http://www.opednews.com/articles/A-Nation-Without-a-Conscie-by-Joseph-Clifford-Iraq-Massacres_Iraq-War_Media-Newspapers_Media-News-140927-423.html
> Article: A Nation Without a Conscience | OpEdNews
A Nation Without a Conscience
By Joseph Clifford<http://www.opednews.com/author/author93960.html>
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Iraqi Children
We are a nation without a conscience, and that friends, is a frightening thing. Far more frightening than any terrorist group could ever be to this nation. Recently I discussed with a friend, the folly of our 23 year war on Iraq. I cited the example of the US imposing the most brutal sanctions in the history of the world on an innocent people. Nothing was allowed into their country, and as the sanctions took their deadly toll the rest of the world pleaded with us to remove them, but to no avail. Children and the elderly were the hardest hit by the sanctions, as the sick and the in-firmed always suffer most in cases like this. In a 1996 famous interview on 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl asked then Secretary of State Madeline Albright a powerful question. "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" Without blinking Ms. Albright answered, "Yes we think it is worth it." I gasped, and was breathless and speechless for a couple of minutes, when I heard her answer. What could be worth the lives of 650,000 children, most of whom were less than 6 years old? What could ever be worth that? I was stunned that Ms. Albright could even get the words out, but was even more shocked when the entire nation barely raised their eyes at Ms. Albright's comment. The entire nation, somewhat like Ms. Albright did not blink at the deaths of 650,000 children. There was no outrage or real anger among the American public. I was shocked yet again, and I am still stunned by the indifference of the US public, to the policy of taking 650,000 innocent children's lives and apparently have no real regret, remorse, or even anger. There was, and still is, practically no reaction to the mass killing of 650,000 children. What kind of a nation kills 650,000 completely innocent children and does not blink?
When I brought up the case of the sanctions and the deaths of 650,000 children, my friend just looked at me; no shock, no horror, nor remorse, or anger. Nothing. My friend showed the same indifference as did the US public, towards a government policy which took the lives of 650,000 innocent children. Look into the eyes of the Iraqi children in above the photo? Do you approve of killing 650,000 kids like those? Does it bother you that your government killed so many children like those in the picture? Do you have a conscience? Did you ever protest the deaths of so many innocent children?
To illustrate the folly of US policy towards Iraq, I pursued the next argument, by pointing out that this nation killed over 1.5 million Iraqis, and I dared or challenged that friend to tell me what they were killed for? There is no logical reason, for the entire war was based on lies and distorted evidence. It was a war of choice. There were no WMD in Iraq. It was all for naught. The deaths of 1.5 million were for nothing. I pressed this point to my friend and just got a blank stare. No shock at the 1.5 million, no shame, nothing. This nation did not care about the 650,000 innocent dead children, so why would they get upset about 1.5 million Iraqi deaths? We were not angry because individuals lied us into a war that caused the deaths of 1.5 million people. We just do not care; we have no conscience. We have never admitted wrongdoing, and no one has ever been held accountable for the 650,000 dead children and 1.5 million dead Iraqis who died for no reason. As a people and a nation we have no conscience, and a nation without a conscience is to be feared by all.
11/28/2014 , http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ferguson-Re-examined-by-Paul-Craig-Roberts-Force_Justice_Police_Violence-141128-241.html
Ferguson Re-examined
By Paul Craig Roberts<http://www.opednews.com/author/author12495.html>
Reprinted from Paul Craig Roberts<http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/11/28/ferguson-reexamined-paul-craig-roberts/>
Few, if any, of the correct questions were asked in the grand jury hearing to decide whether policeman Darren Wilson would be indicted for killing Michael Brown.
The most important unexamined question is whether police are trained to use force immediately as a first resort before they assess a situation or determine if they are at the correct address. Are the police trained that the lives of police officers are so much more valuable than the lives of possible suspects, or a houseful of people into whose residence a heavily armed SWAT team enters, that police officers must not accept the risk of judicious behavior when encountering citizens?
If this is the case, as all evidence indicates that it is, then the police when they gratuitously murder members of the public are merely doing what they have been trained to do. As police are trained to use violence as a first resort, the police cannot be held accountable when they do.
There are a large number of videos available online that show that the first thing that police do when they arrive is to use force.
No sooner is Michael Brown in the grave than Cleveland cops kill a 12-year old boy who has a toy gun that shoots plastic pellets. The child is threatening no one--indeed there is no one else present. The boy seems to be playing a fantasy game in his head. A busy body calls the police. The police arrive and instantly shoot the kid down.
Here is a selection of videos and reports. Some of the videos are compressed to save the viewer time. They range from 59 seconds to the full 7:51 minute video, which shows the kid is just walking up and down the sidewalk. All the action comes at the end. The police arrive and instantly open fire, making no effort whatsoever to assess the situation. See here<http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-shows-cleveland-cop-shoot-12-year-old-tamir-rice-n256656>, here<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2850234/Video-released-showing-police-shooting-Tamir-Rice-12-carrying-BB-gun.html>, here<http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/local/cleveland/2014/11/26/tamir-rice-shooting-video-released/19530745/>, and here<http://nypost.com/2014/11/27/cops-release-video-of-officer-fatally-shooting-12-year-old/>.
