EFTA01732882.pdf

From: Gregory Brown < Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2015 8:07 AM To: undisclosed-recipients: Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.. 11/29/2015 DEAR FRIEND The Truth is Out <=span> Newly Released Clinton Email Proves Bush & Blair Plotte= Iraq War A Year Before Launching It <https://mail.google.com/mail=u/0/?ui=2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&=mp;attid=0.0.4&disp=e mb&realattid=ii_15081402bec20e67&at=bid=ANGjd.l_oZHyaoyPPTnU- bct5YCi NEjcW_w0nzqDO lajpIvTRwEY5P7m 210Dc0JN1OILG=twOGLxFWfpbo2yU KyxEA2yKK lckBtfYzOTHalFeMj9zab8zM OpUzJoF-M&sz=s0-175=amp;ats=1448775957410&rm=15151c6b2ef39c10&zw> </=ont> For so many of our people in C=ngress who are lawyers, you would think that they would adhere to the old =ourtroom rule, "never ask a question that you don't kno= the answer" and as my grandmother would have said, "=C24,and don't be surprise to find a worm when turning over a s=one." Well in their attempt to find embarrassing emails =hat might damage Hillary Clinton's Presidential chances — =es there was some astonishing details hidden in Hillary Clinton's =mails —just not what the Republicans thought it was. Newly =eleased information indicates that then-President George W. Bush had reach=d a secret deal with British Prime Minister Tony Blair to invade Iraq Q=804> nearly a year before the invasion took place. A secret meeting=took place in April 2002, where Colin Powell wrote that "H= [Blair] will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs li=es that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause,=E24,4> Powell wrote, adding that the prime minister has the ski=ls to "make a credible public case on current Iraqi threat= to international peace," according to Newsmax. EFTA_R1_00006477 EFTA01732882 It flies in the face of Blair's public declaration that he =as attempting to find a diplomatic solution to the manufactured =E24etrisis." It also reveals Blair's collusi=n with the Department of Defense in fabricating and selling the =E2**evidence" which convinced America that Saddam Hus=ein's regime had weapons of mass destruction (it didn't) a=d that they were involved in 9/11and planning to strike America again (th=y weren't). Tony Blair, desperate for the United Kingdom to =egain some of its influence in the global balance of power, went along wit= everything Bush asked him to, including creating the fake narrative that =addam Hussein had an unmanned aerial vehicle program that could deliver a=C240A/M "within 45 minutes." It adds to the heaping mound of evidence that our nation was lied t=, not just by our leader, but by those of our allies as well. =he Iraq War will be remembered as one of the most catastrophic disasters b=th nation have ever brought upon themselves, the pinnacle of neoconservati=e arrogance and the hubris of American exceptionalism, preconceived even b=fore 9/11 ever happened and organized to maximize the profits of defense c=ntractors and fossil fuel companies like Vice President Dick Cheney*=99s Halliburton, which made $39 billion in profits over the course of the =onflict. George Bush has a lot to answer for; it now appears that Mr. Blai= does as well. Aren't these the same clowns who went after H=Ilary two decades ago suggesting that she organized an improper/illegal 53=0,000 loan while working at the Rose Law Firm while her husband was Govern=r of Arkansas? Yet, tens of billions of non-bid contracts went to Bu=h's Vice President previously headed, should not be question.Q=A0 Sort of like Jeb Bush claiming that his brother kept America safe after=9/12, while saying nothing when his party went after Hillary Clinton over =ur American deaths in Benghazi. What hypocrites!!! And w= are not just talking about just Bush and Blair... =br> <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=3D2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&atti==0.0.17&disp=em b&realattid=ii_15081458de7bf57f&attbid==NGjd18rATqd4h-BWETkPBeHB6vD6BdfRm9LG3Kn5ds6PolauMd1Wcj_m- 6WafvzM30hkKNaf3Y=XZGsQ0zY2sHc3KO)aqHKd7XsUbreTvk6RMal7WzLCcBqSq0GJA&sz=s0- 175&at==1448775957410&rm=15151c6b2e139cf0&zw> =/font> Here Are Some Highlights Why have these memos come out now? The U.S. courts have ruled that 30,000 email= received by Hillary Clinton when she was U.S. Secretary of State from 200= to 2013 should be released. She may have asked for these documents =o grasp the background to the Iraq War. What was=the Crawford summit? The meeting between Blair and Bush at the President's T=xan ranch in April 2002, 11months before the outbreak of war. The p=ir spent long periods discussing Iraq without their advisers, leading to s=spicion that they privately cut a deal 2 EFTA_R1_00006478 EFTA01732883 for the conflict. UK Ambassad=r Sir Christopher Meyer said it was impossible to know whether a deal was =E24,40signed in blood'. What did Blair=say at Crawford? At the start of the summit, Mr. Blair said: 'We'=e not proposing military action at this point in time.' For th= whole of 2002, Blair claimed no decision had been taken and in the run-up=to war. He said that Saddam Hussein could avoid conflict by co-opera=ing with UN weapons inspectors. What happened af=er Crawford? In September 2002, in an attempt to prove Saddam was a threat, No 10 fa=sely claimed Saddam could deploy biological weapons 'within 45 min=tes', and Mr. Blair went around the world trying to drum up UN bac=ing for action against Iraq. Despite mass anti-war protests, Britain=and America invaded Iraq in March 2003 without the backing of the UN. <= class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:O.Sin"> Had the allies prepared for 'the day after4o=8040? Th= invasion was declared complete on April 15, 2003. But the reason fo= war proved spurious, and Saddam's removal left a power vacuum fil=ed by warring factions which some say helped Islamic State rise. Have the memos been seen by the Chilcot Inquiry? It is not thought t=e ElOmillion, six-year inquiry has asked to see American Government m=terial The documents, which were obtained a month ago by Th= Mail, are part of a batch of secret emails held on the private server of =emocratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton which U.S. courts have fo=ced her to reveal. Former Tory Shadow Home Secretary David Davis sai=: 'The memos prove in explicit terms what many of us have believed=all along: Tony Blair effectively agreed to act as a frontman for Am=rican foreign policy in advance of any decision by the House of Commons or=the British Cabinet. 