many more.

What gets me is that this self-proclaimed “philosopher,” and advocate of the “supremacy of reason,” doesn’t even bother to get his facts straight: Peikoff’s ignorance of the history of the Middle East, and specifically Iran, is monumental – and he knows it. But history, knowledge, and facts are unimportant to him, as they are to all haters and the vicious demagogues who want to make use of them. If history won’t conform to Peikoff’s ideological delusions, he simply makes it up, to wit:

“Since that point there’s more and more and more craven appeasement by the west and across 50 years the audacity and scope of outrage of the Islamic world – I mean by that, the activists, the militants, the terrorists, and their countless followers – they have continually upped the deaths, the assaults, the horror, while the US has continually upped its appeasement.”

Yes, the overthrow of the Iranian government, unconditional political, military, and financial support to the occupiers of the West Bank and Gaza, two invasions of Iraq, support to Arab dictatorships (as long as they’re “pro-American,” i.e.Mubarak in Egypt) – this was a policy of “appeasing” the Muslim world. Those Made-in-USA bombs falling on thefactories and churches of Lebanon, disgorged by Israeli planes – that was “appeasement,” too.

What planet is this “philosopher” living on?

Peikoff then launches into an inchoate rant about how American soldiers are having their hands tied, because they aren’t killing enough civilians: if you think I’m exaggerating, please read this, and this. George W. Bush is denounced by Peikoff for averring that bin Laden represents only Islam’s lunatic fringe, and the result, says Peikoff, is that we have a “non-policy,” and “there’s no enemy,” while the authorities “excuse” and “downplay” the terrorist threat.

Read the rest of the article

Years ago, I wrote about the use of chemical weapons in the American assault on the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. I was attacked at the time for my “wild accusations” by many people, across the political spectrum, even by stalwart dissidents, who felt that such “exaggerations” undermined the “effectiveness” of the anti-war movement, preventing it from being taken “seriously” by the “serious” players in the power structure. Later, of course, American military officials — and serving soldiers — admitted using white phosphorus and other chemical weapons in the assault.

Over the years, small-scale medical studies have pointed to the horrific effects of these USA-WMD attacks. Now, a new comprehensive medical study has shown that the “dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukemia” in Fallujah since 2004 have “exceeded those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945,” The Independent reports.

The Independent story follows up on an initial video report by top BBC journalist John Simpson last week — a story that was almost universally ignored, not only in the fawning corporate press but also across the “dissident” blogosphere (except by a very few, such as Winter Patriot). Both stories make clear that the chief victims of the American WMD are, overwhelming, children:

Iraqi doctors in Fallujah have complained since 2005 of being overwhelmed by the number of babies with serious birth defects, ranging from a girl born with two heads to paralysis of the lower limbs. They said they were also seeing far more cancers than they did before the battle for Fallujah between US troops and insurgents.

Their claims have been supported by a survey showing a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. Infant mortality in the city is more than four times higher than in neighbouring Jordan and eight times higher than in Kuwait.

Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah, said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that “to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened”.

US Marines first besieged and bombarded Fallujah, 30 miles west of Baghdad, in April 2004 after four employees of the American security company Blackwater were killed and their bodies burned. After an eight-month stand-off, the Marines stormed the city in November using artillery and aerial bombing against rebel positions. US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

The background here is good as far as it goes, but it omits the salient point of that mutilation of American mercenaries; it followed a series of security shoot-em-ups that killed a number of innocent civilians in Fallujah. The attacks on the Blackwater mercenaries were a violent reprisal for murders committed by foreign agents in the midst of an illegal act of military aggression. But, as always, the American revenge for the attacks was vastly disproportionate: an entire city destroyed, thousands of people killed — and generations of terrible suffering for innocent children — all to get “payback” for four mercenaries.

The Independent continues:

In the assault US commanders largely treated Fallujah as a free-fire zone to try to reduce casualties among their own troops. British officers were appalled by the lack of concern for civilian casualties. “During preparatory operations in the November 2004 Fallujah clearance operation, on one night over 40 155mm artillery rounds were fired into a small sector of the city,” recalled Brigadier Nigel Aylwin-Foster, a British commander serving with the American forces in Baghdad.

He added that the US commander who ordered this devastating use of firepower did not consider it significant enough to mention it in his daily report to the US general in command. Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form. He said: “My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.”

