michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Oct 1, 2006 0:16:50 GMT 4
Congress OKs 700-Mile Border FenceBefore breaking for campaigns, Congress 'does us' again. Their last stellar piece of work was turning the U.S. into the 'Land of Torture.' Apparently, in the mind of our elected servants, the American Public was concerned with the completion of one other important task....Ending the War?.....Getting the Funds [finally] to New Orleans?......Poverty?......Global Warming? No silly, we're going to build 'The Great Wall of America!' Maybe they ought to include a moat:FOCUS | Congress OKs 700-Mile Border Fencewww.truthout.org/docs_2006/0093006Z.shtmlAmong its final tasks before leaving to campaign, the Senate on Friday night passed and sent to President Bush a bill authorizing 700 new miles of fencing on the southern border. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the border security achievements trumpeted by Republicans don't measure up to the more comprehensive reforms her party backed.I'LL BET WE CAN ALL GUESS WHO'LL BE AWARDED THE CONTRACTS:Big Payoff for Big Business on Border Security? As Bush border initiatives take shape, industry is poised to capitalize on larger contracts; Critics question benefits of privatization. Plus, view a slideshow on Border Patrol Academy trainingBy Dakin Campbell, July 27, 2006 Artesia, N.M. - As new recruits climb ladders, swing across monkey bars, and run obstacle courses in the desert sand at the Border Patrol Academy here, another group is working just as hard nearby: construction crews for Skanska USA are erecting buildings that will house and train the growing cadre of future agents needed to meet the orders of President Bush. It's just one illustration of how the private sector will benefit from the huge construction, service and technology contracts that accompany the administration's move to secure America's borders. As large as it is now, the comprehensive buildup may go beyond the President's plan to add 6,000 additional border patrol agents by 2008, at an estimated cost of more than $1 billion, and millions more may be required to expand the academy's infrastructure. It may also include spending for hundreds of miles of border fences and a high-tech "virtual fence" surveillance system whose cost could reach well into the billions. To pay for his plan, Bush is seeking $7.8 billion for customs and border protection in fiscal year 2007, a $700 million jump from last year and an increase of 59 percent over the figure for 2004. Congress is debating the terms of the proposal. But if it passes, the expansion could mean billions of dollars in private contracts for giant companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Bechtel, and Halliburton. Among the lucrative deals would be a $2.5 billion contract for a sophisticated surveillance network, a $2 billion-plus contract for the construction of a massive border fence, and many smaller, multi-million dollar construction projects at places like the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, or FLETC, where the Border Patrol Academy is located.Building a Boom TownIn Artesia, a once-sleepy town of 10,000 in a remote southeast corner of New Mexico, the federal training facility has been positioning itself for big growth for a number of years. Between 2000 and 2003, the center was expanded at a cost of $17.4 million, according to watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. The groundwork for its most recent expansion was laid in 2004, when border patrol training was consolidated here, in the home state of powerful GOP senator Pete Domenici. He has pushed for growth here and away from other still active federal training centers in Charleston, S.C., and Glynco, Ga. Now nearly $50 million has been earmarked for construction and acquisition of a gymnasium, pool, and a dormitory addition here, among other projects. Another $26 million or more is in the pipeline to build a Spanish-language institute on the 220-acre campus. Private firms are well positioned for the business. Many are familiar with the academy because it contracts out for everything here but the actual training, said Joseph W. Wright, deputy assistant director for Artesia operations, in a 2004 Albuquerque Tribune article. In the past, companies like Skanska USA, Pyramid Services, Warden Construction of Austin, Tex., and Titan, now a part of L-3 Communications, have provided services that include construction, building maintenance, cleaning, food service and other equipment needs. Building a Border FenceBorder fencing, too, could lead to huge contracts for big business. One plan, proposed by Rep. Duncan Hunter (news, bio, voting record) (R-San Diego), would finance construction of a 700-mile-long fence across the southern boundary with Mexico. Hunter loosely estimates the cost of its construction to be more than $2.2 billion, and past experience suggests that his estimate may be low. In the 1990s, Hunter secured funding for a shorter fence south of San Diego. At the time, he estimated it would cost $14 million for the first 11 miles. In the end, the segment cost $42 million, according to Sean Garcia of the Latin America Working Group, who proclaimed it a "ridiculous waste of money." And it remains unfinished. Another $35 million was set aside in 2006 to complete the last three or more miles.If construction of a 700-mile fence did go forward, it would almost certainly involve private contracts. The Army Corps of Engineers, the National Guard, and Border Patrol, which in the past have worked together to build border fencing, simply lack the capacity for a project this size, experts agree. "That is something that the Corps is not geared up to do," said John Pike, of GlobalSecurity.org. "They would be in charge of setting the parameters, and then managing the contract." If Congress approves the fencing, the contract will likely be won by a large engineering firm, such as Bechtel or Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, which would then subcontract segments of the fence to smaller construction companies. [Note from Michelle: Last I read, they haven't paid subcontractors working on Katrina damage.]High-Tech SolutionsIn January, Homeland Security officials announced yet another initiative with enormous financial opportunity for contractors -- the $2.5 billion contract