FBI Domestic Terrorism Training Guides on Anarchists, Environmentalists

Anarchists Are “Criminals Seeking an Ideology”

In presentations on “Anarchist Extremism,” the FBI warns:

• – Anarchists are “Criminals seeking an ideology to justify their activities”
• – Anarchists are “Not dedicated to a particular cause”
• – Green anarchists believe “individuals should ‘get back to nature’”

Their meeting locations include “college campuses, underground clubs, coffee houses/ internet cafes.” Their criminal activity includes “Sleeping Dragons” (a form of civil disobedience in which people lock arms in PVC pipes).

Anarchists are also “paranoid / security conscious,” according to the presentation. This is an interesting observation coming from the FBI, considering there have been two recent cases where the FBI played a key role in infiltrating anarchist groups in order to orchestrate alleged terrorist attacks. In the Cleveland May Day arrests, and in the Chicago NATO arrests, the FBI trumpeted the arrest of “terrorists” that agents themselves tried desperately to create.

However, not all anarchists are engaged in these types of plots, the FBI acknowledges. They use a “variety of tactics” including “civil disobedience” (such as resisting home foreclosures, creating community gardens, and many other activities not mentioned by the bureau).

The FBI also warns that anarchists may have “crossover ideologies” including animal rights extremism and environmental extremism.

Animal rights / environmental extremism

In the training presentation on these so-called “eco-terrorists,” the FBI lists lawful, First Amendment activity and low-level criminal activity (such as civil disobedience) as examples of domestic terrorism.

The FBI is particularly focused in these presentations on information gathering and what it calls a “public relations war” by activist groups. “Media is sometimes slanted in favor of activists,” the FBI says. “Activists spin the truth.”

Examples of information gathering listed by the FBI include requests for public documents under the Freedom of Information Act. In one presentation, FOIA requests are listed as examples of “University targeting.”

Elsewhere the FBI warns of “cold calls” and using “USDA Report [sic].”

The FBI also warns of activist attempts to use “false employment.” This is undoubtedly related to activists who seek employment at factory farms and vivisection labs in order to expose animal welfare abuses. As I have reported here previously, the FBI has considered terrorism charges for non-violent undercover investigators. And multiple states have been seeking to criminalize undercover investigations as well.

As I document in Green Is the New Red, there has been a slow and relentless expansion of “terrorism” rhetoric and investigations over the last 30 years. This type of language and FBI investigation was initially confined to property crimes by the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front (groups that have caused millions of dollars in economic loss, but have never harmed a human being).

Now this already-broad terrorism classification has been expanded even further.  The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act was drafted to target anyone who causes the “loss of profits” of an animal enterprise. The FBI acknowledges this shift in “terrorism” investigations in a slide that says the new law “alleviates the use of force or violence criteria.”

via FBI Domestic Terrorism Training Guides on Anarchists, Environmentalists.

corrupt supreme court judge in Nepal assassinated

Motorcycle-riding assailants shot and killed a Supreme Court judge under investigation for allegedly taking bribes as he headed to work in the Nepalese capital Thursday, police said.

Rana Bahadur Bam’s bodyguard and another passenger in his car were also wounded in the attack as the judge was driven to work after worshipping at a Hindu temple.

Bam was being investigated by the Judiciary Council for allegedly taking bribes from suspects charged with abduction in 2010 in exchange for releasing them with light sentences and fines.

Police official Rabindra Shah said two masked men on a black motorcycle drove by the judge’s car and opened fire. Bam, his bodyguard and another person identified as the judge’s friend were hit but the driver managed to escape. The attackers fled the scene after the shooting and the injured men were rushed to the hospital in a taxi.

Bam, shot several times, died at the local Norvic Hospital as he was being treated for internal bleeding, said hospital doctor Bharat Rawat. The other two men were undergoing surgery and their condition was unknown.