The effects of these secret “wonder-weapons” were astounding:

The study, entitled “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009″, is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are “similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout”.

Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia, a ten-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. At Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia, but in Fallujah Dr Busby says what is striking is not only the greater prevalence of cancer but the speed with which it was affecting people.

Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima.

I have written about Fallujah over and over for a long time. In many respects, these stories are like the ones I’ve written about the American-abetted horrors in Somalia: no one gives a damn. Well, I don’t give a damn that no gives a damn. I’m going to keep ringing this bell until my arm falls off. We — Americans — have committed and countenanced a great evil in Iraq. I can’t change that — and it’s obvious that I cannot prevent the “continuity” of such hellish atrocities by the progressive Peace Laureate now in the White House, and by whatever similar blood-soaked poltroon comes to lead the never-ending Terror War for Loot and Power after him. But by god I will not let it be said that I stood by and failed to bear witness to this raging filth.

From 2004 (see original for links):

“The inferno…is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.” — Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities.

There is of course no space, nowhere to move or breathe in the sealed chamber of the American Infoglomerate – the vast entanglement of corporate media and government propaganda that smothers the body politic with hysterical outpourings of diversion, drivel and deadening white noise. Here, events occur in a total vacuum: they have no history, no context, no consequences. Stripped of the heft and scope of reality, they can easily be molded and distorted to fit the prevailing political and business agendas. Amnesia, ignorance, confusion and fear are left to rule the day: excellent fuel for the stokers of the inferno, who use the heat to work their alchemical magic – transforming human blood into gold.

“There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It’s hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens.”

This was a voice from the depths of the inferno: Fadhil Badrani, reporter for the BBC and Reuters, trapped in the iron encirclement along with tens of thousands of civilians. It was a rare breath of truth. The reality of a major city being ground into rubble was meant to be obscured by the Infoglomerate’s wall of noise: murder trials, state visits, Cabinet shuffles, celebrity weddings – and, above all, the reports of “embedded” journalists shaping the “narrative” into its proper form: a magnificent feat of arms carried out with surgical precision against an enemy openly identified by American commanders as “Satan,” the Associated Press reports.

One of the first moves in this magnificent feat was the destruction and capture of medical centers. Twenty doctors – and their patients, including women and children – were killed in an airstrike on one major clinic, the UN Information Service reports, while the city’s main hospital was seized in the early hours of the ground assault. Why? Because these places of healing could be used as “propaganda centers,” the Pentagon’s “information warfare” specialists told the NY Times. …

So while Americans saw stories of rugged “Marlboro Men” winning the day against Satan, they were spared shots of engineers cutting off water and electricity to the city – a flagrant war crime under the Geneva Conventions, as CounterPunch notes, but standard practice throughout the occupation. Nor did pictures of attack helicopters gunning down civilians trying to escape across the Euphrates River – including a family of five – make the TV news, despite the eyewitness account of an AP journalist. Nor were tender American sensibilities subjected to the sight of phosphorous shells bathing enemy fighters – and nearby civilians – with unquenchable chemical fire, literally melting their skin, as the Washington Post reports. Nor did they see the fetus being blown out of the body of Artica Salim when her home was bombed during the “softening-up attacks” that raged relentlessly – and unnoticed – in the closing days of George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, the Scotland Sunday Herald reports.

I will not forget Artica Salim. I will not forget Fallujah. I will not “move on.” I will not become part of the inferno.

Use of prescription psychotropics has skyrocketed among U.S. military personnel in recent years, according to an investigation by Military Times.

At least 17 percent of active-duty military personnel are currently taking an antidepressant, including as many as 6 percent of all deployed troops. In contrast, the rate of antidepressant use in the wider U.S. public is only 10 percent.

Overall, one in six military service members takes at least one type of psychiatric drug. The numbers are probably higher than estimated, since troops are also known to share and trade prescription drugs with each other, even while in combat zones.

Data obtained from the Defense Logistics Agency show that overall use of psychiatric drugs increased by 76 percent between 2001 and 2009. More specifically, use of anti-seizure drugs increased 70 percent, use of sedatives and anxiety drugs increased 170 percent, and antipsychotic use increased 200 percent.

Spending on anticonvulsants increased from $16 million to $35 million per year, spending on anxiety drugs and sedatives increased from $6 million to $17 million, and spending on antipsychotics increased from $4 million to $16 million.

