BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - The Caribbean is no longer iso­lat­ed from inter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works, includ­ing the threat of ter­ror­ism, and Barbados attor­ney gen­er­al, Adriel Brathwaite, has made it clear that the time has come for coun­tries in the region to put the nec­es­sary leg­isla­tive frame­work in place and con­duct the rel­e­vant train­ing to counter these acts.

He made these com­ments as he addressed a spe­cialised nation­al work­shop on coun­ter­ing ter­ror­ism and its financ­ing in Bridgetown on Wednesday, host­ed by the Inter-American Committee against Terrorism of the Organization of American States, and the gov­ern­ment of Barbados.

“We think, ter­ror­ism, what has that to do with the Caribbean? … Terrorism is some­thing that you read about in oth­er parts of the world. The real­i­ty, though, is that the Caribbean is no longer iso­lat­ed from the rest of the world. Who would have thought that we have seen some indi­vid­u­als from Bulgaria being charged here recent­ly in a scam to do with our ATM machines?” Brathwaite point­ed out.

He warned that a fail­ure to put the nec­es­sary sys­tems in place and to con­duct the required train­ing would open the doors to the coun­try being exploited.

As he addressed the gath­er­ing, Brathwaite, who is also min­is­ter of home affairs, stressed that his min­istry had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to ensure that the nec­es­sary leg­isla­tive frame­work was in place to address issues such as ter­ror­ism, and to ensure that all per­son­nel were trained to iden­ti­fy when the island’s facil­i­ties, whether cor­po­rate trust or bank­ing, were being used for ter­ror­ist financing.

“I just want to high­light that it has my over­whelm­ing sup­port because we can pro­vide as much leg­is­la­tion in the world, but if you do not have the req­ui­site train­ing that leg­is­la­tion is of no use to you,” he told par­tic­i­pants, who includ­ed police and immi­gra­tion offi­cers, judges and per­son­nel from the Central Bank of Barbados.

Brathwaite also gave the com­mit­ment that his min­istry would do all with­in its pow­er to ensure that per­sons who ben­e­fit­ed from the ille­gal pro­ceeds of crime knew that they would have their assets sought after.

“I want to stop talk­ing about it and start some seri­ous action,” he stated.

He added that he had seen two case stud­ies which out­lined how the Financial Intelligence Unit could be used as a cat­a­lyst to ini­ti­ate inves­ti­ga­tions into crim­i­nal net­works, and not­ed that it opened the door to see how Barbados’ resources could be bet­ter utilised to attack the pro­ceeds of crime.

Brathwaite cau­tioned par­tic­i­pants that just as they were train­ing, so too were the ter­ror­ists and mon­ey launderers.

“They have their resources, they have the best brains pos­si­ble, and they sit down and they plan just likeyou on how they can get around our laws, how they can get through our sys­tem. So, we there­fore have to work hard­er because we have less,” he stated.

During the two-day work­shop, par­tic­i­pants were due to exam­ine a range of top­ics, includ­ing the region­al legal frame­work against ter­ror­ism and its financ­ing, the uni­ver­sal legal frame­work against ter­ror­ism and its financ­ing and con­fis­ca­tion and asset sharing.
Terrorism Is A Reality For The Caribbean, Says Barbados AG

The soi-dis­ant Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has a long and iniq­ui­tous his­to­ry of over­throw­ing demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed left­ist gov­ern­ments and prop­ping up right-wing dic­ta­tors in their place.

In the sec­ond Democratic pres­i­den­tial debate, how­ev­er, can­di­date Bernie Sanders con­demned a long-stand­ing gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy his peers rarely admit exists.

“I think we have a dis­agree­ment,” Sanders said of fel­low pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Hillary Clinton. “And the dis­agree­ment is that not only did I vote against the war in Iraq. If you look at his­to­ry, you will find that régime change — whether it was in the ear­ly ’50s in Iran, whether it was top­pling Salvador Allende in Chile, or whether it was over­throw­ing the gov­ern­ment of Guatemala way back when — these inva­sions, these top­pling of gov­ern­ments, régime changes have unin­tend­ed con­se­quences. I would say that on this issue I’m a lit­tle bit more con­ser­v­a­tive than the secretary.”

“I am not a great fan of régime changes,” Sanders added.

“Régime change” is not a phrase you hear dis­cussed hon­est­ly much in Washington, yet it is a com­mon prac­tice in and defin­ing fea­ture of U.S. for­eign pol­i­cy for well over a cen­tu­ry. For many decades, lead­ers from both sides of the aisle, Republicans and Democrats, have pur­sued a bipar­ti­san strat­e­gy of vio­lent­ly over­throw­ing demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed for­eign gov­ern­ments that do not kow­tow to U.S. orders.

In the debate, Sanders addressed three exam­ples of U.S. régime change. There are scores of exam­ples of American régime change, yet these are per­haps the most infa­mous instances.

Iran, 1953

Iran was once a sec­u­lar democ­ra­cy. You would not know this from con­tem­po­rary dis­cus­sions of the much demo­nized coun­try in U.S. pol­i­tics and media.

What hap­pen to Iran’s democ­ra­cy? The U.S. over­threw it in 1953, with the help of the U.K. Why? For oil.

Mohammad Mosaddegh may be the most pop­u­lar leader in Iran’s long his­to­ry. He was also Iran’s only demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed head of state.

In 1951, Mosaddegh was elect­ed prime min­is­ter of Iran. He was not a social­ist, and cer­tain­ly not a com­mu­nist — on the con­trary, he repressed Iranian com­mu­nists — but he pur­sued many pro­gres­sive, social demo­c­ra­t­ic poli­cies. Mosaddegh pushed for land reform, estab­lished rent con­trol, and cre­at­ed a social secu­ri­ty sys­tem, while work­ing to sep­a­rate pow­ers in the demo­c­ra­t­ic government.

In the Cold War, how­ev­er, a leader who devi­at­ed in any way from free-mar­ket ortho­doxy and the Washington Consensus was deemed a threat. When Mossaddegh nation­al­ized Iran’s large oil reserves, he crossed a line that Western cap­i­tal­ist nations would not tolerate.

The New York Times ran an arti­cle in 1951 titled “British Warn Iran of Serious Result if She Seizes Oil.” The piece, which is full of ori­en­tal­ist lan­guage, refers to Iranian oil as “British oil prop­er­ties,” fail­ing to acknowl­edge that Britain, which had pre­vi­ous­ly occu­pied Iran, had seized that oil and claimed it as its own, admin­is­ter­ing it under the aus­pices of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which lat­er became the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, and even­tu­al­ly British Petroleum and mod­ern BP.

The Times arti­cle not­ed that the U.S. “shares with Britain the gravest con­cern about the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Iranian oil, the biggest sup­ply now avail­able in the Near East, might be lost to the Western pow­ers.” The British gov­ern­ment is quot­ed mak­ing a thin­ly veiled threat.