for the Secure Border Initiative Network, or SBInet, an interconnected surveillance network that will stretch the length of the southern border. The role of the private sector not only in building but also conceptualizing the plan, was made apparent earlier this year by Homeland Security Deputy Director Michael Jackson, who asked industry representatives for their input. "This is a unique situation. We're asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business," Jackson was reported to have said, when he announced the $2.5 billion contract. "This is an invitation to be a little bit, a little bit aggressive and thinking as if you owned and you were partners with the CBP [U.S. Customs and Border Protection]." Five companies - Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Ericsson, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon - have reportedly expressed interest and are said to have started speaking to hundreds of smaller subcontractors. More than $115 million has already been set aside for the program. Critics Concerned About Privatizing the BorderEven as the Bush administration gears up its border security plans, critics from both sides of the political spectrum, including former high-ranking immigration officials, academics and immigration advocacy groups, express doubt about how the rapid expansion is being handled, along with the doling out of so many contracts to the private sector. Such doubts certainly shadow the SBInet contract, coming as it does on the heels of two earlier, much-maligned efforts at establishing an integrated electronic border - the Integrated Surveillance Intelligence System and the America Shield Initiative. Those projects were characterized by inaccurate sensors, outdated surveillance cameras and crashes of unmanned drones. And back in Artesia, doubts have spread to the Border Patrol Academy. At least one expert worries that the academy will not expand quickly enough, in its capacity or training abilities, to handle the influx of border patrol recruits expected in the next few years. "[FLETC] had some issues dealing with border patrol and capacity, that a large influx of troops could not be handled well,” said Richard Stana, the director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at the Government Accountability Office, and co-author of a 2003 report calling for improvement in capacity planning and management oversight at FLETC. "I don't know what they have done to increase capacity, but should the immigration reform bill pass, we will again look at FLETC because an increased number of border patrol agents will be needed." Those concerns are echoed in the GOP-backed House immigration reform bill, which suggests a close look at the border patrol training program, and also notes that non-profits or private companies might most effectively accomplish such training. But that image of privatized border security causes some government watchdogs, immigration scholars, and former border patrol and immigration personnel to bristle. "There are certain jobs that I think civil servants do a lot better than big business," said Michael Cutler, a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and 30-year veteran of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Are we going to privatize the U.S. Marine Corps next?"However it's accomplished, border patrol officials, hardcore immigration enforcement enforcers, and most Republicans maintain there's a critical mission at stake. One border patrol official put it this way: "Our ultimate goal," said Supervisory Border Patrol agent Lorenzo Hernandez at the academy recently, "is to gain operational control of the United States border." Please visit Big Payoff for Big Business on Border Security? for media rich content and related stories: newsinitiative.org/story/2006/07/27/big_payoff_for_big_business Produced as part of the Carnegie Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education. Last updated September 18, 2006
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DT1
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You know, it's not like I wanted to be right about all of this...
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Post by DT1 on Oct 1, 2006 9:28:56 GMT 4
As I remarked to a Honduran co-worker of mine(who is an excellent person and a dear friend), This new attack is double edged: If they can keep"them"out,they can keep you in.If Stalin had possesed the high-tech tools at Shrub's disposal,he would have taken over the world.Fortunately,this gang is amazingly,astonishingly incompetent.There is a little time left,it is to be hoped.But we must act. As Matrix Media blathers on about Tickle-me-Elmo dolls, This nation is being swiftly transformed into a Police State,resembling your worst nightmares... Do you allow yourself to feel helpless? Then you are. In my heart,I know what I have to do in the face of such reckless greed,arrogence and hatred... I refuse to surrender my freedom,and attempt to teach others how to do the same. If they don't want to hear it,then at least I tried. I resist having my rights altered,diminished, or eliminated by educating myself.I watch c-span,read political sites(left and right),to keep current on what they are up to...It's tedious,but it must be done. I oppose,by nonviolent means, every attempted power-grab that issues daily from this wretched administration. When faced with falsehood,whether in a Court of Law or the break-room at work,it is our right and responsibility to challenge it. Speak up.Remember:Fear will make you hesitate. And hesitation will cause your worst nightmares to come true. BTW to get back on topic: Show me a 50 foot wall ($5.4 billion), and I'll show you a 51 foot ladder($79.98+tax).... That's just my vent. For more on this follow the link: cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2006/09/then-they-came-for-americans.html
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Dec 27, 2006 6:56:56 GMT 4