'He was happy to launder George Bush..904K policy on Iraq and sub-contract British foreign policy to another c=untry without having the remotest ability to have any real influence over =t. And in return for what? 'For George Bush pretending Bla=r was a player on the world stage to impress voters in the UK when the Ame=icans didn't even believe it themselves'. Wh=t a lackey Mr. Blair you were and are.... The Republican Debate use to be about who's nicer to immigrants 3 EFTA_R1_00006479 EFTA01732884 <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/OPui=2&ik=875c48a47=&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&attid=0.0.13&disp=e=b& realattid=ii_1513b532O3c36394&attbid=ANGjd.I9hhUQT41I.IwzkqZD8=6vUnUat5HP5cdVBHTdjzQ2E9nms8MSVjILkXGulX- XzOROS7PhjRkawO929RDzpg.IhQ7h1Rdju=sNe4QCrbGTNRrxWYoqXlhox9f5cl&sz=sO- 175&ats=144877595741O&r==15151c6b2ef39cfO&zw> What a difference now... Please Listen!!! So True <https://maiLgoogle.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=875c48a476=amp;view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&attid=0.0.2&disp=e mb=amp;realattid=ii_1506c8d09bf305af&attbid=ANGjdJ_LlralebAyo52cvJVhB=Toy9h.lkltOZYCtVdvxPnRgslimCLks3bUY WC1QaO27RvYN6cd4Ur4hCb.IyetuXXfe2fpRmiGr=jwbNm5Npz3XMb3ntErFdPyFHVQ&sz=sO- 175&ats=144877595741O&rm='3D15151c6b2ef39cfO&zw> Ahmed Abdel Hadi Cha=abi (30 October 1944 — 3 Nove=ber 2015) <https://mail.go=gle.com/mail/u/Oflui=2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=1515=c6b2e139cf0&attid=0.0.6&disp=emb&r ealatticl=ii_150d946c9f=bf2b8&attbid=ANGjd.I_RRRsq02e8LvfsKsNSlavAj- SEcCtPh0qOymxpVM6mnZmu3gRp=HuTOTXsjQzWhXj7WccuF5C7KSyL2ELgbdNvRVS3TwNesNub5_dT5zMIZwwFjQZ1Dcz Dk00&am=;sz=s0-175&ats=1448775957411&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> Whether or not you consider him a Manipulator or a Pawn he was definit=ly a Fraud 4 EFTA_R1_00006480 EFTA01732885 <1=> He was interim Minister of Oil in Ira= in April—May 2005 and December 2005 —January 2006 and Deruty Prime Minister from May 2005 to May 2006. Once the white knight =or the Bush/Cheney Administration's efforts to replace Saddam Huss=in, Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi who died on November 3, 2015 failed to win a =eat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi c=binet was announced in May 2006, he was not given a post. Once dubbe= the "George Washington of Iraq" by American neoconservat=ve supporters, he later fell out of favor and came under investigation by =everal U.S. government sources. Chalabi was the son of a prominent S=i'a family, one of the wealthy power elite of Baghdad, where he was bo=n. Chalabi left Iraq with his family in 1956[vand spent most of his life i= the United States and the United Kingdom.[ Chalabi was a controversial figure, especially in the Unite= States, for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Ir=q, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates, provided a major portion of the information o= which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of the Iraqi President Sad=am Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged t=es to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out=to be false and Chalabi has been called a fabricator. That, combined with =he fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted, in an interview with the Britis= Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their alleged falsifications had =n American policy, led to a falling out between him and the U.S. governmen=. Furthermore, Chalabi was found guilty in the Petra banking scandal in Jordan. In January 2012, a French intelligence official stated that they beli=ved Chalabi to be an Iranian agent. Ahmad Chalabi sp=nt more than a decade working for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, prides =imself on his understanding of the United States and its history. 40=9CI know quite a lot about it," he told an American reporte= in his Baghdad office in the new headquarters of the Iraqi National Congr=ss, the exile opposition group that Chalabi helped found in 1992. As=a young man, he said, he spent several years in America, earning an underg=aduate and a master's degree in mathematics from M.I.T., and a Ph.=. in mathematics from the University of Chicago. Cha=abi began studying the uses of power in American politics, and the subject=developed into a lifelong interest. One episode in American history partic=larly fascinated him, he said. "I followed very closely h=w Roosevelt, who abhorred the Nazis, at a time when isolationist sentiment=was paramount in the United States, managed adroitly to persuade the Ameri=an people to go to war. I studied it with a great deal of respect; w= learned a lot from it. The Lend-Lease program committed Roosevelt t= enter on Britain's side — so we had the Iraq Liberation A=t, which committed the American people for the liberation against Saddam.rE2*. The act, which Congress passed in 1998, made="regime change" in Iraq an official priority=of the U.S. government; Chalabi had lobbied tirelessly for the legislation= In 1977, he founded the Petra Bank in Jordan. =In May 1989, the Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, Mohammed Said Nab=lsi, issued a decree ordering all banks in the country to deposit 35% of t=eir reserves with the Central Bank. Petra Bank was the only bank tha= was unable to meet this requirement. An investigation was launched =hich led to accusations of embezzlement and false accounting. The ba=k failed, causing a $350 million bail-out by the Central Bank. 4)=A0Chalabi fled the country before the authorities could react. Chalabi was=convicted and sentenced in absentia for bank fraud by a Jordanian military=tribunal. 