All that is asked is that you consider the suggestion here.

The entire Congress of the United SAll that is asked is that you consider the suggestion here.

The entire Congress of the United States is corrupt. And we mean both Houses and we mean both major parties.

We realize that a few Members of each House are trustworthy, but, as a group, they are absolutely the most corrupt bunch to ever disgrace our Nation.

In November of 2010 the entire House of Representatives will stand for reelection; all 435 of them. One third of the Senate, a total of 33 of them, will also stand for reelection. Vote every incumbent out.

And we mean every one of them. No matter their Party affiliation. Let’s start all over in the House of Representatives with 435 people who have absolutely no experience in running that body, with no political favors owed to anyone but their own constituents. Let’s make them understand that they work for us. They are answerable to us and they simply have to run that body with some common sense.

Two years later, in 2012, vote the next third of the incumbents in the Senate out. We can do the same thing in 2014 and, by that time we will have put all new people in that body as well.

We, the People, have got to take this Country back and we HAVE to do it peacefully.

That’s what the Framers of our Constitution envisioned.

We are also suggesting term limits on the new bunch: 8 years for Representatives and 12 years for Senators – no exceptions. The longer they stay in office, the more power they get, and they love it and will do anything to get reelected. We have term-limited the President, now let’s term-limit the Legislators.

tates is corrupt. And we mean both Houses and we mean both major parties.

We realize that a few Members of each House are trustworthy, but, as a group, they are absolutely the most corrupt bunch to ever disgrace our Nation.

In November of 2010 the entire House of Representatives will stand for reelection; all 435 of them. One third of the Senate, a total of 33 of them, will also stand for reelection. Vote every incumbent out.

And we mean every one of them. No matter their Party affiliation. Let’s start all over in the House of Representatives with 435 people who have absolutely no experience in running that body, with no political favors owed to anyone but their own constituents. Let’s make them understand that they work for us. They are answerable to us and they simply have to run that body with some common sense.

Two years later, in 2012, vote the next third of the incumbents in the Senate out. We can do the same thing in 2014 and, by that time we will have put all new people in that body as well.

We, the People, have got to take this Country back and we HAVE to do it peacefully.

That’s what the Framers of our Constitution envisioned.

We are also suggesting term limits on the new bunch: 8 years for Representatives and 12 years for Senators – no exceptions. The longer they stay in office, the more power they get, and they love it and will do anything to get reelected. We have term-limited the President, now let’s term-limit the Legislators.

GERMAN HISTORY IS FILLED WITH  NON-GERMANS, BUT MOST GERMANS DON’T STUDY HISTORY MUCH AND IGNORE THE HISTORICAL FACTS (Part 1)

By Kevin Stoda, Wiesbaden, Germany

According to the late Bernt Engelmann, the author of DU DEUTSCH?, subtitled the “History of Foreigners in Germany”,  makes a very strong case that from the time that warring Prussia took over most of what became known as Germany in 1870, there were living in the geographic borders of Germany already a very large number of foreigners.  Moreover, Engelmann notes that from the turn of the 20^th century census statisticians were fudging the count of foreigners so that these large “foreign” population with in the German Empires’ borders, from Kalingrad to Strassbourg were vastly undercounted.

This is something which Germans, especially German civil servants, who abuse foreigners with their rules and arbitrary actions should come to understand about real German history.  After all, as part of the current citizenship process, German-citizen-wannabes  are required to study German history.

Engelmann began the second chapter of his history with the question “Who are foreigners?” with a quote from Kurt Tucholsky.  Tucholsky had stated in the early 20^th Century, “Only once in Europe is man a citizen.  The other twenty times is he a foreigner [wherever he goes]. . . . Who knows? Maybe that is true 32 times that.  This happens when one writes down German Reich as one’s address.”  This was because even within the new Germany, people from one part of the Reich were seen by many other Germans as coming from a foreign place, such as Detmold an der Lippe or East Prussia or the Palatinate or Bavaria—rather than as a local citizen.  In many cases, only if the address on the passport-used was clearly of the entire German Reich would local civil servants refer to the person in question specifically as a German national.  This is because over many centuries, the local government’s civil servants have historically had great powers to define rights of a resident according to German federal development.

In short, 19^th Century Europe, was a patchwork of states, nations, and peoples looking for a land to call German Patria. Before this was the Roman empire and then there was the German bund.  In the German bund there existed up through mid-century into at least 30 different autonomous states in a very loose confederal system.  Other countries, like the Austrian Habsburg Empire, were also made up of 30 different peoples and nationalities, but they did not consider themselves a bund.  They were an Empire of various Slavik, Hungarian, German, Romanian, Bulgarian and Albanian groups.   It was only through nationalist movements and wars of aggression that a few political leaders were able to begin to further tidy up some of the borders and the checkerboard of countries making up the maps of central and southwestern Europe starting just before 1860.

This is why Engelmann warns students  of history that the 1900 census in Germany was largely fictitious affair as far as the list of foreigners living within the borders of the Kaiser’s Empire was concerned.  Officially, according to the census figures, there were 56 million people living within German borders in 1900.  Of these, only 780,000 were specifically listed as foreigners. On the face of it, it appeared that only 1.4 % of the population of the German Reich were foreigners at the turn of the 20^th Century.

“Not really true, “ explained Engelmann, who survived concentration camps in Germany in the 1940s as Nazi-led Germany fought wars for its popular “Germany for Germans” myths.  Engelmann wrote, “Many millions of foreigners by today’s standards were called national in that census, simply because they had always lived in  German borders for a few years within the Reich’s borders.”

For example, Englemann noted, “No Polish were counted because they didn’t have a country at the time. . . . The Polish Party of Germany was even represented in parliament with 14 representatives as of 1903. “  The same could be said of dozens of other peoples and nationalities within both the German and Austrian Reichs.  (Many Austrians moved to Germany looking for work as the Industrial Revolution took off in the 19^th century, but as they learned to speak some German by 1900 or spoke it already and because  Germany had its eye on-and-off on Austria as apotential Anschluss-partner, almost none of the German speaking one-time Austrian Empire residents were counted as foreigners either.)  In short Engelmann reports, when one includes all the various language and national groups and cultures busily employed in Germany as of 1900, there were over 3.6 million foreigner, who were often mislabeled “Inlanders” by the German Census bureau.

There were among the many “Inlander” Lithuanians, Sorb, Czeks, Slowaks, Walloons, Russians, Ukranians–and in many cases Russians  or Byelorussians—included in that some of 3.6 Million. Now, simply add 3.6 million and 780,000 (Italians, French, Dutch, Danish, Americans, Brits, and other who were in the foreigner statistics) and you have a sum of nearly 4.4 million foreigners in Germany as of 1900.  That means at the very least there were 7.8 percent foreigners living and working in Germany officially or full-time as of 1900.

Later, in Engelmann’s German history book we discover that there were likely well over one or two million migratory workers and uncounted workers—mostly from Eastern Europe– in German censuses under the Kaiser. This was because the great farms of the Junkers and other East Prussians were farmed only by laborers from abroad who often officially were not permitted to stay after harvest “inland”.    However, there was often need even in winter for many of these to stay and be housed on German soil. This pushes the population of foreigners in the German Kaiser Reich to well over 10 % of the population.

In short, just like Germany in 1900, Germany in 2000 through 2009 has been a nation of many nationalities and immigrants.  The difference is that the census figures are more exact today.

What should be the repercussions in German society if the vast number of government leaders, civil servants and German populations were to come to recognize the facts of history—rather than the myths of earlier Reichs and German Reich-era historians?

Obviously, Germans would have to quickly acknowledge that the land had often been a melting pot of sorts, which already had a vast number of people’s already integrated into the system by the 1930s, when German nationalism ran amok and tore down the multicultural (called at that time cosmopolitan) society.  It is likely that the myths of German national identity and statecraft (and war craft) covered up a more authentic history and identity of most in Germany for most of the 20^th Century.

In the 21^st Century, Germans must come clean with their history and work for the first time in a century or more on real integration issues, instead of blaming the foreigners and new-comers for all their ills—as has been occurring under the thumbs of government officials in this decade.  These officials see themselves as the last bastion of resistance to promoting German Nationhood in the face of globalizing influences and migration.  This attitude and attack on the personhoods and attributes of so-called foreigners must end.