Border Fence Firm Snared for Hiring Illegal Workers by Scott Horsley All Things Considered, December 14, 2006 · A fence-building company in Southern California agrees to pay nearly $5 million in fines for hiring illegal immigrants. Two executives from the company may also serve jail time. The Golden State Fence Company's work includes some of the border fence between San Diego and Mexico.After an immigration check in 1999 found undocumented workers on its payroll, Golden State promised to clean house. But when followup checks were made in 2004 and 2005, some of those same illegal workers were still on the job. In fact, U-S Attorney Carol Lam says as many as a third of the company's 750 workers may have been in the country illegally. Golden State Fence built millions of dollars' worth of fencing around homes, offices, and military bases. Its president and one of its Southern California managers will pay fines totaling $300,000. The government is also recommending jail time for Melvin Kay and Michael McLaughlin, probably about six months. It is exceptionally rare for those who employ illegal immigrants to face any kind of criminal prosecution, let alone jail time. Earlier this week, for example, immigration raids on six meat-packing plants netted almost 1,300 suspected illegal workers. But no charges were leveled against the company that runs the plants: Swift. Golden State Fence's attorney, Richard Hirsch, admits his client broke the law. But he says the case proves that construction companies need a guest-worker program. Source: www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6626823
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Apr 23, 2007 16:48:40 GMT 4
Latest US solution to Iraq's civil war: a three-mile wall · Concrete barrier to encircle Sunni district · Construction under cover of night Ewen MacAskill in Washington Saturday April 21, 2007 The Guardian The US military is building a three-mile concrete wall in the centre of Baghdad along the most murderous faultline between Sunni and Shia Muslims.The wall, which recognises the reality of the hardening sectarian divide in Baghdad, is a central part of George Bush's final push to pacify the capital. Work began on April 10 under cover of darkness and is due for completion by the end of the month. The highly symbolic wall has evoked comparisons to the barriers dividing Protestants and Catholics in Belfast and Israelis and Palestinians along the length of the West Bank. [or, Mexicans and US citizens!....Michelle]Captain Scott McLearn, who is based at Camp Victory, the US base on the outskirts of Baghdad, said Shias "are coming in and hitting Sunnis, and Sunnis are retaliating across the street". Although Baghdad is full of barriers and checkpoints, particularly round the Green Zone where the US and British are based along with the Iraq government, this is the first time a wall has been built along sectarian lines. Its construction comes as the security situation appears to be deteriorating despite the recent US troop "surge". This week a bombing at the Sadriya market in the city killed 140 people - the deadliest in the capital since the 2003 invasion. Walls are controversial. The Israeli government insists its wall is effective in reducing suicide bombers but Palestinians, many of whose lives it has seriously disrupted, as well as some Israelis argue that it consolidates divisions. The Baghdad wall, which will be 12ft (3,5 metres) high, is being built by US paratroopers who left Camp Taji, about 20 miles north of the city, on the first night in a dozen trucks carrying stacks of huge concrete barriers, each weighing 14,000 pounds (6,300kg). Cranes, protected by tanks, winched them into place. Building has continued every night since. News of the wall's construction came as the Democratic US Senate leader, Harry Reid, provoked a new row with the White House when he claimed the defence secretary, Robert Gates, and the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, know that "this war is lost". Mr Gates, on a visit to Baghdad yesterday, said: "On the war is lost, I respectfully disagree." The White House repeated that the new strategy, which involves sending more US troops to Baghdad, is showing tentative signs of working. Since the US-led invasion, "ethnic cleansing" has resulted in population shifts that have left Baghdad increasingly divided on sectarian grounds, separated by the Tigris which runs through the centre of the city. Sunnis are consolidating on the west side and Shias on the east. The wall is being built round the biggest remaining Sunni enclave on the east bank, at Adhamiya. Referred to by US troops as the Great Wall of Adhamiya, it is surrounded on three sides by Shia neighbourhoods and has been the scene of some of the city's worst violence. There was confusion about the wall at US HQ. Major-General William Caldwell, the usual US spokesman in Baghdad, said on Wednesday he was unaware of efforts to build a wall. "Our goal is to unify Baghdad, not subdivide it into separate [enclaves]," he said. But a US military press release from Camp Victory provided extensive details about the construction. It said: "The area the wall will protect is the largest predominately Sunni neighbourhood in east Baghdad. The wall is one of the centrepieces of a new strategy by coalition and Iraqi forces to break the cycle of sectarian violence." The strategy involves creating a series of gated communities, in which US and Iraqi troops control entry and exits. The aim is to try to prevent movement by insurgents, in particular suicide bombers. Residents of Adhamiya had mixed feelings. Ahmed Abdul-Sattar, a government worker, said: "I don't think this wall will solve the city's serious security problems. It will only increase the separation between our people, which has been made so much worse by the war." Source:www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2062426,00.