Daily Archives: April 25, 2017

Why Does North Korea Want Nukes? | Global Research – Centre for … – Center for Research on Globalization

Posted: April 25, 2017 at 5:37 am

We are fighting in Korea so we wont have to fight in Wichita, or in Chicago, or in New Orleans, or in San Francisco Bay. President Harry S Truman, 1952

Why has this tiny nation of 24 million people invested so much of its limited resources in acquiring nuclear weapons? North Korea is universally condemned as a bizarre and failed state, its nuclear posture denounced as irrational.

Yet North Koreas stance cannot be separated out from its turbulent history during the 20th Century, especially its four decade long occupation by Japan, the forced division of the Korean peninsula after World War II, and, of course, the subsequent utterly devastating war with the United States from 1950-1953 that ended in an armistice in which a technical state of war still exists.

Korea is an ancient nation and culture, achieving national unity in 608 CE, and despite its near envelopment by gigantic China it has retained its own unique language and traditions throughout its recorded history. National independence came to an end in 1910 after five years of war when Japan, taking advantage of Chinese weakness, invaded and occupied Korea using impressed labor for the industries Japan created for the benefit of its own economy. As always the case for colonization the Japanese easily found collaborators among the Korean elite Koreans to manage their first colony.

Naturally a nationalist resistance movement emerged rapidly and, given the history of the early 20th Century, it was not long before communists began to play a significant role in Koreas effort to regain its independence. The primary form of resistance came in the form of peoples committees which became deeply rooted throughout the entire peninsula, pointedly in the south as well. It was from these deeply political and nationalistic village and city committees that guerrilla groups engaged the Japanese throughout WWII. The parallels with similar organizations in Vietnam against the Japanese, and later against the French and Americans, are obvious. Another analogous similarity is that Franklin Roosevelt also wanted a Great Power trusteeship for Korea, as for Vietnam. Needless to say both Britain and France objected to this plan.

Photo by Stefan Krasowski | CC BY 2.0

When Russia entered the war against Japanese in August of 1945 the end of Japanese rule was at hand regardless of the atomic bomb. As events turned out Japan surrendered on 15 August when Soviet troops had occupied much of the northern peninsula. It should be noted that American forces played no role in the liberation of Korea from Japanese rule. However, because the Soviets, as allies of the U.S., wished to remain on friendly terms they agreed to the division of Korea between Soviet and American forces. The young Dean Rusk, later to become Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson, arbitrarily drew a line of division across the 38th Parallel because, as he said, that would leave the capital city, Seoul, in the American zone.

Written reports at the time criticized Washington for allowing the Red Army into Korea but the fact was it was the other way around. The Soviets could easily have occupied the entirety of Korea but chose not to do so, instead opting for a negotiated settlement with the U.S. over the future of Korea. Theoretically the peninsula would be reunited after some agreement between the two victors at some future date.

However, the U.S. immediately began to favor those Koreans who had collaborated with the Japanese in the exploitation of their own country and its people, largely the landed elites, and Washington began to arm the provisional government it set up to root out the peoples committees. For their part the Soviets supported the communist nationalist leader, Kim Il-Sung who had led the guerrilla army against Japan at great cost in lives.

In 1947 the United Nations authorized elections in Korea, but the election monitors were all American allies so the Soviets and communist Koreans refused to participate. By then the Cold War was in full swing, the critical alliance between Washington and Moscow that had defeated Nazi Germany had already been sundered. As would later also occur in Vietnam in 1956, the U.S. oversaw elections only in the south of Korea and only those candidates approved by Washington. Syngman Rhee became South Koreas first president protected by the new American armed and trained Army of the Republic of Korea. This ROK was commanded by officers who had served the Japanese occupation including one who had been decorated by Emperor Hirohito himself and who had tried to track down and kill Kim Il Sung for the Japanese.

With Korea thus seemingly divided permanently both Russian and American troops withdrew in 1948 though they left advisers behind. On both sides of the new artificial border pressures mounted for a forcible reunification. The fact remained that much of rural southern Korea was still loyal to the peoples committees. This did not necessarily mean that they were committed communists but they were virulent nationalists who recognized the role that Kims forces had played against the Japanese. Rhees forces then began to systematically root out Kims supporters. Meanwhile the American advisers had constantly to keep Rhees forces from crossing the border to invade the north.

In 1948 guerrilla war broke out against the Rhee regime on the southern island of Cheju, the population of which ultimately rose in wholesale revolt. The suppression of the rebellion was guided by many American agents soon to become part of the Central Intelligence Agency and by military advisers. Eventually the entire population was removed to the coast and kept in guarded compounds and between 20,000 and 30,000 villagers died. Simultaneously elements of the ROK army refused to participate in this war against their own people and this mutiny was brutally suppressed by those ROK soldiers who would obey such orders. Over one thousand of the mutineers escaped to join Kims guerrillas in the mountains.

Though Washington claimed that these rebellions were fomented by the communists no evidence surfaced that the Soviets provided anything other than moral support. Most of the rebels captured or killed had Japanese or American weapons.

In North Korea the political system had evolved in response to decades of foreign occupation and war. Though it was always assumed to be a Soviet satellite, North Korea more nearly bears comparison to Titos Yugoslavia. The North Koreans were always able to balance the tensions between the Soviets and the Chinese to their own advantage. During the period when the Comintern exercised most influence over national communist parties not a single Korean communist served in any capacity and the number of Soviet advisers in the north was never high.

Nineteen forty-nine marked a watershed year. The Chinese Communist Revolution, the Soviet Atomic Bomb, the massive reorganization of the National Security State in the U.S. all occurred that year. In 1950 Washington issued its famous National Security Paper-68 (NSC-68) which outlined the agenda for a global anti-communist campaign, requiring the tripling of the American defense budget. Congress balked at this all-encompassing blueprint when in the deathless words of Secretary of State Dean Acheson Thank God! Korea came along. Only months before Acheson had made a speech in which he pointedly omitted Korea from Americas Defense perimeter.