Police set up checkpoints in Katmandu and were searching for the motorcycle and culprits.

via Nepal Supreme Court judge killed, 2 others wounded – NY Daily News.

how are YOU classified by the government?

this is an excerpt from a u.s. army field manual: 

FM 3-39.40

INTERNMENT AND RESETTLEMENT OPERATIONS

Field manual (FM) 3-39.40 is aligned with FM 3-39, the military police keystone FM. FM 3-39.40 provides guidance for commanders and staffs on internment and resettlement (I/R) operations. This manual addresses I/R operations across the spectrum of conflict, specifically the doctrinal paradigm shift from traditional enemy prisoner of war (EPW) operations to the broader and more inclusive requirements of detainee operations. Additionally, FM 3-39.40 discusses the critical issue of detainee rehabilitation. It describes the doctrinal foundation, principles, and processes that military police and other elements will employ when dealing with I/R  populations. As part of internment, these populations include U.S. military prisoners, and multiple categories of detainees (civilian internees [CIs], retained personnel [RP], and enemy combatants), while resettlement operations are focused on multiple categories of dislocated civilians (DCs). Military police conduct I/R operations during offensive, defensive, stability, or civil support operations. I/R operations include military police support to U.S. military prisoner and detainee operations within operational environments (OEs), ranging from major combat operations to humanitarian-assistance missions in support of ahost nation (HN) or civil agency. I/R operations are a major subordinate Army tactical task under the sustainment warfighting function. (See FM 7-15.) Placement under the sustainment warfighting function does not mean that I/R operations do not have relevance in the other warfighting functions. While I/R is listed under the sustainment warfighting function, it should be noted this is not a specified or implied mission of   units or commands. Most sustainment units provide logistics, personnel services, and health service support to I/R operations.

Military police are uniquely qualified to perform the full range of I/R operations. They have the requisite skillsets provided through specific training and operational experience. The skills necessary for performing confinement operations for U.S. military prisoners in permanent facilities are directly transferable and adaptable for tactical confinement of U.S. military prisoners and detention of detainees. All military police units are specifically manned, equipped, and trained to perform I/R operations across the spectrum and those identified asI/R units are the specialists within the Army for this role.

RP is a special category for medical personnel and chaplains because of their special skills and training. These individuals may be retained by the detaining power to aid other detainees, preferably those of the armed forces to which they belong. (See FM 27-10.) The Geneva Conventions require that RPreceive, at a minimum, the benefits and protection given to those with EPW status. The Geneva Conventions require that they be granted the facilities necessary to provide medical care and religious ministry services to the I/R population. (For a complete discussion on RP, see AR 190-8.)1-14.

• Privileges and considerations extended to RP because of their profession include—
• Additional correspondence privileges for chaplains and senior retained medical personnel.
• All facilities necessary to provide detainees with medical care, spiritual assistance, and welfare services.
• Authority and means of transportation for periodic visits to other I/R facilities and to hospitals outside the RP I/R facility to carry out their medical, spiritual, or welfare duties.
• Restriction of work assignments to only those medical or religious duties that they are qualified to perform.
• Assignment to quarters separate from those of other detainees when possible.

Enemy Combatants 1-15.

An enemy combatant is, in general, a person engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners during an armed conflict. (JP 3-63) Enemy combatant includes EPWs and members of armed groups.1-16.

Enemy combatants are divided as follows:

An enemy prisoner of war 

is a detained person who, while engaged in combat under ordersof his or her government, was captured by the armed forces of the enemy.

Member of an armed group

is a person who engages in or supports acts against the UnitedStates or its multinational partners in violation of the laws and customs of war during an armed conflict that do not meet the criteria of a prisoner of war as defined within the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Members of armed groups are not entitled to combatant immunity and will be treated as CIs until, or unless, otherwise directed by competent authorities.1-17.

EPWs are persons defined in the GPW as— 

Members of the armed forces of a party to the conflict and members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfill the following conditions:

• That of being commanded by a person responsible for his or her subordinates.
• That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.
• That of carrying arms openly.
• That of conducting their operations according to the laws and customs of war.

Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority notrecognized by the detaining power.

Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labor units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization from the armed forces which they accompany, who will provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favorable treatment under any other provisions of international laws.

Inhabitants of a unoccupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take uparms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

Note. EPW status is the default status for detainees. All detainees will be treated according to the GPW until their status is determined by a military tribunal or other competent authority. The United States uses the term EPW to identify an individual under the custody and/or control or theDOD according to Articles 4 and 5 of the GPW. (See JP 3-63.) The United States reserves theGPW term prisoner of war to identify its own or multinational armed forces that have been taken captive.

U.S. MILITARY PRISONERS 1-18.

A U.S. military prisoner is a person sentenced to confinement or death during a court-martialand ordered into confinement by a competent authority, whether or not the convening authority hasapproved the sentence. A U.S. military prisoner who is pending trial by court-martial and is placed into confinement by a competent authority is a pretrial prisoner. (See chapter 7.)