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In Baghdad, U.S. troops build wall to curb violence But residents aren't happy with the barrier cutting of a Sunni district from surrounding Shiite areas.By Edmund Sanders, Times Staff Writer April 20, 2007 BAGHDAD — A U.S. military brigade is constructing a 3-mile-long concrete wall to cut off one of the capital's most restive Sunni Arab districts from the Shiite Muslim neighborhoods that surround it, raising concern about the further Balkanization of Iraq's most populous and violent city. U.S. commanders in northern Baghdad said the 12-foot-high barrier would make it more difficult for suicide bombers to strike and for death squads and militia fighters from sectarian factions to attack one another and then slip back to their home turf. Construction began April 10 and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Although Baghdad is replete with blast walls, checkpoints and other temporary barriers, including a massive wall around the Green Zone, the barrier being constructed in Adhamiya would be the first to be based in essence on sectarian considerations. A largely Sunni district, Adhamiya is one of Baghdad's trouble spots, avoided not only by Shiites, but Sunni outsiders as well. The area is almost completely surrounded by Shiite-dominated districts such as Shamasiya and Gurayaat. The ambitious project is a sign of how far the U.S. military will go to end the bloodshed in Iraq. But U.S. officials denied that it was a central tactic of the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown launched Feb. 13. "We defer to commanders on the ground, but dividing up the entire city with barriers is not part of the plan," U.S. military spokesman Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said Thursday. News of the construction was first reported Thursday by the Stars and Stripes newspaper Shiite and Sunni Arabs living in the shadow of the barrier were united in their contempt for the imposing new structure.
"Are they trying to divide us into different sectarian cantons?" said a Sunni drugstore owner in Adhamiya, who would identify himself only as Abu Ahmed, 44. "This will deepen the sectarian strife and only serve to abort efforts aimed at reconciliation." Some of Ahmed's customers come from Shiite or mixed neighborhoods that are now cut off by large barriers along a main highway. Customers and others seeking to cross into the Sunni district must park their cars outside Adhamiya, walk through a narrow passage in the wall and take taxis on the other side. Several residents interviewed likened the project to the massive barriers built by Israel around some Palestinian zones.
"Are we in the West Bank?" asked Abu Qusay, 48, a pharmacist who said that he wouldn't be able to get to his favorite kebab restaurant in Adhamiya. Residents complained that Baghdad already has been dissected by hundreds of barriers that cause daily traffic snarls. Some predicted the new wall would become a target of militants on both sides. Last week, construction crews came under small-arms fire, military officials said. "I feel this is the beginning of a pattern of what the whole of Iraq is going to look like, divided by sectarian and racial criteria," Abu Marwan, 50, a Shiite pharmacist, said. Marwan lives in a mostly Shiite area adjoining the wall, but works in Adhamiya. Since the wall was begun, he has had to walk to work rather than drive. Najim Sadoon, 51, was worried that he would lose customers at his housewares store. "This closure of the street will have severe economic hardships," he said. "Transportation fees will increase. Customers who used to come here in their cars will now prefer to go to other places." Majid Fadhil, 43, a Shiite police commissioner in a neighborhood north of the wall, said flatly, "This fence is not going to work." So far, the barriers have cut off streets and sidewalks, avoiding homes and backyards, residents said. Pentagon officials first broached the idea of creating "gated communities" in Baghdad this year. But more recently, military officials have emphasized political negotiation as well as increased troop presence as a way to stem sectarian conflict. On a tour of the Middle East this week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates repeatedly struck chords of unity and reconciliation. He is expected to meet with sectarian leaders and government officials in Baghdad today.The construction in Adhamiya is not the first time U.S. military planners have attempted to isolate hostile regions. In 2005, U.S. troops tried to surround the Sunni-dominated city of Samarra with earthen berms to prevent insurgents from entering and leaving the city. A similar strategy was deployed in Tall Afar and Fallouja. Experiments with less extensive walls and trenches also have been attempted in Baghdad and Kirkuk. The latest project is the work of the 407th Brigade Support Battalion, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, based in north Baghdad's Camp Taji. Since April 10, soldiers have ventured out almost nightly after curfew, overseeing installation of the 14,000-pound wall segments, using giant construction cranes and employing Iraqi crews, said Army Sgt. Michael Pryor, a public affairs specialist for the unit.Soldiers have dubbed the project the "The Great Wall of Adhamiya." Commanders in the 82nd Airborne could not be reached for comment Thursday. In a press release Tuesday, military officials said the project was intended to protect citizens on both sides. The wall is "on a fault line of Sunni and Shia, and the idea is to curb some of the self-sustaining violence by controlling who has access to the neighborhoods," Army Capt. Marc Sanborn, brigade engineer for the project, said in the release. He said the concept was closer to an exclusive gated community in the United States than to China's Great Wall. In an e-mail, Pryor said it was too soon to judge how residents would respond. "Bear in mind that the wall is an ongoing project," Pryor wrote. "We're not completely sure how the population feels either way." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- edmund.sanders@latimes.com
A special correspondent in Baghdad contributed to this report.Source:www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wall20apr20,0,5085656.story
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Apr 24, 2007 10:52:55 GMT 4
Fury at the Baghdad wallI was listening to National Public Radio, yesterday. They said that the Baghdad wall was a joint effort with Iraqi officals. However, newspapers in Iraq and surrounding areas are voicing strong oppostion to the wall. Locals are furious with this wall that began to rise under the cover of darkness. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki also said Sunday that he had ordered a halt to a controverisal wall being built by US troops; good luck with that one Mr. Prime Minister.....MichellePress fury at Baghdad wallLast Updated: Monday, 23 April 2007, 13:36 GMT 14:36 UK A controversial wall being built by US forces in a Baghdad's Sunni district on a mainly Shia east bank of Tigris has been roundly condemned by papers both in Iraq and wider region.