The Korean War seemed to vindicate everything written and said about the international communist conspiracy. In popular myth on June 25, 1950 the North Korean Army suddenly attacked without warning, overwhelming surprised ROK defenders. In fact the entire 38th Parallel had been progressively militarized and there had been numerous cross border incursions by both sides going back to 1949. On numerous occasions Syngman Rhee had to be restrained by American advisers from invading the north. The Korean civil war was all but inevitable. Given postwar American plans for access globally to resources, markets and cheaper labor power any form of national liberation, communist or liberal democratic, was to be opposed. Acheson and his second, Dean Rusk, told President Truman that we must draw the line here! Truman decided to request authorization for American intervention from the United Nations and bypassed Congress thereby leading to widespread opposition and, later, a return to Republican rule under Dwight Eisenhower..

Among the remaining mysteries of the UN decision to undertake the American led military effort to reject North Korea from the south was the USSRs failure to make use of its veto in the Security Council. The Soviet ambassador was ostensibly boycotting the meetings in protest of the UNs refusal to seat the Chinese communists as Chinas official delegation. According to Bruce Cumings though, evidence exists that Stalin ordered the Soviet ambassador to abstain. Why? The UN resolution authorizing war could have been prevented. At that moment the Sino-Soviet split was already in evidence and Stalin may have wished to weaken China, something which actually happened as a result of that nations subsequent entry into the war. Or he may have wished that cloaking the UN mission under the U.S. flag would have revealed the UN to be largely under the control of the United States, which indeed it was. What is known is that Stalin refused to allow Soviet combat troops and reduced shipments of arms to Kims forces. Later, however Soviet pilots would engage Americans in the air. The Chinese were quick to condemn the UN action as American imperialism and warned of dire consequences if China itself were threatened.

The war went badly at first for the U.S. despite numerical advantages in forces. Rout after rout followed with the ROK in full retreat. Meanwhile tens of thousands of southern guerrillas who had originated in peoples committees fought the Americans and the ROK. At one point the North Koreans were in control of Seoul and seemed about to drive American forces into the sea. At that point the commander- in-chief of all UN forces, General Douglas MacArthur, announced that he saw unique opportunities for the deployment of atomic weapons. This call was taken up by many in Congress.

Truman was loathe to introduce nukes and instead authorized MacArthur to conduct the famous landings at Inchon in September 1950 with few losses by the Marine Corps vaunted 1st Division. This threw North Korean troops into disarray and MacArthur began pushing them back across the 38th Parallel, the mandate imposed by the UN resolution. But the State Department claimed that the border was not recognized under international law and therefore the UN mandate had no real legal bearing. It was this that MacArthur claimed gave him the right to take the war into the north. Though the North Koreans had suffered a resounding defeat in the south, they withdrew into northern mountain redoubts forcing the American forces that followed them into bloody and costly combat, led Americans into a trap.

The Chinese had said from the beginning that any approach of foreign troops toward their border would result in dire consequences. Fearing an invasion of Manchuria to crush the nascent communist revolution the Chinese foreign minister, Zhou En-Lai declared that China

will not supinely tolerate seeing their neighbors invaded by the imperialists.

MacArthur sneered at this warning.

They have no airforceif the Chinese tried to get down to Pyongyang there would be a great slaughterwe are the best.

He then ordered airstrikes to lay waste thousands of square miles of northern Korea bordering China and ordered infantry divisions ever closer to its border.

It was the terrible devastation of this bombing campaign, worse than anything seen during World War II short of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that to this day dominates North Koreas relations with the United States and drives its determination never to submit to any American diktat.

General Curtis Lemay directed this onslaught. It was he who had firebombed Tokyo in March 1945 saying it was

about time we stopped swatting at flies and gone after the manure pile.

It was he who later said that the US ought to bomb North Vietnam back into the stone age. Remarking about his desire to lay waste to North Korea he said

We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea too.

Lemay was by no means exaggerating.

On November 27, 1950 hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops suddenly crossed the border into North Korea completely overwhelming US forces. Acheson said this was the worst defeat of American forces since Bull Run. One famous incident was the battle at the Chosin Reservoir, where 50,000 US marines were surrounded. As they escaped their enclosure they said they were advancing to the rear but in fact all American forces were being routed.

Panic took hold in Washington. Truman now said use of A-bombs was under active consideration. MacArthur demanded the bombs As he put it in his memoirs:

I would have dropped between thirty and fifty atomic bombsstrung across the neck of Manchuriaand spread behind us from the Sea of Japan to the Yellow Sea- a belt of radioactive cobalt. It has an active life of between 60 and 120 years.

Cobalt it should be noted is at least 100 times more radioactive than uranium.

He also expressed a desire for chemicals and gas.

It is well known that MacArthur was fired for insubordination for publically announcing his desire to use nukes. Actually, Truman himself put the nukes at ready and threatened to use them if China launched air raids against American forces. But he did not want to put them under MacArthurs command because he feared MacArthur would conduct a preemptive strike against China anyway.

By June 1951, one year after the beginning of the war, the communists had pushed UN forces back across the 38th parallel. Chinese ground forces might have been able to push the entire UN force off the peninsula entirely but that would not have negated US naval and air forces, and would have probably resulted in nuclear strikes against the Chinese mainland and that brought the real risk of Soviet entry and all out nuclear exchanges. So from this point on the war became one of attrition, much like the trench warfare of World War I. casualties continued to be high on both sides for the duration of the war which lasted until 1953 when an armistice without reunification was signed.

Of course the victims suffering worst were the civilians. In 1951 the U.S. initiated Operation Strangle which officialls estimated killed at least 3 million people on both sides of the 38th parallel, but the figure is probably closer to 4 million. We do not know how many Chinese died either solders or civilians killed in cross border bombings.