5 EFTA_R1_00006481 EFTA01732886 <=p> While still a fugitive, Chalabi head=d the executive council of the INC, an umbrella Iraqi opposition group cre=ted in 1992 for the purpose of fomenting the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.=C240 The INC received major funding and assistance from the United States= Chalabi was involved in organizing a resistance movement among Kurd= in northern Iraq in the early mid-1990s. When that effort was crush=d and hundreds of his supporters were killed, Chalabi fled the country4=A0 Chalabi lobbied in Washington for the passage of the Iraq Liberation Ac= (passed October 1998). This earmarked US$97 million to support Iraqi oppo=ition groups. During the period from March 2000 to September 2003, t=e U.S. State Department paid nearly $33 million to the INC, according to a=General Accounting Office report released in 2004, in addition to tens of =illions of black ops funding. Before the Iraq War (2=03), Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some =embers of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives w=thin the Pentagon. Chalabi was said to have had political contacts w=thin the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolf=witz, a student of nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, and Richard Perl=. He also enjoyed considerable support among politicians and politic.' pundits in the United States, most notably Jim Hoagland of The Washingto= Post, who held him up as a notable force for democracy in Iraq. He =as a special guest of First lady Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union=Address. Although the CIA was largely skeptical of C=alabi and the INC, information allegedly from his group (most famously fro= a defector codenamed "Curveball") made its way into inte=ligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minist=r Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq. "Curveball",=Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus &quo=;firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factorie= on wheels and rails. Secretary of State Colin Powell later used thi= information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, =espite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball"=was fabricating claims. Since then, the CIA has admitted that the de=ector made up the story, and Powell said in 2011 the information should no= have been used in his presentation. As U.S. forces =ook control during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, Chalabi returned under their=aegis and was given a position on the Iraq interim governing council by th= Coalition Provisional Authority. He served as president of the coun=il in September 2003. He denounced a plan to let the UN choose an in=erim government for Iraq. "We are grateful to President Bush=for liberating Iraq, but it is time for the Iraqi people to run their affa=rs," he was quoted as saying in The New York Times. 1= August 2003, Chalabi was the only candidate whose unfavorable ratings exc=eded his favorable ones with Iraqis in a State Department poll. In a surve= of nearly 3,000 Iraqis in February 2004 (by Oxford Research International, sponsored by the BBC in =he United Kingdom, ABC in the U.S., ARD of Germany, and the NHK in Japan<Apan>), only 0.2 percent of respondents said he was the most t=ustworthy leader in Iraq. A secret document written in 2002 by the British=Overseas and Defense Secretariat reportedly described Chalabi as "= convicted fraudster popular on Capitol Hill." In response to the WMD controversy, Chalabi told London's Daily Tel=graph in February 2004, "We are heroes in error. As far as w='re concerned, we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam =s gone and the Americans are in 6 EFTA_R1_00006482 EFTA01732887 Baghdad. What was said before is not=important. The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat."=C24> As Chalabi's position of trust with the Pentagon crumbled, he fo=nd a new political position as a champion of Iraq's Shi'ites (Chalabi himself was a Shr=te). Beginning January 2004, Chalabi and his clo=e associates promoted the claim that leaders around the world were illegal=y profiting from the Oil for Food program. These charges were around=the same time that UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi indicated that Chalabi would l=kely not be welcome in a future Iraqi government. Up until this time= Chalabi had been mentioned a number of times by Bush/Cheney supporters in=connection with possible future leadership positions. Chalabi conten=ed that documents in his possession detailed the misconduct, but he did no= provide any documents or other evidence. The U.S. sharply criticize= Chalabi's Oil for Food investigation as undermining the credibility o= its own. An arrest warrant for alleged counterf=iting was issued for Chalabi on 8 August 2004, while at the same time a wa=rant was issued on murder charges against his nephew Salem Chalabi (at the time, head of the Iraqi S=ecial Tribunal), while they both were out of the count=y with Chalabi returning to Iraq but was not arrested. Somehow Chala=i regained enough credibility to be made deputy prime minister in April 20=5 and at the same time he was made acting oil minister. Chalabi and other members of the INC have=been investigated for fraud involving the exchange of Iraqi currency, gran= theft of both national and private assets, and many other criminal charge= in Iraq. By 2010 it is=estimated that Chalabi had massed a personal fortune in the hundreds of mi=lions of dollars, if not billions. Detractors rage about his supply of fabricate= intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that supposedly tricked=Washington into war. Supporters claim he was a heroic dissident who =as never given the chance to transform his troubled country into paradise.