Otherwise, there will be a demographic collapse in Germany in less than a decade or so.  Germans need to embrace a more multicultural identity and understand their historic mission to integrate others more efficiently and in a people friendly manner.  The population of Germany has been sinking each year for a generation and the aging German working population depends on migrants to fill the holes in the sinking ship caused by the retirement of the last baby boom generation in German history (1945 to 1960s). With less than two children per household, such a blindly nationalist immigration and integration system needs to be rethought through.

NEWS NOW GERMANY

Interestingly, as I prepared to publish this article, a case from Wuppertal (held now in Munster) is being undertaken in court to decide whether a young Jordanian  youth, who was born in Germany and who only knows his homeland—if at all—through visits in school vacation, should be deported after being involved as a minor in various criminal activities.  The youth’s name is Samer S. and his lawyer uses the language of Berndt Engelmann, i.e. calling the young man an “Inlander” (as opposed to the German word Auslaender, which means foreigner in German.  Bernt Engelmann in DU DEUTSCH?

had used the term “Inlander” to talk about the 5 million uncounted long-time residents and longtime foreigners in Germany in the 1900 census.

http://www.ivz-online.de/home/homepage_thema_5/1223686_Koenig_von_Gievenbeck_will_bleiben_Krimineller_klagt_gegen_die_Stadt_Muenster.html

The current German law used to expel foreign trouble-making youth was created to mirror the American legislation, which expels primarily Central American youth to their parent’s homelands when they are involved in gang-like criminal activities in the USA.  In America, then, any minor or who (1) was not born in a foreign land but (2) who does not yet have USA nationality,  and (3) who likely only knows his homeland—if at all—through visits there in school vacation may be expelled through American law to another country if that homeland-of-the-youth’s-parents agrees to accept the adolescent criminal.

Meanwhile in another German city tomorrow, on December 2,  in Bremen a conference of German ministers from each state (or Bundesland) will be the point of protest actions and counter-conferences led by numerous stateless youth and by children of long-term refugees in Germany who are facing the possibility that they, too, soon be expelled from their current home country.

One reason for this time-and-date to organize such protests is that one-year ago some 38,000 youth, all without German papers and work permits, were given one-year only to get a regular job or face deportment immediately from Germany.  As of now only 7,000 of these have been able to come up with permanent work during the economic crises.  Moreover, the lack of proper German IDs makes it very difficult for anyone in Germany to find a good job.

Most Germans and German officials fail to see that there is any direct connection between the fact that a youth becomes criminal and the fact that his life chances have been so restricted by German laws identifying him or her as a non-German resident or “Auslaender” (foreigner) even though they were born and raised here.

THEY WERE SINGLES, TOO—A LOOK AT NEHEMIA AND JEREMIAH

By Kevin Anthony Stoda

Our church and world are already inundated with conflicting views on single life.  Basically, “single” means simply that one is not living with husband or wife.  One might be a widow, a divorce, or never even been married.  There are, however, many myths about leadership roles in churches as related to singleness.  These myths include the idea that only “marrieds” should hold leadership roles in the church.  We need to avoid such myths.

Last summer, I shared with my congregation a sermon about New Testament role models, such as the Apostle Paul, about Martha & Mary, Anne at the Alter, and John the Babtist.  All these New Testament heroes were singles—as was, of course, Jesus the Christ.

Today, I want to encourage more involvement from all church members & participants by sharing on inspiring Old Testament figures who were single and super role models for Christians in all our fellowships worldwide today.  They are models of faith and communities of which they were full members.

Again, I have a lot of the basis for this message from David M. Hoffeditz’s work, THEY WERE SINGLE, TOO.

http://www.amazon.com/They-Were-Single-Too-Biblical/dp/0825427762#reader_0825427762

I will share today from the lives of Jeremiah & Nehemiah as singles and motivating examples to all Christians—not only for singles but to all in the Christian community worldwide.

Psalm 13 starts, “How long, Lord, will you ignore me?   How long will you pay no attention to me?”  That was a song of David’s, but it certainly reflected the lonely and single life of Jeremiah, too. Hoffeditz writes, “Until, ‘the fall of Jerusalem in 587 (BC), his [Jeremiah] forty-year ministry was marked by opponents’ attempts to silence him by means of arrests, trials, beatings, imprisonments, and’ assassination.

Throughout his life, Jeremiah was seen as both an angry man and a weeping prophet.  He even called down judgment (through the power of God) on some of this opposition.

However, more than the behavior Jeremiah showed in importance are the sacrifices he made.  One of them was his call to not marry, as reported in 16:2 of Jeremiah; he was also certainly called to not have children, too.  It should be noted that at the time in Israel’s history, there was not even a Hebrew word in existence for “bachelor”.  It was generally not an acceptable condition in Hebrew society.

Throughout the entire book, Jeremiah shows us at least 5 ways to persevere and succeed as a child & a prophet of God’s—even with our loneliness and our persecutions. First of all, Jeremiah was appointed from birth to take on his role as prophet or even as human being.  God tells him in Jeremiah 1:4-5, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you prophet to the nations.”

This news is similar to what Apostle Paul told the Ephesians in 1:4-6.  There we are told that Jesus chose us before the world was created.  Moreover, before Jeremiah knew God; God already knew Jeremiah—and the same is true for you and me.  And while Jeremiah (and we) doubt, GOD SUPPLIES.

Second, we need to trust in God’s control.  By chapter 15, Jeremiah has experienced a lot of stress—including isolation and loneliness, totally marginalized and feeling rejected by ALL.  Jeremiah makes a list of over a dozen things he has done to serve the Lord.  He petitions God for an explanation.  Soon, God responds that he is in control.  Finally, in 16:9, Jeremiah pronounces that the Lord “is my strength and fortress, and my refuge in my day of affliction.

Third, and very importantly, we can each learn God’s perspective.  This can be seen in Jeremiah’s purchase of a field n the midst of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem.  WOULD YOU BUY PROPERTY UNDER BOMBARDMENT?  In 32:16-25, we see that Jeremiah can do this because he recognizes God’s perspective of things. “Ah Lord God, it is you who made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arms.  Nothing is too hard for you 9and) you show steadfast love to the 1000^th generation.”  Through the power of prayer, Jeremiah had received the vision to buy the field in war time.

According to Hoffeditz, Eugene Peterson writes of Jeremiah, “No one becomes human the way Jeremiah was human by posing in a posture of victory.  It was prayers, hidden but persistent, that brought him to human wholeness and spiritual sensity that we want.”  Jeremiah’s prayer life also attests to his heart and the fact that God wants to communicate with us there in our hearts.

A fifth lesson from the life of Jeremiah is that he did have and these friends played great and supportive  roles.  In the same way, we are called to be friends to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are called to  act in supportive roles, too.

Recall the Eunuch in the King’s court who came to rescue Jeremiah in 38:1-13.  His name was Ebed Melech—and as a eunuch, by definition , he was single, too.  This Ethiopian slave took his own life into his hands by challenging the King Zedekiah and eventually b rescuing Jeremiah.   Others who aided Jeremiah and his works included Gedoliah, the Governor of Judah, and Elash, the Son of Saphan.  Both faced death threats. As well, Baruch served Jeremiah despite losing his royal lineage rights in the Kingdom of Israel.

We turn now to another single who was a role model in the Old Testament:  Nehemiah, who came back from the exile to Jerusalem to reconstruct the Kingdom, we find a man who is neither a prophet nor a born leader.   He is simply a cupbearer.  Like Jeremiah, Nehemiah was ridiculed by his own workers, by the work he performed, and even mocked by the materials he had chosen.  Tobiah, a principle opponent, even sent letters threatening his life and that of his workers.

In all this, any individual—let alone a single person and an outsider in Jerusalem—might have been engulfed by depression at such a moment.  What drove Nehemiah on???  It was his commitment to the Lord.  This commitment truly represents the character of Nehemiah.

Hoffeditz notes, “Living with imperfect people creates frustration and discouragement.”  In building the Old Testament Jerusalem Wall anew, we observe that Nehemiah observed many intraparty and intra-familial feuds.  There were the struggles between those who had much and those who had little.  There was anger amongst those who had good property and those who had less good quality land and homes.  Socially there was struggle constantly.

However, from the first part of Nehemiah’s book onwards we see that Nehemiah’s actions and character revealed a full commitment to the Lord [despite the people’s sins and failures evidenced all around him].  Commitment was what Nehemiah was about.  This was how a young untrained leader—a cupbearer—was able to lead his people to do more & more while surmounting all kinds of obstacles for over 12 years.