The question of whether the U.S. carried out germ warfare has been raised but has never been fully proved or disproved. The North accused the U.S. of dropping bombs laden with cholera, anthrax, plague, and encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever, all of which turned up among soldiers and civilians in the north. Some American prisoners of war confessed to such war crimes but these were dismissed as evidence of torture by North Korea on Americans. However, none of the U.S. POWs who did confess and were later repatriated were allowed to meet the press. A number of investigations were carried out by scientists from friendly western countries. One of the most prominent concluded the charges were true. At this time the US was engaged in top secret germ-warfare research with captured Nazi and Japanese germ warfare experts, and also experimenting with Sarin, despite its ban by the Geneva Convention. Washington accused the communists of introducing germ warfare.

Napalm was used extensively, completely and utterly destroying the northern capital of Pyongyang. By 1953 American pilots were returning to carriers and bases claiming there were no longer any significant targets in all of North Korea to bomb. In fact a very large percentage of the northern population was by then living in tunnels dug by hand underground. A British journalist wrote that the northern population was living a troglodyte existence.In the Spring of 1953 US warplanes hit five of the largest dams along the Yalu river completely inundating and killing Pyongyangs harvest of rice. Air Force documents reveal calculated premeditation saying that

Attacks in May will be most effective psychologically because it was the end of the rice-transplanting season before the roots could become completely embedded.

Flash floods scooped out hundreds of square miles of vital food producing valleys and killed untold numbers of farmers.

At Nuremberg after WWII, Nazi officers who carried out similar attacks on the dikes of Holland, creating a mass famine in 1944, were tried as criminals and some were executed for their crimes.

So after a horrific war Korea returned to the status quo ante bellum in terms of political boundaries but it was completely devastated, especially the north.

I submit that it is the collective memory of all of what Ive described that animates North Koreas policies toward the US today which has nuclear weapons on constant alert and stations almost 30,000 forces at the ready. Remember, a state of war still exists and has since 1953.

While South Korea received heavy American investment in the industries fleeing the United States in search of cheaper labor and new markets it was nevertheless ruled until quite recently by military dictatorships scarcely different than those of the north. For its part the north constructed its economy along five-year plans and collectivized its agriculture. While it never enjoyed the sort of consumer society that now characterizes some of South Korea, its GDP grew substantially until the collapse of communism globally brought about the withdrawal of all foreign aid to north Korea.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, as some American policymakers took note of the norths growing weakness Secretary of Defense Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz talked openly of using force finally to settle the question of Korean reunification and the claimed threat to international peace posed by North Korea.

In 1993 the Clinton Administration discovered that North Korea was constructing a nuclear processing plant and also developing medium range missiles. The Pentagon desired to destroy these facilities but that would mean wholesale war so the administration fostered an agreement whereby North Korea would stand down in return for the provision of oil and other economic aid. When in 2001, after the events of 9-11, the Bush II neo-conservatives militarized policy and declared North Korea to be an element of the axis of evil. All bets were now off. In that context North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, reasoning that nuclear weapons were the only way possible to prevent a full scale attack by the US in the future. Given a stark choice between another war with the US and all that would entail this decision seems hardly surprising. Under no circumstances could any westerner reasonably expect, after all the history Ive described, that the North Korean regime would simply submit to any ultimatums by the US, by far the worst enemy Korea ever had measured by the damage inflicted on the entirety of the Korean peninsula.

(Acknowledgement to Bruce Cumings and I.F. Stone)

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South Korea Should Give U.S. Troops the Boot – MWC News (satire) (registration) (blog)

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Monday, 24 April 2017 10:25

The best thing that South Koreans could ever do, both for themselves and for the American people, as well as the Japanese citizenry, is boot all U.S. troops out of their country.

Isnt the reason obvious?

If President Trump, the Pentagon, and the CIA succeed in instigating a war with North Korea, guess who is going to pay the biggest price for such a war.

No, not the United States. At the end of such a war, the continental United States will remain untouched, just like it was after World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all the other foreign wars in which the U.S. government has become embroiled.

The same cannot be said about South Korea and Japan. While North Korea would undoubtedly end up losing a war against the United States (assuming that China doesnt enter the fray), South Korea will end up as a devastated wasteland. Thats because as it is going down to defeat, North Korea can be expected to cause as much death and destruction as it can.

That means that South Korea will be buried under a barrage of missiles and artillery shells, not to mention invading North Korean troops. This is especially true for the capital, Seoul, which is located just a few miles south of the border that separates North and South. As Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, put it in a recent article,

Yet if North Korea retaliates for a U.S. attack, South Korea would be the primary victim. Pyongyang has no capability to strike the American homeland, but Seoul, South Koreas largest city and its economic heart, is located barely 30 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas, and it is highly vulnerable to a North Korean artillery barrage. Civilian fatalities would number in the thousands or tens of thousands.

The likelihood is that North Korea would also do whatever it could to hit Japanese cities with missiles, given that Japan is a treaty ally of the United States.

There is also the distinct probability that North Korea will explode a few nuclear bombs in South Korea. Of course, only one would do the trick, by bringing deadly radiation to most of the country for a long time to come. The same holds true for Japan. If North Korea can do it, it will almost certainly lash out with nuclear missiles fired at Japan.

There are those who maintain that North Korea would never resort to nuclear weapons because it knows that the United States would respond with a carpet nuclear-bombing of the entire country. But the problem is that one never knows what a ruler is going to do when faced with total defeat, death, capture, trial, or incarceration. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cubas communist ruler Fidel Castro was willing to fire nuclear missiles at invading U.S. troops, knowing full well that it would destroy Cuba forever and most likely result in an all-out nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Sure, the United States will win such a war. But can the same be said for Koreans and Japanese?

The fact is that North Korea absolutely hates the United States and, more specifically, the U.S. government. It is impossible to overstate the depth of the enmity that the North Korean regime and the North Korean people have for the Pentagon and the CIA.

