No More Jesus Rifles for U.S. Military

No More Jesus Rifles

After ABC News Report, Trijicon Announces Plan to Remove Bible Codes from Gun Sights Provided to U.S. Military
By LUIS MARTINEZ, JOSEPH RHEE and MARK SCHONE

Trijicon, the gunsight maker that has imprinted Bible verse numbers on its scopes, has announced that it will no longer imprint the verses on the sides of scopes intended for the U.S. military, and will also provide clients with the kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

An ABC News report earlier this week revealed that the Michigan-based company, which has a contract to provide up to 800,000 scopes to the U.S. military, prints references to New Testament chapters and verses in code next to the model numbers of its scopes. The scopes are used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by U.S. allies in those countries, and for the training of Afghan and Iraqi troops.

"Trijicon has proudly served the U.S. military for more than two decades, and our decision to offer to voluntarily remove these references is both prudent and appropriate," said Stephen Bindon, Trijicon president and CEO in a statement. "We want to thank the Department of Defense for the opportunity to work with them and will move as quickly as possible to provide the modification kits for deployment overseas."

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the Department of Defense "applauds the voluntary actions announced today by Trijicon."

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More from Brian Ross and the Investigative Team
Morrell said the coded Bible reference were clearly inappropriate. Said Morrell, "It is not the policy of the Department of Defense to put religious references of any kind on its equipment."

Earlier today, Gen. David Petraeus, who commands CentCom, which oversees U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, told a D.C. thinktank that the company's practice was "disturbing …and a serious concern for me" and field commanders. He said there had been considerable discussions within the Department of Defense about how to deal with Trijicon's practice.

The Trijicon statement said that the company would: "Remove the inscription reference on all U.S. military products that are in the company's factory that have already been produced, but have yet to be shipped" and "Provide 100 modification kits to forces in the field to remove the reference on the already forward deployed optical sights."

The company also said it would ensure future procurements from the Department of Defense are produced without scripture references,a nd offer foreign forces that have purchased the products "the same remedies."

Haris Tarin, director of the Washington, D.C., office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, a civil-rights group, said his organization welcomed the announcement. Said Tarin, "We must ensure that incidents like these are not repeated, so as not to give the impression that our country is involved in a religious crusade, which hurts America's image abroad and puts our soldiers in harms way."

Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that Trijicon had made a "responsible move ... that will help reduce or eliminate a potential danger to our nation's military."



Click on title above for full story

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/jesus-rifles/story?id=9618791

Open Letter to OBomBa from Michael Moore

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Dear President Obama,

Do you really want to be the new "war president"? If you go to West Point
tomorrow night (Tuesday, 8pm) and announce that you are increasing, rather than
withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and
simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do --
destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you. With just one
speech tomorrow night you will turn a multitude of young people who were the
backbone of your campaign into disillusioned cynics. You will teach them what
they've always heard is true -- that all politicians are alike. I simply can't
believe you're about to do what they say you are going to do. Please say it
isn't so.

It is not your job to do what the generals tell you to do. We are a civilian-run
government. WE tell the Joint Chiefs what to do, not the other way around.
That's the way General Washington insisted it must be. That's what President
Truman told General MacArthur when MacArthur wanted to invade China. "You're
fired!," said Truman, and that was that. And you should have fired Gen.
McChrystal when he went to the press to preempt you, telling the press what YOU
had to do. Let me be blunt: We love our kids in the armed services, but we
f*#&in' hate these generals, from Westmoreland in Vietnam to, yes, even Colin
Powell for lying to the UN with his made-up drawings of WMD (he has since sought
redemption).

So now you feel backed into a corner. 30 years ago this past Thursday
(Thanksgiving) the Soviet generals had a cool idea -- "Let's invade
Afghanistan!" Well, that turned out to be the final nail in the USSR coffin.

There's a reason they don't call Afghanistan the "Garden State" (though they
probably should, seeing how the corrupt President Karzai, whom we back, has his
brother in the heroin trade raising poppies). Afghanistan's nickname is the
"Graveyard of Empires." If you don't believe it, give the British a call. I'd
have you call Genghis Khan but I lost his number. I do have Gorbachev's number
though. It's + 41 22 789 1662. I'm sure he could give you an earful about the
historic blunder you're about to commit.

With our economic collapse still in full swing and our precious young men and
women being sacrificed on the altar of arrogance and greed, the breakdown of
this great civilization we call America will head, full throttle, into oblivion
if you become the "war president." Empires never think the end is near, until
the end is here. Empires think that more evil will force the heathens to toe the
line -- and yet it never works. The heathens usually tear them to shreds.

Choose carefully, President Obama. You of all people know that it doesn't have
to be this way. You still have a few hours to listen to your heart, and your own
clear thinking. You know that nothing good can come from sending more troops
halfway around the world to a place neither you nor they understand, to achieve
an objective that neither you nor they understand, in a country that does not
want us there. You can feel it in your bones.

I know you know that there are LESS than a hundred al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan!
A hundred thousand troops trying to crush a hundred guys living in caves? Are
you serious? Have you drunk Bush's Kool-Aid? I refuse to believe it.