=C240 The former is definitely true and the later not as he played the rol= of a convenient enabler for the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq and if he had nev=r existed, his backers and the American neocons would probably have conjur=d up a replacement to serve the same function. With the=overthrow of Saddam Hussein, he is one of the victors of the Iraqi War.40=A0 Chalabi's legacy is a controversial one, serving at the cente= of the controversial WMD intelligence that justified the war, a matter th=t is contentious to this day. However, he played the political game =ell: As an exile who saw little chance of ever returning to Iraq, to dying=in his native Baghdad, all made possible by a policy establishment in DC a=l too willing to listen to his assessment that overthrowing Saddam would l=ad to a rosy future for Iraq. And without a doubt, Chalabi was a con artis= par excellence, but the stream of claims of innocence by American media a=d politicians who supported him are acts of shameless con artistry at best= </=pan> Obama Rejected Keystone XL Pipeline Afte= 7 Years Of Review And might not the Lauded Success=Environments Claim 7 EFTA_R1_00006483 EFTA01732888 </=pan> <https://mail.google=com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b=ef39cf0&attid=0.0.3&disp=emb& realattid=ii_150df307dae0aa=2&attbid=ANGjdl- FxyVhrh9AdyYzXS_EhH6KnwlaRiTWJPnWh6vXciOt2SewvVSJS4j3=yOibOOcqpEHCelxQHFLoqw198nnc- oVLE3Em7zBI0cAiccdlllyPaS8zFADjUSDhvuc&sz=3Ds0-175&ats=1448775957411&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> Before doing victory laps as a r=sult that two weeks ago President Obama finally decide to not approve the =,600-mile, 57 billion project that would have enable the transport of 830,=00 barrels of oil per day from Canada's oil sands to U.S. refineries, =nvironmentalist and others should consider what really might have happened= Obama did not cite the pipeline's contribution to emissions and=ultimately climate change. Compared to greenhouse gases from industrial so=rces like power plants (w=ich are the largest source of U.S. emissions) and vehi=le tailpipe emissions, Keystone XL's impact would have been minimal.=C24) But he did say "approving this project would have undercut</=>" America's role as the "global leader" on comb=tting climate change. "Not acting," Obama said, &qu=t;is the biggest risk we face." Green groups praised the presid=nt's decision on Friday, calling it a "day of celebration.=quot; Yes, the project's environmental impact wa= long a point of contention. In a major climate address in June 2013= Obama said the pipeline should only be approved if it "does not s=gnificantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution." Th= State Department's final environmental impact analysis released in Ja=uary 2014 lent support to the pipeline's approval, concluding that it =ould not substantially increase emissions. But environmental advocates arg=ed that construction of the northern portion would encourage increased pro=uction in the oil sands that would not be economical otherwise. They=also pointed out that the oil produces substantially higher greenhouse gas=emissions than conventional crude. And the Environmental Protection =gency told the State Department that it should re-evaluate those projectio=s in light of current oil price trends. apan style="font-size:12ptline-height:17.1200008392334px;font-family:Geo=gia,serir> But as a wis= man nicknamed Deep Throat once said, "Fo=low the money" and when looking beyond the obvious to see=who are the moneyed losers and winners, I found that if the pipeline is co=pleted the biggest losers would be the railroads who make tens of billions=transporting crude, that might end up going through the Keystone Pipeline =nstead. Also, local producers (including the new fracking operators), whos= prices might be undercut with a new abundance of crude oil coming from Ca=ada. While the obvious winners are the Canadian producers, Gulf Coas= refineries, pipeline builders and certain landowners. But also bene=iting, are the railroads, since there is no additional restriction to tran=port Canadian crude oil or products. Therefore, every gallon of crud= produce in Canada could eventually make its way to refineries and markets=via truck, rail and boats, negating the perceived win, that Environmentali=t are celebrating today.... As a liberal Democrat= I was never against the Keystone Pipeline. First of all because it =s definitely less of a danger to the environment than fracking, which has =ontaminated the water table in a number of states, as well as possibly 8 EFTA_R1_00006484 EFTA01732889 con=ributing to the increase of earthquakes. Secondly, a newer Keystone =ipeline could be used to replace older pipelines, many of which are 50, 60= 70 years-old, and in serious decay, disrepair and in desperate need to be=replaced. Finally, what will ultimately change our dependence on fos=il fuels is economics, in the same way that cheap oil prices has made many=fracking, deep water and artic exploration uneconomical, which has resulte= in their operations being curtailed and in many cases stopped. This=has to be a major plus for the environment. So killing the Keystone =ipeline may have extended our dependence on fossil fuels, which is the rev=rse of what most want and why we should always look beyond the obvious..