For one thing, North Koreans understand that it was none of the U.S. governments business to embroil itself in Koreas civil war in the first place. The war was between two halves of one country, no different in principle from the civil war that took place in Vietnam several years later another civil war that was none of the U.S. governments business.

Moreover, the North Koreans have never forgotten the manner in which the U.S. government waged the Korean War by massive bombing of Korean towns and cities and also by germ warfare against the North Korean populace. The anti-Asian mindset within the U.S. national-security establishment was the same mindset that guided the waging of the U.S. war in Vietnam, a mindset that held that the North Korean populace consisted of nothing but communist gooks who were hell-bent on conquering the world and taking over the United States, a mindset that held that the only good communist is a dead communist.

Additionally, the North Korean regime fully understands that for the U.S. national-security establishment, the Cold War never really ended. Thats why the embargo against Cuba continues. Thats why NATO still exists. Thats why the hostility toward Russia has never ended. And its why U.S. troops have never come home from Korea.

What that means is regime change one of the core missions of the U.S. national-security establishment ever since it came into existence after World War II. The Pentagon and the CIA still want what they have always wanted for North Korearegime change. Thats why they intervened in the Korean War, not to save America from the communist hordes they said were coming to get us but rather to bring North Korea under U.S. rule, thereby enabling the Pentagon and the CIA to station U.S. troops on Chinas border, the same thing they are determined to do in Ukraine on Russias border.

The North Koreans (and the Chinese) are fully aware of all this. Thats why they have developed a nuclear program to deter a U.S. regime-change operation. They know that nuclear weapons are the only thing that will deter the Pentagon and the CIA from instigating one. Dont forget, after all, that Iraq fell to a U.S. regime-change operation because Saddam Hussein did not have nuclear weapons. Cuba, by comparison, was able to resist a U.S. regime-change operation in 1962 with the help of nuclear missiles from the Soviet Union.

Booting U.S. troops out of Korea would be the best thing that could have happen to the South Korean people and the Japanese people. For one thing, it is highly unlikely that North Korea would resume the civil war, given that South Korea has a much more powerful military and a prosperous society to fund such a war. But if such a war were to break out, it would likely remain conventional, rather than go nuclear, given that Koreans would be fighting Koreans rather than North Koreans fighting Americans.

Finally, with the U.S. government out of the picture, the chances of a diplomatic resolution between the two halves of Korea would be much higher, if for no other reason than that both societies would undoubtedly prefer to avoid the death and destruction the resumption of their civil war would produce.

South Koreans should do themselves, Japan, and the United States a tremendous favor by kicking U.S. troops out of their country. It would also be a favor to those U.S. troops, given that they are nothing but a sacrificial tripwire to guarantee U.S. involvement in another Korean war.

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While socialism breeds oppression, capitalism spurs democracy, economic prosperity – The Badger Herald

Posted: at 5:36 am


The Badger Herald
While socialism breeds oppression, capitalism spurs democracy, economic prosperity
The Badger Herald
Not only has capitalism increased quality of life wherever is it adopted, but it encourages the establishment of democratic forms of government. The hypothesis of the link between economic freedom and political freedom was put forward by Nobel ...

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Father of former Miss World Philippines latest victim in Duterte’s war on drugs – Telegraph.co.uk

Posted: at 5:35 am

Ms Parungao, a TV presenter who was crowned Miss World Philippines in 2015, wrote a grief-ridden tribute to her father, who she credited with launching her modelling career as he used to ask for her photos when he was working in Taiwan.

As a child she followed him everywhere on his rare visits home and she once found him crying in the garden.

My first memory of my dadA man in his denim jeans and white t-shirt. Bubbly, full of life and love, hurting and sobbing, she wrote. As I sit watching him now sleeping still, I told him, Dad, you will never be hurt anymore.

According to a police report seen by the Philippine Star, her father grabbed the gun of his police escort who had uncuffed him when he complained of chest pains.

It fits a pattern of reports where thousands of drugs suspects have allegedly been killed fighting arrest in encounters with police, or while reaching for guns in custody.

Thousands more have been murdered in unsolved vigilante-style executions that have drawn international condemnation since Duterte was elected last summer, pledging to kill criminals in a crackdown on drugs crimes.

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Father of former Miss World Philippines latest victim in Duterte's war on drugs - Telegraph.co.uk

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The War on Drugs Are Back to Business on Ethereal ‘Thinking Of A … – Baeble Music (blog)

Posted: at 5:35 am

Among the many exclusives and goodies that were available on Record Store Day (aka Hipster Christmas) last weekend, fans of the Philly indie rockers The War On Drugs got a particularly exciting gift: A special RSD 12" featuring a brand-new original song, "Thinking of A Place." The track is everything we've come to love and expect from the Adam Granduciel-led group, whose unique mix of psychedelia and Americana won them much-deserved praise on 2014's Lost In The Dream.

Through TWOD has never been one to stick to the magic "3:30 or less" rule, the track is over 11 minutes long, which is always tricky to pull off because you almost need to justify the time length to the listener in order for them to stick around for the whole thing. While this usually means throwing in some kind of musical explosion in the song's final act, Granduciel pushes grand gestures to the side, instead letting it linger at a steady pace without building or losing momentum. The sprawling wall of sound, soaring guitar solos, and the warm, nostalgic production gives the song a quality that perfectly balances the line between vintage and modern. That spacy, reverb-drenched Americana sound has greatly influenced the indie rock world the past few years, and has even spilled over to mainstream pop on occasion, but no one still does it quite as accurately and confidently as TWOD.

The gentle synths and guitars linger and hum throughout the track, and the lack of clear pause or moment of silence gives the song a constant sense of movement, floating along as Granduciel fondly reminisces about times long past. It's not necessarily a song that slowly builds towards a conclusion, but that's never what TWOD intended to do. Like the best jam bands who have come before them, TWOD's music is about the journey, engulfing you in reverb and guitar fuzz as you wander through the meticulously placed layers of sound. In that regard, "Thinking Of A Place" is the ultimate driving song: It's a long, hypnotic, mid-tempo track that you can leave on in the background and let it wash over you. Give this track a listen whenever you're on an open, empty road, or when you simply want to get lost in your head, revisiting old times within the sonic haze.