Although antidepressants are among the drugs most commonly taken by military personnel, their use increased only 40 percent between 2001 and 2009. Spending actually dropped by 16 percent, likely reflecting the new availability of less-expensive generic drugs.

According to a 2009 study by the Veterans Affairs Administration, approximately 60 percent of psychiatric drug use by military personnel is for “off-label” uses not approved by the FDA. Thus, antipsychotic drugs intended for the treatment of schizophrenia are now being widely prescribed for post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms such as anger, headaches, nervousness and nightmares.

“Patients may be exposed to drugs that have problematic side effects without deriving any benefit,” said Robert Rosenheck of Yale University. “We just don’t know. There haven’t been very many studies.”

Further compounding concern over side effects, many troops regularly mix two or more drugs together into untested cocktails. The effects of multiple drugs acting in unison have rarely been tested. When both drugs act on the same organ — in this case, the brain — the chance of unforeseen interactions is even greater.

“In the case of poly-drug use — the ‘cocktail’ — where you are combining an antidepressant, an anticonvulsant, an antipsychotic, and maybe a stimulant to keep this guy awake — that has never been tested,” Breggin said.

Among the side effects that some health professionals worry about are impaired motor skills, reduced reaction time, increased suicide risk, irritability, aggressiveness and hostility.

“Imagine causing that in men and women who are heavily armed and under a great deal of stress,” psychiatrist Peter Breggin said.

Some observers have suggested that the 150 percent increase in suicides in the Army since 2001 and the 50 percent increase in the Marines may be caused in part by the 76 percent increase in the use of psychiatric drugs.

The widespread use of psychotropics, including off-label use and cocktails, is “really a large-scale experiment,” said former Navy psychiatrist Grace Jackson. “We are experimenting with changing people’s cognition and behavior.”

It is difficult to determine the exact causes of increase psychotropic use in the military. Some analysts have pointed to the increased stress of multiple ongoing wars and longer deployments since 2001.

Others, such as Frank Ochberg of Michigan State University, note the faster growth rate of mood-dulling drugs such as antipsychotics and anticonvulsants, and suggest that these drugs are being prescribed to troops readjusting to civilian life.

“The ultimate effect of both of these drugs is to take the heightened arousal — the hypervigilance and all the emotions that served you once you were deployed — and help to turn that back down,” Ochberg said.

Sources for this story include: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/….

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) “registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military … carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.,” it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked “private,” packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, “Wachovia’s Drug Habit,” reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, “with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.,” Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, “the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history.”

“A sum” Bloomberg averred, equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.”

Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others “disappeared,” torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.

In a frightening echo of the Reagan administration’s anti-communist jihad in Central America during the 1980s, the Bush and now, Obama administration has poured fuel on the fire with some $1.4 billion in “War on Drugs” funding under Plan Mérida. Much of that “aid” is destined to purchase military equipment for repressive police, specialized paramilitary units and the Mexican Army.

There is also evidence of direct U.S. military involvement. In June, The Narco News Bulletin reported that “a special operations task force under the command of the Pentagon is currently in place south of the border providing advice and training to the Mexican Army in gathering intelligence, infiltrating and, as needed, taking direct action against narco-trafficking organizations.”

One former U.S. government official told investigative journalist Bill Conroy, “‘Black operations have been going on forever. The recent [mainstream] media reports about those operations under the Obama administration make it sound like it’s a big scoop, but it’s nothing new for those who understand how things really work’.”

But, as numerous investigations by American and Mexican journalists have revealed, there is strong evidence of collusion between the Mexican Army and the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. A former Juarez police commander told NPR in May that “the intention of the army is to try and get rid of the Juarez cartel, so that [Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman] Chapo’s [Sinaloa] cartel is the strongest.”

The cosy relations among the world’s biggest banks, drug trafficking organizations and the U.S. military-intelligence apparatus is not however, a new phenomenon. What isdifferent today is the scale and sheer scope of the corruption involved. As Michel Chossudovsky points out,

This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have “political friends in high places.” As legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between “businesspeople” and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions, including the military. (The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century, Montreal: Global Research, 2010, pp. 195-196)

While the Bloomberg story should cast new light on highly-profitable links amongst major financial institutions and narcotrafficking organizations in what may be protected drug rackets green-lighted by corrupt officials, media silence, particularly by outlets such asThe Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, threaten to propel what should be an international scandal into a one-off news item scheduled for a trip down the memory hole.

