Tag: Crime & Punishment

The Crime Of The Century (Or It Should Be)

I will write about other topics other than politics and foreign policy….especially when I see something that chaps my butt.

Today there is some type of crime around every corner…..but the worst among these is human trafficking…..there is nothing more despicable than the trafficking of humans….politics come close but no cigar when compared.

Trafficking in persons is a serious crime and a grave violation of human rights. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Almost every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims. UNODC, as guardian of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Protocols thereto, assists States in their efforts to implement the  Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons (Trafficking in Persons Protocol).

…….and then there are the charities that use every available opportunity to skim money…..

We are always hearing one horror story after another……

I read a report about one charity that was almost as bad as the traffickers…..the charity was called “Courage House”…….https://courageworldwide.org/courage-house/

Once girls arrived at the house, they were expected to hand over their cellphones. Internet access was also strictly limited—Jenny’s rules. For “her girls” to stay in good graces, they were expected to do as she said, go where she told them to, and be available when she wanted to show them off in photos or at events.

It’s the kind of controlling, exploitative situation police warn us that runaway teens are likely to end up in at the hands of human traffickers. But in this case, control came via the people ostensibly helping—and accepting a lot of private and government money to help—these girls, under the auspices of an organization called Courage Worldwide. Founded in 2011 by Jenny T. Williamson (on direct orders from God, or so she claims), the Sacramento-based organization provided housing and services for formerly sex-trafficked young women at a California group home (Courage House) as well as a sister site in Tanzania.

Source: Courage House Claimed to Save Sex-Trafficked Girls. Instead, It Used Them As Funding Bait While Playing Evangelical Christian Missionary – Hit & Run : Reason.com

There is NO hole deep enough or dark enough for people like this.

Choose your charity well…..who knows what they are up to behind the scenes…..

When Is The Death Penalty Needed

In most cases I am against the death penalty…..in most cases but there are a few that I think should be mandatory……that being when someone knowingly destroys a heritage site or a cultural site……

This guy for instance…….

The trial of a Malian jihadist, charged with war crimes for orchestrating the 2012 destruction of nine Timbuktu mausoleums and a section of a famous mosque, opened  Monday at the International Criminal Court

Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi asked for forgiveness as he pleaded guilty to the 2012 attacks on the fabled city of Timbuktum in Mali, Africa, and urged Muslims not to follow such “evil” ways at his unprecedented war crimes trial.

“Your honor, regrettably I have to say that what I heard so far is accurate and reflects the events. I plead guilty,” he said as his trial opened, admitting a sole war crimes charge of cultural destruction.

Source: Muslim extremist pleads guilty to 2012 destruction of Timbuktu treasures | Public Radio International

This prick is sorry?  He knew what he was doing….there is NO excuse!  He should fry!

This destruction was NOT an isolated situation….

The following are examples of world cultural heritage destroyed or damaged during recent conflicts.

– Mali –

The fabled desert city of Timbuktu, named as the “City of 333 saints” and listed by UNESCO, was for months attacked by jihadists bent on imposing a brutal version of Islamic law.

In June 2012, Al-Qaeda-linked militants destroyed 14 of the northern city’s mausoleums, important buildings that date back to Timbuktu’s golden age in the 15th and 16th centuries as an economic, intellectual and spiritual hub.

The reconstruction of the shrines began in March 2014, relying heavily on traditional methods and employing local masons. Several countries and organisations financed the reconstruction, including UNESCO.

Work finished on the site in July 2015, and a ceremony marking the completion was held on February 4, 2016.

– Syria –

More than 900 monuments or archeological sites have been looted, damaged or destroyed by the regime, rebels or jihadists in Syria, where a devastating war has raged since 2011, according to APSA, the association charged with protecting Syrian architecture.

In September 2015, Islamic State (IS) fighters destroyed two of the most important temples in the UNESCO-listed Syrian city of Palmyra as they pressed a campaign to wipe out some of the Middle East’s most important heritage sites.

They include the ancient city’s most famed shrine, the 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel, blown up a week after the destruction of the temple of Baal Shamin.

Other notable sites damaged or looted include Dura-Europos in eastern Syria, once known as the “Pompeii of the desert”, Apamea, Ebla and Tal Ajaja.

However, the IS group is not the only one responsible for ravaging Syria’s heritage, with all sides in the fighting looting and destroying ancient sites.

“Two thirds of the ancient city of Aleppo have been bombarded and set on fire,” according to UNESCO.

– Iraq –

IS has carried out a campaign of “cultural cleansing”, razing part of ancient Mesopotamia’s relics and looting others to sell valued artefacts on the black market.

In a video released by IS on February 26, 2015 militants were shown using sledgehammers to smash pre-Islamic treasures in the museum in the country’s second city Mosul, sparking global outrage.