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Duterte’s War on Drugs Stumbles in Rehabilitation Effort – WSJ – Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Duterte's War on Drugs Stumbles in Rehabilitation Effort - WSJ
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MANILAThe government of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is giving up on supersize drug rehabilitation centers, shifting the burden of treating addicts ...

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California Fights Back As Jeff Sessions Escalates War On Drugs – The Fresh Toast

Posted: at 5:35 am

While U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions escalates the war on drugs, drug policy reform surges ahead in California, joining states such as Washington and New York, where similar innovative approaches to some of our greatest challenges, like drug overdose deaths and mass incarceration, are being pioneered.

The Drug Policy Alliance had another successful day in the California state legislature, with two more bills passing through the first house committee, AB 1578 and SB 180. These bills join the agenda with two others bills that passed through their first house committees in preceding weeks.

AB 1578 successfully passed in a 5-2 committee vote, and will now move to the full Assembly. AB 1578, authored by Los Angeles Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, will protect Californians who are operating lawfully under California state laws, by providing that absent a court order, local and state agencies, including regulators and law enforcement, shall not assist in any federal enforcement against state authorized medical cannabis or commercial or noncommercial marijuana activity. DPAs California State Director Lynne Lyman testified at Tuesdays Assembly Public Safety Hearing, saying:

AB 1578 is intended to prevent federal government over-reach in the era of Trump. We do not want the federal government harassing, intimidating or prosecuting people who are operating lawfully under state law.

Also having its first hearing Tuesday was SB 180 by Senator Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles, passing 5-2 out of Senate Public Safety. Dubbed the RISE Act, (Repeal of Ineffective Sentencing Enhancements Act), Mitchells bill would repeal the three-year sentencing enhancements that are tacked onto new convictions for petty drug possession for sale or sale cases. These enhancements are the leading cause of long sentences that create crisis-level overcrowding in county jails.

Enhancement and mandatory minimums are central to the failed drug war that has done nothing to reduce the availability of drugs or to deter illegal drug sales. This enhancement disproportionately impacts the poorest and most marginalized people in our communities those with substance use, mental health needs, and people of color. By removing this enhancement, SB 180 will remove one of the mechanisms that increase racial disparities within the criminal justice system, and free funds that can be reinvested in community programs that improve the quality of life and reduce crime. SB 180 will next be considered by the full Senate.

For the first time ever in the United States, a state bill to authorize safe consumption services passed a legislative vote. AB 186, authored by Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman of Stockton, co-sponsored by DPA and leading health policy and drug treatment associations, would allow local jurisdictions to permit supervised consumption services and provide legal protections for the programs and participants. Participants use pre-obtained drugs under supervision of medical professionals.

Supervised consumption services prevent overdose deaths, improve public order, and link people to treatment and other services. Around 100 exist around the world, but none yet in the United States. AB 186 goes to the Assembly Public Safety Committee next. San Francisco has recently established a task force to develop a policy recommendation on placement of services in the city. This bill protects local jurisdictions that want to pilot these life-saving programs.

Also on DPAs winning ticket is AB 208 by Eggman, a bill to provide equal protection to immigrants who seek drug treatment diversion for drug misdemeanors. Under current law, persons accused of possession of a small amount of drugs for personal use must plead guilty in order to access court ordered drug treatment. When they complete the program, their records are cleaned. However, the federal government response to the guilty plea is to deport the defendant or deny re-entry, even for legal residents, combat veterans, and family members of legal residents. Even for those who successfully complete the programs, the guilty plea hangs over their head forever.

This bill would allow the court to refer a person to treatment before a plea is entered, and if the person succeeds they move on with their life, and should they fail the charges are reinstated. It passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee on March 14, and is currently under consideration in the Appropriations Committee.

Lynne Lyman is the California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

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Where the war began – Rappler

Posted: at 5:35 am

EXCLUSIVE: Families of the Philippine drug war's dead claim they know the man who shot their children and they're willing to speak his name

By Patricia Evangelista Photos by Carlo Gabuco

Rappler tracks the killings in Police Station 2-Moriones in Tondo, Manila, where the first drug fatality after Rodrigo Duterte's inauguration was shot in the early hours of July 1, 2016. Of the 2,555 drug suspects killed across the country in the first 7 months of the drug war, PS-2 Moriones claims at least 45. They were allegedly killed after police were forced into shootouts. At least 15 remain unidentified in police records.

Rappler conducted more than 40 interviews in the course of a 3-month investigation. Among them are the 7 who put their names and testimonies on the record, calling 4 of the alleged encounters summary executions and accusing the police of torture and harassment. This multimedia report presents police records and witness testimonies to profile the man residents call the demon of Delpan.

The people of the villages know the killer by name.

Rexs mother knows. She remembers the night he came looking for her son, when the killer shoved her so hard the baby she held nearly fell out of her arms.

Joshuas mother knows. She knows because he had a gun to her mouth. She knows who the killer is, knows enough that on the day her son was buried, she took a jeep and howled his name when it trundled past the police precinct.

You son of a bitch, she screamed. You killer, you killed my son.

Marios brother knows. His friends saw the killer drag Mario into the precinct and watched as he was beaten bloody. Mario's brother counted the bullet wounds himself. There were 7 in all.

Danilos aunt knows for sure. She says it was the killer who gave her his name.

The man who killed Joshua and Rex and Mario and Danilo was not in uniform. Neither were the armed men who were with him. But the mothers are certain the killer was a cop. The neighbors are certain the killer was a cop. Every witness to the 4 deaths is certain the killer was a cop.

There is no doubt on that one point. The cops also say the killer was a cop.