“Cocaine One”

If, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman claims “the hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist,” then perhaps too, drug cartels work their “market magic” with their own “hidden fist” or, as the Russians like to say a krysha, a web of protectors–and facilitators–drawn from business, finance, organized crime and the secret world of intelligence.

Dubbed “Cocaine One” by Hopsicker, the DC-9 was curious for a number of reasons, not least of which was the fact that “one of the chief shareholders” of a dodgy outfit called SkyWay Aircraft “is a private investment bank in Dallas which also raised funds for a Mexican industrialist with reported ties to a Cali and Juarez Cartel narcotics trafficker.”

More curious still, the airline kitted-out its fleet with distinctive colors and a seal “designed to impersonate planes from the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security.” And when he learned that “SkyWay’s genesis can be traced to In-Q-Tel Inc., a secretive, Arlington, Va., investment group owned, operated, and financed out of the black box budget of the Central Intelligence Agency,” well you can bet corporate media ran themselves ragged investigating that!

To top it off, when another drug plane crash landed in the Yucatan Peninsula eighteen months later and broke apart, a Gulfstream II business jet (N987SA) that spilled “4 tons of cocaine across a muddy field,” Hopsicker reported that it had originated from the same network and used the same source for its financing, the “Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, a country-wide network of currency exchanges.”

And to make matters even more intriguing from a parapolitical perspective, after searching through FAA records Hopsicker discovered that the Gulfstream II business jet “was owned by a secretive Midwestern media baron and Republican fund-raiser, who had a business partner who, incredibly, owned the other American drug plane, the DC-9, recently busted in Mexico.”

In fact, as Bloomberg investigative journalist Michael Smith learned years later, these were the same planes and same currency exchange which Hopsicker reported back in 2007 traffickers had used to purchase drug jets with funds laundered through Wachovia.

“One customer that Wachovia took on in 2004 was Casa de Cambio Puebla SA,” Smith wrote. The Puebla, Mexico currency exchange was the brainchild of Pedro Alatorre, a “businessman” who “had created front companies for cartels.”

Alatorre, and 70 others connected to his network, were seized in 2007 by Mexican law enforcement officials. Authorities discovered that the accused drug money launderer and airline broker for the cartels controlled 23 accounts at the Wachovia Bank branch in Miami and that it held some $11 million, subsequently frozen by U.S. investigators.

In 2008, a Miami federal grand jury indicted Alatorre, now awaiting trial in Mexico along with three other executives, charging them with drug trafficking and money laundering, accusing the company of using “shell firms to launder $720 million through U.S. banks.” The Justice Department is currently seeking Alatorre’s extradition from Mexico.

According to Bloomberg, “Puebla executives used the stolen identities of 74 people to launder money through Wachovia accounts.” Jose Luis Marmolejo, the former head of the Mexican attorney general’s financial crimes unit told Smith, “Wachovia handled all the transfers, and they never reported any as suspicious.”

Some $300,000 was transferred by Wachovia to a Bank of America branch in Oklahoma City. With cash in hand Bloomberg reports, traffickers “used the funds to buy the DC-9 through Oklahoma City aircraft broker U.S. Aircraft Titles Inc.” When queried by Smith about the sale, “U.S. Aircraft Titles President Sue White declined to comment.”

Jeffrey Sloman, the federal prosecutor who handled the Wachovia case said in a pressrelease that “Wachovia’s blatant disregard for our banking laws gave international cocaine cartels a virtual carte blanche to finance their operations.”

Yet, as Hopsicker wrote nearly three years ago, “the politically-explosive implications of the scandal may explain why American officials have been reluctant to move against, or even name, the true owners of the planes and basically ‘turned a blind eye’ to the American involvement exposed by the drug trafficking seizures.”

As of this writing, no Americans have been criminally charged in the cash-for drug planes banking conspiracy.

“Troubled Assets” or Something More Sinister?

When Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, once America’s fourth largest bank in 2008 at the fire-sale price of $12.8 billion, the bank and its former CEO, Kennedy “Ken” Thompson, who “retired at the request of the board” before the full-extent of the financial meltdown hit home, were in deep trouble.