=A0 21ST CE=TURY LYNCHING As bad as this senseless murder was.... The cover-up by Chicago offi=ials and police was much worse <https://mail.googl=.com/mail/u/0Rui=2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6=2eB9d0&attid=0.0.15&disp=emb &realattid=ii_1514052b9dae=8fd&attbid=ANGjcil9R3j- XaSdNVVBcwMicmNwMm0rx1LHzkPOhuKHXkg1691rCMp9Bz=9c2Hy4ip3dZPoeyDc6Yx2LAQDQrL- p61QOJ6diququCBfIk3nWxNgmCuEgYnTsye51Cvw&=z=s0-175&ats=1448775957411&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> By now you have seen articles in the media if =ot the video itself of seventeen year old Laquan McDonald who was shot 16 =imes (while walking at least 15 feet away) in a barrage of continua= fire well after the youth falls to the ground by a 14-year Chicago vetera= police officer Jason Van Dykeemptied his pistol and reloaded despite the =act that the teen was laying motionless on ground. This happened ove= a year ago and was pushed under the rug until Chicago city officials were=forced on Tuesday November 24, 2015 to release the police dashcam video.=C2* To show you how egregious which many called "an execution=/i>" was, without the Laquan's family bringing a civil sui=, the City of Chicago immediately handed over a $5 million settlement and =ggressively fought to keep the video of the shooting under lock and key.</=pan> <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0Pui=3D2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39c10&atti==0.0.16&disp=em b&realattid=ii_15140544elefa57d&attbid==NGjd.l9nLC7mo0lWlfdiapCe7q10U_S2Cclavei7H4jsQ9M7KKctTC4wkaltxiPgZ S9n5Lg6bi5=_s4BvRC5ktZggFyO31O9XZycSutvB4BcDLItCbKDIIs-xp3RsfY&sz=s0- 175&at==1448775957411&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> For more than a year, community members have urged officials to releas= video of the shooting. The city was forced to act after a judge ordered t=e release of the video. The dashcam video was one of several collect=d from the scene. Alvarez said investigators were unable to download one, =nd another was too far away to be usable. Chicago's Cook Cou=ty State's Attorney Anita Alvarez backed city officials' denial th=t police had tampered with video evidence. The district manager for =he Burger King near the scene of the shooting has maintained for months th=t Chicago police 9 EFTA_R1_00006485 EFTA01732890 deleted the restaurant's security footage, which show=d the shooting. The fast food restaurant manager, lay Darshane, told=NBC Chicago in May that police were given access to restaurant security re=ordings. When they left three hours later, about 86 minutes of foota=e covering the time of the shooting was missing, he said. =p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:center"> =/p> According to police and court recor=s, Van Dyke, 37, joined the department in 2001 and spent more than four ye=rs with a specialized unit since disbanded by police Superintendent Garry =cCarthy — that aggressively went into neighborhoods experiencing s=ikes in violent crimes. Independent Police Review Authority records, Van D=ke has received 17 citizen complaints since 2006. At least three complaint= in the last four years were for excessive force- related allegations, and =nother accused him of making racial or ethnically biased remarks, accordin= to the records. But then the Chicago police department is rotten to=the core. For example, the data for 2015 shows that in more than 99 =ercent of the thousands of misconduct complaints against Chicago police of=icers, there has been no discipline. From 2011 to 2015, 97 percent of more=than 28,500 citizen complaints resulted in no officer being punished, acco=ding to the files. Although very few officers were disciplined in the year= covered by the data, African American officers were punished at twice the=rate of their white colleagues for the same offenses, the data shows..=A0 And although black civilians filed a majority of the complaints, white =ivilians were far more likely to have their complaints upheld, according t= the records. <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/Onui=2&ik=87=c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&attid=0.0.7&di=p=emb& realattid=ii_15151bffafaS2d4c&attbid=ANGjd19fkZkivEesX=Su805C33elySiQIFEeMLwsWwFocVT8p7Ip9fYnIX805moQ0o SBXaqUzXcN HkgAlf8Bb1Ub6XcC=MRZXhD5I-CQjK0FiuRWiZT9b1WCYePflSw&sz=s0- 175&ats=1448775957411=amp;rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> The sad thin= is that this is not an anomaly or just something that happens in Ferguson= Baltimore and Chicago, because from Los Angeles, Houston, Cleveland, New =rleans and Charleston police have killed civilian people of color (many=unarmed) at an alarming rate. And paying $6.5 million to Walther=Scott's family in Charleston, or $5 million to Laquan McDonald'=s family is not a way to fix this vile problem. These rotten police =fficers have to be drummed out of their departments and the departments wh= protect them have to be forced to pay in more ways other than with taxpay=r's money. Finally, for these rogue officers who claim to only fir= at suspects because they feared for their lives, maybe they are in the wr=ng profession or definitely need better training. Whatever the case,=these senseless killings of people of color by police and others has to be=seriously addressed. More importantly, the fact that Chicago city of=icials and police tried to cover up Laquan McDona=d's murder for more than a year was even worse....