This threat came into fruition in August 1953. In Operation Ajax, the CIA, work­ing with its British equiv­a­lent MI6, car­ried out a coup, over­throw­ing the elect­ed gov­ern­ment of Iran and rein­stalling the monar­chy. The shah would remain a faith­ful Western ally until 1979, when the monar­chy was abol­ished in the Iranian Revolution.

Guatemala, 1954

Less than a year after over­throw­ing Iran’s first demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed prime min­is­ter, the U.S. pur­sued a sim­i­lar régime change pol­i­cy in Guatemala, top­pling the elect­ed leader Jacobo Árbenz.

In 1944, Guatemalans waged a rev­o­lu­tion, top­pling the U.S.-backed right-wing dic­ta­tor Jorge Ubico, who had ruled the coun­try with an iron fist since 1931. Ubico, who fan­cied him­self the 20^th-cen­tu­ry Napoleon, gave rich landown­ers and the U.S. cor­po­ra­tion the United Fruit Company (which would lat­er become Chiquita) free reign over Guatemala’s nat­ur­al resources, and used the mil­i­tary to vio­lent­ly crush labor organizers.

Juan José Arévalo was elect­ed into office in 1944. A lib­er­al, he pur­sued very mod­er­ate poli­cies, but the U.S. want­ed a right-wing pup­pet régime that would allow U.S. cor­po­ra­tions the same priv­i­leges grant­ed to them by Ubico. In 1949, the U.S. backed an attempt­ed coup, yet it failed.

In 1951, Árbenz was elect­ed into office. Slightly to the left of Arévalo, Árbenz was still decid­ed­ly mod­er­ate. The U.S. claimed Árbenz was close to Guatemala’s com­mu­nists, and warned he could ally with the Soviet Union. In real­i­ty, the oppo­site was true; Árbenz actu­al­ly per­se­cut­ed Guatemalan com­mu­nists. At most, Árbenz was a social demo­c­rat, not even a socialist.

Yet Árbenz, like Mosaddegh, firm­ly believed that Guatemalans them­selves, and not multi­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions, should ben­e­fit from their country’s resources. He pur­sued land reform poli­cies that would break up the con­trol rich fam­i­lies and the United Fruit Company exer­cised over the coun­try — and, for that rea­son, he was overthrown.

President Truman orig­i­nal­ly autho­rized a first coup attempt, Operation PBFORTUNE, in 1952. Yet details about the oper­a­tion were leaked to the pub­lic, and the plan was aban­doned. In 1954, in Operation PBSUCCESS, the CIA and U.S. State Department, under the Dulles Brothers, bombed Guatemala City and car­ried out a coup that vio­lent­ly top­pled Guatemala’s demo­c­ra­t­ic government.

The U.S. put into pow­er right-wing tyrant Carlos Castillo Armas. For the next more than 50 years, until the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1996, Guatemala was ruled by a seri­ous of author­i­tar­i­an right-wing lead­ers who bru­tal­ly repressed left-wing dis­si­dents and car­ried out a cam­paign of geno­cide against the indige­nous peo­ple of the country.

Chile, 1973

September 11 has permanently seared itself into the memory of Americans. The date has also been indelibly imprinted in the public consciousness of Chileans, because it was on this same day in 1973 that the U.S. backed a coup that violently overthrew Chile’s democracy.

In 1970, Marxist leader Salvador Allende was demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent of Chile. Immediately after he was elect­ed, the U.S. gov­ern­ment poured resources into right-wing oppo­si­tion groups and gave mil­lions of dol­lars to Chile’s con­ser­v­a­tive media outlets.

The CIA deputy direc­tor of plans wrote in a 1970 memo, “It is firm and con­tin­u­ing pol­i­cy that Allende be over­thrown by a coup… It is imper­a­tive that these actions be imple­ment­ed clan­des­tine­ly and secure­ly so that the USG [U.S. gov­ern­ment] and American hand be well hid­den.” President Nixon sub­se­quent­ly ordered the CIA to “make the econ­o­my scream” in Chile, to “pre­vent Allende from com­ing to pow­er or to unseat him.”

Allende’s demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­ern­ment was vio­lent­ly over­thrown on September 11, 1973. He died in the coup, just after mak­ing an emo­tion­al speech, in which he declared he would give his life to defend Chilean democ­ra­cy and sovereignty.

Far-right dic­ta­tor Augusto Pinochet, who com­bined fascis­tic police state repres­sion with hyper-cap­i­tal­ist free-mar­ket eco­nom­ic poli­cies, was put into pow­er. Under Pinochet’s far-right dic­ta­tor­ship, tens of thou­sands of Chilean left­ists, labor orga­niz­ers, and jour­nal­ists were killed, dis­ap­peared, and tor­tured. Hundreds of thou­sands more peo­ple were forced into exile.

One of the most pre­vail­ing myths of the Cold War is that social­ism was an unpop­u­lar sys­tem imposed on pop­u­la­tions with brute force. Chile serves as a prime his­tor­i­cal exam­ple of how the exact oppo­site was true. The mass­es of impov­er­ished and oppressed peo­ple elect­ed many social­ist gov­ern­ments, yet these gov­ern­ments were often vio­lent­ly over­thrown by the U.S. and oth­er Western allies.

The over­throw of Allende was a turn­ing point for many social­ists in the Global South. Before he was over­thrown, some left­ists thought pop­u­lar Marxist move­ments could gain state pow­er through demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions, as was the case in Chile. Yet when they saw how the U.S. vio­lent­ly top­pled Allende’s elect­ed gov­ern­ment, they became sus­pi­cious of the prospects of elec­toral pol­i­tics and turned to guer­ril­la war­fare and oth­er tactics.

Modern example: Egypt, 2013

These are just a small sam­ple of the great many régime changes the U.S. gov­ern­ment has been involved in. More recent exam­ples, which were sup­port­ed by Hillary Clinton, as Sanders implied, include the U.S. government’s over­throw of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Qadhafi in Libya. In these cas­es, the U.S. was over­throw­ing dic­ta­tors, not demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed lead­ers — but, as Sanders point­ed out, the results of these régime changes have been noth­ing short of catastrophic.

The U.S. is also still engag­ing in régime change when it comes to demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed governments.

In the January 2011 rev­o­lu­tion, Egyptians top­pled dic­ta­tor Hosni Mubarak, a close U.S. ally who ruled Egypt with an iron fist for almost 30 years.

In July 2013, Egypt’s first demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent, Mohammed Morsi, was over­thrown in a mil­i­tary coup. We now know that the U.S. sup­port­ed and bankrolledthe oppo­si­tion forces that over­threw the demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed president.

Today, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, a bru­tal despot who is wide­ly rec­og­nized as even worse than Mubarak, reigns over Egypt. In August 2013, Sisi over­saw a slaugh­ter of more than 800 peace­ful Egyptian activists at Raba’a Square. His régime con­tin­ues to shoot peace­ful pro­test­ers in the street. An esti­mat­ed 40,000 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers lan­guish in Sisi’s jails, includ­ing journalists.