Before the Wells takeover, Wachovia had been on a veritable shopping spree. After the firm’s 2001 merger with First Union Bank, Wachovia merged with the Prudential Securities division of Prudential Financial, Inc., with Wachovia controlling the lion’s share of the firm’s $532.1 billion in assets. This was followed by the bank’s purchase of Metropolitan West Securities, adding a $50 billion portfolio of securities and loans to the bank’s Lending division. In 2004, Wachovia followed-up with the $14.3 billion acquisition of SouthTrust Corporation.

Apparently flush with cash and new market clout, Wachovia set it sights on acquiring California-based Golden West Financial. Golden West operated branches under the name World Savings Bank and was the nation’s second largest savings and loan. At the time of the buy-out, Golden West had over $125 billion in assets. For Wachovia however, it was a deal too far.

With an enormous housing bubble fully inflated, and a new speculative merger-mania in full swing, one can only surmise that the need for liquidity at any price, had driven banking giants such as Wachovia to play dumb when shadier, yet highly-profitable transactions, such as the “arrangement” with Casa de Cambio Puebla SA, were involved.

Bleeding cash faster than you can say “mortgage backed securities,” Wachovia was on the hook for their 2006 $26 billion buy-out of Golden West Financial at the peak of the housing bubble, a move that BusinessWeek reported generated “resistance from his own management team” but ignored by Thompson.

Why? “Because no one outside of Thompson and Golden West CEO Herb Sandler seemed to like the deal from the moment it was announced,” a company insider toldBusinessWeek.

While the buy-out may have given Thompson “the beachhead in California he had long desired … the ink was barely dry on the Golden West deal in late 2006 when the housing bubble in markets including California and Florida began to deflate.”

Hammered by the housing bust, Wachovia’s share price, which had risen to $70.51 per share when the Golden West deal was announced had slid to $5.71 per share by October 2008. In other words, Wachovia, along with the world’s economy, began circling the proverbial drain.

However you slice it, although it was clear that the Golden West deal had gone south quicker than you can say “credit default swaps,” this didn’t seem to stop Wachovia from paying “smartest guy in the room” Thompson $15.6 million in total compensation in 2007, a year after the fatal Golden West transaction. Nor did these losses stop the bank from showering Thompson with a severance package worth nearly $8 million.

But was something else going on here?

Wells Fargo bank admitted in a signed Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the federal government that they would not contest charges brought by the Justice Department in its indictment of the bank.

The banking giant was forced to admit charges by prosecutors that “On numerous occasions, monies were deposited into a CDC [Casa de Cambio] by a drug trafficking organization. Using false identities, the CDC then wired that money through its Wachovia correspondent bank accounts for the purchase of airplanes for drug trafficking organizations. On various dates between 2004 and 2007, at least four of those airplanes were seized by foreign law enforcement agencies cooperating with the United States and were found to contain large quantities of cocaine.”

Bloomberg reported that Wells Fargo, in the wake of the settlement “declined to answer specific questions, including how much it made by handling $378.4 billion–including $4 billion of cash–from Mexican exchange companies.”

There was however, more than “troubled assets” and charges of money laundering to the story. In fact, the purchase of these drug planes have been tied to some of the Bush administration’s most secretive “War On Terror” programs.

Drug Flights, CIA Renditions. Just Another Day at the Office!

Replicating a pattern used by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, the secret state used a network of cut-outs and legitimate businesses to transport prisoners to Agency black sites for “special handling.”

During Iran-Contra it was “guns in, drugs out.” Today one might say its “drugs in, tortured prisoners out.” The results however, were the same; egregious crimes and lawbreaking on a staggering scale.

Subsequent investigations by Narco News revealed that “this particular Gulfstream II (tail number N987SA), was used between 2003 and 2005 by the CIA for at least three trips between the U.S. east coast and Guantanamo Bay, home to the infamous ‘terrorist’ prison camp,” Bill Conroy reported.

“In addition,” Conroy wrote, “the two SkyWay companies are associated with individuals who have done highly sensitive work for the Department of Defense or U.S. intelligence agencies, public records show and Narco News sources confirm.”

According to AFP, the Mexican daily El Universal said “it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which ‘show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects,’” the French newswire reported.

The plane was carrying “Colombian drugs” bound for the U.S. for the “fugitive leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman,” when it crashed in the Yucatan.

According to El Universal, the Federal Aviation Administration’s “logbook registered that the plane had traveled between US territory and the US military base in Guantanamo,” and that its last registered owner was “Clyde O’Connor in Pompano Beach, Florida.”