=C2Oand this is my rant of the week. <https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=87=c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c6b2ef39cf0&attid=0.0.18&d=sp=emb &realattid=ii_1506dbbd78alce45&attbid=ANGjdl-ekzh3Y1Nc=A_PV4ICDS2_88CCN7mHHi0Xg- HcteTwAMqTY4qSJN1pGaDYIEHHtK46rOISIXRhXMIqgkAHt7=4FWg1gNMzIFiHJbwpS3psdFw0SjO2vLFbEg&sz=s0- 175&ats=144877595741=&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> 10 EFTA_R1_00006486 EFTA01732891 <=span> I am reminded of the graphic =f a Middle Class white American women juxtaposed next to an Arab woman in = burka, one holding a Bible and the other a Koran with both holding guns a=d the captioning asking, "What's The Difference..=804, As such, the inspiration of that reference today for me is Joh= Feffer's recent article in the Huffington Post t=tled — Is Putin Really as Foolish as We Are'?.=A0 Because you would think that after its own disastrous nine year wa= that resulted in almost 15, 000 Soviet deaths and more than 53,000 wounde=, then watching the United States and its allies make the same folly for e=ually ridiculous reasons, one would think that even Vladimir Putinife=99s might be reluctant to enter into another war not directly on Russia4,=804,s borders. But then Richard Nixon, another Cold=Warrior, as well as considered one of the most duplicitous president in U.=. history actually knew that the U.S. air war in Southeast Asia was a dism=l failure. Even as he was telling the media that the saturation bomb=ngs of Vietnam and Laos were "very effective," Nixon was =rivately acknowledging the opposite. "We have had 10 ye=rs of total control of the air in Laos and V.Nam," Nixon wro=e to his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, on January 3, 1972. " The Obama administration has unlea=hed a similar air war in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State. The res=lts have been comparable to Nixon's "zilch."40=A0 The Islamic State has not replaced its black flag with a white one= nor has it shrunk appreciably in size. Obama's attempt to unsea= Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has not produced much either, other than in=reased violence and chaos in the poor, benighted country. The Pentag=n's effort to train and re-insert "moderate" rebels i=to the country has proven so disastrous that the Obama administration rece=tly suspended the project. <=r> Meanwhile, the CIA Hs rival plan to simply ship armaments to existing forces fighting against=the government in Damascus hasn't yielded more than "</=ont>zilch," at least according to rece=t reports. Except that the success that anti-Assad forces have had w=th anti-tank missiles helped persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to =ntervene on the side of the Syrian government to forestall checkmate and p=olong stalemate. Since Putin is Russian, chess has been the go-to me=aphor for portraying recent Kremlin strategy. No surprise, then, tha= Putin's move in Syria has been hailed (by som=) as the brilliant gambit of a grandmaster. The='re wrong. It's more like a desperate pawn sacrifice designed to s=ave off the inevitably grisly endgame. Like Nixon, Putin would like =s to think he's tricky. But as Fiffer points out, <Pont>"they're both just brutal tacticians of limited =magination." Putin's Folly Since the end of last month, th= Russian government has sent fighter jets, tanks, drones and a couple hund=ed of soldiers to Syria. It has already conducted hundreds of air st=ikes. It has even launched cruise missile strikes from ships anchore= in the Caspian Sea at targets nearly a thousand miles away. The Rus=ian government claims that it is targeting the Islamic State, but many of =he air strikes appear to have hit other rebel groups fighting the Assad re=ime. And in the 11 EFTA_R1_00006487 EFTA01732892 short period that the air strikes have taken place, =hey've predictably generated the usual reports of "collateral =amage," including 17 civilians in Talbiseh at the very outset on =eptember 30. =p class="MsoNormal">The Russian moves, if only because they=represent something fundamentally different in a conflict that has ground =n for more than four years, have attracted enormous media attention. =Putin's audacity has even garnered something approximating grudging re=pect from across the political spectrum. His speech at the UN last m=nth, which heralded the more muscular Russian policy, qualified him as the="new sheriff in town" and his country as the "rea= powerbroker in the Middle East," according to conservative natio=al security analyst John Schindler. Economist contributor Edward Luc=s termed Putin's speech a "triumph" while his decisiv= intervention in Syria, in comparison to the blunders of the West, make th= Russian leader seem "a responsible statesman, to whom we turn in =esperation for help." Juan Cole, after dismissing the Obama admin=stration efforts as ineffectual, concludes that "Putin knows what =e wants and has an idea about how to achieve it." Even for some on the left, Putin continues to represent a praisewort=y counterforce to American power and the kind of iron-fist response to the=lslamic State that some crave. "Putin is not going to stop f=r anything or anyone," writes Mike Whitney at Counterpunch. 40=AO"He's going to nail these guys while he has them in his gun-=ights, then he's going to wrap it up and go home. By the time the Obam= crew gets its act together and realizes that they have to stop the bombin= pronto or their whole regime change operation is going to go up in smoke,=Putin's going to be blowing kisses from atop a float ambling through R=d Square in Moscow's first tickertape parade since the end of WW2.