Fears are expressed that the wall will turn the capital into "a big prison", exacerbate sectarian tensions and trigger the construction of similar barriers elsewhere in the country.
A Syrian daily urges Iraqis to rise up and fight what it sees as part of wider US-Israeli efforts to isolate Arabs or "face extermination". BASIM AL-SHAYKH IN IRAQ'S AL-DUSTUR The sectarian isolation wall... is a hateful gesture feared to recur and spread in Baghdad until we find ourselves in the coming days in need of visas or special permits to enter this or that area. We are not against security precautions as such... but we also hope that this will not be done at the expense of our moral and inherited values. KADIM AL-MIQDADI IN IRAQ'S AL-ZAMAN People of al-Adamiyah, rise up and destroy this wall... produced by Israeli factories in Tel Aviv! These are the same barriers that isolated Palestinian villages and cities from each other... under the pretext of defending Israel security. Don't forget that the Pentagon is behind the idea of establishing closed Iraqi communities with the aim of establishing sectarianism. ABD-AL-BARI ATWAN IN PAN-ARAB AL-QUDS AL-ARABI Today it's al-Adhamiyah, tomorrow it will be Basra, the day after Mosul and the day after that Kirkuk - until the whole of Iraq becomes a Bantustan - a sectarian ghetto which closes its doors to strangers from other ghettos. There is no national identity anymore, only sectarian and racial identity. GHASSAN AL-SHARBAL IN PAN-ARAB AL-HAYAT We were dreaming of destroying the racist wall built by Israel and here come walls to destroy our cities. To predict the Arab future, we must look at Baghdad. The winds of sectarianism warn of a season of unending walls. Perhaps it is too late to wage a comprehensive campaign against the epidemic of walls. AS'AD ABUD IN SYRIA'S AL-THAWRAH The wall is a real step to solidify and increase the sectarian hostility that has flourished in the US-made reality on the ground in Iraq. Such a humiliation for the Arabs ... what can you do? Either fight the siege or face extermination, so choose between dying as a resistance fighter or dying between a wall and the other. MUHAMMAD KA'WSH IN JORDAN'S AL-ARAB AL-YAWM No-one should keep silent about this new crime committed by the occupation in Baghdad, and all Iraqis must reject such a crime because turning al-Adhamiyah into a big prison means that other neighbourhoods will also turn into sectarian ghettos, with Sadr city probably being next. A'ISHA AL-MURI IN UAE'S AL-ITTIHAD The new US strategy has turned sectarian division from words to actual concrete on the ground. WALID AL-NUWAYHID IN BAHRAIN'S AL-WASAT The wall is a political scandal according to all international, moral and humanitarian standards. It is not just a part of a security project. Rather, it aims at isolating and turning neighbourhoods into sectarian ghettos. YUSUF AL-KUWAYLIT IN SAUDI WATAN The division in Iraq came as a reflection of the huge failure of the invading forces. Moreover, the opinion of the elected government was not even considered in the decision to build the wall. BBC Monitoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.Source: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6584079.stm------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 22/04/2007 19:23 CAIRO, April 22 (AFP) Iraq PM says he has ordered halt to Baghdad wall Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Sunday that he had ordered a halt to a controverisal wall being built by US troops around a Sunni enclave in mainly Shiite east Baghdad. "I am opposed to the building of the wall and its construction is going to stop," the premier told a joint press conference in Cairo with Arab League chief Amr Mussa. Since April 10, US paratroopers have been deploying at night around the Sunni enclave of Adhamiyah to erect a five-kilometre (three-mile) wall made of six-tonne (14,000-pound) concrete sections. The wall is designed to prevent Shiite death squads from launching attacks to drive out the Sunnis from the district, and to prevent Sunni insurgents from using the pocket as a base for raids into Shiite areas. Earlier Sunday, US commanders announced plans to extend the scheme to other restive neighbourhoods of the capital. But Iraqi politicians have accused the US military of hardening the city's already bitter sectarian divisions. "Erecting a wall around Adhamiyah is the height of failure and a bad, faulty step that violates human rights," said leading Kurdish MP Mahmud Othman. "It's an obvious sign that the policy of US and our government has failed to keep security." Source:www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=mideast&item=070422192322.wlyq3c7o.php
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jul 3, 2007 8:26:59 GMT 4