DISLOCATED CIVILIANS 1-19.

The term dislocated civilian is a broad term that includes a displaced person, an evacuee, an expellee,an internally displaced person, a migrant, a refugee, or a stateless person. (JP 3-57) DCs are individualswho leave their homes for various reasons, such as an armed conflict or a natural disaster, and whose movement and physical presence can hinder military operations. They most likely require some degree of aid, such as medicine, food, shelter, or clothing. DCs may not be native to the area or to the country inwhich they reside. (See chapter 10.) The following DC subcategories are also defined in JP 3-57:

Displaced person. 

A displaced person is a civilian who is involuntarily outside the national boundaries of his or her country. (JP 1-02) Displaced persons may have been dislocated because of a political, geographical, environmental, or threat situation.

Evacuee.

An evacuee is a civilian removed from a place of residence by military direction for reasons of personal security or the requirements of the military situation. (JP 3-57)

Expellee.

An expellee is a civilian outside the boundaries of the country of his or her nationalityor ethnic origin who is being forcibly repatriated to that country or to a third country for politicalor other purposes. (JP 3-57)

Internally displaced person.

An internally displaced person is any person who has left their residence by reason of real or imagined danger but has not left the territory of their own country.Internally displaced persons may have been forced to flee their homes for the same reasons as refugees, but have not crossed an internationally recognized border.

Migrant.

A migrant is a person who (1) belongs to a normally migratory culture who may cross national boundaries, or (2) has fled his or her native country for economic reasons rather thanfear of political or ethnic persecution. (JP 3-57)

Refugee.

A refugee is a person, who by reason of real or imagined danger, has left their home country or country of their nationality and is unwilling or unable to return.

Stateless person.

A stateless person is a civilian who has been denationalized or whose country of origin cannot be determined or who cannot establish a right to the nationality claimed.

STATUS DETERMINATION 1-20

If there is any doubt whether personnel captured or detained by the U.S. armed forces belong to anyof the detainee categories previously described in paragraph 1-17, and Article 4, GPW, such personnel receive the same treatment to which EPWs are entitled until their status has been determined by a competent military tribunal or some other competent authority. (See AR 190-8.) Captured or detained personnel are presumed to be EPWs immediately upon capture if their status is unmistakable (such as an armed, uniformed enemy). The final status of a CI may not be determined until they arrive at a TIF. Untilsuch time, treat all CIs as EPWs.

Note. It is essential to understand the distinction between the terms treatment and status. To treat a detainee as an EPW does not mean that the detainee has the actual status of an EPW as setforth in the Geneva Conventions.

ARTICLE 5 TRIBUNALS

Article 5 tribunals are conducted according to Article 5, GPW. An Article 5 tribunal is an administrative hearing that is controlled by a board of officers and determines the actual status of adetainee. This tribunal can take place anywhere, but it most commonly takes place echelons above the brigade combat team (BCT), most generally at the TIF or SIF. The tribunal determines the status of individuals who do not appear to be entitled to prisoner of war status, but have committed a belligerent actor have engaged in hostile activity to aid enemy forces and/or assert that they are entitled to treatment as anEPW.

 Note. Sample procedures with additional (optional) procedures for conducting an Article 5tribunal are included in appendix D. Optional procedures are intended to add appropriate due process measures that are not required by laws or regulations, but improve the transparency and overall fairness of the tribunal as time and additional resources are available to the convening authority. The tribunal is an administrative board process and is not intended to become an adversarial process.1-22.

EPWs have GPW protections from the time they are under the control of U.S. armed forces until their release or repatriation. Any detainee subject to an Article 5 tribunal will be provided and entitled to a—

•  Notice of the tribunal (in a language he or she understands).
• Opportunity to present evidence at the tribunal.
• Three-person administrative tribunal.
• Preponderance of the evidence standard.
• Written appeal to the convening authority upon request.1-23.

The convening authority of the Article 5 tribunal will be a commander exercising general court-martial convening authority, unless such authority has been properly delegated. According toAR 190-8 and DOD policies, a competent tribunal will—

• Convene within a reasonable time after doubt arises regarding EPW status, normally within 15days. Processing time for the tribunal procedures should not normally exceed 30 days. Shorter  processing times are encouraged, particularly when there is a potential for a status change fromEPW to CI or a members of an armed group.
• Determine the status of any individual who does not appear to be entitled to EPW status, but has committed a belligerent act or has engaged in hostile activities to aid enemy armed forces and asserts that he or she is entitled to treatment as an EPW.
• Be composed of three commissioned officers (one a field grade). The senior officer will serve as president of the tribunal and another nonvoting officer (preferably a judge advocate) will serve as the recorder.