Nehemiah’s commitment rested not only on the knowledge of God’s words and promises in scripture nor legends.  Like Jeremiah, Nehemiah walked with God, i.e. just as Adam in the garden of Eden.  JI Packer is quoted by Hoffeditz:  Nehemiah “saturated with praying and praying of the truest kind—the kind of prayer that is always seeking to clarify its own vision of who and what God is, and to celebrate his reality in constant adoration, and to rethink in his presence such needs and requests as one is bringing to him . . .”

God, help us all to pray like that!

As Hoffeditz, himself shares, “There are no easy twelve steps or instant packets to obtain commitment to the Lord.”  It requires prayer, searching for knowledge, avoiding false concepts of self-sufficiency, and a focus on the vision of God and his commitment to us and our communities on earth.

Through his intimate relationship to God, Nehemiah’s commitment grew.  For example, he prays when he asks for provision from the Persian King (2:4). He prays for the safety of his people and the guards (4:9).  In 6:9, he calls for the lord to strengthen his people further in the midst of foreign pressure.  Finally, in various verses (2:20, 4:15) we can see that Nehemiah seems often to fully rest in comfort that the Lord will act.  For example, in his prayers and actions, he moves quickly away from ever asking:  “Why am I persecuted?” or “Why are my people so besieged?”  Instead, he moves quickly to calling on God to tackle his assignments.

The Lord was in charge.  Nehemiah simply had faith in this.

A final reason that this single man pursued that Restoration of Jerusalem project–not to be  an example for us for all time—but rather because he enjoyed the privilege and joy of serving the Lord.

Let us do the same.  Find our calls and follow with commitment.

In summary, Jeremiah & Nehemiah were committed to the Lord and therefore did not quit.  Five areas of Jeremiah’s are lifted up in this Message for reflection on how Jeremiah was able to overcome so much trouble in his life as a prophet.  This enabled him to not only to survive but to productively serve the Lord as we should;

(1)   “Jeremiah recognized that the Lord had called him.”

(2)   Jeremiah’s trust in God’s control serve as a defense against loneliness and isolation.

(3)   Jeremiah could continue on in spite of opposition and trouble because he came to embrace God’s Perspective.

(4)   Both Jeremiah and Nehemiah were committed to prayer life everyday with the Lord—on their knees or off them.

(5)   Jeremiah needed friends and supporters—and had them throughout his long life—[Let’s be supporters of one another like Jeremiah!!!!]

In the life of Nehemiah we see two more insights into how we—whether singles or marrieds—can carry on and succeed.

Nehemiah was but a humble cupbearer, but he was willing to give up everything—moving a thousand kilometers from a royal court to dusty and filled with rubble Jerusalem.  He gave up his time, too.  For 12 years, he put up with great opposition from military powers and 12 years of infighting among the Israelis themselves.

Nehemiah was threatened with his life.  He was mocked and ridiculed, but he continued.  In all this a second insight becomes visible. If we, too, are committed to service and God’s community we will feel a joy of blessings and privilege.

Amen.

21. November 2009

Sehr geehrten  Auslaendsbehoerde Wiesbaden, sowie den Petitionsausschuss des Landtages Hessens,

Wie ich Ihnen vor einigen Tagen geschrieben habe, habe ich in Oktober von meiner Frau Maria Victoria M. Baredero in den Philippinen erfahren, dass sie nun Schwanger ist.

Heute habe ich nach internationalen Krankeversicherung fuer mich und meine Frau geforscht, da wir uns gegen meine Wille und die Wille meiner Familie 14.000 Meilen getrennt entfernt von einander leben muessen, obwohl Anfang Abrils 2009 meiner Frau von den deutschen Botschaften in Kuwait vorgewissert waren, dass sie innerhalb 2 Monaten nach Deutschland kommen darf.

Mittlerweile habe ich und meinen Schef schon mehrere tausenden Euro an den AOK in 2009 abgegeben habe, obwohl meine Frau immer noch nicht versichert ist, weil sie noch nicht von den Beamten in Wiesbaden hereingelassen ist.

Wie kann es sein, dass beide meine Firme und ich fuer mich und meine Frau beim AOK Versichersungskosten monatlich zahlen, aber die Auslaendsbehoerden in Wiesbaden kein Nutzung fuer den Krankenversicherung meiner Frau erlauben will, dass sie nicht nach Deutschland kommen kann.

Ich sehe schon lange den Vorgangsweise von dem Integrationsaemter in Deutschland als sehr Strebendgegen Artikel 3 von dem Gruendgesaetz ist. Wie kann einen Teil des Regierungsapparat mit dem Leben meiner Frau und des Ungeborenskindes weiter so auf Spiel setzen.

Merken Sie mal was den durchschnittliche international Krankenversicherung fuer mich und meine Frau nun kostet:

Versicherung Fuer Frau und ich (Ohne Kind)

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Artikel 3
(1) Alle Menschen sind vor dem Gesetz gleich.
(2) Männer und Frauen sind gleichberechtigt. Der Staat fördert die tatsächliche Durchsetzung der Gleichberechtigung von Frauen und Männern und wirkt auf die Beseitigung bestehender Nachteile hin.
(3) Niemand darf wegen seines Geschlechtes, seiner Abstammung, seiner Rasse, seiner Sprache, seiner Heimat und Herkunft, seines Glaubens, seiner religiösen oder politischen Anschauungen benachteiligt oder bevorzugt werden. Niemand darf wegen seiner Behinderung benachteiligt werden.
Ich glaube, dass ein Blick auf den Artikel 3 (oben) und der Tat, dass beide meine Frau und ungeborenen Kind Hilfe Keine Hilfe von meinem deutschen Versicherung bekommen, ist deutlich gegen den Artikel 3.
Ich habe seit Juni 2009 verlangt, ein Gelegenheit mit einem Anwalt oder Gesetzberater von dem Integrationsamt zu sprechen. Bis jetzt ist mir diesen Gelegenheit verweigert. Der Trend ist Klar. (Will der Integrationsamt will, dass ich tausenden Dollar oder Euro nuetzlos weiter ausgeben, nur zusaetliches mehr und mehr zu verdienen muessen und mehr und mehr auszugeben?)
Ich brauche Hilfe nicht mehr Geld fuer diesen ganzen Ungerechtheit wieter auszugeben.
Bitte lassen Sie, bitte, meine Frau sobald wie moeglich hier ankommen.

Danke schoen.
Ihr,
Kevin Anthony Stoda
902 Pennell Street Oranienstr. 62
Carl Junction, MO 64834 Wiesbaden 65185
USA Germany
e-mail: eslkevin1@yahoo.com
http://www.geocities.com/eslkevin & http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/
home phone USA (417)649-4110 Germany Cell: (01522)8996853
home phone: (0611)4699954

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SUICIDE ATTENTION NEEDED WORLDWIDE FOR SOLDIERS—not just in the USA

By  Kevin Stoda, Germany

American suicide rates for military personnel are setting all-time highs, but America is not the only place where PTSD and related war experiences can lead to violence.  Germany is only now beginning to brace itself for the hard lessons of war and war zone experience—and how that continues to effect volunteers and their loved ones (and society) long after the battles are over.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125720469173424023.html

During most of the Cold War era, no German soldiers were sent to engage in wars, battles or do international peace keeping duties until the Yugoslavian breakup of the 1990s and the end of Cambodian wars.  Since that decade, German forces have been found in war zones in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and in Africa.  Since Germany sees its forces abroad as working in peacekeeping and development capacity, there has been little inclination to really face the issues of post-traumatic stress faced by its troops.

James Dunnigan wrote in August, “In the last three years, some 62,000 German troops have been stationed in combat (or peacekeeping) zones, where they can be exposed to traumatic events, the most traumatic one being not allowed to fight back.”

Dunnigan claimed that a lot of the stress had had to do with the rules of engagement (ROE) that most German, non-combat and combat troops find themselves in. “While many Germans oppose the presence of their troops in Afghanistan, the restrictive ROEs [prior to changes in August this year] had become a growing embarrassment. The thousands of German soldiers who had served in Afghanistan continued to complain about it when they returned home. And then there the growing number of soldiers coming back suffering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Last year, 245 German soldiers, who had served in war zones (including Afghanistan), were classified as PTSD casualties. The year before, there were only 83 PTSD casualties. The restrictive ROE caused stress. Just the thought of it can be stressful.”

