Happy Friday the 13th! I'm in Mexico so I am immune from any bad luck – here Tuesday the 13th is the bad one. As well, cats here only have 7 lives, not 9… so if you are a cat, don't come to Mexico.
Anyways, I recently began taking some actions in my life that have me feeling even happier and freer than I normally feel. I've begun culling my friends on Facebook.
I started deleting huge swathes of my friends based on one criteria: Am I aware of them initiating violence against others? Normally it's hard to tell who amongst us participate in violence and aggression but I received an excellent opportunity to out them with the recent election in Canada. I'm originally from Canada and so I still have a lot of Canadian friends and I was able to find out who participates in criminal acts that day.
“I just voted!” proudly proclaimed one friend who had just participated in an organization whose sole purpose is to initiate violence on your behalf.
Un-friended.
“Get out there and vote!” chimed in another soon-to-be-ex-friend. Even worse than those who vote, he is trying to recruit others to participate in the criminal process!
After all, what is voting, as we know it today? It is choosing your own favorite dictator and giving him/her the tacit support to force people to do things against their will (laws) or steal money (taxes) and if they don't submit, he/she will kidnap (arrest) them and hold them hostage in a cage (jail).
It is one of the most despicable acts you can do. And I have begun to take action.
I received many messages from people who I had defriended, asking me why I did that. I responded, generally, that life is short and I want to solely surround myself by non-violent people. They didn't really understand… and I explained it to them. If they, then, at that point said, that they now realize what they are doing then they get added back as a friend. If not, it's probably better we part ways now.
Government is behind almost all of the major atrocities in the world. Genocides? Government. Millions dying of starvation? Government. Every war in history? Government.
I recently came across a video that was very moving (hat tip to fellow freedom fighter, Yakeen in Salta Province, Argentina for sending me the video). It mostly centers around American military veterans against war.
After decades and decades it is becoming incredibly obvious that there is no political solution to stopping the wars propagated by government. Just watch the first minute of the video to see what Barack Obama said about how he was going to stop the war prior to election and then look what he has done after. His Nobel Peace Prize still to this day stands as the biggest opposite trophy ever handed out. Might as well give Wayne Gretzky the “Worst Hockey Player Ever” award if that's how it works!
Even if you believe all the propaganda of the “War on Terror” the reported death of the face of terrorism (Osama bin Laden) has only reinforced the fact that the war on terror cannot be won through war. That just creates more terror.
I encourage you to watch this video, which shows there is hope to fight the war machine. After this video I include our own Private Parts (pseudonym) who we regularly feature in our paid newsletter under the title “Dispatch from Within the Belly of the Beast”. The attached dispatch was his entry in our May issue of TDV but it is so touching and has so many insights into what is going on that I want to bring it to the world.
Private Parts is a hero inside of the system trying to expose it for what it really is. He risks his life bringing us these dispatches every month. Please take some time to watch the following video and then read his most recent dispatch. If at the end of seeing both of those you aren't ready to be done with these governments then nothing can probably convince you otherwise.
Dispatch From Within The Belly of the Beast
by Private Parts
Editor’s Note: We include these casual comments from a former US NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) currently working as a contractor of the US Government on the ground in Afghanistan as an eye-opening look into what American taxpayer dollars are being used for in the “War on Terror”
“To watch the courageous Afghan freedom fighters battle modern arsenals with simple hand-held weapons is an inspiration to those who love freedom.” -US President Ronald Reagan, 1983
Happy Mujahideen Day! (An Afghan holiday, April 28th)
Well, in the past month I can honestly say I’ve left my current camp a total of two times! Once, for about three hours, to visit an Afghan prison. An interesting trip actually. And I had a short overnight stay to attend a meeting at a US camp in the western region of the country.
Aside from those two grueling days of work it’s been “business” as usual this month. Working out, tanning, socializing when the bars start serving (around 7pm usually), etc. Ah, the life of a contractor.
My trip to the US camp in Herat province, a quiet Tajik area bordering Iran, was another classic example of US Government (USG) waste. It all started when I checked-in for my flight out of Kabul and found out I was the only passenger!