The may­or of Minneapolis on Monday asked for a fed­er­al civ­il rights inves­ti­ga­tion into the week­end shoot­ing of a black man by a police offi­cer dur­ing an appar­ent struggle.

Mayor Betsy Hodges said she wrote to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and to the U.S. attor­ney for Minnesota seek­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion in the “inter­est of trans­paren­cy and com­mu­ni­ty con­fi­dence.” The state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is already con­duct­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion, but Hodges said the city needs “all the tools we have avail­able to us.”

Authorities have released few details about the shoot­ing, which has angered some com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers after wit­ness­es said the man was hand­cuffed when he was shot. Police said their ini­tial infor­ma­tion showed the man, a sus­pect in an assault, was not hand­cuffed. He was tak­en to a hos­pi­tal after the shoot­ing, and his fam­i­ly says he is on life support.

The inci­dent sparked protests Sunday and an overnight encamp­ment at the north Minneapolis police precinct near the site of the shoot­ing. Community mem­bers and activists called for a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion, as well as for author­i­ties to release video of the inci­dent and the offi­cer’s identity.

Protests con­tin­ued Monday, with a few hun­dred peo­ple gath­er­ing at an evening ral­ly out­side the same precinct, beat­ing a drum and chant­i­ng for jus­tice. At least eight tents were set up out­side, and a hand­ful of pro­test­ers were sit­ting behind glass doors in the foy­er, includ­ing one who was knitting.

“We’re still not mov­ing until we get that footage,” said Michael McDowell, a mem­ber of Black Lives Matter.

Later, hun­dreds of demon­stra­tors blocked Interstate 94, shut­ting down the north­bound lanes.

Two offi­cers are on paid leave, stan­dard prac­tice after such an inci­dent. Police Chief Janee Harteau said the offi­cers were not wear­ing body cam­eras, but declined to say whether squad car or sur­veil­lance video was avail­able, cit­ing the ongo­ing investigation.

Nekima Levy-Pounds, pres­i­dent of the Minneapolis chap­ter of the NAACP, called the civ­il rights request a step in the right direc­tion, “giv­en that we do not trust Minnesota law enforce­ment offi­cials to hold them­selves accountable.”

Police said they were called to north Minneapolis around 12:45 a.m. Sunday fol­low­ing a report of an assault. When they arrived, a man was inter­fer­ing with para­medics help­ing the vic­tim, police said. Officers tried to calm him, but there was a strug­gle. At some point, an offi­cer fired at least once, hit­ting the man, police said.

Authorities have not released the man’s name, but fam­i­ly mem­bers iden­ti­fied him as Jamar Clark, 24, and said he was on life sup­port. His father, James Hill, told The Associated Press that his son suf­fered a sin­gle gun­shot wound over his left eye.

Ramona Dohman, the com­mis­sion­er of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said the offi­cers’ iden­ti­ties would be released after inves­ti­ga­tors inter­view them. She declined to say how long the inves­ti­ga­tion could take.

Harteau said she wel­comed a fed­er­al investigation.

“Everyone involved needs and deserves the truth and the facts,” she said.

Gov. Mark Dayton also issued a state­ment say­ing he sup­port­ed the request for a fed­er­al probe.

Authorities said a win­dow at the precinct was bro­ken amid the protests and two police vehi­cles were dam­aged, includ­ing a marked squad car in which all the win­dows and a cam­era were bro­ken, and an exple­tive was scratched into the hood. One per­son was arrest­ed in con­nec­tion with dam­age to an unmarked police car.

The protests are just the lat­est expres­sion of ten­sion between the depart­ment and minori­ties in the city.

Outrage and a civ­il law­suit fol­lowed the 2013 death of 22-year-old Terrance Franklin, a bur­glary sus­pect whom police pur­sued and shot in a Minneapolis base­ment. A grand jury declined to indict the offi­cers involved.

In 2014, promi­nent civ­il rights activist Al Flowers com­plained of being the vic­tim of bru­tal­i­ty when police served a war­rant on a rel­a­tive at his home. Police say Flowers insti­gat­ed their aggression.

The rocky rela­tions have led to dis­cus­sions between police and minori­ties and the cre­ation of task forces designed to quell con­cerns. This spring, Minneapolis was select­ed for a fed­er­alJustice Department pro­gram to rebuild trust between police and the com­mu­ni­ties they patrol.

KG Wilson, a peace activist who retired weeks ago after 11 years of build­ing rela­tion­ships between the com­mu­ni­ty and the police depart­ment, said he’s hurt by the reac­tion he is see­ing and dis­agrees with the protests.

“I hate that this is going on right now. My heart is so crushed. I have not stopped cry­ing,” he said, adding that some pro­test­ers are look­ing for an excuse to be angry. “I think every­thing is being gone about in the wrong way. … Peace is always the way. You can’t bring peace with aggression.”
Minneapolis Mayor Seeks Federal Investigation Into Shooting By AMY FORLITI AND KYLE POTTER, ASSOCIATED PRES

Dr Carl Williams says his time as Police Commissioner to date, does not indi­cate that he has been a suc­cess­ful crime fight­er in the Jamaica Constabulary Force. 

He says peo­ple judge a com­mis­sion­er’s per­for­mance main­ly based on mur­der fig­ures and with cur­rents trends on the rise, he does not expect pos­i­tive feed­back. Dr Williams, a 30-year vet­er­an of the Jamaica Constabulary Force, was appoint­ed com­mis­sion­er in September last year.

Commissioner Williams has been cred­it­ed as being instru­men­tal in the devel­op­ment of pro­grammes aimed at reduc­ing the sup­ply of ille­gal drugs in Jamaica and devel­op­ing a task force to tar­get lot­tery scam­ming. It is part of the rea­son why, while speak­ing yes­ter­day to Gerrard McDaniel onRJR’s Palav, Dr Williams said he has been a “pret­ty suc­cess­ful police offi­cer”. However, he notes that since his appoint­ment last September, it has been a dif­fi­cult jour­ney. He says the jour­ney is even hard­er when there is an increase in mur­ders, the key fac­tor used by the pub­lic to judge a com­mis­sion­er’s performance.

Last week, he told a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee that 1,038 peo­ple were mur­dered for the peri­od January to October, rep­re­sent­ing a 22 per cent increase com­pared with the sim­i­lar peri­od last year. The com­mis­sion­er says he does not expect mur­ders to pass the 1,200 mur­der fig­ure record­ed in 2013. The JCF has received addi­tion­al vehi­cles to assist mem­bers of the force with crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives. The army has been called out to play a more active role in fight­ing crime.
Read more here: http://​jamaica​glean​er​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​n​e​w​s​/​2​0​1​5​1​1​1​6​/​c​o​m​m​i​s​h​-​b​e​l​i​e​v​e​s​-​f​e​e​d​b​a​c​k​-​h​i​s​-​p​e​r​f​o​r​m​a​n​c​e​-​m​a​i​n​l​y​-​b​a​s​e​d​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​-​t​r​e​nds

In the midst of racial tension, some people are doing everything they can to avoid facing the uncomfortable truth.