Suicide attempts have not been uncommon among returnees from wherever German Peacekeepers have been, though.  The Yugoslavian occupations have brought back severely strained troops to make their way in a post-military Germany.

http://www.militaerseelsorge.bundeswehr.de/portal/a/eka/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLN3KLNzTxdgRJQjnmvvqRCPGglFR9b31fj_zcVP0A_YLciHJHR0VFAFDaJAY!/delta/base64xml/L2dJQSEvUUt3QS80SVVFLzZfMkZfMTQ5RQ!!?yw_contentURL=%2F01DB090200000001%2FW27VVHL9421INFODE%2Fcontent.jsp

In an article entitled, “Already Forgotten” [Schon Vergerssen], a German Bundeswehr (Military) article on the web recently talked of the work the Evangelical church is offering on behalf of returning soldiers—who are no longer helped nor covered by PTSD  assistance offered by military psychologists.  This lack of help for former soldiers by the Bundeswehr itself has forced many concerned former soldiers to create their own self-help organizations.

http://www.br-online.de/bayerisches-fernsehen/kontrovers/kontrovers-beitrag-afghanistan-ID1248687952301.xml

One such self-help group is named SKARABAES after the Egyptian beetle god of stong transformation or “transforming strength”.  Heinz Sonnenstrahl, a former sergeant, founded the group in 2003 for those no longer serving in the military. Sonnenstrahl is particularly concerned that some of these soldiers will eventually undertake an attack on society as American’s witnessed in the recent Fort Hood massacre.

http://www.soldatenstress.info/1584458.htm

Just as Dunnigan (above) was concerned with the extra stress that Germans face often as non-combatants in a war-zone,  Sonnenstrahl has noted that 8 years of war in Afghanistan is longer than the duration of WWII.  He pointed out in an interview with the Left Party’s newspaper, KLAR, last week that it is quite clear that military forces are “ill-fit to fulfill the role of peacekeeper in Afghanistan”.

Sonnenstrahl notes that until now German society and its national military leaders are keeping the vast number of problems faced by war-zone returnees a bit under wraps because all of Germany’s international activities require volunteers.

Sonnestrahl claims that if knowledge of the vast problem of PTSD “were well-known, military volunteerism in Germany would be significantly adversely affected”.

Sonnenstrahl also explains that the most traumatic phases of PTSD sometimes only manifest themselves after forces have been out of Afghanistan or other war zones for  a long time. Therefore, the lack of trained professional help (outside the military or Bundeswehr) after one leaves the military is a grave issue in Germany these days.  The founder of SKARABAES adds, “It is often much later, after returning or leaving the military, that the total collapse for individual victims of PTSD occurs.”

Eminent Domain and America

By Kevin Anthony Stoda

I have just heard of Pfizer Pharmaceutical’s decision to leave New London, Connecticut. The state of Connecticut has done nothing to protect the citizens of New London abused by local usage of eminent domain for decades.  Many other states have been concerned of the run amok real estate and city planning practices in Connecticut, New York and other places in America.  Americans are growing wary, but more must be done.

I would suggest all reader write the following emails:  “Dear, Connecticut Government Leaders,  Why not use Eminent Domain and take over Pfizer and all those big bad insurance companies that misuse America’s total landscape?”

http://www.ct.gov/ctportal/taxonomy/taxonomy.asp?DLN=27537&ctportalNav=|27537|&ctportalPNavCtr=|27608|#27608

According to DEMOCRACY NOW, “Homeowners in New London, Connecticut [had taken] . . . on the city’s leaders after they announced plans to condemn all of the homes in one neighborhood to make way for a private development project for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The city said it would bring in thousands of jobs. After a 2005 Supreme Court ruling against the homeowners, the entire neighborhood was bulldozed. This week Pfizer announced it is shutting down its research center.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/13/eminent

Dana Berliner is  senior attorney at the Institute of Justice, and she had “represented the homeowners in Kelo v. New London, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that cities could condemn property because other uses may produce an increase in tax dollars and jobs.”

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2004/2004_04_108

Berliner noted that the Supreme Court, in its outrageous 2005 decision, refused to look at the facts on the ground that the ill-thought-out development-scheme involving Pfizer’s expected commitment to the city of New London was absolutely not going to work.

http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=920&Itemid=165

The Supreme Court decision was so outrageous that over 20 US states immediately rewrote their own eminent domain laws to try to stop the horribly bad decision-making seen in New London “would and could not happen here”.

DN’s Juan Gonzalez explained, “The proposed $75 million [New London] project was part of the city’s efforts to spruce up the area for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which had agreed to construct a $300 million research facility adjacent to Fort Trumbull. The city claimed the project would create 3,000 jobs. Several homeowners refused to give up their homes, and their case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. In June, 2005, the court ruled by a 5-4 majority that New London’s seizure of the homes for private development was a permissible ‘public purpose.’ The decision,  Kelo v. New London, infuriated millions of property rights advocates across the country. After the decision, the neighborhood was bulldozed.”

From ZIMBABWE to Small Town America–STERLING, KANSAS

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/05/zimbabwe-whites-flown-bac_n_211858.html

Whenever I hear the words “eminent domain”, I  almost always recall talks I have had with many white (and black) citizens from Zimbabwe who have had their properties seized over the past two or three decades under the Mugabe regime. For example, a judge in Zimbabwe had his farm taken personally by Robert Mugabe’s wife early in 2009.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/4447091/Robert-Mugabes-wife-Grace-seizes-Zimbabwe-farm.html

After these Zimbabweans have talked about their history with property seizures in their homelands, I have shared with these Zimbabweans that in America for decades real estate, business shylocks, and city developers have been abusing American property owners for years, i.e. using eminent domain and laws of condemnation to take property again and again.

In my family’s case, in the mid-1990s, the small town of Sterling, Kansas (approx. 2000 residents) simply took over my mother’s house and property—without even contacting her.  You see, my mom had been divorced over 15 years earlier—a process through which the full property eventually became hers. In the early 1980s, there had been recession in property and job market throughout all rural areas in America, so the property often went unsold for years.

In short, my family had gone to neighbors all around the location of the house in Sterling over several years  trying to sell the house to no avail.  No one took the offer.

Meanwhile, my mom had been working for the United Methodists of Oklahoma continuously from 1980 through the end of the 1990s.  (She had even become a minister first in the 1970s in Sterling, Kansas through the UM church there. Until late 1979,  mom had been a minister in Kansas for the UM church, too.)  In short, mom was a public individual in the Midwest and a simple background check through local, state or federal police would and could have provided the City of Sterling, Kansas with the phone number and address of my mother quite easily. They could have contacted her at the time the city took over the property, but they did not claiming that the owner could not be found.

Claiming to have been unable to find out where my mother lived,, Sterling city administrators took away my parent’s old house for a pittance. So, the house and property were confiscated.  The house was then torn down and the land was put up for auction.  Only then, after the auction, was a 4 or 5 thousand dollar check sent to my mother in Oklahoma.

In conclusion, at auction my mom’s property was sold to a neighbor–who had strong connections for years with the local city police.

BACK TO NEW LONDON

New London’s Michael Cristofaro tearfully reported on Democracy Now, “Well, I mean, that [the intention of Pfizer to leave now] hurts even more, because, you know, the state and the city—you know, Pfizer came in. They [the real estate leaders, Pfizer, and city fathers] said what they would like to see happen, you know, to the neighborhood. And they had executives who basically said they didn’t want to look out their tenements down at—I mean, look out their windows down at these tenements and, you know, ‘We would like to have a biotech buildings and office park there.’ And so, that’s what the city did. They accommodated them. And they gave them all these tax breaks.”

Cristofaro concluded, “And the hopes and dreams were that this Pfizer Global Research Center was going to draw all these major corporations into New London, and it was going to save them, you know, by increasing the tax rolls. And here it is, ten years later, they actually extended tax abatements an additional three years to entice Pfizer to come here. And here it is, the tenth year, and the tax abatements are finally up, and they turn around and drop this bombshell, saying, ‘We are leaving.’”

In short, there never has been any justice and never will be any justice until more rigorous eminent domain laws are implemented in America.  Moreover, the Supreme Court must support individuals over-run-amok city leaders and development mongers as it failed to do in the landmark 2005 case.