Honestly! Need I say anything about this one?!....Michelle Border fence accidentally built on Mexican soil[glow=red,2,300]Could cost $3 million to fix[/glow] By ALICIA A. CALDWELL COLUMBUS, N.M. (AP) - The 2 1/2-kilometre barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border was designed to keep cars from illegally crossing into the United States. There's just one problem: It was accidentally built on Mexican soil. Now embarrassed border officials say the mistake could cost the U.S. government more than $3 million to fix. The barrier was part of more than 24 kilometres of border fence built in 2000, stretching from the town of Columbus to an onion farm and cattle ranch. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said the vertical metal tubes were sunk into the ground and filled with cement along what officials firmly believed was the border. But a routine aerial survey in March revealed that the barrier protrudes into Mexico by as much as two metres. James Johnson, whose onion farm is in the disputed area, said he thinks his forefathers may have started the confusion in the 19th century by placing a barbed-wire fence south of the border. No one discovered their error, and crews erecting the barrier may have used that fence as a guideline. "It was a mistake made in the 1800s," Johnson said. "It is very difficult to make a straight line between two points in rugged and mountainous areas that are about two miles apart." The Mexican government was notified and did what any landowner would do: They sent a note politely insisting that Mexico get its land back. "Our country will continue insisting for the removal (of the fence) to be done as quickly as possible," the Foreign Relations Department said in a diplomatic missive to Washington. Source: cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/06/29/4301298-ap.html
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Feb 20, 2008 18:30:34 GMT 4
Holes in the Wall Homeland Security won’t say why the border wall is bypassing the wealthy and politically connected.The Wall keeps whoever they want in and whoever they want out, whoever they allow to remain, and who not. The select few pass easily back and forth; their property stays untouched. The poor, being powerless, can be made to absorb the costs of change and growth in American society. During the nineteenth century, they did the backbreaking work that built the cities; today, they are pushed out of their neighborhoods to make room for progress, or in this case, so called security. The rich, of course, are never displaced ...MichelleHoles in the Wall Homeland Security won’t say why the border wall is bypassing the wealthy and politically connected.Melissa del Bosque | February 18, 2008 | Web Exclusive As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched.Tamez, a nursing director at the University of Texas at Brownsville, is one of the last of the Spanish land grant heirs in Cameron County. Her ancestors once owned 12,000 acres. In the 1930s, the federal government took more than half of her inherited land, without paying a cent, to build flood levees. Now Homeland Security wants to put an 18-foot steel and concrete wall through what remains. While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort. “It has a golf course and all of the amenities,” Tamez says. “There are no plans to build a wall there. If the wall is so important for security, then why are we skipping parts?”Along the border, preliminary plans for fencing seem to target landowners of modest means and cities and public institutions such as the University of Texas at Brownsville, which rely on the federal government to pay their bills. A visit to the River Bend Resort in late January reveals row after row of RVs and trailers with license plates from chilly northern U.S. states and Canadian provinces. At the edge of a lush, green golf course, a Winter Texan from Canada enjoys the mild, South Texas winter and the landscaped ponds, where white egrets pause to contemplate golf carts whizzing past. The woman, who declines to give her name, recounts that illegal immigrants had crossed the golf course once while she was teeing off. They were promptly detained by Border Patrol agents, she says, adding that agents often park their SUVs at the edge of the golf course. River Bend Resort is owned by John Allburg, who incorporated the business in 1983 as River Bend Resort, Inc. Allburg refused to comment for this article. A scan of the Federal Election Commission and Texas Ethics Commission databases did not find any political contributions linked to Allburg. Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. “All that land over there is owned by the Hunts,” he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. “The wall doesn’t go there.” In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush’s presidential library. In 2001, Bush made him a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received a security clearance and access to classified intelligence.Over the years, Hunt has transformed his 6,000-acre property, called the Sharyland Plantation, from acres of onions and vegetables into swathes of exclusive, gated communities where houses sell from $650,000 to $1 million and residents enjoy golf courses, elementary schools, and a sports park. The plantation contains an 1,800-acre business park and Sharyland Utilities, run by Hunt’s son Hunter, which delivers electricity to plantation residents and Mexican factories. The development’s Web site touts its proximity to the international border and the new Anzalduas International Bridge now under construction, built on land Hunt donated. Hunt has also formed Hunt Mexico with a wealthy Mexican business partner to develop both sides of the border into a lucrative trade corridor the size of Manhattan. Jeanne Phillips, a spokesperson for Hunt Consolidated Inc., says that since the company is private, it doesn’t have to identify the Mexican partner. Phillips says, however, that no one from the company has been directly involved in siting the fence. “We, like other citizens in the Valley, have waited for the federal government to designate the location of the wall,” she says. Garza stands in front of his modest brick home, which he built for his retirement after 50 years as a migrant farmworker. For the past five months, he has stayed awake nights trying to find a way to stop the gears of bureaucracy from grinding over his home. A February 8 announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agency would settle for building the fence atop the levee behind Garza’s house instead of through it, which has given Garza some hope. Like Tamez, he wonders why his home and small town were targeted by Homeland Security in the first place.