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May 19, 2007

Fuck the LAPD

btw... my load should be lightening up as of...just about... now!

w00t!

and, yes, fuck these hoodlums.

freak power

latimes.com

Steve Lopez:

Points West

The LAPD owes the city some answers

May 3, 2007

John Mack of the Los Angeles Police Commission summed it up neatly Wednesday afternoon at City Hall when he said: "This was not a pretty picture."

He was referring to videos of LAPD riot cops in action Tuesday evening in MacArthur Park. Once again, a small number of officers appears to have created another PR nightmare for the department. Even their boss, Chief William J. Bratton, said he was disturbed by what he called inappropriate behavior.

I wasn't there, so I'm not sure exactly how this ugly chapter unfolded at the end of a long day of peaceful demonstrations by immigrant and workers' rights advocates. Bratton said that 50 to 100 agitators, as he called them, got into a skirmish with police. Witnesses said the knuckleheads were throwing bottles at cops, several of whom were injured.

But what followed, much of it captured by news crews, raises more than a few questions.

Video shot that evening shows police moving in on MacArthur Park like they were taking Iwo Jima. They ordered people involved in peaceful demonstrations to move out. There was confusion, with some people leaving and others lingering as the drama played out.

Then we see officers aiming rifles to fire foam bullets.

We see civilians go down.

We see fear and panic.

We see a man holding a child and running for cover.

We see a nasty bruise on the belly of a man hit with a foam bullet.

We see police wielding batons, ordering reporters to scram, shoving two television cameramen, tussling with another member of the media and pushing Fox 11 news reporter Christina Gonzales away as she tries to help her fallen videographer.

Gonzalez reported that police had ordered her to get into her van and "shut the door." But the reporter, whose husband is a retired LAPD cop, didn't want to be sealed off like that, unable to "videotape some of the other people" who were "getting roughed up, to put it mildly."

She was later taken to the hospital with what she thought was a dislocated shoulder, but she turned out to be OK. She said her videographer was treated for a wrist injury.

"I have never seen anything like this," Gonzalez said on Fox 11 early Wednesday. She said that while police were trying to herd reporters and others out of the way, she heard them laughing and saying: "Double time, it's tussle time."

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, was in the park for a peaceful rally that suddenly turned chaotic.

"I started hearing gunshots, people started screaming, people with children started running, hiding behind bushes and under trees," Salas said. "I couldn't understand what was happening, but I saw a man get up after a big old rubber bullet hit him in the side."

Salas tried to escort families out of the area, but it was unclear what directions might be safe, and more shots could still be heard. "My biggest concern was that the police weren't discerning between" agitators and "the vast majority of people who were there peacefully."

I'd like to know what commanders were in charge and what they were thinking. I'd like to know if police aimed rifles at specific targets or into the crowd. I'd like to know why police thought it was OK to rough up or muzzle reporters who were simply doing their jobs. And I'd like to know how this will be avoided in the future.

A lot to ask, maybe. But Bratton promised several investigations, and the public deserves answers in double time.

*

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Tags: may day, pissed

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Posted on 05/19/2007 12:18 PM Comments (5)

May 15, 2007

so busy...

so, so busy!

:P

i have someone i need to thank for a birfday gift (nina!!).

more on that soon too.

& i have some picatures to post/comments to make.

bear with!

back in a jiffy!

t.

Tags: buried, gak

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Posted on 05/15/2007 8:00 AM Comments (2)

May 9, 2007

Article from Santa Barbara News-Press Dissident/Refugee Reporter Online Newspaper on KCSB's Presentation of Jeremy Scahill's "Blackwater" Lecture

from santabarbaranewsroom.com

Donate to the SBN Wednesday, May 9 2007 - 11:26 PST
U.S. Depends on Mercenaries in Iraq, Bestselling Author Says

By Melinda Burns

Friday, April 27 2007

Jeremy Scahill, the author of “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army,” a bestselling expose on the private force working for the U.S. occupation in Iraq, came to Isla Vista on Thursday night with the message that “we need to bring an end to the war.”

Few Americans were even aware that there were highly trained and highly paid soldiers under private contract in Iraq until the fateful ambush of March 31, 2004, in the city of Fallujah, Scahill told a large audience at the Isla Vista Theater.

Thanks to more than $750 million in federal contracts, Blackwater USA is now the most powerful mercenary army in the world, Jeremy Scahill said. Photo by Hector Javkin / SBN

On that day, he said, four mercenaries in the employ of Blackwater, a private military company based in North Carolina, were attacked with a grenade by mujahedeen and then burned to death by a crowd of 300. Two charred American bodies were left hanging from a bridge — an image that went around the world. In response, the U.S. carried out a revenge attack that razed the city, killing hundreds of Iraqis.

During the first Gulf War from 1990 to 1991, Scahill said, U.S. forces were made up of 60 active-duty soldiers for every soldier serving under private contract. Today in Iraq, he said, the U.S. has deployed only one active-duty soldier for every mercenary, meaning that half the occupation force is under private contract, operating largely in the shadows, unscrutinized and unconstrained.

Thanks to more than $750 million in contracts from the Bush administration, Blackwater USA is now the most powerful mercenary army in the world, Scahill said. A Blackwater soldier may earn as much as $30,000 per month — roughly a year’s pay for enlisted soldiers.

“They’ve gone to war with the army they’ve bought,” Scahill said. “They’ve masked the total costs of the war.” As for the Democrats, Scahill said, they have done “almost nothing” to check the rampant privatization of the military.

Blackwater is on the rise at home, too, he said: On the orders of the Bush administration, the company sent security forces to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city. Ironically, they replaced the National Guard troops who had been deployed to Iraq.

The founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, a conservative Christian millionaire, has poured money into Republican campaigns, Scahill said.

“We’re in the midst of very dark times right now,” he said.

After the four Blackwater soldiers were killed in Fallujah, Scahill said he came to know their families. They had many questions about what the soldiers were doing in Fallujah that day, he said, and why they were driving in unarmored jeeps. He said the mothers told him how Blackwater flew them to the company headquarters, barred them from comparing notes and told them they would have to file suit to obtain the official report on the attack.

The families sued, claiming that although their sons had signed contracts to do dangerous work, the company did not live up to its promise to provide sufficient safeguards.

Blackwater has contended that the company, like the U.S. military, cannot legally be sued. The U.S. Supreme Court has denied Blackwater’s appeals, and a trial is pending in state court in North Carolina.

During the question-and-answer period after his speech on Thursday, Scahill was asked whether the U.S. Department of Defense could learn anything from the tactics of the mercenary armies in the war against terrorists.

No, Scahill said, “The best way we can combat terrorism is to stop slaughtering people around the world. This is not a war we’re going to win.”

Scahill, a correspondent for the radio and television program “Democracy Now!”, will speak next in Oakland on a tour of California to promote his new book. Thursday’s event in Isla Vista was sponsored by KCSB 91.9 FM.

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