The Independent confirmed separately in January of this year that “Evidence points to aircraft–familiarly known as ‘torture taxis’–used by the CIA to move captives seized in its kidnapping or ‘extraordinary rendition’ operations through Gatwick and other airports in the EU being simultaneously used for drug distribution in the Western hemisphere.”

Hugh O’Shaughnessy, confirming earlier reporting by Bill Conroy and Daniel Hopsicker said that “a Gulfstream II jet aircraft N9875A identified by the British Government and the European Parliament as being involved in this traffic crashed in Mexico in September 2008 while en route from Colombia to the US with a load of more than three tons of cocaine.”

While O’Shaughnessy got the tail-number and date wrong, he’s correct when he states that U.S. intelligence assets “continue the drug dealing they indulged in during the Iran-Contra affair of the Reagan years.”

Narco News, citing DEA sources, learned that the crashed Gulfstream loaded with four tons of cocaine “was part of an operation being carried out by a Department of Homeland Security agency.”

However in a later report, Mark Conrad, a former supervisory special agent with ICE’s predecessor agency, U.S. Customs, told Narco News that the crashed Gulfstream used to transport drugs and prisoners was controlled by the CIA and “that the CIA, not ICE … [was] actually the U.S. agency controlling the … operation. If this were the case, then “any individuals or companies involved in a CIA-backed operation, even ones that are complicit in drug trafficking, would be off limits to U.S. law enforcers due to the cloak of national security the CIA can invoke.”

In other words, a jet purchased by drug traffickers with funds laundered through an American bank and used in the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program may have been part of a protected drug operation by U.S. intelligence agencies. An operation furthermore, whose purpose is still unknown.

This report tracks closely with evidence uncovered by Peter Dale Scott. In a recent piece in Japan Focus Scott wrote that “it is not surprising that the U.S. Government, following the lead of the CIA, has over the years become a protector of drug traffickers against criminal prosecution in this country.”

“A recent spectacular example” Scott tells us, drawing on research from his forthcoming book, is the curious case of CIA Venezuelan asset, General Ramon Guillén Davila.

General Ramon Guillén Davila, chief of a CIA-created anti-drug unit in Venezuela, was indicted in Miami for smuggling a ton of cocaine into the United States. According to the New York Times, “The CIA, over the objections of the Drug Enforcement Administration, approved the shipment of at least one ton of pure cocaine to Miami International Airport as a way of gathering information about the Colombian drug cartels.” Time magazine reported that a single shipment amounted to 998 pounds, following earlier ones “totaling nearly 2,000 pounds.” Mike Wallace confirmed that “the CIA-national guard undercover operation quickly accumulated this cocaine, over a ton and a half that was smuggled from Colombia into Venezuela.” According to the Wall Street Journal, the total amount of drugs smuggled by Gen. Guillén may have been more than 22 tons. (Fueling America’s War Machine: Deep Politics and the CIA’s Global Drug Connection (in press, due Fall 2010 from Rowman & Littlefield).

Scott adds that “the United States never asked for Guillén’s extradition from Venezuela to stand trial; and in 2007, when he was arrested in Venezuela for plotting to assassinate President Hugo Chavez, his indictment was still sealed in Miami. Meanwhile, CIA officer Mark McFarlin, whom DEA Chief Bonner had also wished to indict, was never indicted at all; he merely resigned.”

But the stench of Iran-Contra, like that of the CIA’s torture program, as with earlier secret state machinations with drug cartels never went away; in fact, like a cancer, one managed drug operation seamlessly metastasized into another.

Greasing the Wheels

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODOC) state in their 2010 Annual Report that “money-laundering is the method by which criminals disguise the illegal origins of their wealth and protect their asset bases in order to avoid suspicion of law enforcement and to prevent leaving a trail of incriminating evidence,” and that financial institutions, particularly U.S. and European banks are key to efforts to choke-off illicit profits from the grisly trade.

The trouble is these institutions, along with U.S. intelligence agencies, are the problem.

UNODOC estimate that profits derived from narcotics rackets amount to some $600 billion annually and that up to $1.5 trillion dollars in drug money is laundered through seemingly legitimate enterprises.

Part of the fallout from capitalism’s economic meltdown has been that “drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis,” The Observer disclosed late last year.