Matt FernerNational Reporter, The Huffington Post

Change is afoot at Mizzou.

On Monday, University of Missouri sys­tem pres­i­dent Tim Wolfe ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion. His announce­ment fol­lowed weeks of intense back­lash over his per­ceived mis­han­dling of high-pro­file inci­dents of racism on cam­pus and fail­ure to address the lack of diver­si­ty in the uni­ver­si­ty’s fac­ul­ty, among oth­er issues. While many of the stu­dent activists who cam­paigned for Wolfe to step down have called his depar­ture a pos­i­tive first step, they say there’s plen­ty of work left to do to make Mizzou a more racial­ly aware and inclu­sive institution.

But as stu­dents move for­ward with that push, crit­ics have emerged to claim that activists’ demands — and their ear­ly vic­to­ries — have been pro­pelled by lies and over­sen­si­tiv­i­tyto a prob­lem that does­n’t actu­al­ly exist. These skep­tics seem to be sug­gest­ing that the insti­tu­tion­al and overt racism black stu­dents say they expe­ri­ence from the Mizzou com­mu­ni­ty is imag­i­nary — and that demand­ing these issues be addressed is not only disin­gen­u­ous, but dan­ger­ous to the fab­ric of a free America that has sup­pos­ed­ly achieved the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for all.

We should­n’t need to write a sto­ry unpack­ing the absur­di­ty of this argu­ment, which mir­rors a much broad­er denial about the state of race rela­tions in the U.S. Racism is a dark part of the nation’s past, and it’s par­al­leled not just in the his­to­ry of Mizzou, but in the his­to­ries of count­less oth­er uni­ver­si­ties around the coun­try. It should go with­out say­ing that the issues of the past have an effect on the present. But what’s hap­pen­ing at Mizzou isn’t sim­ply a response to his­toric injus­tices. It’s not a mat­ter of rehash­ing issues that our ances­tors resolved, or of black stu­dents not being able to just “get over it” or “move on,” as a crowd of most­ly white peo­ple told a group of African-American pro­test­ers at a Mizzou home­com­ing parade last month.

The move­ment at Mizzou is an effort to draw atten­tion to the mod­ern man­i­fes­ta­tions of racism, which stu­dents say still rears its head in the form of struc­tur­al inequal­i­ty and indi­vid­ual acts of hate. The inci­dents below doc­u­ment the lat­ter, and togeth­er sug­gest that more bla­tant dis­plays of racism con­tribute to con­cerns among black stu­dents that they are not val­ued by the university.

This is, of course, not a com­pre­hen­sive list of every racist inci­dent that has hap­pened on cam­pus. Yet sad­ly, the first response from many has been to ques­tion and reject the verac­i­ty of each episode, as if the idea of a black per­son fac­ing oppres­sion or aggres­sion because of their race is so unbe­liev­able in today’s America that it must be made-up. Apparently it’s eas­i­er for some peo­ple to accuse the black com­mu­ni­ty of con­coct­ing an elab­o­rate racial con­spir­a­cy than it is to con­front the dif­fi­cult real­i­ty of racism in America. But if these peo­ple would take a sec­ond to actu­al­ly lis­ten to those who are affect­ed by racism, it’s the only proof they’d need to under­stand that the cur­rent protests at Mizzou are a nec­es­sary response to a very real issue.

Two white dudes lit­tered the black cul­ture cen­ter with cot­ton balls.

On the morn­ing of Feb. 26, 2010, in the final days of Black History Month, stu­dents woke up to find cot­ton balls spread across the grounds in front of the Gaines/​Oldham Black Culture Center on cam­pus — a scene evok­ing slavery.

Days lat­er, Zachary Tucker, then 21, and Sean Fitzgerald, then 19, both white male stu­dents, were arrest­ed and sus­pend­ed for drop­ping the cot­ton balls in front of the center.

Both stu­dents were con­vict­ed on mis­de­meanor lit­ter­ing charges.

The inci­dent, which Tucker and Fitzgerald lat­er described as a “prank,” has been cit­ed fre­quent­ly by pro­test­ers on Mizzou’s cam­pus as exam­ples of a racial­ly intol­er­ant cul­ture that has exist­ed on cam­pus for years.

A white guy with dread­locks spray-paint­ed a racial slur on a statue.

A year after the cot­ton ball inci­dent, also dur­ing Black History Month, a racist slur was spray-paint­ed on a stat­ue out­side a dor­mi­to­ry. That same day, police found an anti-Jewish mes­sagepaint­ed on a car near campus.

Police inves­ti­gat­ed a con­nec­tion between the two big­ot­ed acts of van­dal­ism but nev­er found a link.

Benjamin Elliot, then 18 years old, was arrest­ed and charged for the graf­fi­ti near the dorm, receiv­ing two years pro­ba­tion and 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice after plead­ing guilty to mis­de­meanor prop­er­ty damage.

A pro­fes­sor recounts being called racial slurs innu­mer­able times.

Mizzou jour­nal­ism pro­fes­sor Cynthia Frisby, who lives in Columbia, Missouri, and has worked at the uni­ver­si­ty for almost 18 years, says she has been con­front­ed with racism and called racial slurs “too many times to count.”

In a Facebook post last week, she described an encounter she expe­ri­enced while jog­ging near cam­pus in May.

Profile

I have been silent on FB about the racial sit­u­a­tion on the Mizzou cam­pus for a vari­ety of rea­sons, but the main one is this: some of my friends say and post updates that are real­ly hurt­ful and offen­sive when it comes to race and offend­ing peo­ple of col­or and I keep qui­et because I just don’t think Facebook is the place to hold argu­ments or can­did dis­cus­sions of race. Think about it: No one changes their atti­tudes or beliefs after see­ing offend­ing posts and respond to the post by say­ing: “Oh my God,Thank you for show­ing me that I am a racist” or “Oh my God, because of you, I just real­ized that I am so priv­i­leged.” smile emoti­con However, after many events on and off cam­pus over recent months, I feel I have to say some­thing and say it here. (You know this is going to be long, right? LOL)

I have lived in Columbia and been at the University for almost 18 years. During this time, I have been called the n word too many times to count. Some of you may recall my most recent expe­ri­ence while jog­ging on Route K in May of 2015 when I was approached by a white man in a white truck with a con­fed­er­ate flag very vis­i­ble and proud­ly dis­played. He leaned out his win­dow (now keep in mind I run against traf­fic so his behav­ior was a bla­tant sign that some­thing was about to hap­pen). Not only did he spit at me, he called me the n‑word and gave me the fin­ger. Of course, I respond­ed with “Oh yea, get out of your car you cow­ard and say that to my face.” He then raced off. Typical. Others of you may recall that after the Zimmerman tri­al, I wrote about my expe­ri­ences being called the n word twice while I was on my jog. And yes, I have had a few fac­ul­ty call me the n word and treat me with incred­i­ble dis­re­spect. Yes, fac­ul­ty. I have had a stu­dent who said he could­n’t call me Dr. Frisby because that would mean that he thinks I am smart and he was told that blacks are not smart and do not earn degrees with­out affir­ma­tive action. Yes, true sto­ry. I have so many sto­ries to share that it just does­n’t make sense to put them all here.