Just a few days before Michael Brown is killed, Ohio police murdered John Crawford inside a Walmart store. What had Crawford done? He had picked up a BB rifle from a Walmart shelf and was on the phone with the mother of his two children, perhaps checking with her whether he could purchase it for the kids. A busybody named Ronald Ritchie felt threatened and called the police. The police rush in and shoot Crawford. The police claim that they ordered Crawford to drop the rifle, but the video shows the police shooting Crawford on sight<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/25/ohio-wal-mart-surveillance-video-shows-police-shooting-and-killing-john-crawford-iii/>. The busybody Ritchie actually caused two deaths, as the incident of Crawford's murder caused Angela Williams to die from a heart attack as she fled the store in response to the police gunfire.
Yes, you guessed it. The grand jury decided the police were justified.
Here is another video<http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/dashcam-shows-cops-shooting-an-unarmed-man-333655619609> that demonstrates that policemen shoot instantly without cause. This is a rare case in which the policeman was held accountable, most likely because the video prevented authorities from fabricating the usual story of police justification.
In this video<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_68bmTlGtQ8>, police shoot down an unarmed black man in the street. After shooting Kajieme Powell 10 times, the cops hold guns on the dead body while they handcuff a dead man. Like an almost endless number of other such videos, this one shows that either psychopaths are recruited for the police force, or police training turns cops into psychopaths.
These two reports examine Officer Darren Wilson's story of why he shot Michael Brown<http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7281165/darren-wilsons-story-side> and conclude that Wilson's story doesn't make sense<http://www.vox.com/2014/11/25/7287443/dorian-johnson-story>. Most likely, Michael Brown was just another victim of the gratuitous violence that police are trained to use. Darren Wilson's use of deadly force was in keeping with his training.
The problem with the grand jury and prosecutor in Ferguson and everywhere else is that the real problem -- the training of police to use deadly force as a first resort -- was not identified as the cause of Michael Brown's death.
The Ferguson grand jury's decision is not an exoneration of Wilson's use of deadly force. Anyone familiar with the American criminal justice (sic) system knows that any prosecutor can get or prevent an indictment from a grand jury. Prosecutors are allowed to determine what evidence is presented. Prosecutors are permitted to bribe witnesses with money or dropped charges, and they can coerce false witness testimony by threatening a witness with charges. Seldom does an indictment or refusal to indict turn on the true facts.
The US justice system is no longer concerned with justice, but with the careers of prosecutors, punishing the powerless, and protecting the powerful. As justice has largely departed the justice system, it is hardly surprising that police lack any concept of justice.
11/29/2014 www.opednews.com/articles/Shooting-Blacks-with-Immun-by-Joseph-Clifford-Black-Agenda-Report_Immunity_People_Police-141129-267.html
Shooting Blacks with Immunity
By Joseph Clifford<http://www.opednews.com/author/author93960.html>
Anyone who is familiar with grand jury procedure knows full well, if a prosecutor wants an indictment he will get it, because in the grand jury the prosecutor is the only side to make a presentation. It is a one sided show with no defense to challenge anything that is said or presented. Any prosecutor, no matter how incompetent, can get an indictment if he wants one. To support this well-known contention consider the following. In 162,500 cases prosecuted by U.S. attorneys from 2009 to 2010, grand juries voted not to return an indictment in only 11, according to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics -- equivalent to one in 14,759 cases, or 0.0068 percent. A University law professor said: "If the prosecutor wants an indictment and doesn't get one, something has gone horribly wrong."
In the Michael Brown grand jury, one wonders if the prosecutor brought out the fact that Officer Wilson fired 12 shots. Not one, not two, but twelve.. Seven shots hit Michael Brown, 2 in the head. Either the police are using totally excessive weaponry, or Officer Wilson overreacted, or both. Experts are now challenging some of Officer Wilson's statements and procedures since testimony has been released, but in the grand jury there is no way to cross examine the officer. Grand juries are a farce and any lawyer knows it.
The outrage of the black community is more than justified because mainstream media hides the extent of the problem. Almost 500 black men were shot down in the streets by police around the country. The death rate in the streets of this country for blacks being shot by police is higher than the death rate for US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan in the same period, so one could easily presume there is a war on black males by the police in this country.
It is not only at the state and local level that over armed police overreact with death resulting with immunity. In the past 20 years the FBI has not found any wrongdoing in over 150 FBI shootings. Even when an innocent man who was the wrong man, was shot in the face and the FBI awarded the victim 1.3 million dollars, the shooting was officially justified by the FBI.
Police are virtually unaccountable for murder, and this has occurred for a number of reasons.
Court rulings in the past 20 years insure that police are held to a different standard than citizens. All a police officer has to do is claim he felt his life threatened, and almost every shooting will be found to be a "good" shooting; a defense citizens are not entitled to. Because of the nature of police work, courts have ruled it is not proper to second guess their spit decisions, which helps with their immunity. We have over armed police with military style weapons and tactics, and it is human nature, if you dress a person up like a soldier, and give him the weapons of war, he will use them.
We have developed a new tradition of worshipping the military, and police ride that coattail. Just as the military can do no wrong, and is rarely found guilty of torture, murder, massacre, killing innocent women and children, so too are police treated by society. We have foolishly put the military on a pedestal, and allow police to have their place on that pedestal. The writers of the constitution would be absolutely horrified at the honor and tribute that citizens render the military, for the founders feared the military and fought long and hard in the constitutional convention to prevent a strong military. The founding fathers considered it a necessary evil, but it had to be contained at all costs. Certainly not to be worshipped as it is today, but to be feared and limited.
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