Okay, sometimes I do get the VIP treatment at some camps I visit because of my current position. But believe me, I am nowhere near the managerial level that would ever warrant its own designated flight, not even close. So I was surprised to see this government-contracted flight willing to spend all the time and money (not just flight planning and man-hours, but fuel especially) just to fly one passenger.
After I counted all the empty seats before taxiing (something like 23 empty seats) I asked the loadmaster if they had originally expected more passengers and they were just “no shows” this morning. But he said no and that I was the only outbound pax scheduled, and that they only had two contractors on the return leg. And by the way, these flights around A’stan aren’t just the two pilots, they always have 1-2 loadmasters/security personnel on board as well, in case they have to make an emergency landing in an unsecure area. So this particular flight had two security personnel, with the two pilots, a total of four crewmembers just to fly one passenger! And that route to Herat, Afghanistan’s third largest city, already has 6-8 flights per day, both military and civilian. So it’s not like we were going to some far off place that no other plane serviced. They could have easily put me on another flight already going to Herat later that day. And considering I had to be at the airport at 0600 to catch that plane, I wish they did! I could have slept in.
But why should that air charter company care? They’re not going to offer to cancel the run and transfer their pax onto a later flight. They know damn well that the USG will reimburse the costs, regardless of necessity (or lack of). And every contract company I’ve ever worked for inflated their costs to the USG, so I’m sure that company was no different. They were going to make a profit on that flight, probably an exaggerated one. (If you’re interested:http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-22/dyncorp-to-pay-7-7-million-for-inflated-claims-on-iraq-work-u-s-says.html)
Since the USG doesn’t run its operations for a profit, they never think about minimizing costs and cutting waste. It’s just not part of their operational planning as it would be if they had a profit motive. The DoD and DoS are going to spend every last penny they get allotted each fiscal year (and ask for more the next).
Sure, with all my years of govt. travel I’ve been on more half-empty govt. flights, ¾-empty govt. flights, etc. to remember. So I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve been surrounded by USG fraud, waste and abuse my entire adult life, first in the military, now in the contract world. But maybe it was just so blatant this time…one passenger…23 empty seats…I just shook my head and had to laugh when we taxied. But don’t worry, my flight home the following day was much more cost-effective. They crammed in all FOUR of us passengers in that time. There were “only” about 20 empty seats.
By the way, if you ever want to fly Kabul-Herat on your own dime you can buy a r/t ticket on a commercial Afghan airline for $140. Or you can just fly with the USG and let them spend probably $30k or so in total costs to fly you and three Filipinos to and from.
And while it’s always fun to see our tax dollars at work that wasn’t even the highlight of that trip. I got to see some nice US foreign policy hypocrisy up close once I arrived. I always enjoy that.
When I briefly thought I was going to get delayed a few days on that US camp, I stopped in the laundry room to check how quick their turnaround was (fyi, most laundry service is contracted out but supervised by US/NATO logistics officers). When I was there, up on the counter in plain view, a bulk supply of laundry detergent manufactured in…you guessed it…Iran.
Now it’s nothing to find Iranian goods on NATO camps in western A’stan. The Italians, Spanish, etc. on those camps will import any goods they can get cheap. They don’t care about our sanctions. But the US still does. So it’s good to see US Army Logistics violating the USG’s own sanctions on Iran just to get some cheap laundry detergent. I’m sure that will come as a comfort to all the businessmen the USG has charged in the past for violating the trade embargo.
Well, in closing, a quick observation about my first glimpse of the Afghan prison system. I had my tour just two days after nearly 500 Taliban prisoners had escaped from a prison down in Kandahar (Taliban from a nearby village dug a 1,000ft tunnel to break them out). 500 hardened Taliban back on the loose in Kandahar was such devastating news even Karzai didn’t try to minimize it. He flat-out called it “a disaster”. Although in what must be the understatement of the year, a US military spokesman called the event “not helpful”.
Now considering that governments almost always administer the prisons in a country, it should be no surprise that most are run poorly at best, if not truly inhumane, as many are. And to no one’s surprise in our group, the men’s prison we toured was beyond atrocious. The filth, disease, emaciated prisoners crammed into standing-room only cells, I wouldn’t wish those living conditions on my worst enemy, let alone the poor, uneducated, illiterate, who couldn’t afford the bribes to get out of their idiotic charges of “adultery”, drug possession, etc. And for the ones who are now left to rot for “moral” crimes, often long past their scheduled release dates (Afghan prisoners are routinely left in prison months after their release dates in hopes of soliciting one last bribe from the prisoner or their family).
