Friday, May 15, 2009

This Ain't The Boy Scouts That I Was A Member Of


Makes me kind of sick to see the scouts twisted into something like this. Note the stereotyping of Arabs as terrorists.....

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”


In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Flip Flop

Sad.....

President Obama announced today that he will move to block the release of photos documenting American military personnel torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the images could "further inflame anti-American opinion."
What BS. You know what will help dampen those flames? An end to war crimes impunity, and the dawn of that true transparency he promised America during his presidential campaign. Instead, we're dealt yet another civil liberties disappointment.

Obama isn't just "Bush Lite" with regard to these issues, he's continuing the exact same policies of the Bush administration and in some matters, expanding those powers further. Nothing "lite" about that.