Invasion of Afghanistan followed to repress an Islamic insurgency. When the USSR invaded up against US-trained Islamic militants, the result was the downfall of the immense empire that Putin's nostalgia aspires to regain. The cold war ended and the Taliban in the next decade seized war-torn Afghanistan. Struggles ever since have centered around various oil and gas pipelines, one after another, leading out of Middle Eastern countries. The continuous, barbaric warfare there, both civil and invasive, is based not in territoriality but greed pure and simple. In the wake of the Shock and Awe invasion of 2003 that decimated Baghdad, the first destination of British troops was the airfields adjacent to oil pipelines.
The similar motive for invading Gaza in 2009 and 2010 was the discovery of hugely lucrative oil and gas reserves there; Israelis wanted to prevent Palestinians from profiting from their own resources. The origin of the Syrian civil war was likewise oil reserves: Bashar al-Assad's opposition to a pipeline slated to extend from Qatar through Syria to Europe. US goals conflicted with Assad's. Blood for oil is the ongoing reality in the Middle East where, said Dennett, US power prevails.
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Wayne Madsen's path toward whistleblowing coincided with a promising career in the US Navy tracking Russian submarines in the Pacific off of the coast of Oregon. But he soon ran into the corruption of a commanding officer failing to show up for work. Madsen reported this to authorities. This led to a promotion of sorts leading to a sting operation on this officer. As sole witness, he reported his discovery of a child pornography ring. The culprit was sentenced to four years of hard labor at Fort Leavenworth penitentiary, which was reduced to 18 months.
Rewarded with a Navy achievement medal, Madsen was sent home, only it had been sold. When he protested against this de facto dismissal, he was sent to Washington, DC, where he immediately fell upon more corruption: midnight tours of the White House for young pages ("call boys") extracted from local orphanages. He was stonewalled when he reported this to the Department of Defense, among others.
So began Madsen's foray into investigative reporting, a treasure trove and huge inspiration for whistleblowers and those willing to listen and spread the word.
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Don Siegelman began his presentation by specifying how he could be present and speaking out today instead of stuck in prison for even longer than the 88 months he was confined without the possibility of appeal.
Attorney and activist Dana Jill Simpson, whose professional background includes employment by Karl Rove, testified before the House Judiciary Committee, implicating her former boss in Siegelman's abysmal and corruption-infested downfall, which began with a reelection as Alabama's governor in 2002 for a second term that wasn't allowed to happen. In the middle of the night of his reelection, 6,200 votes magically disappeared from his total. None of the other results on the down ballot were at all affected.
The upset of the popular governor was eagerly certified. An associate of John McCain noted that Siegelman was the only Democrat who couldn't be defeated fairly.
Meanwhile, Simpson went home one day to find her home burned to the ground. On two other occasions she was run off the road while driving.
Paralegal Tamara Grimes, a moderate Republican on a promising career path with the Justice Department, sacrificed herself when she objected to corruption carried out during the successful incrimination of Siegelman in the second trial held against him. According to Andrew Kreig, Grimes testified that "prosecutors had communicated with jurors. Also, she said pro-conviction jurors had privately strategized by email outside the jury room to obtain guilty verdicts all without required notification to the defense." In addition, she reported obscene comments from coworkers in what these adversaries of Siegelman called "The Big Case." Grimes wrote to the new Attorney General Eric Holder in 2009 complaining of these outrages and was rewarded a week later with termination for trumped-up reasons.
Others joined in to forcefully oppose this blatant politicization of the Department of Justice, a precedent that has been distorted and bloated during the Trump administration. Ultimately, said Siegelman, he was rescued by an expose/ aired by the news magazine program Sixty Minutes and the tenacity of the House Judiciary Committee. Bloggers were also most helpful, mainstream media not at all.
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People come to Dr. William Pepper, famous human rights litigator and activist, for his expertise and have been doing so since he began his career as a community organizer of the Citizens' Union. His work came to the attention of Robert F. Kennedy, from whom he received a job appointment. For his courageous opposition to the Vietnam war, he gained the attention of Martin Luther King Jr., whose family came to him years later to express their disbelief that James Earl Ray was the actual killer of this civil rights icon.
Risking his life, Pepper traveled to the deep South to investigate the question. He has since taken up a similar position on behalf of Sirhan Sirhan, who many witnesses testify did not fire the bullets that assassinated RFK. RFK was killed by a bullet that hit him from the back, and Sirhan had fired standing in front of him. Pepper persists in his efforts to this day, a 40-year crusade; the case has already ascended to SCOTUS unsuccessfully. He has been working with the Inter-American Council on Human Rights since 2017, without results. An evidentiary hearing, so far off the table, would exonerate Sirhan, he said.
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