Your potential decision to expand the war (while saying that you're doing it so
you can "end the war") will do more to set your legacy in stone than any of the
great things you've said and done in your first year. One more throwing a bone
from you to the Republicans and the coalition of the hopeful and the hopeless
may be gone -- and this nation will be back in the hands of the haters quicker
than you can shout "tea bag!"

Choose carefully, Mr. President. Your corporate backers are going to abandon you
as soon as it is clear you are a one-term president and that the nation will be
safely back in the hands of the usual idiots who do their bidding. That could be
Wednesday morning.

We the people still love you. We the people still have a sliver of hope. But we
the people can't take it anymore. We can't take your caving in, over and over,
when we elected you by a big, wide margin of millions to get in there and get
the job done. What part of "landslide victory" don't you understand?

Don't be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan
will make a difference, or earn you the respect of the haters. They will not
stop until this country is torn asunder and every last dollar is extracted from
the poor and soon-to-be poor. You could send a million troops over there and the
crazy Right still wouldn't be happy. You would still be the victim of their
incessant venom on hate radio and television because no matter what you do, you
can't change the one thing about yourself that sends them over the edge.

The haters were not the ones who elected you, and they can't be won over by
abandoning the rest of us.

President Obama, it's time to come home. Ask your neighbors in Chicago and the
parents of the young men and women doing the fighting and dying if they want
more billions and more troops sent to Afghanistan. Do you think they will say,
"No, we don't need health care, we don't need jobs, we don't need homes. You go
on ahead, Mr. President, and send our wealth and our sons and daughters
overseas, 'cause we don't need them, either."

What would Martin Luther King, Jr. do? What would your grandmother do? Not send
more poor people to kill other poor people who pose no threat to them, that's
what they'd do. Not spend billions and trillions to wage war while American
children are sleeping on the streets and standing in bread lines.

All of us that voted and prayed for you and cried the night of your victory have
endured an Orwellian hell of eight years of crimes committed in our name:
torture, rendition, suspension of the bill of rights, invading nations who had
not attacked us, blowing up neighborhoods that Saddam "might" be in (but never
was), slaughtering wedding parties in Afghanistan. We watched as hundreds of
thousands of Iraqi civilians were slaughtered and tens of thousands of our brave
young men and women were killed, maimed, or endured mental anguish -- the full
terror of which we scarcely know.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much
change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the
killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that
doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has.

Stop, stop, stop! For the sake of the lives of young Americans and Afghan
civilians, stop. For the sake of your presidency, hope, and the future of our
nation, stop. For God's sake, stop.

Tonight we still have hope.

Tomorrow, we shall see. The ball is in your court. You DON'T have to do this.
You can be a profile in courage. You can be your mother's son.

We're counting on you.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. There's still time to have your voice heard. Call the White House at
202-456-1111 or email the President.


Join Mike's Mailing List | Join Mike's Facebook Group | Follow Mike on Twitter |
Become Mike's MySpace Friend

OBomBa Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Still waiting for an official response from the Whitehouse in regards to a military commanders request for 40,000 more U.S. troops in Afganistan, and with the recent announcement only days ago, that troop withdrawal in Afganistan "is not an option,".....isnt this designation a wee bit pre-mature?

In a surprise, Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

AP – File - U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly, …
By KARL RITTER and MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writers Karl Ritter And Matt Moore, Associated Press Writers – 57 mins ago
OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.



White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided not to inform Obama before the announcement because it didn't want to wake him up, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.

"Waking up a president in the middle of the night, this isn't really something you do," Jagland said.

The Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," Jagland said.



Obama's election and foreign policy moves caused a dramatic improvement in the image of the U.S. around the world. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.

Still, the U.S. remains at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress has yet to pass a law reducing carbon emissions and there has been little significant reduction in global nuclear stockpiles since Obama took office.




"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, a 1983 Nobel Peace laureate.

"This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.

The award appeared to be a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.

"You have to remember that the world has been in a pretty dangerous phase," Jagland said. "And anybody who can contribute to getting the world out of this situation deserves a Nobel Peace Prize."

Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the committee has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said Obama's award shows great things are expected from him in coming years.

"It's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," Tutu said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."

Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.

"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given to someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said.

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.

Wilson received the prize for his role in founding the League of Nations, the hopeful but ultimately failed precursor to the contemporary United Nations.

The Nobel committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.

Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming.

Obama was to meet with his top advisers on the Afghan war on Friday to consider a request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to send as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan as the U.S war there enters its ninth year.

Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to Afghanistan earlier this year and has continued the use of unmanned drones for attacks on militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a strategy devised by the Bush administration. The attacks often kill or injure civilians living in the area.

In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The United States now as about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.

But there has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.

Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership in the effort to prevent nuclear proliferation.

"In less than a year in office, he has transformed the way we look at ourselves and the world we live in and rekindled hope for a world at peace with itself," ElBaradei said. "He has shown an unshakeable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts."

Obama also has attempted to restart stalled talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but just a day after Obama hosted the Israeli and Palestinian leaders in New York, Israeli officials boasted that they had fended off U.S. pressure to halt settlement construction. Moderate Palestinians said they felt undermined by Obama's failure to back up his demand for a freeze.