What I am respond­ing to is the fre­quent ques­tion I have been asked all week: How have I endured these many hate­ful expe­ri­ences for over 17 years and why am I still here? I endured because God allows me to see the good and cup half full. I endured because I know my life is in God’s hands and I do not walk alone. I endured because I find these to be teach­able moments that I use in my class­room with my stu­dents. I endured (or bet­ter yet endure) because I have an amaz­ing sup­port sys­tem. I endure because there are far too many of my white friends that have a heart of gold, love peo­ple of any col­or with a pas­sion and who have a strong trust in and love for the Lord. I endure because I have friends who are white and dai­ly show me that there are peo­ple who can hurt when I do and who sin­cere­ly want to make this cul­ture a bet­ter place. I endure because I look to the Lord to help me grow and be the best per­son I can be. I endure because I CHOSE AND CHOOSE to endure and over­come and I choose to over­look igno­rance. Choosing to over­look these idiots does­n’t make me a “sell-out” or be an uncle tom. I choose to endure because my mom and civ­il rights lead­ers taught me to nev­er run but stand straight, tall and do not run. Racism is alive and it’s every­where. I endure because what I have gone through is noth­ing like what my mom went through in the 50s and 60s nor is it even close to what my Lord and Savior had to endure while on the earth (he, too, was spat at, made fun of and even nailed to a cross sim­ply because He loved us/​me that much). Yes, we are bet­ter off now than we were in the 50s but to some extent we are tak­ing many steps back­ward by ignor­ing or not talk­ing about the racial issues.

We need to have open dis­cus­sions where peo­ple share their igno­rance and learn from peo­ple who are dif­fer­ent (I do this in my class­room every day and we learn and I learn so much.) So where am I going with this post?

I under­stand the anger. I under­stand that we’ve had enough. I also under­stand and agree with my friend Traci Wilson-kleekamp when she wrote “Jonathan L. Butler and ‪#‎ConcernedStudent1950‬ please give space for mis­takes, lis­ten­ing, learn­ing and dia­logue. This on the job train­ing thing is pow­er­ful because it is SO VERY PUBLIC.” I not only see this as on the job train­ing for our admin­is­tra­tors at MU, but I also see it as train­ing for some of my very edu­cat­ed white friends.

The sad­dest of all things for me is to see how a few of my white friends are respond­ing to these events and basic con­flicts in race rela­tions in our nation (i.e., police shoot­ings, the President, etc). It hurts my heart when I see posts from these friends that make fun of us because we find things hurt­ful like dress­ing up in black face cos­tumes or con­fed­er­ate flags fly­ing high in my neigh­bor­hood. What both­ers me is that the few of my white friends who feel this way have not tak­en time or ener­gy to reach out to me and ask me why these things hurt or to under­stand what is going on or even send an email say­ing they are con­fused. For the two friends that have in the recent days, thank YOU. That speaks vol­umes of your open­ness to under­stand. You are not even say­ing that you agree, you just want to hear from me and my thoughts and expe­ri­ences. Kudos to being open. Unlike my “oth­er” so-called acquain­tances. Instead they take to social media and make jokes of the stu­dents, say things like “oh my God, what else are these peo­ple going to find offen­sive?” or even dumb­er things like “i guess next year I will dress up as noth­ing.” By the way: The Halloween cos­tume event is not about not dress­ing up like some­one, but it is about dress­ing up as char­ac­ters not as a race of peo­ple. It is the heart and intent of a person.

I write this post to ask if those folks who find that the sit­u­a­tion on cam­pus is ridicu­lous to please be a lit­tle more open mind­ed. Ask ques­tions. Do your research. Heaven for­bid you will put your­self in their shoes. Maybe you should dress up in black face and spend a month walk­ing around in that cos­tume and maybe then you will under­stand how we feel when you walk in a room or a store and get treat­ed like a sec­ond class cit­i­zen. Maybe then you will under­stand that our feel­ings about being con­stant­ly referred to as nig­gers is more than “just get­ting over it.” Maybe then you will under­stand why telling the stu­dents to get their “a@&S” in class because they are mak­ing much a do about noth­ing hurts and does­n’t solve the problem.

I am much more than the n word. I am an edu­cat­ed black woman who hap­pens to have worked hard for my PhD. I am a mom. I am a grand­moth­er. I am a daugh­ter. I am a sis­ter. I am an aun­tie. I am a niece. I am a neigh­bor. I am a pro­fes­sor and men­tor. I am a cousin. I am loved by my fam­i­ly and friends. I am smart. I am fun­ny (or so I think). I am a Christian who loves the Lord Jesus with my whole heart. I would die for Him as He died for us. I am YOUR FRIEND! Yes, I am all of these things. There is so much more to me than the n‑word implies. Please con­sid­er that when you crit­i­cize the events on cam­pus. yes, I am sil­ly. yes, I am a dra­ma queen who thinks I should have been born a celebri­ty. But what I am not is a nig­ger! Let me just say that. Consider that you have a friend who deserves and sim­ply wants to be treat­ed equal­ly. You have an know a friend who jogs on route k and wants to do that with­out fear that some kids in a car will think it is fun­ny to yell at me and pre­tend that they will run me off the road. Know that you have a friend who wants to walk out every day with con­fi­dence that she will not be spat on or yelled euphemisms sim­ply because of the col­or of her skin. To make things bet­ter in our world, that would be a start. Does this make any sense?

Frisby says while on her run, she was approached by a white man in a white truck adorned with a “very vis­i­ble” Confederate flag. The man leaned out his win­dow, spat at her, yelled some­thing racist and flashed his mid­dle finger.

She adds that this was not the first time she had been ver­bal­ly assault­ed with racist lan­guage while jog­ging, and goes on to say she has faced sim­i­lar dis­re­spect even from oth­er fac­ul­ty members.

Someone repeat­ed­ly shout­ed a racial slur at the black pres­i­dent of the stu­dent body.

On Sept. 12, Payton Head, pres­i­dent of the Missouri Students Association, described in a Facebook post that a pas­sen­ger in a pick­up truck repeat­ed­ly shout­ed a racial slur at him while he walked on cam­pus one night.

His state­ment went viral and many post­ed mes­sages of sup­port on social media. They also voiced frus­tra­tion with the lack of response from MU.