Part 1: 'I will kill you'

INTRODUCTION: Where the war began

On June 30, 2016, a few hours after he took his oath of office, the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines appeared at the Delpan Sports Complex along Road 10 in Tondo, Manila to inform his new constituency that a war was at hand.

I am asking you, do not go [into drugs] because I will kill you, Rodrigo Duterte told the residents of Isla Puting Bato. It may not be tonight, it may not be tomorrow, but in 6 years, there will be one day that you will make a mistake and I will go after you.

Delpan sits at the bottom of Tondo, population 630,363, one of the capitals poorest areas where the shanties sit cheek to jowl with slaughterhouses and churches. Plastic tables covered with white tablecloths were scattered across the orange-painted gym. Duterte's people called the event a solidarity dinner.

President Rodrigo Duterte was late, held up by his first Cabinet meeting. When he arrived, the pineapple silk shirt was gone, traded for a striped polo shirt and a navy jacket with the sleeves rolled up. He said he ran for the presidency because he saw the Philippines drowning in drugs, criminality and poverty.

If someones child is an addict, he told the crowd, be the one to kill them, so it wont be so painful [to their parents].

Do it first, he said, because that person will die either way.

Those of you into drugs, Im done warning after the election, he said. Whatever happens to you, all of you listen, it could be your sibling, it could be your spouse, it could be your friend, your child, I am letting you know, there will be no blaming here. I told you to stop. Now, if anything happens to them, they wanted it. They wanted it.

The Presidents promise was kept. At 3 in the morning of July 1, hours after the Presidents speech, the earliest reported extrajudicial killing of the new regime occurred along IBP Road, near the corner of Road 10 and the Delpan Sports Complex.

The killing held the rough elements of what would be a pattern of deaths across the rest of the country in the next 7 months. Blotter number 1675 noted the body found of a male person alleged victim of summary execution. The unidentified victim, between 25-30 years old, about 53 tall, had been left with a sheet of cardboard over his body. It read, I am a Chinese Drug Lord.

The responding officers were members of the Delpan Police Community Precinct (Delpan PCP), one of 4 precincts under Manila Police Station-2 Moriones (PS-2).

At least 3 more drug-related killings committed by unidentified men would occur under PS-2s area of responsibility within the next two weeks. They were later reclassified as deaths under investigation.

And then the police killings began. By the time the war was suspended on its seventh month, a total of 2,555 were killed across the country in what the government now calls legitimate police operations.

Jimmy Walker

PART 2: 'I will kill you'

Jimmy Walker got his last name from his American grandfather and not much else. Just past 20, he is snaggletoothed and shy, all elbows and collarbones inside the loose white shirt, his strawberry blonde hair already showing dark roots.

He was close to his cousin Joshua Cumilang, the 18-year-old whose family nicknamed Wawa. Joshua sniffed solvent occasionally. Jimmy, who had bad lungs, never did. The boys were as good as brothers, even if Jimmy was often the butt of Joshuas jokes. Jimmy, bungi, Joshua called him. Jimmy the toothless. But it was Joshua who loaned Jimmy clothes, who fed Jimmy when Jimmy was so broke he couldnt afford a cup of rice.

The Cumilangs live in Isla Puting Bato, a sweaty maze of shanties tucked into the curve of the Manila North Harbor. Thick ropes of electrical wiring hang overhead, so low in some places that it is impossible to walk upright. The alleys are makeshift markets garlic by the bushel, cigarettes by the stick, powdered Oreo-flavored shakes sold beside roasted pig guts. The colors are bright a purple door here, a yellow awning there, graffiti scrawled big and broad over the few stretches of open wall.

One Friday afternoon, Jimmy, Joshua, and two other young men were sitting on a roadside ledge. The Cumilang shanty was behind them, down a set of stone steps. It was a month before Christmas. Joshua was counting the money he had saved for the holidays.

All of a sudden there were armed men. They were dressed in civilian clothing. Jimmy knew them from their rounds in the area. Its the ones who arent in uniform who kill here, he said.

One of them was the man Jimmy knew as Alvarez.

People would say, Stay away from that Alvarez, said Jimmy. Be careful, hes a killer.

That day, Jimmy said, Alvarez had a partner, a younger man whom Alvarez was training. Nobody was certain how they were related. They called him the other Alvarez.

The armed men started searching Joshua. They found the money in his sock, took it and pocketed it. They said the 4 young men had been using marijuana We werent, we really werent and made them stand with their hands on the tops of their heads. Two of the armed men herded Joshua down the steps to the short alley beside his house.

Joshuas mother Nenita came charging out of the Cumilang home, straight at the men who had seized her son. Sir, what are you doing sir, dont do anything sir, just jail him, please.

The younger Alvarez walked down the steps and aimed his gun at Joshua. Jimmy said his cousin looked terrified. He was begging, Ma, Ma, Ma.

It never occurred to me to stop them, Jimmy said. My mind blanked. I couldnt talk. My insides were trembling.

Alvarez aimed a gun at Nenita. She turned to run. The younger Alvarez let loose a shot. Nenita turned. She saw her son on the ground covered in blood. She tried to leap for Joshua. The younger Alvarez turned on her with a gun and chased her all the way to the street where she hid.

Alvarez took aim, said Jimmy, and shot Joshua again.

Neighbors rushed out of their homes after the gunshots. The street was crowded. The men who killed Joshua Cumilang walked over to a store just beside the Cumilang house. Witnesses said the men bought coffee and bottles of water with the money from the dead man.

Jimmy heard Alvarez on the phone. He said Alvarez was calling for backup.

The uniformed cops of the Delpan Police Community Precinct streamed in within minutes.

One of them stopped in front of Alvarez. Alvarez addressed the uniformed man as sir.

Sir, Wawa is gone, said Alvarez. Hes dead.

Good job, said the older man. Good job. Jimmy said the man raised both fists with the thumbs up.

The men made Jimmy carry Joshuas corpse into a pedicab. Nenita ran through another alley and jumped in. The two cops who were sitting with Joshua's corpse glared at her, but said nothing.