=quot; It's safe to say that most military interv=ntions look decisive at the beginning. That's when pundits and policym=kers talk of "cakewalks" and "troops home by Chri=tmas." But there's really no reason to believe that Rus=ia's military intervention in Syria will produce results appreciably d=fferent from what the United States and its allies have already (notquagmire" in Syria (though, of course, the president hasn&=39;t publicly acknowledged the quasi-quagmire into which he himself has ti=toed). It's impossible to know what Putin hopes =o achieve from this gambit other than to guarantee Russian involvement in =hatever happens next. Perhaps all sides will throw up their hands an= take refuge at the negotiating table, with Putin emerging, as he did afte= the chemical weapons compromise in September 2013, as the master diplomat= Or perhaps the war will continue to grind on, but with more firepow=r added to the equation and thus more casualties, more extremist reactions= and more desperate refugees, with Putin playing the role of master spoile= who wants to pin the West down in an intractable conflict. In eithe= case, Putin would earn his title as grandmaster of geopolitics. =span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:17.1200008392334px;font-family:Ge=rgia,serif">l suspect, however, that Vladimir Putin is just as foolish and=trigger-happy as any world leader with a large expeditionary force and the=itch to use it. Attempting to save Bashar al-Assad in Syria is tantamount =o trying to prop up Nguyen Van Thieu in South Vietnam in the 1960s. =he Russian government will claim success for its air war -- just as the Un=ted States and allies do 12 EFTA_R1_00006488 EFTA01732893 for theirs - and there will no doubt be some tact=cal victories as the Assad government reclaims some rebel-held territory.=C24> But Putin will not likely accomplish the physically impossible task =hat Obama and others have already attempted: bombing a broken country back=into shape. At what point will the Russian leader write a confidenti=l note to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to confess that their strategy of="strategic bombing" has yielded "zilch"?=/span> Is ego and acceptance as the other world superpower =oing to be worth this most recent excursion into international warfare?Q=A0 Maybe for Putin, who likes to be photographed riding a horse shirtless =n winter is going to be worth the sacrifice. Because Putin's attempt a= "shock and awe" in Syria has all the hallmar=s of failed U.S. policies of the past. In the initial days, for inst=nce, the Russian media has focused on the pinpoint accuracy of the air str=kes in taking out "most" of the Islamic State's ammun=tion and heavy machinery. It will take some time before more critica= reports - of Russian bombing of medical facilities or missiles that went =stray in Iran - reach Putin's constituents. Then=there's the emphasis on the preemptive nature of the attacks. "," George W. Bush fa=ously said (more than once). Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Me=vedev essentially said the same thing last week: "It's better =o do it abroad rather than fight terrorism inside the country."=C24> Of course, the Russians have more to worry about. Neither the =aliban nor Saddam Hussein had any plans to attack the United States (al=Qaeda was a different matter). The Islamic State, meanwhil=, has thrown a thousand Chechen fighters into battle, and who knows what m=ght happen if these battle- hardened veterans ever make it back to Russia p=oper. A handful of Russian tourists and hostages hav= died at the hands of Islamic extremists in the Middle East. A few o= the Russian Marines now hunkered down in Syria will probably die as well,=particularly now that the Homs Liberation Movement (part of the Free Sy=ian Army) has promised to use suicide bombers to weed out the Russians= Just this week, as a shot across the bow, insurgents shelled the Ru=sian embassy in Damascus. But Russians will only feel the true conse=uences of Putin's actions when the next wave of retaliatory bombings s=rikes Russia itself. The Moscow subway was hit by two suicide bomber= in 2010 and the Moscow airport was targeted in 2011. Just this week= the Russian government has reportedly thwarted another attack on public t=ansportation, allegedly organized this time by the Islamic State. Here, th=n, is where Putin's chess-playing skills reveal themselves to be sub-p=r. He is throwing his pieces into battle without protecting his flan=s. The Russian public should brace itself for blowback. This is the ugliest parallel with Amer=can follies. After all, the air wars that the Bush administration co=ducted in the 2000s continue to haunt the United States even after the dra=atic toppling of the kings. Indeed, only as the wars continued in Ir=q and Afghanistan long after Saddam and the Taliban no longer held power d=d the United States learn that a symmetrical game of chess was a poor meta=hor for the strategies needed to address asymmetrical warfare against a de=ermined adversary. Bombing a country to rubble only produces a flint= determination on the part of the survivors to fight back. As Fiffer=also pointed out — It's a lesson that Nixon learned (too la=e), that Obama is struggling to learn (or perhaps struggling to teach =is Republican opponents), and that Putin, in the arrogance of his power, p=obably thinks that he doesn't need to learn at all. =/p> 13 EFTA_R1_00006489 EFTA01732894 =span style="line-height:13.909999f3474121px"> As the "middle class" hollows out, whites who started=life under relatively promising circumstances are finally seeing the floor=fall out under them. =/span> <https://mail.goog=e.com/mail/u/0/?ui=2&ik=875c48a476&view=fimg&th=15151c=b2ef39cf0&attid=0.0.14&disp=emb &reaIattid=ii_150df74e998=a125&attbid=ANGjd.I- 5hNbIDycjfGq4dbPzWaD5Mnww6EIgk551Qn5R2PkgjeWwxCXQ.