“I’d had expe­ri­ence with racism before, like microag­gres­sions, but that was the first time I’d expe­ri­enced in-your-face racism,” Head told the Columbia Missourian about the incident.

“These n****rs are get­ting aggres­sive with me.”

On the night of Oct. 5, mem­bers of the Legion of Black Collegians, a his­toric black stu­dent gov­ern­ment group at Mizzou, were rehears­ing for a home­com­ing per­for­mance at an on-cam­pus out­door the­ater space. They noticed what they lat­er described as an “obvi­ous­ly intox­i­cat­ed” young white male approach­ing the group while talk­ing on his cell phone.

LBC ignored the man at first, mem­bers wrote in an open let­ter to cam­pus, until he entered the plaza and got on stage, inter­rupt­ing their rehearsal. An LBC mem­ber approached the man and asked him to leave. The man shout­ed back, “I don’t give a fuck what y’all are doing.”

When he final­ly decid­ed to get off stage, he lost his bal­ance and stum­bled over onto the pavement.

Still on the phone, he rolled over onto his side and was heard say­ing: “These n****rs are get­ting aggres­sive with me.”

The group was stunned by the remarks.

“There was a silence that fell over us all,” the let­ter from LBC describ­ing the inci­dent reads, “almost in dis­be­lief that this racial slur in par­tic­u­lar was used in our vicinity.”

The LBC let­ter notes that a safe­ty offi­cer was present and heard the racial slur but did not move quick­ly to address the man and nev­er got his identification.

Protesters con­front­ed Wolfe, were heck­led by a most­ly white crowd.

On Oct. 10, a group of black stu­dents inter­rupt­ed the Mizzou home­com­ing parade wear­ing T‑shirts that read, “1839 Was Built On My B(l)ack” — a ref­er­ence to the year of the university’s found­ing, made pos­si­ble due to slave labor — to deliv­er a mes­sage that they were not going to be ignored by the school admin­is­tra­tion regard­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion issues on campus.

The pro­test­ers blocked the path of the con­vert­ible Wolfe was in as he waved to a group of most­ly white parade-watch­ers. Some peo­ple in the crowd start­ed yelling back at the pro­test­ers, say­ing “move on” and to get out of the street. Others changed “M‑I-Z, Z‑O-U” in an attempt to drown out the pro­test­ers who were using a mega­phone to speak about inci­dents of racism on campus.

The con­fronta­tion got testy, as mem­bers of the crowd moved in and began push­ing the stu­dents out of the way. At one point, Wolfe’s car attempt­ed to dri­ve around the pro­test­ers, clip­ping one of them in the process. Police even­tu­al­ly inter­vened and got the stu­dents to step aside, elic­it­ing cheers from spectators.

Wolfe remained in his car through­out this entire ordeal, not say­ing a word as the inci­dent unfold­ed in front of him.

Days lat­er, the Concerned Student 1950 group, whose name pay­ing trib­ute to the year the first black stu­dents were admit­ted to Mizzou, issued a list of eight demands. Among their many requests to increase racial aware­ness and diver­si­ty on cam­pus was one for Wolfe to be removed as president.

“We’ve sent emails, we’ve sent tweets, we’ve mes­saged but we’ve got­ten no response back from the upper offi­cials at Mizzou to real­ly make change on this cam­pus,” Jonathan Butler, a grad­u­ate stu­dent who lat­er went on a sev­en-day hunger strike that end­ed with Wolfe’s res­ig­na­tion, told the Missourian.

It took Wolfe almost a month to issue an apol­o­gy for his inac­tion dur­ing the protest, but the dam­age was already done.

Someone smeared a swasti­ka in human feces in a dorm bathroom.

In one of the most dis­turb­ing — and what became one of the most gal­va­niz­ing — inci­dents to take place on MU’s cam­pus, in October stu­dents dis­cov­ered a swasti­ka scrawled in feces in a dorm bathroom.

Truthers have since emerged online, say­ing the inci­dent sound­ed so over-the-top that it could­n’t be true. But it was, as a report filed by a cam­pus police offi­cer this week con­firmed.

Resident staff mem­bers dis­cov­ered the swasti­ka and report­ed it to the police around 2 a.m. on Oct. 24, accord­ing to the police report from the inci­dent. Police saw the swasti­ka “drawn on the wall by some­one using feces [along with] feces on the floor locat­ed by the entry way to the restroom,” the report reads.

No one has been arrest­ed in con­nec­tion to the van­dal­ism, and a police inves­ti­ga­tion remains ongoing.

The Internet did what it does best: act­ed racist as hell.

On Nov. 5, Head post­ed on Twitter a col­lec­tion of racist com­ments he says were made by MU stu­dents on the anony­mous mes­sag­ing app Yik Yak.

The tweet came just days after the Concerned Student 1950 group attempt­ed to address race and dis­crim­i­na­tion con­cerns on cam­pus on a num­ber of occa­sions with Wolfe.

“I’m going to stand my ground tomor­row and shoot every black per­son I see.”

Just a day after Wolfe resigned, anony­mous threats began tar­get­ing black stu­dents on social media.

“I’m going to stand my ground tomor­row and shoot every black per­son I see,” one post on Yik Yak read.

“Some of you are alright. Don’t go to cam­pus tomor­row,” read anoth­er.

“We’re wait­ing for you at the park­ing lots,” read a third. “We will kill you.”

Police arrest­ed two sus­pects, both young white males, on Wednesday for mak­ing the threats.

Wolfe sug­gest­ed “sys­tem­at­ic oppres­sion” is just a feel­ing black peo­ple get.

Protesters with Concerned Student 1950 con­front­ed Wolfe last week out­side a fundrais­er at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City.

In a video post­ed to Twitter, a pro­test­er can be heard ask­ing Wolfe: “What do you think sys­tem­at­ic oppres­sion is?”

“Systematic oppres­sion,” Wolfe begins, “is because you don’t believe that you have the equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for success.”

The crowd erupt­ed with frus­tra­tion before he could fin­ish his state­ment. As Wolfe walked away, one pro­test­er shout­ed: “Did you just blame us for sys­tem­at­ic oppres­sion, Tim Wolfe? Did you just blame black stu­dents,” as the video cuts off.

“Black.”

In the ear­ly hours of Nov. 12, some­one spray-paint­ed over the word “Black” on a sign at the Gaines/​Oldham Black Culture Center on campus.

Another tweet showed that the “Black” had been paint­ed over on both sides of the sign.

Police said they are review­ing sur­veil­lance video from the area as part of their ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion. There have been no arrests in con­nec­tion with the vandalism.
It Shouldn’t Be So Hard To Accept That Racism Is A Problem At Mizzou

Newly-released video shows police in South Boston, Virginia sub­ject­ing a restrained man to repeat­ed taser attacks and deny­ing him med­ical treat­ment, caus­ing his death less than an hour later.