Thousands of books and rare manuscripts were also burned in February in Mosul’s library.

According to the Iraqi government, IS militants on March 5, 2015 bulldozed and blew up Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city south of Mosul.

They also attacked Hatra, a Roman-period site, in the northern Niniveh province.

– Libya –

Several mausoleums have been destroyed by Islamist extremists since the overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

In August 2012, Islamist hardliners bulldozed part of the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman, close to the centre of the Libyan capital.

The demolition came a day after hardliners blew up the mausoleum of Sheikh Abdessalem al-Asmar in the western city of Zliten.

In 2013 suspected Islamic extremists destroyed the centuries-old mausoleum of Murad Agha in Tripoli, but the tomb inside withstood the attack.

Afghanistan –

In March 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered the destruction of two 1,500-year-old Buddha statues in the eastern town of Bamiyan, because they were judged to be anti-Islamic.

Hundreds of members of the Taliban from across the country spent more than three weeks demolishing the gigantic statues carved into the side of a cliff.

In 2003 the cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley were put on UNESCO’S world heritage list.

– Algeria –

Armed Islamic groups in the 1990s destroyed several sanctuaries which dotted Algerian soil.

(yourmiddleeast.com)

There must be consequences when you destroy a nation’s cultural and historic sites…execution would suit me just fine.

 

It Is Always About The Money

Life is strange…but there is one constant…..the pursuit of money……we start wars because of it…..we run for office to gain access to it…..we write books in search of fame and fortune……and that is where I pick up with the news….

A former Navy SEAL who wrote about taking part in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden will have to pay all current and future profits from the book—and possible movie rights—to the government, the AP reports. It’s an amount already exceeding $6.6 million. In addition, Matt Bissonnette, who wrote No Easy Day under a pseudonym in 2012, will have to pay the government $1.3 million to cover its legal fees, according to ABC News. Bissonnette was in trouble for violating non-disclosure agreements he signed when he was a Navy SEAL and not clearing the book with the Defense Department before publishing it. Bissonnette signed the settlement Friday.

As part of the settlement, Bissonnette agreed to make a formal apology. “I acted on the advice of my former attorney, but I now fully recognize that his advice was wrong,” NPR quotes Bissonnette as saying. “It was a serious error that I urge others not to repeat.” In return, the government dismissed other claims against Bissonnette. It also stated what happened “does not discredit Mr. Bissonnette’s military service.” Bissonnette has four years to pay off most of the more than $6.6 million he currently owes the government. But he only has 30 days to pay the government $100,000 he made giving presentations on his experiences.

This douche broke protocol and gets a slap on the wrist……

There are some things that are done by the military that the public just does not need to know…..parts of this situation are apparently still classified…..if that is the case then this is treason and should be punished accordingly.

When I left the military I had to sign the same document….apparently it is not as important as it was in my day….for it was a mandatory jail time and a fine…….

Apparently the lure of lots of cash will make some do anything to achieve it….

I do NOT care who this person is or what he says he has done………This dick should be in prison and ALL cash confiscated.

Peroid!

How Much More Disgusting Can Israel Become?

I have thought that the state of Israel is disgusting for decades….first they attack an American Naval vessel killing American sailors and gets away with it….next they destroy crops and demolish homes so they can steal the land for their illegal; settlements….all of which I find disgusting…but recently I heard a rumor that organs were being harvested from dead Palestinian protesters…..and then I read an article along those lines…..that confirmed the rumors……

Israel has admitted pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians, and others, without the consent of their families – a practice it said ended in the 1990s – it emerged at the weekend.

The admission, by the former head of the country’s forensic institute, followed a furious row prompted by a Swedish newspaper reporting that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to use their organs – a charge that Israel denied and called “antisemitic”.

Source: Doctor admits Israeli pathologists harvested organs without consent | World news | The Guardian

This is reprehensible and then I read yet another piece about this situation……

Lawyers for a man who pleaded guilty Thursday in the first ever federal conviction for illegal organ trafficking say he was performing life-saving services for severely ill people.

Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from New York, admitted in a Trenton federal court to brokering three illegal kidney transplants for desperate New Jersey-based customers in exchange for payments of $120,000 or more.

He also pleaded guilty to a conspiracy count for brokering an illegal kidney sale.

Source: Organ trafficker admits buying Israeli kidneys for $10,000 and selling them in U.S. for $120,000… – Linkis.com

When will the Western world stop protecting these pigs from being held accountable for their actions…..

I think this state is more barbaric than people know…..so if calling these bastards out for their crimes makes me an anti-Semite then I am guilty.

The War on Drugs Failed, So Why Isn’t It Over?

With all the interests in the legalized marijuana trade we need to talk about the War On Drugs……

Could the US use a trillion dollars?  Or how about $15 billion a year?