Antonio Maria Costa, UNODOC’s director, told the British newspaper he saw evidence that proceeds from the illicit trade were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year and that “a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.”

The UN drugs chief said that in “many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital.” And with markets tanking and major bank failures nearly a daily occurrence, “liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”

According to Costa, “Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.”

Web of Corruption

Although the UN’s top anti-narcotics official declined to identify either the countries or banks that have benefited from the murderous trade, a web of corruption envelops the entire financial sector of the capitalist economy as the quest for “liquid assets” trumps everything.

Martin Woods, once director of Wachovia’s anti-money-laundering unit in London toldBloomberg, “It’s the banks laundering money for the cartels that finances the tragedy.” Woods told the magazine he “quit the bank in disgust” after executives “ignored his documentation that drug dealers were funneling money through Wachovia’s branch network.”

Despite warnings from the Treasury Department since 1996 that Mexican currency exchanges were laundering drug money through U.S. banks, “Wachovia ignored warnings by regulators and police, according to the deferred-prosecution agreement,”Bloomberg reported.

“As early as 2004, Wachovia understood the risk,” the bank admitted in court. “Despite these warnings, Wachovia remained in the business.”

At the bank’s anti-money laundering unit in London, Woods and his counterpart Jim DeFazio in Charlotte, NC told Smith “they suspected that drug dealers were using the bank to move funds.”

Former Scotland Yard investigator Woods, said he “spotted illegible signatures and other suspicious markings on traveler’s checks from Mexican exchange companies,” and that he sent copies of his report to the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority, the DEA and U.S. Treasury Department.

But rather than being rewarded for his diligence, Woods told Smith “his bosses instructed him to keep quiet and tried to have him fired.” In one meeting, “a bank official insisted Woods shouldn’t have filed suspicious activity reports to the government, as both U.S. and U.K. laws require.”

According to a whistleblower suit filed with an employment tribunal in London, Barronsreported last year before the Wachovia scandal broke, that Woods claimed “his bosses bullied and demoted him, then withdrew his reports of other suspicious activities in Eastern Europe.”

It gets worse. Woods’ complaint alleges “that Wachovia staff may have even tipped off Mexican-exchange clients about his laundering suspicions,” and the veteran investigator told Wachovia officials “he feared for his safety.”

In response, bank spokesperson Mary Eshet said at the time, “Wachovia believes that it has acted appropriately in its business dealings, and Mr. Woods’ claims to the contrary are without merit.”

Meanwhile, on the American side of the pond, 21-year FBI veteran DeFazio said “he told bank executives in 2005 that the DEA was probing the transfers through Wachovia to buy the planes.” The bank ignored his warnings and continued along on their merry way until their indictment.

The law enforcement veteran told Bloomberg, “I think they looked at the money and said, ‘The hell with it. We’re going to bring it in, and look at all the money we’ll make’.”

The former Scotland yard investigator added, “If you don’t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you’re missing the point.”

But Wachovia wasn’t the only large financial institution “missing the point.” Bloombergalso revealed that Bank of America and the London-based “HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe’s biggest bank by assets,” American Express Bank, Banco Santander SA, Citigroup Inc., as well as “the world’s largest money transfer firm,” Western Union were also up to their eyeballs in dubious transactions.

In 1994 for example, American Express paid $14 million to settle with the federal government after “two employees were convicted in a criminal case involving drug trafficker Juan Garcia Abrego.”

Yet between 1999-2004, Bloomberg reported “the bank failed to stop clients from laundering $55 million of narcotics funds, the bank admitted in a deferred-prosecution agreement in August 2007 … and paid $65 million to the U.S. and promised not to break the law again.” Charges were dismissed a year later under terms of the agreement.

And back in 2004, The Independent disclosed that “HSBC, the UK’s largest bank, have been slammed for lax money-laundering procedures in a report by a US Senate subcommittee.”

Journalists Hugh O’Shaughnessy and Paul Lashmar revealed that “the UK-based multinational stands accused of laxity in the fight against money laundering, drug trafficking, corruption and terrorism, notably in the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.”

“In one of the few cases” when the scandal-plagued and now-shuttered Riggs Bank “seems to have properly followed US anti-money-laundering legislation,” Riggs formally asked HSBC and a Spanish bank, Banco Santander, “to divulge the identities of the owners of two companies that kept accounts with them and that were receiving suspicious wire transfers totalling in excess of $35m (£20m). The banks refused to say who the owners were.”