Officers ini­tial­ly respond­ed to calls about 46-year-old Linwood Lambert, who was caus­ing a scene at a motel while hav­ing an appar­ent men­tal health episode in May of 2013, report­ed­ly hav­ing hal­lu­ci­na­tions and “act­ing para­noid,” accord­ing to motel guests who ini­tial­ly report­ed the inci­dent. Lambert was unarmed at the time of his appre­hen­sion, and not ini­tial­ly charged with a crime.
When offi­cers Travis Clay and Clifton Mann arrived on the scene with Cpl. Tiffany Bratton, they hand­cuffed Lambert, put him in a squad car, and drove him to a near­by hos­pi­tal. After open­ing the door of the vehi­cle, Lambert ran into the hos­pi­tal door and fell on the ground, as the offi­cers emerged from their cars and used their tasers on him repeat­ed­ly. Officers con­tin­ued to taser Lambert on the ground in front of the hos­pi­tal and in the squad car on the way back to the local jail, despite police depart­ment rules stat­ing that use of tasers is “no longer jus­ti­fied” after a sus­pect is hand­cuffed. Those rules also state that offi­cers should take tasered sus­pects to an emer­gency room first before tak­ing them to jail.

After taser­ing Lambert repeat­ed­ly, the offi­cers arrest­ed him on charges of dis­or­der­ly con­duct and destruc­tion of prop­er­ty. Officers attempt­ed to use CPR to revive Lambert, who was uncon­scious upon arrival at the jail. Lambert was pro­nounced dead at 6:23 AM at Sentara Halifax hos­pi­tal — where the offi­cers tasered him ear­li­er that night.

Linwood Lambert’s fam­i­ly has filed a wrong­ful death law­suit for $25 mil­lion. As of the time of this writ­ing, none of the offi­cers involved in Lambert’s death has been charged with a crime.

The Florida police offi­cer who shot and killed a black ama­teur musi­cian wait­ing for help along­side a high­way after his car broke down last month has been fired, a Palm Beach Gardens spokes­woman said Thursday.

Officer Nouman Raja, 38, had been on admin­is­tra­tive leave from the city’s police force fol­low­ing the shoot­ing of Corey Jones on Oct. 18. Jones’ death drew out­rage after law enforce­ment offi­cials revealed the offi­cer was in plain­clothes and nev­er showed a badge.

The death of the 31-year-old Jones is the lat­est fatal inci­dent across the coun­try involv­ing police and black men. It has sparked anger and calls for greater trans­paren­cy, as local law enforce­ment offi­cials have been slow releas­ing details about the Oct. 18 shooting.

Jones was wait­ing for a tow truck beside a high­way off-ramp at 3 a.m. when Raja pulled up in an unmarked van. A con­fronta­tion ensued and Raja fired six shots hit­ting Jones three times, author­i­ties said.

Jones nev­er fired the .380 cal­iber hand­gun recov­ered at the scene, accord­ing to the Palm Beach County state attorney’s office. He had a per­mit allow­ing him to car­ry a con­cealed gun, which he had pur­chased legal­ly three days earlier.

Raja, who had been hired by the upscale community’s police depart­ment in April, had pre­vi­ous­ly been inves­ti­gat­ing rob­beries in the area.

Telephone records obtained by the Palm Beach Post news­pa­per show that Jones had been on a 53-minute phone call with AT&T road­side assis­tance at the time of the shooting.
Florida police fire offi­cer who fatal­ly shot black musi­cian Corey Jones

ST Catherine – OBSERVER ONLINE has been informed that a man was shot dead at the Spanish Town Police Station after pulling a gun on a police officer.

The inci­dent is said to have occurred around 4:45 pm on Tuesday, in the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) area of the police station.

Information is that the man was tak­en to the sta­tion on a road traf­fic offence when he alleged­ly pulled a gun from his crotch, point­ed it at a police offi­cer and was shot.
Man pulls gun from crotch, shot dead at police station

KINGSTON, Jamaica – An off-duty police­man who report­ed­ly wit­nessed a motor vehi­cle acci­dent in St Andrew on Saturday is now in hos­pi­tal after he was attacked by a motorist.

OBSERVER ONLINE has learnt that the policeman’s ear was bit­ten off and his gun alleged­ly stolen.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force’s Corporate Communications Unit has con­firmed the attack on the off-duty police­man. The unit said Sunday that the inci­dent occurred after the police­man wit­nessed an acci­dent and attempt­ed to assist. They were, how­ev­er, unable to pro­vide fur­ther details.

Reports reach­ing OBSERVER ONLINE are that the police­man wit­nessed the motor vehi­cle acci­dent on Hope Road some time before mid­night. One of the motorists involved fled the scene and the police­man report­ed­ly gave chase, inter­cept­ing the motor vehi­cle at West King’s House Road.

This was when the police­man was report­ed­ly attacked, beat­en, one of his ears bit­ten off, and his gun alleged­ly stolen.

His alleged attack­er fled the scene, aban­don­ing the motor vehicle.

More infor­ma­tion lat­er. Cop’s ear bit­ten off in clash with motorist, gun alleged­ly stolen

“When I entered the Prime Minister’s office for my sec­ond term, I was sum­moned to Washington. ‘Not one brick’, they told me…The pres­sure from the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty and the Americans was enormous…And still, after five years on the job, we built a lit­tle more than ‘one brick’…the impor­tant thing is to do it in a smart way…to stand up to inter­na­tion­al pres­sure by maneuvering…we con­tin­ue to head straight toward our goal, even if one time we walk right and anoth­er time we walk left.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, 2014

“I know what America is. America is a thing that can be eas­i­ly moved in the right direc­tion. They will not both­er us. Let’s sup­pose they will say something…so they say it?…We have such sup­port there!”.
Benjamin Netanyahu, 2001

For over two decades, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been play­ing us for fools – a role we have filled to the detri­ment of our nation­al hon­or and the cause of peace.

His entire polit­i­cal career has been focused on demon­strat­ing to Israelis that he could “move [America] very eas­i­ly” – and, on too many occa­sions, he has done just that. Since his first elec­tion as Prime Minister in 1996, he has been proud of his abil­i­ty to get away with defy­ing American pres­i­dents, while pay­ing no price for his defiance.

His suc­cess­es, in large mea­sure, have been due the ties he has built with Republicans in Congress, using them to counter peace-mak­ing efforts led by two Democratic pres­i­dents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

After the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, Netanyahu went into action. Together with a small group of Likudniks, he launched a lob­by­ing cam­paign against Oslo. Weekly fax­es were sent to Congressional offices warn­ing of the dan­gers that peace with the Palestinians posed for Israel and pro­vid­ing talk­ing points that some Members of Congress fol­lowed. It was unprece­dent­ed – an Israeli oppo­si­tion par­ty act­ing against their gov­ern­ment lob­by­ing the US Congress to turn against the pol­i­cy of our gov­ern­ment. The effort won allies among Republicans in Congress who were only too hap­py to place obsta­cles in Bill Clinton’s way. When the GOP won con­trol of Congress in 1994 and Netanyahu won the Israeli elec­tions in 1996, he was in a per­fect posi­tion to accom­plish his goal of end­ing the Oslo Accords.