Worse still, in the case of the recent seizing of mosques from Muslim community groups this past week, America can only make more enemies world wide until common sense and legal protection are finally applied prior to seizures of property.

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/13/mosques

“The Council on American-Islamic Relations warns that the seizure of places of worship may have First Amendment implications for the American Muslim community,” according to Democracy Now.

Wake up, America, fight for change and justice!!!!!

DOES THE USA ARMY NOT KNOW THAT THE KOCH DOESN’T REALLY LIKE FOREIGNERS—AT ALL? Why is USA army moving from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden, Hessen?

By Kevin Stoda, Wiesbaden

The USA Army in Germany is helping to drive up housing and living costs in Hessen with its newest move to Wiesbaden from Baden-Württemberg’s Heidelberg base over the next two years. This comes at a time when the USA needs to be watching its overall federal budget much more carefully.

According to USACE, Justin Ward, “With the demolition of a few empty storage bunkers south of the Wiesbaden Army Airfield recently, a new era has begun. The flattening of the garrison’s Basic Load Ammunition Storage Area is the first significant step to prepare a 99-acre tract of land for a new $133 million military family housing community. The project marks the first Army-funded townhouse community in Wiesbaden – a change in direction from stairwell living. It also marks the first visible sign of 7th Army Headquarters’ move from Heidelberg to Wiesbaden.”

http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/04/21/19915-wiesbaden-prepares-new-townhomes/

Another US Army Corp of Engineers spokesperson in Wiesbaden, Syballe Ballnath, shares, “This housing project is monumental not only in its size, but also in its symbolism. . . . By building this community, we’re setting the stage for the future footprint of the Armed Forces in Europe.”

Ward writes, “By early 2012, plans call for up to 324 new townhouses, duplexes, and single family homes to be built for the staffers of 7th Army’s operational facilities. The community will include a mix of three- and four-bedroom quarters ranging from junior enlisted to general officer. Recreation areas will include 10 playgrounds, seven picnic areas with grills and shelters, two sports fields, two community plazas for yard sales and shuttle bus service, and a running path. When fully funded, the two-phased construction project will be the Army’s largest ever in Wiesbaden.”

DESPITE ALL THE HOOPLA

In short, less than a decade or so after the USA Air Force in Europe moved its headquarters in Europe away from Wiesbaden, thousands of Americans are now set to move back into the Wiesbaden, Hessen area, i.e. near the Rhine River and Frankfurt’s many regional and international airports.

The huge reversal in American Department of Defense (DOD) plans to build new base capacity in Europe has come at a terrible time in many ways. First of all, the U.S. Dollar to Euro exchange rate is currently at its worst level in history—(1) making it unwieldy in to keep budgets on target (in terms of U.S. Dollar expenditures) to build this new Army Command in Europe at this particular time and (2) making it extremely expensive for U.S. personnel and contractors to be sent into central Europe to work for years on end.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,531486,00.html

Finally, (3) the leadership of the very state of Hessen, where Wiesbaden is the capital, under the Christian Democratic Union (CDU party) political leadership under Roland Koch over the past decade (1999-2009) has become considered throughout Germany to be one of the least-foreigner friendly state in Germany to migrate to.

That status of Hessen’s having the most xenophobic political leadership in Germany may come as a surprise to many European experts, i.e. who have witnessed a more officially evident rise in nationalism and xenophobia in the former East German states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt over the past two decades. However, Koch has worked hard at this reputation and was reelected in 2009 once again without disavowing much—if any–of his prior anti-foreigner stance

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119281521/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

In 2008, Charles Hawley had written in Der Spiegel magazine predicted that the next major elections in Hessen state would be different. He had written: “The center-right in Germany has often used xenophobic campaigns to propel them to power. Roland Koch’s anti-foreigner campaign in Hesse [in recent months] , however, [has] backfired, showing that he has lost touch with his electorate.”

Whereas, that may have been true in 2008, at the same Roland Koch, after a short political hiatus, was reelected to lead the Hessen Landtag again in January 2009. In short, “Koch’s years of experience as a prominent Christian Democrat (CDU) politician [have continually] told him that a bit of foreigner bashing is a sure way to win votes. It had, after all, worked before — Koch became governor in 1999 after a populist signature gathering campaign against double citizenship — one that many observers saw as profoundly xenophobic.”

Last year, the African People’s Convention concurred, “We have seen this in the past through his [Koch’s] propaganda campaign against Dual Citizenship proposal in 1999 that brought him to power. Roland Koch is actually seeking rightist support. Election watchers outside Germany have pointed out that the reason the far right vote collapsed in Germany is the policies of Roland Koch and some of his fellow politicians in the Christian Democrats. They have not become far right Party, but they have started speaking in tongues to the anti-immigrant vote, which may not be a good political strategy. The natural strategy for the right is in fact to start taking the immigration issues, crime, law and other related issues as an important topic to look into. It is however, a topic which plays on certain fears, rational or irrational on the minds of the less educated, the less enlightened and the less secured populace who think immigrants are the cause of all social problems in Germany.”

Koch consistently has declared that far too many crimes in Germany are committed by foreigners while ignoring the actual enforcement rules of police in handling, charging, and prosecuting criminals in the country. In short, foreigner violence is more visible in regions where unemployment is high—and due to the poor integration policies and job policies in Germany many more foreigners are out of work while failing to get government assistance in a fair and timely manner.

Moreover, the as the APC noted, “This hostility towards foreigners [under Koch in Hessen] has manifested in discrimination against foreigners, and in extreme cases, violent attack on an entire community. The reason for the rise of the far right attacks in Germany is the failure to integrate immigrants socially and economically into the German society unlike the United Kingdom and U.S.A, where the melting pot seems to work and has worked for many decades. In Germany, the melting pot has failed tremendously.”

Not only Africans and Americans need to be wary of Koch and his anti-foreigner bias. Koch has also been charged as behaving and speaking anti-Semitic phrases in many speeches, whether in making allusions to Jewish and German history or to Muslims or Arabs.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,226775,00.html

“The Central Council of Jews in Germany is right,” said Kenan Kolat, who heads the umbrella group of Germany’s Turkish community. “The level of Mr. Koch’s campaign is hardly distinguishable from those run by the (neo-Nazi National Democratic Party — NPD). … I hope voters give Mr. Koch what he deserves for his xenophobic rhetoric.”

“’Ali Kizilkaya of the (German) Islam Council called Koch’s campaign ‘wind in the sails of right-wing radical parties.’ He echoed the sentiment of Thursday’s letter by saying that he is concerned that Koch might be sacrificing social cohesion in Germany for short-term political gain.”

ANTI-AMERICAN VISA AND WORK ISSUES ARE MANY

All of Germany has become a more unfriendly place for Americans to work over the past two to three decades. This has occurred parallel to the growth and power of the European Union as a whole, which has decided to position itself as an alternative to America on the global political economic stage. This has occurred even as more and more Germans have come to confess that historically both Germany and Central Europe have been a multicultural melting pot for the continent for millennia. Even today, “Berlin the German capital and international metropolis in the heart of Europe” is not only a “city of culture, sports, politics, and science [but a] . . . population of almost 3.4 million fills an area of 890 km², including people from more than 200 different countries who have chosen the melting pot of Berlin for their new ‘heimat’.”

http://www.linguee.de/uebersetzung/deutsch/melting+pot.html
Many other regions of Germany, such as the Industrial Ruhr River region (in North Rhine Westphalia) have—with the exception of 12 years of the Nazi era—consistently seen itself as a multicultural region in Germany.

http://www.geschichte.nrw.de/artikel.php?artikel[id]=337&lkz=de

http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0708/yongho/yongho2.html

Similarly, as in Switzerland, the Rhine River in Germany has often played a role in the Rhine regions’ development as a multicultural identity–in the centuries prior to 19th Century when Romanticism and Nationalism became the prominent regional paradigm. By the way, Wiesbaden, where the new American Army base is to be located in Hessen, is also on the Rhine. Even in the days of the Roman occupation of the Rhine, two millennia ago, the Rhine region was certainly considered a multicultural place.