=JgQa5xHawBI65D1Sy29UlCMpiniNAMRcvyhN- guK9z2SjT4SciLj6Y30_RfluATQbpIWHA&=sz=s0-l75&ats=1448775957412&rm=15151c6b2ef39cf0&zw> It wasn=E244t supposed to end this way. But this week America learned th=t the folks everyone thought had it better than most are suffering a fate =ust as bad as the rest of us, and by some measures, even worse. =p class="MsoNormal"> <=pan style="font-size:12ptline-height:17.1200008392334px;font-family:Geo=gia,serif">A demographic analysis of public health trends in recent years =hows that middle-aged whites are living more miserable and sicker lives =E2$4 and also appear to be dying at a higher rate. From 1999 to 2013, =rinceton University researchers observed a disturbing jump in deaths among=whites aged 45 to 54. For other groups, including seniors and middle=aged blacks and Latinos, mortality fell, continuing positive health and de=ographic trends of the past few decades. =span style="font-size:12ptline-height:17.1200008392334px;font-family:Ge=rgia,serif"> Overall, no=-Latino white midlife mortality ticked up by 34 deaths per 100,000. =t's not quite an epidemic, but the cumulative death toll suggests = slow-burning affliction that affirms a cultural sense of decline: Across =he 15-year period, the researchers calculated, "If the white mo=tality rate for ages 45-54 had held at their 1998 value...ha=f a million deaths would have been avoided in the period 1999-2013= comparable to lives lost in the US AIDS epidemic through mid-20154=9D Driving factors reflected social and public health patte=ns: suicide, disease (particularly liver problems) and "drug and a=cohol poisoning." The rising mortality rate,=according to the study, paralleled "self-reported declines in h=alth, mental health, and ability to conduct activities of daily living, an= increases in chronic pain and inability to work." But t=e trends differed by education level, as those with a high school—=evel education or less experienced worse outcomes than the college- educate=. These socioeconomic factors converge against the backdrop of a shattered =merican Dream: In their analysis of the results, Deaton and co-autho= Anne Case write that since economic growth has sputtered since the 1970s,="with 14 EFTA_R1_00006490 EFTA01732895 widening income inequality, many of the baby-boom generat=on are the first to find, in midlife, that they will not be better off tha= were their parents." How does this figu=e into the public discourse on race and health? Rising white midlife=death isn't so much a counterpoint to the narrative of racial segr=gation as it is a revelation about the long-term costs of structural inequ=lity. As the "middle class" hollows out, whites who =tarted life under more promising circumstances—when a high-school =raduate could land a job for life on the assembly line — are final=y seeing the floor fall out under them too. Arguably, they may have =ad a harder landing than the groups always stuck at the bottom; could drug= be a distressed response to that collective class trauma? Many have=dropped out of the workforce. Displaced middle-aged manufacturing workers have watched old factories shutter and neighborhoods subsequently det=riorate in the aftermath of mass foreclosures. Econo=ic hardship among whites is most acutely reflected in rural regions where =oblessness and social distress run rampant, youth flee to seek better pros=ects elsewhere, and poverty has risen faster than in cities. The mortality pattern seems unique to the United States. Oth=r wealthy countries—the UK, Australia, Canada and Sweden—c=ntinued to see declines in midlife mortality after 1998. Researchers=speculate that aging Americans might suffer deeper distress due to eroding=retirement security. Much of the workforce has shifted to less stable 401(=)-based retirement plans, while other countries have maintained guaranteed=defined-benefit pensions. Meanwhile, what's left of the US p=nsion system, which is concentrated in public-sector jobs, faces assaults =y state legislators seeking to balance the budget on the backs of unionize= civil servants. =h3> Opioid use is identified as a possi=le response to commonly reported health issues like chronic muscle pain, b=t the researchers noted that "long-term opioid use may exacerba=e pain for some." That's an understatement. According to the CDC, deaths from heroin overdoses have nearly quadrupled from =002-13; heroin use among whites has more than doubled, often linke= to abuse of prescription drugs. In another demographic twist, heroi= has exploded in rural and suburban neighborhoods (which could ironically =rompt progressive drug-policy reforms that never caught on earlier, when d=ugs were seen as an urban black and Latino problem). But heroin overdoses may be a symptom of another social pathology. =he 15-year death spike among middle-aged whites tracks the slow bleed of n=oliberalism: the massive offshoring of manufacturing jobs, financial booms=and busts, corporate deregulation. All these statistics suggesti>=A0 the need for government-sponsored social supports is growing just as th= government is rolling back welfare (Bill Clinton's neoliberal welfare reform agenda was imp=sed shortly before the white midlife death patterns appeared), healthcare, and education resources (including workforce investmen= programs that were designed to aid dislocated older workers). The s=me generation has suffered from the collapse of institutions that once hel=ed anchor the working class: active unions or just common workplaces in fa=tory towns. Is EFTA_R1_00006491 EFTA01732896 <= class="MsoNormal">This aspect of public health may get los= in the statisti