Note. A separate system of combatant status review boards have been adopted by laws and regulations to review the status of members of armed groups designated under approved DOD procedures. Recent executive decisions may provide further directives regarding the processing and disposition of this category of personnel. Detainees who have been determined by a competent tribunal not to be entitled to EPW status will not be executed, imprisoned, or otherwise penalized without further proceedings to determine what acts they have committed and what penalty should be imposed. Commanders should notify the combatant command if a U.S. citizen or resident alien has been captured or has requested a tribunal.

Here’s the US military’s entire plan for internment camps, from lew rockwell

creating enemies in the arab world, u.s. pledges fealty to israel

As US Drones Pound Towns, Tribesmen Switch Sides

It’s an old story, but one that officials never seem to see coming. As the US dramatically escalates its war in Yemen, pounding cities in and around the southern Abyan Province, the Yemenis being attacked are starting to take it personally.

“These attacks are making people say, ‘We now believe that al-Qaeda is on the right side,” one Yemeni noted, adding that both of his brothers, a school teacher and a cellphone repairman, had been killed in US attacks in March.

Long a US client state, the installation of US-backed ruler Major General Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in a single candidate election has given everything the regime does the taint of a US imprimatur. Yemeni troops are constantly attacking tribal areas, shelling towns and insisting that everyone killed is “al-Qaeda.”

And while those reports from the Defense Ministry play well in the international media, they are less impressive in Abyan itself, where the civilian population knows that they’ve lost relatives in this war, and that whatever else they may think about the militant zealots in their midst, they aren’t the ones dropping bombs on them.

from anti-war.com - US Strikes Fueling al-Qaeda Sympathy in Yemen

 the House of Representatives passed the United States – Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 (USIESC).

The USIESC, written by Eric Cantor, claims there is a need to provide Israel with unlimited military and financial aid as a result of the disturbances caused by the Arab Spring.

Israel will have an essentially unlimited amount of funds allocated to them through the Federal Reserve Bank. The country will also enjoy an “expanded role of NATO” that consists of an “enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises”.

The Executive Summary of USIESC says that “the following actions to assist in the defense of Israel” are:

1. Provide Israel such support as may be necessary to increase development and production of joint missile defense systems, particularly such systems that defend the urgent threat posed to Israel and United States forces in the region.
2. Provide Israel assistance specifically for the production and procurement of the Iron Dome defense system for purposes of intercepting short-range missiles, rockets, and projectiles launched against Israel.
3. Provide Israel defense articles and defense services through such mechanisms as appropriate, to include air refueling tankers, missile defense capabilities, and specialized munitions.
4. Allocate additional weaponry and munitions for the forward-deployed United States stockpile in Israel.
5. Provide Israel additional surplus defense articles and defense services, as appropriate, in the wake of the withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq.
6. Strengthen efforts to prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza pursuant to the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access following the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and to protect against weapons smuggling and terrorist threats from the Sinai Peninsula.
7. Offer the Israeli Air Force additional training and exercise opportunities in the United States to compensate for Israel’s limited air space.
8. Expand Israel’s authority to make purchases under the Foreign Military Financing program on a commercial basis.
9. Seek to enhance the capabilities of the United States and Israel to address emerging common threats, increase security cooperation, and expand joint military exercises.
10. Encourage an expanded role for Israel within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), including an enhanced presence at NATO headquarters and exercises.
11. Support extension of the long-standing loan guarantee program for Israel, recognizing Israel’s unbroken record of repaying its loans on time and in full.
12. Expand already-close intelligence cooperation, including satellite intelligence, with Israel.

USIESC goes on to claim that: “Iran, (3) which has long sought to foment instability and promote extremism in the Middle East, is now seeking to (4) exploit the dramatic political transition underway in the region to undermine governments traditionally aligned with the United States and support extremist political movements in these countries.”

USIESC continues its assault on Iran: “At the same time, (5) Iran may soon attain a nuclear weapons capability, a development that would fundamentally threaten vital American interests, destabilize the region, encourage regional nuclear proliferation, further empower and embolden Iran, (6) the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and (7) provide it the tools to threaten its neighbors, including Israel”.