The pedicab stopped at an empty stretch of road. Nenita said a cop aimed a gun at her head. They pushed her out just before a boy darted past her to poke his head into the pedicab. One of the cops shifted his gun to the boy.

Nenita said the second cop held the other back.

Dont, he said. Thats a kid. You kill that one and theyll slap us with a case.

Part 3: 'They rape their mothers'

Delpan PCP Commander Rexson Layug

PART 3: 'Good job'

The trouble with drugs, Police Chief Inspector Rexson Layug told Rappler, is that they leave no man decent.

Layug is the commander of the Delpan Police Community Precinct (Delpan PCP), whose stark white building sits square under the Delpan Bridge. A 22-year veteran, he supervises the sprawling swath of shanties that includes Isla Puting Bato and a chunk of Parola, Tondo.

When theyre on drugs, sometimes, theyll even rape their grandmothers, he explained. Their grandmothers and their mothers. You can see it in the news. That's why they rape. Sometimes, they even kill their children, because they think theyre demons.

Layug was pleased with Project Double Barrel, the Presidents national operation against drugs. It was the Duterte administration that increased the number of policemen under Layug's command and allowed for more aggressive patrols.

Layug is a burly man, with a paunch and a lantern jaw. Since the beginning of the war on drugs, Layug has assigned an hourly beat to Isla Puting Bato, an area he described as one of his more chaotic territories.

It was one of those patrols that killed Joshua Cumilang, at least according to a report filed by the Manila Police District (MPD) Homicide Section on November 18. The spot report the account of the incident filed by police investigators described how an anti-criminality patrol walked into Purok 3 of Isla Puting Bato. The patrol noticed and chanced upon a group of men while examining a transparent plastic sachet in the act of extending over to another male companion. According to the report, the group scampered away when the policemen arrived.

In the story the police tell, one officer, a certain SPO1 Sherwin Mipa, followed the suspect who had the sachet. Joshua ran inside the basement of a small shanty. Mipa shouted for Joshua to stop. Joshua turned, already armed with a .38 caliber revolver." He fired twice, and missed.

The report said that Mipa, sensing that his life was [in] imminent danger [had] no other choice but to fire back, returned fire twice, thus hitting the suspect in the abdomen and shoulder.

The spot report also listed the collected evidence. They included a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber snub-nose revolver without a serial number, a P20 bill, and 5 plastic sachets of what appeared to be methamphetamine hydrochloride street name shabu, or crystal meth.

SPO3 Jonathan Bautista, the MPD Homicide investigator assigned to the case, said in an interview with Rappler that he had spoken to Nenita Cumilang. She told him her son did not fight back. She was, however, unwilling to file an affidavit at the MPD. Nenita later told Rappler the family couldnt file charges: Will they pay attention to me? Were little people nobody pays attention to. They salvage the big ones, dont they? So I did nothing.

Inasmuch as I could, I tried to convince her, Bautista said. I said, when I was asking her, For as long as you have any witnesses, the case will not close. There is still justice.

Bautista had written the spot report, but admitted there was some irregularity in the investigation process. Although he said he had spoken to SPO1 Mipa, the shooter on record, Bautista said all police officers involved in fatal incidents must each file either individual or joint affidavits to explain their version of events. He said none of the policemen on the scene, even Mipa, chose to submit reports to the Homicide Section. Bautista said he was forced to rely on spot reports written by the investigators of PCP Delpan and PS-2 Moriones.

To be honest, weve hit a blank wall, its like we're in limbo, he said. Considering that although theres this version of the story, the version of the police, I'm waiting for maybe someone with the courage to come out and say something like the allegations [Rappler] told us. Even if were cops, we wont stand back if the guilty need to be punished, definitely. We will file charges against them.

- Homicide Spot Report, 18 November 2016

In his interview with Rappler, Precinct Commander Layug claimed no cop under his watch had ever been injured during the drug war except for one who slipped and fell in the dark. In fact, he said, Delpan cops had never been shot at or been involved in any armed encounter with any resisting suspect during a patrol or drug operation since the beginning of the drug war.

His claim was a stark contradiction to the MPD's own police reports and media coverage. At least 11 fatal encounters with police occurred in Delpan alone, including the operation that killed Joshua Cumilang. An entry in the MPD Homicides police journal recorded the death of one Marvin Samonte, alleged drug pusher, killed on July 17, 2016. A news report detailed how Samonte was killed by members of the Delpan PCP in an apartment in Pier Dos, Tondo after allegedly resisting arrest.

The police team was led by Precinct Commander Layug.

Asked by Rappler if anyone in his unit had ever been involved in any shootouts with drug suspects during patrols, Layug said no.

No, no one has ever fought back.

Part 4: 'He looked for Mama'

Nelson Aparri

PART 4: 'They rape their mothers'

On the day after his son died, Nelson Aparri knelt just inside his front door with a rag and a bucket. He talked while he scrubbed. He said he was sorry. He said he couldnt even the score. He said maybe God would deal with the killers, because he couldn't himself. He bent over the floor, a lanky man in his late 50s, slopping water and tears over his sons blood.

It took a long time to clean.

It was Nelson who was closest to Rex. Rex was Papas boy. Even his mother Rowena agreed. It was only that night, just before the first shot was fired, that Rex Aparri screamed for his mother.

When he was about to die, Rowena said, he looked for me.

The house in Isla Puting Bato where 30-year-old Rex Aparri was killed sits along a short, skinny alley, so skinny that its possible to step out of one front door and into the door across. On September 13, 2016, at a little past 7 in the evening, word spread across the village that cops were coming. Nelson was afraid the family would be targeted, as Rex occasionally ran drugs. He had heard that every man inside a house during a raid ended up dead. He tried to drag Rex out with him.

Rex was stubborn. Not me, he said. Theyre not after me.

Rowena stayed. So did Rexs girlfriend Lori Ann and their 10-month-old son.