“I don’t see why they have to destroy my home, my land, and let the wall end there.” He points across the street to Hunt’s land. “How will that stop illegal immigration?” Most border residents couldn’t believe the fence would ever be built through their homes and communities. They expected it to run along the banks of the Rio Grande, not north of the flood levees—in some cases like Tamez’s, as far as a mile north of the river. So it came as a shock last summer when residents were approached by uniformed Border Patrol agents. They asked people to sign waivers allowing Homeland Security to survey their properties for construction of the wall. When they declined, Homeland Security filed condemnation suits.In time, local landowners realized that the fence’s location had everything to do with politics and private profit, and nothing to do with stopping illegal immigration.In 2006, Congress passed the Secure Fence Act, authored by Republican Congressman Peter King from New York. The legislation mandated that 700 miles of double-fencing be built along the southern border from California to Texas. The bill detailed where the fencing, or, as many people along the border call it, “the wall,” would be built. After a year of inflamed rhetoric about the plague of illegal immigration and Congress’s failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform, the bill passed with overwhelming support from Republicans and a few Democrats. [All the Texas border members of the U.S. House of Representatives, except San Antonio Republican Henry Bonilla, voted against it. Texas Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn voted for the bill.On August 10, 2007, Chertoff announced his agency would scale back the initial 700 miles of fencing to 370 miles, to be built in segments across the southern border. Chertoff cited budget shortages and technological difficulties as justifications for not complying with the bill. How did his agency decide where to build the segments? Chad Foster, the mayor of Eagle Pass, says he thought it was a simple enough question and that the answer would be based on data and facts. Foster chairs the Texas Border Coalition. TBC, as Foster calls it, is a group of border mayors and business leaders who have repeatedly traveled to Washington for the past 18 months to try to get federal officials to listen to them. Foster says he has never received any logical answers from Homeland Security as to why certain areas in his city had been targeted for fencing over other areas. “I puzzled a while over why the fence would bypass the industrial park and go through the city park,” he says. Despite terse meetings with Chertoff, Foster and other coalition members say the conversation has been one-sided. “I think we have a government within a government,” Foster says. “[This is] a tremendous bureaucracy—DHS is just a monster.”The Observer called Homeland Security in Washington to find out how it had decided where to build the fence. The voice mail system sputtered through a dizzying array of acronyms: DOJ, USACE, CBP, and USCIS. On the second call a media spokesperson with a weary voice directed queries to Michael Friel, the fence spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Six calls and two e-mails later, Friel responded with a curt e-mail: “Got your message. Working on answers…” it said. Days passed, and Friel’s answers never came. Since Homeland Security wasn’t providing answers, perhaps Congress would. Phone conversations with congressional offices ranged from “but they aren’t even building a wall” to “I don’t know. That’s a good question.” At the sixth congressional office contacted, a GOP staffer who asked not to be identified, but who is familiar with the fence, says the fencing locations stemmed from statistics showing high apprehension and narcotic seizure rates. This seems questionable, since maps released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers showed the wall going through such properties as the University of Texas at Brownsville—hardly a hotbed for drug smugglers and immigrant trafficking.Questioned more about where the data came from, the staffer said she would enquire further. The next day she called back. “The border fence is being handled by Greg Giddens at the Secure Border Initiative Office within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office,” she said. Giddens is executive director of the SBI, as it is called, which is in charge of SBInet, a consortium of private contractors led by Boeing Co. The group received a multibillion dollar contract in 2006 to secure the northern and southern borders with a network of vehicle barriers, fencing, and surveillance systems. Companies Boeing chose to secure the southern border from terrorists include DRS Technologies Inc., Kollsman Inc., L-3 Communications Inc., Perot Systems Corp., and a unit of Unisys Corp.A February 2007 audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office cited Homeland Security and the SBInet project for poor fiscal oversight and a lack of demonstrable objectives. The GAO audit team recommended that Homeland Security place a spending limit on the Boeing contract for SBInet since the company had been awarded an “indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for 