That is the approximate cost of the war on Drugs a year….$15 billion and over 1 trillion has been wasted over the past 40 years with little evidence that the War is being won.

I have been a verbal critic of this “War” for the last 40 years…In the beginning I said it would be waste of money and resources….and NOTHING that has happened in those years has changed my opinion….I am shown the “busts” over the years and they are substantial…..i the same period the flow into this country has not dried up….with that equation one can only surmise that it is a FAILURE!

What could be the benefit by ending this worthless “War”?

Jeffrey Miron, an economist at Harvard who studies drug policy closely, has suggested that legalizing all illicit drugs would produce net benefits to the United States of some $65 billion a year, mostly by cutting public spending on enforcement as well as through reduced crime and corruption. A study by analysts at the RAND Corporation, a California research organization, suggested that if marijuana were legalized in California and the drug spilled from there to other states, Mexican drug cartels would lose about a fifth of their annual income of some $6.5 billion from illegal exports to the United States.

If there are such benefits then why keep the fight going?

Why are politicians so far behind, even as calls for legalization go mainstream?

At the request of Latin American leaders who have grown weary of bloody battles over drugs, the United Nations held a summit last week on the “world drug problem” at its headquarters in New York City. For a moment, it seemed as if the global war on drugs was beginning to crumble under its own weight.

Before the summit even began, the UN officials were under fire for making concessions to powerful countries with harsh drug control regimes and failing to push the global discourse beyond the decades-old treaties that laid the foundation for international drug prohibition. Hundreds of political leaders and policy groups condemned the summit’s guiding statement for refusing to recognize that decades of prohibition have done more harm than good, fueling mass incarceration, organized crime, infectious diseases and general bloodshed across the world while failing to reduce supply or demand.

Source: The War on Drugs Failed, So Why Isn’t It Over?

I said 40 years ago and I feel the same today…..legalize, tax and be done with the waste…..there are worthy programs that could use an infusion of funds.

Whistleblowing As An Art

Whistle Blowers in our history have been hailed as heroes and traitors…..these people take transparency and the public’s right to know the facts seriously…..

Back in my youthful days the hero was Daniel Ellsberg who released the Pentagon Papers….a report that told the story of our involvement in Vietnam and it was not the “approved” version the government fed to the media.

Then there was Manning who released a bunch of “classified” stuff that told a different version the the accepted one…..

Finally, the latest whistle blower to make the news has bee Edward Snowden……

In this foreword from The Assassination Complex, a new book about drone warfare, the whistleblower explains why leaking information about wrongdoing is a vital act of resistance….

I’ve been waiting 40 years for someone like you.” Those were the first words Daniel Ellsberg spoke to me when we met last year. Dan and I felt an immediate kinship; we both knew what it meant to risk so much – and to be irrevocably changed – by revealing secret truths.

One of the challenges of being a whistleblower is living with the knowledge that people continue to sit, just as you did, at those desks, in that unit, throughout the agency; who see what you saw and comply in silence, without resistance or complaint. They learn to live not just with untruths but with unnecessary untruths, dangerous untruths, corrosive untruths. It is a double tragedy: what begins as a survival strategy ends with the compromise of the human being it sought to preserve and the diminishing of the democracy meant to justify the sacrifice.

Source: Edward Snowden: ‘Governments can reduce our dignity to that of tagged animals’ | US news | The Guardian

Legal or not….I still support people that have the gonads to buck the system and release information that they public needs to know……most of the condemnation comes from people that have no idea of what has been released other than what some high paid pundit tells them….it is usually a different story when they learn that their rights are being violated….then their tune usually changes.

Personally, I do not want to be in the dark about the actions of my government……but that is me.

Panama Papers

Note:  Sorry to say I am under the weather today……so I will be posting some of the drafts that I have saved….hopefully I will return to normal tomorrow.  chuq

The big story this week….that is if you are not one of those that sucks at the election tit……is the release of the so-called “Panama Papers”.

The MSM media makes sure that the world knows that someone close to Russia’s Putin is on the list and somehow don’t mention that so is the King of Saudi Arabia or a leader in the UAE or for that matter the PM of Ukraine…is that because these thieves are considered “allies” of the US?  How much of this cash is US taxpayers cash given as foreign aid?

The “Papers” have already cost the PM of Iceland his job….who will be next?

The “Panama Papers” are the largest leak in world history, revealing millions of documents related to the offshore accounts of politicians, former politicians, and billionaires around the world.

Despite much of the media’s focus on tax evasion as the primary theme of the Panama Papers story, which embarrassed governments are happy to adopt as the primary theme as well, the question is one of official corruption.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) itself, which first published the data, says it reveals the holdings of “drug dealers, Mafia members, corrupt politicians and tax evaders–and wrongdoing galore.”

Source: Panama Papers Are About Government Corruption, Not ‘Tax Evasion’ – Hit & Run : Reason.com