The Gingrich-con­trolled Congress invit­ed Netanyahu to speak to a Joint Session. He used the oppor­tu­ni­ty to attack the peace process and to call on Congress to join him on a war foot­ing against Iraq and Iran. Throughout the rest of his first term, Netanyahu defied pres­sure from the Administration to cur­tail set­tle­ment con­struc­tion and to make a seri­ous com­mit­ment to peace. He knew that Congress would “have his back”.

Even when President Clinton did force the Israelis to nego­ti­ate with the Palestinians, Netanyahu nev­er ful­ly imple­ment­ed the agree­ment they con­clud­ed. And when Clinton vig­or­ous­ly object­ed to Netanyahu’s plans to con­struct a new colony between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Netanyahu defi­ant­ly broke ground erect­ing Har Homa – a set­tle­ment that now hous­es almost 20,000 Israelis.

President Obama’s aspi­ra­tions to nego­ti­ate an Israeli-Palestinian peace, were also frus­trat­ed by Netanyahu, whose sec­ond elec­tion as Israeli Prime Minister coin­cid­ed with Obama’s entry to the White House. After two frus­trat­ing years, Obama put the process on hold.

In 2010, Republicans again won con­trol of Congress and their new lead­er­ship once again invit­ed Netanyahu to speak to a Joint Session of Congress. The Israeli used this appear­ance to rebuke Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “the 1967 bor­ders, with mutu­al­ly agreed land swaps”. In the face of Israeli intran­si­gence and Congressional pres­sure, once again the Administration shelved peace-mak­ing, until after the 2012 elections.

Secretary of State John Kerry’s ill-fat­ed effort to restart Israeli-Palestinian nego­ti­a­tions were eclipsed by the dis­as­trous and dead­ly Syrian con­flict and the effort to nego­ti­ate a nuclear deal with Iran – a deal which Netanyahu was deter­mined to stymie. And so, when the Republican-led Congress invit­ed Netanyahu to deliv­er his third address to a Joint Session, he used this appear­ance to call on Congress to block the Administration’s sup­port for the P5+1 deal with Iran.

Netanyahu’s Washington per­for­mances have been focused on two audi­ences. He sought to muster the sup­port of his Republican allies to defeat the work of Democratic Presidents, while at the same time seek­ing to demon­strate to his Israeli sup­port­ers how “very eas­i­ly” he could “move America in the right direction”.

While his first two efforts were a suc­cess, he failed with the third. Not only was he unable to block the Iran deal, but his gam­bit exposed a par­ti­san divide over sup­port for his poli­cies, leav­ing Israelis uncom­fort­able about Netanyahu’s abil­i­ty to man­age their rela­tion­ship with the United States.

When he comes to Washington next week, Netanyahu is a man on a mis­sion. His mis­sion? To make it clear to Israelis that he is still the “mas­ter” of America. Unfortunately, Democrats and Republicans, alike, will serve as his enablers.

Netanyahu will meet with the President. This time there will be no real pres­sure to stop set­tle­ments and make peace. Instead, we are told that Israel is in line to receive a dra­mat­ic increase in US aid – pos­si­bly as high as $4.5 Billion a year. Netanyahu will then be hon­ored at an event host­ed by the neo-con­ser­v­a­tive American Enterprise Institute. And in order to reas­sure to Israelis that the “mas­ter” can still dom­i­nate US pol­i­tics, the Prime Minister wran­gled a speak­ing engage­ment at the lib­er­al Center for American Progress and secured a glow­ing op-ed writ­ten by Hillary Clinton who pledged that, if elect­ed pres­i­dent, she “would reaf­firm [the] unbreak­able bond with Israel – and Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The entire exer­cise is shame­ful and dis­tress­ing. Enabling Netanyahu’s bad behav­ior only encour­ages more of the same. It’s embar­rass­ing and it’s dumb. It’s one thing to acknowl­edge that the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is dead, but it makes no sense to reward the guy who two decades ago pledged to kill peace, and then spared no effort to do just that.

Netanyahu’s Arrogance; Our Stupidity

Louisiana inves­ti­ga­tors are comb­ing through evi­dence in the shoot­ing death ear­li­er this week of a 6‑year-old autis­tic boy after author­i­ties charged two law enforce­ment offi­cers in the shoot­ing. Col. Mike Edmonson, in a late night press con­fer­ence Friday, said the two offi­cers were being booked on charges of sec­ond-degree mur­der and attempt­ed sec­ond-degree mur­der in the Tuesday shoot­ing death of Jeremy Mardis and the wound­ing of his father, Chris Few, in the cen­tral Louisiana town of Marksville. Edmonson vowed to con­tin­ue the inves­ti­ga­tion wher­ev­er it leads.

“Let’s make tonight about Jeremy Mardis. That lit­tle boy was buck­led in the front seat of that vehi­cle and that is how he died,” Edmonson said. “He did­n’t deserve to die like that.” Speaking of the body cam­era footage that was recov­ered from the offi­cers, he said: “It is the most dis­turb­ing thing I’ve seen, and I will leave it at that.” The two offi­cers are Norris J. Greenhouse Jr., 23, of Marksville and Derrick Stafford, 32, of Mansura, Louisiana. Both were work­ing sec­ondary jobs in Marksville as mar­shals when the shoot­ing hap­pened, Edmonson said. State police have been inves­ti­gat­ing the Tuesday night shoot­ing that raised ques­tions almost from the start. State police are comb­ing through foren­sics evi­dence, 911 calls, con­duct­ing inter­views and review­ing the body cam­era footage, Edmonson said. Two oth­er offi­cers were involved in the inci­dent. When Edmonson was asked whether he antic­i­pat­ed any more arrests, he said: “We’ll see where it takes us.” It’s still unclear what led police to pur­sue Few and what trig­gered the shoot­ing. The parish coro­ner said ear­li­er this week that the offi­cers were serv­ing a war­rant on Few when he fled, but Edmonson lat­er said he had no infor­ma­tion about a warrant.

6‑YEAR-OLD SON OF MAN FLEEING ARREST DIES IN POLICE-INVOLVED SHOOTING

Few’s 57-year-old step­fa­ther, Morris German, has accused the mar­shals of indis­crim­i­nate­ly open­ing fire on the vehi­cle. German said Few was heav­i­ly sedat­ed, unable to talk and has bul­let frag­ments lodged in his brain and lung. He described Few as a lov­ing father and added the man’s son “was his whole life.” German added that the 6‑year-old had been diag­nosed with autism, describ­ing him as a delight­ful child who “loved every­thing, every­body.” German said the boy had no sib­lings and the fam­i­ly had recent­ly moved to Marksville from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. “I know a 6‑year-old should not have been shot,” German said. Louisiana Cops Arrested For Killing 6‑Year-Old Boy