3 years with three 1-year options.” The agency rejected the auditors’ recommendation, saying 6,000 miles of border is limitation enough. In a February 2007 hearing, Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had more scathing remarks for Giddens and the SBInet project. “As of December, the Department of Homeland Security had hired a staff of 98 to oversee the new SBInet contract. This may seem like progress until you ask who these overseers are. More than half are private contractors. Some of these private contractors even work for companies that are business partners of Boeing, the company they are supposed to be overseeing. And from what we are now learning from the department, this may be just the tip of the iceberg.”Waxman said of SBInet that “virtually every detail is being outsourced from the government to private contractors. The government is relying on private contractors to design the programs, build them, and even conduct oversight over them.” A phone call to Giddens at SBI is referred to Loren Flossman, who’s in charge of tactical infrastructure for the office. Flossman says all data regarding the placement of the fence is classified because “you don’t want to tell the very people you’re trying to keep from coming across the methodology used to deter them.” Flossman also calls the University of Texas at Brownsville campus a problem area for illegal immigration. “I wouldn’t assume that these are folks that aren’t intelligent enough that if they dress a certain way, they’re gonna fit in,” he says. Chief John Cardoza, head of the UT-Brownsville police, says the Border Patrol would have to advise his police force of any immigrant smuggling or narcotic seizures that happen on campus. “If it’s happening on my campus, I’m not being told about it,” he says. Cardoza says he has never come across illegal immigrants dressed as students. Flossman goes on to say that Boeing isn’t building the fence, but is providing steel for it. Eric Mazzacone, a spokesman for Boeing, refers the Observer to Michael Friel at Customs and Border Protection, and intercedes to get him on the phone. Friel confirms that Boeing has just finished building a 30-mile stretch of fence in Arizona, but insists other questions be submitted in writing. Boeing, a multibillion dollar aero-defense company, is the second-largest defense contractor in the nation. The company has powerful board members, such as William M. Daley, former U.S. secretary of commerce; retired Gen. James L. Jones, former supreme allied commander in Europe; and Kenneth M. Duberstein, a former White House chief of staff. The corporation is also one of the biggest political contributors in Washington, giving more than $9 million to Democratic and Republican members of Congress in the last decade. In 2006, the year the Secure Fence Act was passed, Boeing gave more than $1.4 million to Democrats and Republicans, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.A majority of this money has gone to legislators such as Congressman Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who championed the Secure Fence Act. In 2006, Hunter received at least $10,000 from Boeing and more than $93,000 from defense companies bidding for the SBInet contract, according to the center. During his failed bid this year for the White House, Hunter made illegal immigration and building a border fence the major themes of his campaign.In early February 2008, Chertoff asked Congress for $12 billion for border security. He included $775 million for the SBInet program, despite the fact that congressional leaders still can’t get straight answers from Homeland Security about the program. As recently as January 31, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee members sent a letter to Chertoff asking for “greater clarity on [the Customs and Border Protection office’s] operational objectives for SBInet and the projected milestones and anticipated costs for the project.” They have yet to receive a response. Boeing continues to hire companies for the SBInet project. And the congressional districts of backers of the border fence continue to benefit. A recent Long Island Business News article trumpeted the success of Telephonics Corp., a local business, in Congressman King’s congressional district that won a $14.5 million bid to provide a mobile surveillance system under SBInet to protect the southern border. While Garza and Tamez wait for answers, they say they are being asked to sacrifice something that can’t be replaced by money. They are giving up their land, their homes, their heritage, and the few remaining acres left to them that they hoped to pass on to their children and grandchildren. “I am an old man. I have colon cancer, and I am 76 years old,” Garza says, resting against a tree in front of his home. “All I do is worry about whether they will take my home. My wife keeps asking me, ‘What are we going to do?’” Besides these personal tragedies, Eagle Pass Mayor Foster says there is another tragedy in store for the American taxpayer. A 2007 congressional report estimates the cost of maintaining and building the fence could be as much as $49 billion over its expected 25-year life span. “They are just going to push this problem on the next administration, and nobody is going to talk about immigration reform, and that’s the illness,” Foster says. “The wall is a Band-Aid on the problem. And to blow $49 billion and not walk away with a secure border—that’s a travesty.” Source: www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2688
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