There were 5 armed men in all, none of them in uniform. Rowena was sitting on the front doors ledge. One of the men shoved her backward. She fell, Rex's son in her arms.

The man, she said, was the one Isla Puting Bato knew as Alvarez.

Alvarez told her they were looking for Rex. Two of the men stayed outside, shouting at neighbors to keep out of the way, threatening a teenager who had poked his head out of a window. Alvarez and another man climbed up the ladder to the second floor where Rex was tinkering with a radio. The fifth man stayed in the living room. He had Rowena and Lori Ann sit at a corner by the open door. He told them to put their mobile phones and wallets on top of the television. The women sat for half an hour, until the man guarding them walked to the bottom of the ladder with a folded packet in his hand what Rowena assumed was drugs. He called to the men upstairs.

Sir, you can have him brought down, sir, were killing him. Its positive.

Rowena began shouting Sir, he has nothing sir, how can it be positive?

Alverez and a second man brought Rex downstairs. He clung to the banister, weeping. Arrest me, please don't kill me, I have a son.

Rowena pushed the baby at Rex So he would have a shield then threw her arms around her son. It was a tangle of bodies, everyone pushing and shoving in a space the size of a bathroom. A mirror broke. One of the men hit Rowena with a gun, and kicked her out into the alley. She blacked out.

Lori Ann screamed. One of the armed men shoved her out, snatched the baby by the hair from Rex, then threw the wailing boy out to where Lori Ann knelt in the alley. She caught her son and knelt begging through the open door.

At the second shot she ran, and told Rowena that Alvarez had just shot Rex straight through the back of the head.

Nelson Aparri, standing in a nearby alley, heard the gunshots. He began to run home. Neighbors grabbed him by the arms.

No, they said, dont go. Theyll kill you too.

Nelson began to cry.

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Could Legalized Gambling Save Us From the Insufferability of Fantasy Sports? – New York Times

Posted: at 5:35 am


New York Times
Could Legalized Gambling Save Us From the Insufferability of Fantasy Sports?
New York Times
As it turned out, the country's millions of sports gamblers didn't share Bradley's concern for the sanctity of athletes like Bill Bradley or the children who might grow up to be just like him. In practical terms, the Sports Protection Act has mostly ...

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Justices approve felon rights, gambling initiatives – News – Daily … – Daily Commercial

Posted: at 5:35 am

By Jim Saunders / The News Service of Florida

TALLAHASSEE In a pair of high-profile issues that could go on the ballot next year, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday approved proposed constitutional amendments that would restore felons' voting rights and restrict the expansion of gambling in the state.

The court's approval of the measures is a critical initial step, but supporters still face the task of collecting hundreds of thousands of petition signatures to get the proposals on the November 2018 ballot.

Groups backing both initiatives quickly said they will move forward with collecting and submitting the required 766,200 signatures to reach the ballot. Supporters of the gambling measure had submitted 74,626 signatures as of Thursday, while backers of the felon-voting initiative had submitted 71,209, according to the state Division of Elections.

"We are pleased that the Supreme Court has approved the language of this amendment and we can move forward with our efforts to ensure that Florida voters not gambling industry influence and deal making are the ultimate authority when it comes to deciding whether or not to expand gambling in our state," said John Sowinski, chairman of Voters In Charge, a group spearheading the gambling measure.

The Supreme Court does not rule on the merits of proposed constitutional amendments but looks at issues such as whether ballot titles and summaries would be clear to voters and whether initiatives comply with a single-subject requirement.

The court unanimously signed off on the proposal that would automatically restore the voting rights of many felons after they have completed the terms of their sentences. The amendment would not apply to people convicted of murder and felony sexual offenses.

The issue of restoring felon rights has long been controversial in Florida, with critics of the state's process comparing it to post-Civil War Jim Crow policies designed to keep blacks from casting ballots. A system approved in 2011 by Gov. Rick Scott and the Cabinet required felons convicted of nonviolent crimes to wait a minimum of five years to have their rights restored, while others could wait up to 10 years before being eligible to apply.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and other supporters of the process have argued that the restoration of voting rights for felons should be earned and only after a sufficient waiting period.

But the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is helping lead efforts to pass the ballot initiative next year, said the proposal would bring Florida in line with other states.

"Now the work of gathering signatures and mounting a successful campaign to change the Florida Constitution begins in earnest," Kirk Bailey, ACLU of Florida political director, said in a prepared statement Thursday. "We look forward to Florida voters being given a chance to bring our state's voting rules out of the 19th century and into the 21st."

The Supreme Court was more divided about whether the gambling-related initiative should move forward. The measure was approved in a 4-2 decision, with Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and justices Barbara Pariente, Peggy Quince and Charles Canady in the majority and justices Ricky Polston and R. Fred Lewis dissenting. Justice Alan Lawson, who joined the court at end of December, did not take part.

If the amendment is approved in November 2018, it would give voters the "exclusive right to decide whether to authorize casino gambling" in the state. It would require voter approval of casino-style games.

Polston, in a dissenting opinion joined by Lewis, argued the proposal is misleading and violates the single-subject requirement. He contended, in part, that the proposal would not fully inform voters about its possible effects on a constitutional amendment passed in 2004 that authorized slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Under that amendment, local voters also had to approve the slot machines.

"The initiative is placing voters in the position of deciding between a preference for controlling the expansion of full-fledged casino gambling and Florida's current legal gaming landscape," Polston wrote.

But the majority rejected arguments that it should block the measure from going on the ballot.

"The opponents primarily argue that the initiative should not be placed on the ballot because it is unclear whether, if passed, the amendment would apply retroactively and what effect, if any, the amendment would have on gambling that is currently legal in Florida including gambling that was previously authorized by general law rather than by citizens' initiative," the majority wrote. "However, as the sponsor points out, the opponents' arguments concern the ambiguous legal effect of the amendment's text rather than the clarity of the ballot title and summary."

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