Although publicly, both the Obama administration and the Israeli government have admitted that Iran has absolutely no intention of building nuclear weapons. Both governments assume that by using words like “they may” or “they might” denotes a definite intention to do so.

The Mullahs that have ultimate authority in Iran have stated numerous times that the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons goes against the law of Islam. Independent studies, outside of the US and Israeli reach, have also confirmed that not only does Iran not have nuclear weapons at present, but are not perusing their allocation.

At the present time, Israel is in possession of an estimated 200 – 300 nuclear weapons. They are the covert superpower of the world. Israel also enjoys one of the most intensive and explicit armies in the world. While Israel continues to invade the sovereign nations that surround them, they are not being invaded themselves.

from activist post - House Passes HR 4133 Binding the US to Israel and Their War Agenda

Mexican drug cartels hate internet chatters, fast food franchise, government corruption?

Mexico’s hyperviolent Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what may be one of the first campaigns by an organized crime group to silence commentary on the Internet.

The cartel has already attacked rivals, journalists and other perceived enemies. Now, the target is an online chat room, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, that allows users to comment on the activities of the Zetas and others in the city on the border with Texas.

Already, three apparent site users have been slain, and a fourth victim may have been discovered Wednesday, when a man’s decapitated body was found with what residents said was a banner suggesting he was killed for posting on the site. Chat room users said they could not immediately confirm the victim’s identity, because people all post under aliases.

Despite such precautions, users are highly vulnerable, and the Zetas could be tracking them from clues they leave online, experts said Thursday.

A female chat room user was found decapitated in September with a similar message as the one found Wednesday and at the exact same spot, with a message signed with the letter “Z,” which refers to the Zetas. Residents couldn’t fully read the latest message, because the dead man’s body was laid on top of it, in what appeared to be a more hurried execution.

“I don’t know of anything like this having happened anywhere else in the world,” said Jorge Chabat, an expert in safety and drug trafficking at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico. “It is certainly new and worrisome … it is a frontal confrontation against the public; it is not just a confrontation with the government anymore.”

Drug cartels in Mexico have frequently attacked traditional print newspapers, by tossing explosives at their offices or killing, kidnapping or threatening reporters. Violence against journalists in Tamaulipas state, where Nuevo Laredo is located, has led local media to censor themselves, leaving residents on their own to separate fact from pervasive rumors spread on social networks.

Juan Carlos Romero, who helps lead the press freedom group Article 19, said local newspapers have often stopped publishing crime reports out of fear, leading residents to turn more to the Internet for information like that posted Thursday on Nuevo Laredo en Vivo: where gunshots have been heard, where vehicles suspected of carrying cartel lookouts have been seen, which streets are safe to travel.

“What are people doing in the face of the lack of information, the kind of information you need to make decisions: Where can I drive? Can I leave the house?” said Romero. “People are forging new channels of communication on the Internet, social networks, Twitter, blogs, Facebook.”

Drug cartels appear to have learned that such Internet sites reach far more readers than northeastern Mexico’s small regional newspapers and have adjusted their attacks accordingly.

via Mexican drug cartel tries to silence Internet

Tortured, disemboweled and hung from a bridge for tweeting: Couple killed by Mexican drug cartel as gruesome warning to bloggers who ‘snitch’ online

Online blogging about violence in Mexico is currently one of the loudest ways it is reported, after some traditional media outlets have been silenced by cartel threats.

Bloggers who release information about trafficking have faced threats in the past, but this might be the first warning to social network users, CNN reported.

This sign was left on the bridge, translated from Spanish: ‘This is going to happen to all those posting funny things on the internet’

Investigator Ricardo Mancillas Castillo told CNN that this form of torture, including disembowelment, has been seen before in drug-related violence but he has not encountered it before with internet threats.

The investigator said the victims will be almost impossible to identify because of the severe mutilation and there were no witnesses.

read more, from the daily mail

Mexico cartel drops aerial leaflets against gov’t

Drug traffickers took the unusual step of using an airplane to drop thousands of leaflets on the northern city of Culiacan accusing the governor of Sinaloa state of taking orders from drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, authorities said Wednesday.