Surprisingly, there were quite a few white dudes locked up too. I wasn’t expecting that. Most were probably just light-skinned Uzbeks, and I was told that a couple of them were Chechen fighters, but there were also a handful of Brits and Aussies. They were in for the expected, drug smuggling, murder (contractors killing Afghan cops during traffic accident disputes or checkpoint shakedowns, etc.)
One guy I felt sorry for though. He was a contractor for a British firm, some sort of manager I believe. His company got caught with unregistered weapons and he was the fall guy. Karzai must have wanted to make an example of him and his company left him out to dry.
Having unregistered weapons in A’stan? Or back in Iraq? Hah, they could have locked up my buddies and me 100 times for that! Hell, 90% of the entire contract security community is guilty of that.
Anyway, the women’s prison, however, couldn’t have been more different (we toured both men’s and women’s prisons). Actually, it was pretty damn nice. Plenty of space, well-furnished, had several heating units, relatively clean (if not actually clean, it was at least tidy). There were toys for the kids, as many women had their kids living with them inside the prison, and a well-stocked workshop (the women earned money by crafting rugs and sewing clothes). I even saw a computer that the women can study on. And most interestingly, they were all dressed casually, no covering. I didn’t see one single “chadri”, the oppressive burqa with full face covering so common here. It’s ironic. The women of Afghanistan live better, literally, inside of a prison than they do outside in their own society.
By the way, the decent living conditions in the women’s prison have absolutely NOTHING to do with the Afghan government. You should already know how Afghan men treat their women. The women’s prison was well-maintained solely because of the foreign aid/humanitarian assistance from US and European donors that is earmarked for women’s corrections. That’s the only reason the women aren’t living in hell like the Afghan men.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am NOT celebrating those women’s “good fortune” of being locked up. A lot of them had no business being locked up in the first place. The Afghan court system is still unconscionable, even after the USG’s DoS has spent, literally, hundreds of millions in its “Rule of Law” programs since 2002 trying to train and “advise” Afghan judges and corrections officers. Yet even with all that time and money spent, anyone can still get out of ANY crime if they’re willing to pay enough in bribes to the judge. And women are routinely sentenced for “moral” crimes, or they’re just charged with the moral crimes and locked up endlessly waiting for their trials, which never come.
There were several women in there for adultery, a couple of teenage girls in for having consensual sex with their boyfriends, and some were in for, well, for being rape victims, literally. Any other country in the world, aside from maybe Pakistan or Sudan, they would have been considered the crime victim, but with the despicable Afghan view on morality, they were charged with adultery after they had been raped. (Fyi, Afghan judges can sentence for ANY sex outside of marriage, even rape victims).
But fear not. Just as we were leaving, I ran into a DoS official, a mid-level manager type, who I’ve known for several years. He’s now working on one of those “Rule of Law” programs, the programs that were supposed to reform the Afghan judicial and correctional systems. When he recognized me he was quick to sing the praises of his new program. He then bragged that “Washington has already told us they’re more than doubling our budget” because, as he explained “stable rule of law is so important as we transition from military to civilian rule.” The only response I could muster on the spot was, “Well, that’s good. With all that new money, there’s a teenage girl in the workshop wearing a purple dress and henna on her hands that’s been locked up for “adultery” after she got gang-raped. You guys oughtta cut her a nice fat check for travel expenses and hand her a visa to the U.S. whenever she gets released. Considering the judge that put her in here has probably had a US “advisor” (I was sure to do the air quotes to emphasize it) since 2002, I would think that’s the least you could do.”
Oddly, he just laughed. I’m not sure why, I wasn’t joking. That girl, when/if she gets out of prison, will walk right back into a barbaric society as, not a rape victim, but as a previously imprisoned “zina” (a whore who had sex outside of marriage). Her life is already over before it even started. The least DoS could do is get her a seat on their next Kabul-DC flight. I’m sure that plane is flying ¾ empty anyway. I’m sure they have room.
Best,
Private Parts