Nearby Frankfurt on the Main River in Hessen, too, is seen as another great melting pot–as are the great cities of Cologne and Duesseldorf to the north, i.e. where the Rhine River eventually passes into Holland and the Netherlands.
http://www.comenius-multiculturalism.eu/frankfurt/introduction.pdf
Meanwhile, in Germany, many Americans who come over to join their family members here have found that they will never get any visa to work in the state of Hessen. The job situation for Americans is so bad that the USA Department of Defense is currently telling teachers arriving at the DOD schools throughout Germany (but especially in the Wiesbaden region) not to try and bring spouses nor kids over here because:

(1) the cost of living is to high,

(2) Germans almost never give spousal visas to work (and, in my case, even a spousal visa to live with me), and

(3) integration in Hessen for long-term foreign labor and children of laborers has been abysmal for decades.

In other words, although almost 1 out of every 3 Wiesbaden residents are of foreign birth or of foreign-born parentage, most of these foreign youth—as a whole—do not do outstandingly well in the educational and training system (for which Germany has been renowned for decades). This means that very few children of foreign born-and-raised households do as well financially and academically in society as their German counterparts.

http://www.hr-online.de/website/rubriken/nachrichten/indexhessen34938.jsp?key=standard_document_37947046&rubrik=34954

“Immigrants rarely have in their possession formal vocational training certificates or qualifications that can easily match the German standards. Employees who came to Germany as immigrants can hardly expect any career advances in their companies, as company training programs are either too limited or non-existent.”

https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/equal/jsp/dpComplete.jsp?cip=DE&national=XB4-76051-20-ST%2F210

“The effect of that is that they are quite frequently employed as unskilled workers or aides, or that they are unemployed. A reason for that is the lack of awareness on the part of the employer, the firm, and the employees’ representations both in the company and beyond. In addition to that, more and more youngsters and young adults try to get access to the training market. Quite frequently, they will experience adjustment and integration problems in job training and social life similar to those of their parents. Typical is the phenomenon of isolation, compartmentalization, and exclusion.”

This is neglect of foreign born residents is pretty sad because nearly 1 in 5 (or even 1 in 4) Americans of Caucasian descent have ancestors from Germany. With the American economy in the doldrums a closed Fortress Europe is not helpful to the many qualified and technically talented Americans who could otherwise succeed here.
Historically, American soldiers, veterans, and military personnel (and their families) have enjoyed their time in Germany. However, over the past decade—with the larger anti-foreigner backlash in some regions in Germany and with the rising value of the Euro, Germany and other lands are becoming hardship duties for USA personnel and their families—as well as for the 1000s of subcontractors, who are supporting the building and creation of the newest—most monumental—base in Wiesbaden in this 2009-2012 transition period.

http://the-teacher.blogspot.com/2009/10/dear-cdu-csu-fdp-greens-left-spd-please.html

In short, due to the lack of good integration practices and related educational skills training or certification, Americans and other foreigners here often remain fairly isolated and under-integrated in German society—even when and where Americans have played an important economic role in the community for decades, such has been the case for 7 decades in Wiesbaden, via DOD expenditures and other direct foreign investment.

http://www.wiesbaden.army.mil/sites/local/

Now, with the cost of living in Europe so high due to the drop in the dollar and because of the anti-immigration character of the Hessen state currently in 2009, it is not clear whether American military personnel, their dependence, and related U.S.A. laborers will have much joy living and working on or for in new Wiesbaden Army base—except on the new USA military base itself—which serves as an advanced sort of reservation—or ghetto (where the Americans continue to remain separated from the changing cultures of Central Europe around them). In short, it will become a more quarantined world than American military experience in the past in Hessen have witnessed in the last 5 decades.

AMERICAN GOVERNMENTS—under BUSH and OBAMA—Continue to pay bribes to Taliban in Afghanistan in the millions each year:  THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A WAR, AMERICA—Let’s Get Out

I heard this story and interview on Democracy Now yesterday. The case is clear, the USA continues to fund to the tune of millions or billions for the Talibans and enemies of democracy in Afghanistan.

Foreign money from USA contractors go to the Taliban because the USA cannot or will not protect shipments in most corners of the countries for development, etc.

See or listen to the story here:

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/12/taliban

Aram Roston says that Afghanistan is a carnival for rogues making billions off the war.  Read his piece in THE NATION, too.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091130/roston

In a last-minute dissent ahead of a critical war cabinet meeting on escalating the Afghan war, US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry has cast doubt on a troop escalation until the Afghan government can address corruption and other internal problems. Meanwhile, a report reveals how the US government is financing the very same insurgent forces in Afghanistan that American and NATO soldiers are fighting. Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack. [includes rush transcript]

JUAN GONZALEZ: The US ambassador to Afghanistan is warning against sending more troops to fight in the Afghan war. In a last-minute dissent, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry sent two cables this week casting doubt on a troop escalation until the Afghan government can address corruption and other internal problems.

Well, today we turn to a new report that reveals how the US government is financing the very same insurgent forces in Afghanistan that American and NATO soldiers are fighting. “How the US Funds the Taliban” is the cover story of the latest issue of The Nation magazine.

Investigative journalist Aram Roston traces how the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack. The practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. US military officials in Kabul told Roston that a minimum of ten percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts consists of payments to the Taliban.

AMY GOODMAN: That translates into millions of dollars being funneled to the Taliban. This summer, anticipating a surge of US troops, the military expanded its trucking contracts in Afghanistan by 600 percent to a total of over $2 billion.

Well, Aram Roston joins us now here in our firehouse studio, the author of the book The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi. His latest piece, “How the US Funds the Taliban,” was supported by the investigative fund at the Nation Institute.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! When did you return from Afghanistan?

ARAM ROSTON: About three weeks ago.

AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us what you found. How does the US fund the Taliban?

ARAM ROSTON: Well, it’s bizarre, but the US has to maintain, obviously, all these bases, these forward operating bases and combat outposts throughout Afghanistan. They have to supply them. The way they supply them is trucking convoys, civilian trucking convoys. They call it “Host Nation Trucking,” and what they mean is that Afghan-owned trucks and Afghan drivers drive everything. They drive all the supplies, the guns, the MRAPs, the ammunition. Just everything needs to get to these—every part of Afghanistan. And they’ve issued these large contracts, but they don’t protect the convoys. By definition, these convoys are driving through some very tough terrain, controlled by warlords, by the Taliban, by insurgents.

And what they’ve ended up doing—and this is apparently unanimous, with some small exceptions—is the security companies reach arrangements with the local Taliban, the local warlords and various insiders to pay them off for protection. It’s very much like an extortion racket and very much like a protection racket, and it amounts to huge amounts of money. Some say ten percent, some say far more than ten percent, of the convoys. Some say that most of the security budgets are going towards these payments to the Taliban and to the tribal leaders and the warlords. The fact is the US often doesn’t even know who they’re paying off. These contractors don’t necessarily know who they’re paying off. They just know they’re bad guys. So they’ve ended up with this bizarre situation, and there’s nothing they can really do about it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, your article goes into the shadowy—the network of companies, and specifying several of the companies that are involved. And you point how many of them have—are headed by relatives of people who are high up in the Karzai government. Could you talk about, for instance, Watan Risk, is it?

ARAM ROSTON: Yeah.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And NCL Holdings?

ARAM ROSTON: Yeah, that was—the original mission I was doing was—original story I was doing was this sort of web of nepotism and corruption, inside deals, in security contracts and logistics contracts. And it expanded when I—people all started trying to tell me, “You should do this story, as well.”

Watan Risk is an extraordinary company. It’s run by the—by two brothers, the Popal brothers. They’re relatives of the President of the country. They’re also convicted felons here in the United States for drug offenses. And one of them was an interpreter and basically a spokesman for the Taliban at the end of the Taliban regime in 2001. And yet, here he is now. He runs, and his brother—he and his brother run this very lucrative, very important, very big security company, Watan Risk Group. According to many people I spoke to, it runs this very important corridor. It controls it, because it has a relationship with the key warlord and commands who controls that.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And that corridor is Highway 1, is it?

ARAM ROSTON: Highway 1, which runs through Kandahar, which leads you to the South, leads you to, in many cases—basically leads you to the war zone. This is where you need to go to get to the conflict, to the border, and so forth.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us where you start this article? You’re mentioning these people, like Ahmad Rateb Popal, but talking about what happened October 29th, 2001, the news conference.