Drug cartels in Mexico have long posted videos and hung banners from bridges to get their messages out, and they have recently taken to dumping truckloads of bodies on roadways to intimidate rivals or publicize threatening messages.

But the incident in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan on Tuesday is the first time in recent memory that traffickers have resorted to aerial leafleting. It may mark a further escalation in what has become a nationwide, military-scale battle between the Sinaloa cartel and the hyper-violent Zetas gang.

“I think they dumped them very early in the morning from an airplane. They surely know that it would be very difficult to do by land,” Sinaloa Gov. Mario Lopez Valdez said.

While drug cartels have occasionally left small amounts of crude, photocopied letters in some towns in the past, security expert Raul Benitez at the National Autonomous University of Mexico said it was the first time he knew of such mass leafleting, much less from an aircraft.

“I can’t remember any cartel having used an airplane to do this, nor of them having distributed propaganda in public places,” said Benitez.

The single-page, computer-printed leaflets were unsigned, but expressed anger at the in-custody killing of a suspect who was recently arrested and sent to a prison allegedly dominated by the Sinaloa cartel.

The suspect, who had been identified as a member of the Beltran Leyva gang, whose remnants have allied with the Zetas, was killed by another inmate three days ago.

The leaflet read in part, “The governor, on orders from Chapo Guzman, told the federal prosecutor’s representative to send Javier Avilez Araujo to be tortured and murdered in the state penitentiary.”

“Act like men, don’t kill people who are tied up like El Chapo Guzman does,” it continued. “Without the help of Malova, we would have finished your people off already!” the note added, using the governor’s nickname.

The governor denied he hasany links to Guzman. “This is a person I don’t even know, whom I have never had contact with and from whom I have never received an order,” Lopez Valdez said.

The wording of the letter suggests it may have been written by the Zetas, who have launched tit-for-tat attacks on Sinaloa strongholds after Sinaloa cartel gunmen and their allies moved into Zetas turf in the Gulf coast states of Veracruz and Tamaulipas.

Read more, from the miami herald

Mexico drug gang accuses Pepsico unit of spying

Banners signed by a cult-like Mexican drug gang say that cartel members launched firebombing attacks on a PepsiCo subsidiary because they believe the snack company let law enforcement agents use its trucks for surveillanc

Five Sabritas warehouses and vehicle lots were attacked Friday and Saturday in the Mexican states of Michoacan and Guanajuato. Officials say four alleged members of the Knights Templar cartel have been detained in the case, which they link to extortion. At least 10 banners hung around the city of Apatzingan on Thursday accuse Sabritas of ferrying government agents.

The company denies that allegation, which was also circulated in emails before the attacks. Mexican drug cartels frequently earn money by demanding protection payments from small businesses. They previously had never systematically targeted a transnational firm with such attacks.

from usa today

chinese crackdown on tibetan protesters after 3 more self-immolations

Hundreds of Tibetans have been reportedly detained by Chinese security officers in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, after two Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest against China’s rule over the Himalayan region last week.

Late on Wednesday, Radio Free Asia cited a source as estimating that about 600 Tibetans had been detained since the Tibetan men set themselves on fire on Sunday in the first major protest in four years against perceived Chinese oppression. One of those men died after the act.

The detentions come amid news that a Tibetan woman had set herself ablaze on Wednesday afternoon in Aba prefecture, in southwestern Sichuan province, according to Tibetan advocacy group Free Tibet and Radio Free Asia.

Al Jazeera’s Steve Chao, reporting from Hong Kong, said that the woman was a 33-year-old mother of three young children who died on the spot after the self-immolation in front of a monastery.

“Over the past several years, the Chinese government has tightened restrictions on this ethnic group to the point that many now are barred from celebrating Buddhist holidays,” he said.

“Experts predict that over the next few months there will be further restrictions.

“But rather than damper the resistance against Chinese rule, many people say that it has further united the Tibetan group.

“These immolations are seen as a peaceful, albeit a very horrific way, of demonstrating against this oppression.”

Self-immolation deaths

China has branded the self-immolators “terrorists” and criminals, and has blamed exiled Tibetans and the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, for inciting them.

China considers the Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule, a separatist.

The Dalai Lama says he merely seeks greater autonomy for his Himalayan homeland.

About 35 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since March 2011 in protest against China’s six-decade rule over Tibet, according to Tibetan rights groups.

At least 27 have died.

The number could not be independently confirmed because foreign journalists are barred from entering Tibet.