Bloomberg disclosed that “federal agents caught people who work for Mexican cartels depositing illicit funds in Bank of America accounts in Atlanta, Chicago and Brownsville, Texas, from 2002 to 2009.” Authorities contend that “Mexican drug dealers used shell companies to open accounts at London-based HSBC.”

Nevertheless, neither bank were accused of wrongdoing by the federal government and both firms denied any involvement in money laundering schemes.

Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton told Smith that they “strictly follow the government rules.” Norton said, “Bank of America takes its anti-money-laundering responsibilities very seriously,” a fact not readily apparent from Bloomberg Marketsinvestigation.

Both Norton and HSBC spokesman Roy Caple told Smith that “[privacy] laws bar them from discussing specific clients.”

And so it goes.

Fallout? What Fallout!

In the wake of Wachovia’s admission to federal prosecutors, Wells Fargo will pay “$160 million in fines and penalties, less than 2 percent of its $12.3 billion profit in 2009.”

“If Wells Fargo keeps its pledge,” Bloomberg reports, then “according to the agreement [the federal government will] drop all charges against the bank in March 2011.”

Why might that be? Large banks are immune from vigorous prosecution for violating the Bank Secrecy Act “by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.”

Veteran Senate investigator Jack Blum, who led probes into the Iran-Contra drug connection and the CIA’s favorite shadow bank during the 1980s, the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) told Bloomberg, “the theory is like a get-out-of-jail-free card for big banks.”

“There’s no capacity to regulate or punish them because they’re too big to be threatened with failure,” Blum says. “They seem to be willing to do anything that improves their bottom line, until they’re caught.”

Meanwhile as the bodies pile up, there’s no jail time for executives and the assets of firms that could charitably be described as part of a “continuing criminal enterprise” haven’t been seized; only a slap on the wrist and a promise to “do better next time.”

A former Fort Lauderdale cop who hit and killed a pedestrian on Federal Highway and, it was later learned, regularly topped speeds of 90 mph while driving in his patrol car was sentenced Friday to 60 days in jail.

After a Broward County jury acquitted Alexander Griss last month of vehicular homicide and convicted him instead of misdemeanor reckless driving, the judge was restricted to imposing no more than a 90-day jail sentence.

Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes reminded Griss that when he was a police officer, he was supposed to adhere to a higher standard.

“We gave you a car, a badge and a gun and that was to protect and defend the citizens,” she said. “Not to continue with a penchant for a lead foot.”

Along with 60 days in jail, she sentenced Griss to six months’ probation, a $250 fine and 100 hours of community service. She suggested his service hours be spent speaking to youth about the dangers of driving too fast.

Just off duty and heading home at about 5:20 a.m. in June 2006, Griss barreled down Federal Highway at speeds of up to 90 mph when he hit Althea Tobias McKay as she crossed the street. Her body flew 112 feet.

Upon taking the witness stand Friday, McKay’s daughter, Alexandria Brown, broke into tears, something she said she has done daily since losing her 39-year-old mother.

“I don’t have a mom anymore,” she said. “I was 19 when my mom died. I have to live with this for the rest of my life.”

When Griss took his turn on the stand, he offered a tearful apology to McKay’s family for the “tragic accident,” yet disputed that he drove at speeds as high as others testified to.

Read more at this link.

Mr. Rose has produced a brilliant video on how the Constitution enables the legalized theft of your time and wealth,  The former especially if you withhold the latter.

See:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/900.html

This extractive power is UNLIMITED in the original document.  By the tenth anniversary of the ratification of this regrettable document, the taxes levied on excises, land, homes, slaves and document was well under way as established law.  Later to be rubber stamped by the “independent” Federal judiciary.

I urge you not to take my word for it nor that of the eminent Mr. Rose.  Read the Constitution.  Read the Anti-Federalist papers.  Read the Articles of Confederation.  Ignore anything you see on the television; as a matter of fact, cut off your cable or satellite immediately.

Here is my challenge to every one of my readers:  prove me wrong.  Show me that the Constitution lost its way and it was originally a blueprint for limited government.  Good luck, you will need it.

And as a a corollary to this investigation, answer this innocent question: what government in Western history has ever limited its power and grown smaller and weaker over time?

Government is never the solution, it is always the problem.