ARAM ROSTON: It’s pretty bizarre, but on October 29th, 2001, there’s this news conference in Islamabad. If you remember, while the US began its campaign against the Taliban, there was a Taliban ambassador in Pakistan who was talking as a representative. His main interpreter and representative was this English-speaking gentleman who looked very distinctive. He had an eye patch, he was missing an arm, and he had this huge beard and this black turban. This is Ahmad Rateb Popal. He has now trimmed his beard. He looks different. He still has the eye patch. But he’s now an international businessman, rather than the interpreter for the Taliban. He’s a relative of, like I say, of the President of Afghanistan. And it’s one of these things where everybody seems to have to pay this company if they want security along this very important route. And they control convoy traffic heading through that region.

JUAN GONZALEZ: One of the other companies you mention is NCL Holdings, which is run by the son of the Minister of Defense, has a $380 million contract. But the Minister of Defense claims he knows nothing about the son’s contract.

ARAM ROSTON: I believe him. It’s a really interesting thing. In other words, he maybe just—the son, everybody knows who he is, of course. Everybody knows he’s—his name is Hamed Wardak. His father’s name is Rahim Wardak. Rahim Wardak was a mujahideen leader during the fight against the Soviets. The US worked with him. Case officers like Milt Bearden, a top CIA official at the time, and the station chief in Islamabad, he worked with him. The fellow shows up in the book Charlie Wilson’s War, as does Milt Bearden, the CIA official.

So, somehow this general’s son ends up starting this—he’s an American, American Afghan. He starts this company called NCL and, last year—well, 2009, wins this contract that, over the summer, blossoms into a $360 million contract to transport American goods throughout the country. It’s incredibly lucrative.

AMY GOODMAN: This is a guy who was raised and schooled in the United States, valedictorian at Georgetown 1997, a Rhodes scholar, then interned at the think tank American Enterprise Institute.

ARAM ROSTON: Exactly. This is—he’s very much an American, but very much an Afghan, and very much the son of the Defense Minister. The Defense Ministry is obviously key, because that’s where a lot of US resources are going. That’s—we’re supposed to be training up the Afghan army, which is overseen by the Defense Ministry, and the Afghan security forces, controlled by the Defense Ministry. So that ministry is so important.

But what’s so interesting is I did—the only person on that case who would talk to me on the record was the father. And he, himself, seemed embarrassed, when I met him, about the whole situation. He just didn’t know why his son had got the contract. He didn’t realize it was that big a contract. He realized his son’s company was doing

AMY GOODMAN: And again, the contract was…?

ARAM ROSTON: Was for logistics. It was called Host Nation Trucking.

AMY GOODMAN: And the amount?

ARAM ROSTON: Well, it was a sixth of this $2.2 billion contract. It was $360 million. And even a relative of the President—

JUAN GONZALEZ: And your sense is that a portion of that goes, obviously, to pay off the local warlords or Taliban when they’re delivering stuff.

ARAM ROSTON: I have very good sources who told me that. The assured me it—unfortunately, this—from this contract, too, a bulk of it, good portion of it, goes directly to these insurgent leaders to ensure safe passage, you can say, you could call it.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What do the—you quoted several American military officers in the field who acknowledged knowing about this and expressing disgust about it. Could you talk about that?

ARAM ROSTON: Yeah, that was with David Haight, who runs the Third Brigade of the Tenth Mountain Division, and he oversees Logar. His brigade oversees Logar Province and Wardak Province, and Highway 1 goes through part of it. And I asked him about it, and he said he was aware of it, and he said it repulsed him. It repulsed him that this was the situation. But he said, “It is what it is.” They know that’s the way it is. They know that’s the way American contractors are handling business. And at this point, they feel there’s nothing they can do about it.

Now, there are some things—the point is, a lot of people know about it there. And Afghans are very upset by it, too. A top Afghan security official brought it to my attention. He says he’d been trying to fix it in secret for a long time, bring it to the Americans’ attention, and little has happened. American contractors, security contractors and trucking contractors, said they’ve brought it to the attention of American officials, American military officials. And they assure me the American military officials have been told, you know, many times. These people don’t want to be doing this. They don’t want to be paying money to the people that the US is fighting.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, President Obama urged President Hamid Karzai to tackle corruption in his country. In an interview on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer this week, President Karzai said he was trying to rout out corruption, but added that foreign money is making the problem worse.

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: We also mean corruption of a different kind, which is a lot more serious, which is new to Afghanistan. That is with the arrival of a lot of tough money to Afghanistan, the lack of transparency in the award of contracts, the serious corruption in implementing projects. It’s the international community also that shares responsibility with us, and that’s what I hope we can correct together. But the stigma falls mainly on Afghanistan, because that’s where it happens.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Hamid Karzai. Aram Roston, your response?

ARAM ROSTON: He raises a very good point. It is international money. Much of it’s American money. This contract I just mentioned, $2.2 billion, that’s like a big chunk of Afghanistan’s GNP. They functionally don’t have much of a budget. It’s all international money coming in.

You can see a lot of—there has been an effort by US investigators to now probe US contract steering, bribes. There’s cases in American court now of people taking bribes, people giving bribes. But there’s far more that hasn’t been done. It’s a really—ironically, he’s raising an important point. But, of course, he’s also steering the issue to say, “Don’t look at me. Look at them.”

JUAN GONZALEZ: But isn’t the reality that if the—if these companies did not pay these bribes or this extortion, then the US military would have to actually defend these convoys to be able to get supplies to its troops, which would mean more American casualties, so this is, in effect, a way to avoid more American casualties in the war?

ARAM ROSTON: That’s right, but is that a smart way to fight a war? That’s the issue.

AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to go back to the Popal brothers for a minute, Hamid Karzai’s cousin, as you said, where you begin the piece, talking about them being businessmen now. You say, though, here in the United States, one, for example, pleaded guilty to—what was it? Heroin?

ARAM ROSTON: Heroin, yeah, conspiracy. One was a—

AMY GOODMAN: In 1997.

ARAM ROSTON: One was 1997 or 1996, whatever I wrote, and one was in ’89 was—he was charged. And he was released from prison in ’97. There were two brothers.

AMY GOODMAN: Conspiring to import more than a kilo of heroin.

ARAM ROSTON: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Court records show he was released from prison in 1997.

ARAM ROSTON: Yeah, it was right here in New York City, both cases. That’s why it’s such a fascinating case—a fascinating place to do reporting. It’s like a carnival of really strange characters who are getting very, very rich off this war.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there, as President Obama—word comes out of the war cabinet he had yesterday that he is raising questions about the surge. We’ll see what happens. Aram Roston, thanks so much for being with us, investigative journalist. He wrote the book The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi. But he has the latest story in The Nation magazine called “How the US Funds the Taliban.”

Sehr geehrten Herrn Dr. Christian Kirchberg, Karlsruhe und Anwaelte/innen in Deutschland,

Ich merke, dass in den Greundgesaetz, dass Alle Menschen vor dem Gesetz gleich sind.