Hao Peng, head of the Communist Party’s Commission for Political and Legal Affairs in the Tibet Autonomous Region, has urged authorities to tighten their grip on the internet and mobile text messaging, reflecting government fears about unrest during a month-long Buddhist festival which started last week.

via Arrests reported after Tibet self-immolations – Asia-Pacific – Al Jazeera English.

american schoolchildren being indoctrinated in religious genocide

The Bible has thousands of passages that may serve as the basis for instruction and inspiration. Not all of them are appropriate in all circumstances.

The story of Saul and the Amalekites is a case in point. It’s not a pretty story, and it is often used by people who don’t intend to do pretty things. In the book of 1 Samuel (15:3), God said to Saul:

“Now go, attack the Amalekites, and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

Saul dutifully exterminated the women, the children, the babies and all of the men – but then he spared the king. He also saved some of the tastier looking calves and lambs. God was furious with him for his failure to finish the job.

The story of the Amalekites has been used to justify genocide throughout the ages. According to Pennsylvania State UniversityProfessor Philip Jenkins, a contributing editor for the American Conservative, the Puritans used this passage when they wanted to get rid of the Native American tribes. Catholics used it against Protestants, Protestants against Catholics. “In Rwanda in 1994, Hutu preachers invoked King Saul’s memory to justify the total slaughter of their Tutsi neighbors,” writes Jenkins in his 2011 book, Laying Down the Sword: Why We Can’t Ignore the Bible’s Violent Verses (HarperCollins).

if non-believers refuse to worship the bible, it can be used to beat them to death. amen.

This fall, more than 100,000 American public school children, ranging in age from four to 12, are scheduled to receive instruction in the lessons of Saul and the Amalekites in the comfort of their own public school classrooms. The instruction, which features in the second week of a weekly “Bible study” course, will come from the Good News Club, an after-school program sponsored by a group called the Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF). The aim of the CEF is to convert young children to a fundamentalist form of the Christian faith and recruit their peers to the club.

There are now over 3,200 clubs in public elementary schools, up more than sevenfold since the 2001 supreme court decision, Good News Club v Milford Central School, effectively required schools to include such clubs in their after-school programing.

The CEF has been teaching the story of the Amalekites at least since 1973. In its earlier curriculum materials, CEF was euphemistic about the bloodshed, saying simply that “the Amalekites were completely defeated.” In the most recent version of the curriculum, however, the group is quite eager to drive the message home to its elementary school students. The first thing the curriculum makes clear is that if God gives instructions to kill a group of people, you must kill every last one:

“You are to go and completely destroy the Amalekites (AM-uh-leck-ites) – people, animals, every living thing. Nothing shall be left.”

“That was pretty clear, wasn’t it?” the manual tells the teachers to say to the kids.

Even more important, the Good News Club wants the children to know, the Amalakites were targeted for destruction on account of their religion, or lack of it. The instruction manual reads:

“The Amalekites had heard about Israel’s true and living God many years before, but they refused to believe in him. The Amalekites refused to believe in God and God had promised punishment.”

The instruction manual goes on to champion obedience in all things. In fact, pretty much every lesson that the Good News Club gives involves reminding children that they must, at all costs, obey. If God tells you to kill nonbelievers, he really wants you to kill them all. No questions asked, no exceptions allowed.

Asking if Saul would “pass the test” of obedience, the text points to Saul’s failure to annihilate every last Amalekite, posing the rhetorical question:

“If you are asked to do something, how much of it do you need to do before you can say, ‘I did it!’?”

“If only Saul had been willing to seek God for strength to obey!” the lesson concludes.

A review question in the textbook seeks to drive the point home further:

“How did King Saul only partly obey God when he attacked the Amalekites? (He did not completely destroy as God had commanded, he kept the king and some of the animals alive.)”

The CEF and the legal advocacy groups that have been responsible for its tremendous success over the past ten years are determined to “Knock down all doors, all the barriers, to all 65,000 public elementary schools in America and take the Gospel to this open mission field now! Not later, now!” in the words of a keynote speaker at the CEF’s national convention in 2010. The CEF wants to operate in the public schools, rather than in churches, because they know that young children associate the public schools with authority and are unable to distinguish between activities that take place in a school and those that are sponsored by the school.

from the guardian, u.k. - Good News Clubs’ evangelism in schools is already subverting church-state separation. Now they justify murdering nonbelievers