Artikel 3
(1) Alle Menschen sind vor dem Gesetz gleich.
(2) Männer und Frauen sind gleichberechtigt. Der Staat fördert die tatsächliche Durchsetzung der Gleichberechtigung von Frauen und Männern und wirkt auf die Beseitigung bestehender Nachteile hin.
(3) Niemand darf wegen seines Geschlechtes, seiner Abstammung, seiner Rasse, seiner Sprache, seiner Heimat und Herkunft, seines Glaubens, seiner religiösen oder politischen Anschauungen benachteiligt oder bevorzugt werden. Niemand darf wegen seiner Behinderung benachteiligt werden.
Ich bin Amerikaner aber wohne und arbeite in Deutschland (und zahle Steuer hier) und sollte mit diesem Artikel 3 von Willkuerlichketiten von Beamten/innen und alle staatliche ungerichtigen Vorgaengsweise geschutzt worden, aber wie ist es mit meiner Frau, die seit Abril 2009 Schikanenwegens von unfair Prozesse(n) in Deutschland in Ausland bleiben muss. Haben meine Frau und ich Schuetz dagegen?
Lass mich ein Bischen erklaeren.
Seit Juni 2009 in dem Botschaft Deutschlands in Kuwait und bei dem Petitionsausschuss in Hessenlandestag haben meine Frau und ich den Anrechnungsmethoden den Integrationsbeamten in Deutschland in Frage gestellt. Trotzdem haben seit mehrere Monaten meine Frau und ich keinen richtige Hilfe und Justiz miterlebt.
Waehrend diesen Prozesse und auch fruehr haben meine Frau und ich mehrmals unten viele Schwierigkeiten (fuer Buerger und Familien) in Deutschland und Ausland gelitten muessen, wobei die Beamtern mehrmals Fragwuerdigen Methoden eingefuhrt haben.
Richter in Deutschland haben daher Rechnungsmethoden als Rechtswiedrig verurteilt. Habe ich Gruend zu klagen?
• BVerfG, “Anrechnungsmethode”, 5.2.02
Art. 6 I, 3 II GG, §§ 1577, 1578 BGB, Verfassungswidrigkeit der bislang von den Familiengerichten angewandten “Anrechnungsmethode” bei der Bestimmung des nachehelichen Ehegattenunterhalts: Kindererziehung und Haushaltsführung stehen gleichrangig neben der Beschaffung des Einkommens (Hinweis: die “Anrechnungsmethode” ist vom BGH bereits in der Entscheidung «Familienarbeit der Ehefrau» aufgegeben worden)
Willkuer in den Ermittlungen des Gesaetzes sowie in den Fallen Beamteruebereinkommen sind auch nicht in Deutschland unerhoert. Habe ich den Recht zu klagen?
• BAG, Werkstudent, 30.8.00 (NZA 2001, 613)
Art. 1 III GG, keine unmittelbare Bindung der Tarifpartner an die Grundrechte, Vorrang der Koalitionsfreiheit (Art. 9 III GG) vor dem Gleichheitssatz (Art. 3 I GG) bei der Bestimmung des persönlichen Anwendungsbereichs von Tarifverträgen, Grenze der Willkür;
§ 45 ArbGG, zu den Voraussetzungen der Vorlagepflicht (hier: fehlende Entscheidungserheblichkeit)
Ich weiss noch nicht, ob ich Schmerzengeld irgenwann verlangen soll, aber die tragodische Politik und Vorgaengsweise beim Ablehnung des Visums meiner Frau wird wahrscheinlich im 2009 bis 12.500 Euro meiner Familie kosten. Ausserdem habe ich mehr als 30 bis 60 Stuende mit dem Visumprozess verbracht. Diese Ueberstunden belasstet meine Arbeit sowie Gesundheit.

• BVerfG, “Prinzessinnenprivileg”, 8.3.00 (NJW 2000, 2187)
Art. 3 GG, verfassungsrechtlich unbedenkliche Bemessung von Schmerzensgeld (§ 847 BGB aF, nun § 253 BGB) wegen psychischer Schädigungen im Verhältnis
1. zu der Bemessung des Geldanspruches wegen Verletzung des allgemeinen Persönlichkeitsrechts (Art. 2 I, 1 I GG) von Prominenten,
2. zu der Bemessung von Schmerzensgeld für physische Schädigungen

Willkuerlichkeit Seites der Behoerden und ihre bevorzuegte Methoden spielen ein rieseger Rolle in den Verlauf des Visumprozesess und in den Prozess des Remonstrierungs im Ausland und im Inland in 2009
• BVerfG, Briefanhaltung durch Ermittlungsrichter, 28.9.99 (NJW 2000, 273)
Art. 3 I GG, Willkürverbot: zur Frage, wann in der analogen Anwendung einer Vorschrift richterliche Willkür liegt (hier bejaht bei der analogen Anwendung von § 119 VI StPO auf den Vollzug der Erzwingungshaft gem. § 70 II StPO, § 171 StVollzG)

Willkuerverbote sollten in Deutschland nicht ueblich (nicht gestattet). Wenn meine Frau Amerikanerin oder aus einen Osteuropaeisches (nicht EU ) Land stammte, haetten sie und ich weniger Willkuer erlebt, aber zur Zeit ist selten etwas als rechtwidrig gegen nicht Europaer in Deutschland von Beamteeranwaeltengeforscht.
Dieses Situation soll und muss sich aendern.
• BVerfG, Fernsehinterview des iranischen Asylbewerbers, 16.10.98 (DVBl 1999, 165)
§ 51 I AuslG, Art. 3 GG, Willkürverbot, sachfremde Erwägungen des Gerichts, Anforderungen an die Begründung

Unfaehigkeiten der Beamter/innen, insbesonderweise wichtige Detailles von meiner Familie des Visumsbefragung und Ablehnung nicht beruecksichtigt.
Im kurzen wird Soziale Gesichtspunkten fuer Familien, wie meine und in ganz Deutschland, nichtmal beruecksichtigt?
• BVerfG, Kindergartengebühr IV, 10.3.98 (BVerfGE 97, 332)
Art. 2 I, Gesetzgebungskompetenz, Art. 75, 105;
Art. 3 I, sachlicher Grund für Gebührenstaffelung, soziale Gesichtspunkte sind berücksichtigungsfähig

Insgesammt verlange ich, dass den Justiz in dem Fall meiner Ehezusammenzeihung ab Sofort Gewaehrungspflichtig realisiert wird.
• BVerwG, Urteilsveröffentlichungen, 26.2.97 (BVerwGE 104, 105)
Art. 3 I GG i.V.m. Art. 5 I 2 GG, Art. 20 III GG, Rechtsstaatsgebot, Justizgewährungspflicht, Demokratiegebot, Gewaltenteilung
und
• BVerfG, § 611a BGB, 16.11.93 (BVerfGE 89, 276)
§ 611a BGB aF, Art. 3 II GG, Anwendung einfachen Rechts, grundrechtliche Schutzpflichten;
§ 611a BGB, “Motivbündel”

Sollten Allgemeines Persoenlichkeitsrechte weder von den Ablehnungen Beamters noch von fragwuerdigen Vorgaengsweise Direkt und Indirekt angetasstet werden?
• BGH, iranisches Sorgerecht, 14.10.92 (BGHZ 120, 29)
Art. 6 EGBGB, Art. 3 II GG, Internationalen Privatrecht, Berücksichtigung der Grundrechte der Kinder, Art. 2 I GG, allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht

Die erweiterte Ablehnung eines Visums fuer meine Frau im Jahr 2009 stoesst Beide den rechten des Einzelnen und der Familien sich zu ernaehren, zu entfalten, zu verwirklichen, unsw.
• BVerfG, Kapitalertragssteuer, 27.6.91 (BVerfGE 84, 239)
Art. 3 I GG, Recht des Einzelnen auf materielle Steuergerechtigkeit, Abgrenzung zu dem nicht gegebenen Anspruch auf “Gleicheit im Unrecht”, gesetzgeberische Pflicht zur Kontrolle der “Steuerehrlichkeit”

Hier habe ich bis jetzt keinen Beweis, aber Willkuerlichkeit scheint in den Fall meiner Ehe und Visum ziemlich ueblich.
• BVerfG, Überlinger Zweitwohnungssteuer, 6.12.83 (BVerfGE 65, 325)
Art. 105 IIa GG, § 6 IV KAG, Aufwandsteuer, Art. 3 I GG, willkürliche Ungleichbehandlung
Keine Beruecksichtigung auf Haertefaellen sind auch nicht von Beamter in meinen Fall nicht gezeigt, obwohl ich wannsinnig viele Ueberstuende leisten muss, und mehrmals nach anderen Kontinenten zu meine Frau fliegen muesste.
• BVerfG, Pflichtexemplar, 14.7.81 (BVerfGE 58, 137)
Art. 14 I GG, Verhältnismäßigkeit, Art. 3 GG, Berücksichtigung von Härtefällen

Fast Niemand hat mir bis Jetzt Hilfe angeboten. Wieso denn nicht? Oftmals habe ich Hilfe(n) gewollte und es verlangt mit Anwaelte/innen von dem Integrationsamt zu sprechen, aber niemals habe ich richtige und Zeitgemaess Auskuenfte sowie weder richtige Rat noch Gespraechsmoeglichkeiten erhalten.
• BVerfG, Gerichtskostenvorschuß, 16.1.60 (BVerfGE 10, 262)
Art. 19 IV, 3, Prozeßkostenhilfe

Ich danke Alle fuer weitere Anweisungen.

Ihr,

http://eslkevin.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/dear-bundesministerin-ursula-von-der-leyen-i-agree-with-you-that-your-ministry-for-family-seniors-women-and-youth-needs-to-take-on-more-of-the-%e2%80%9crentenreform%e2%80%9d-or-%e2%80%9cpension/