Nominators for the prize include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.

The Nelson Mandela Foundation welcomed the award on behalf of its founder Nelson Mandela, who shared the 1993 Peace Prize with then-South African President F.W. DeKlerk for their efforts at ending years of apartheid and laying the groundwork for a democratic country.

"We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."



The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change. ___





Associated Press writers Ian MacDougall in Oslo, Celean Jacobson in Johannesburg, George Jahn in Vienna and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace

The World Future Counsil: Working for a Sustainability, Social Justice & PEACE!

Wont you join?
Click on title above to learn more about this wonderful new GLOBAL organization.

http://earth-folk.blogspot.com/2009/07/world-future-counsil-for-sustainability.html

U.S. 'ready' for N. Korean missile

July 2, 2009
By Bill Gertz

COLORADO SPRINGS | U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times.

"The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I'm very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I've got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory," said Air Force Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart, Northcom commander.


The general said the United States won't activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country's last test missile did.

(Corrected paragraph:) Asked if North Korea is likely to conduct a July 4 Taepodong-2 test, as occurred in 2006, Gen. Renuart said in an interview this week with The Times at Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, "I think we ought to assume there might be one on the first of July and continue to be prepared and ready."

Gen. Renuart, who is commander of the military's first combatant command devoted to defending against threats to U.S. territory, is also the commander of the U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which monitors missile launches around the world and also foreign military aircraft intrusions of U.S. air space. Since Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD is also in charge of tracking civilian aircraft to be ready to respond to a terrorist hijacking.

Gen. Renuart said North Korea's leaders are unpredictable and their "decision logic does not always follow in the same vein as ours does."

The four-star commander said that in addition to long-range interceptors, U.S. missile defenses in the Asia Pacific region include U.S. ground- and sea-based defense systems.

They include ground-based Patriot anti-missile defenses deployed in South Korea, and U.S. Navy Aegis system missile-defense ships deployed to waters near Japan. Recently, the Pentagon also activated units of the Army's new Theater High-Altitude Area Defenses that were undergoing testing in Hawaii, in response to indications that North Korea is set to fire a Taepodong-2.

The regional defenses augment the long-range interceptors based at two sites, one in Alaska and one in California, Gen. Renuart said.

The Pacific Command missile defenses provide "a pretty well-integrated ground-based theater defense capability," he said.

"I think we are certainly ready and capable of responding," Gen. Renuart said.

The wild card in any future North Korean missile test remains the many unknowns about the regime in Pyongyang and whether it will attempt the test or irrationally fire a warhead toward Hawaii, he said.

"In terms of what North Korea's decision process may be, or their logic, you got a Ph.D. in intentions, and you probably can't figure that out," Gen. Renuart said.

The recent U.N. Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's May 25 nuclear test and authorizing unified international action to stem Pyongyang's arms and missile proliferation has affected the regime, he said.

Additionally, North Korea has said that any attempt to interdict its ships, an action authorized in a limited way by the U.N. resolution, would be regarded as an act of war.

"We've all been watching the North Korean ship that was headed south, and it continues to be one in a number of ways the North Korean leadership seems to try get attention and create an effect," Gen. Renuart said.

The North Korean ship, Kang Nam 1, was being tracked with a suspected weapons-related shipment to Myanmar, but a defense official said Wednesday the latest reports indicate the ship had turned away from its planned route.

Asked the threshold for a U.S. military missile-defense strike on the North Korean missile, Gen. Renuart said, "We will not intercept something that is not a threat to North America or U.S. land space in Hawaii."

If the missile falls harmlessly in the ocean, there is no reason to conduct an attempted intercept using regional or strategic interceptors, he said.

"The system is designed to tell us, A, where it's coming from, and roughly where it's going," he said. "And if that where-it's-going piece begins to threaten U.S. land mass, whether we know it's a live or training [warhead], the system will allow us to engage it.

"Prudence will dictate that, even if the warhead configuration of the missile is not a real warhead," Gen. Renuart said, "It's hard to allow that to threaten our territory without doing something about it. It would be hard to tell the American people we didn't do anything."

The current system is "up and ready" for any North Korean launch, he said.

However, a U.S. defense official said it is unlikely that the Taepodong-2 being monitored at a North Korean launch site will be ready for launch by July 4. The liquid-fueled missile takes days to prepare for launch, including the loading of large amounts of liquid rocket fuel. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

The North Koreans could launch short- or medium-range missiles around the July Fourth holiday, however, the official said.

Press reports from South Korea and Japan recently stated that North Korea planned to launch the Taepodong-2 toward Hawaii, but U.S. defense officials said the direction of the shot will not be determined until shortly after launch.

The National Air and Space Intelligence Center, in its latest report on missile threats made public in May, lists the single-warhead Taepodong-2 as having a range greater than 3,400 miles.

"The missile can hit Hawaii and Alaska, and it may be able to reach the western continental United States with a lighter, chemical warhead," said Richard Fisher, a specialist on missiles with the private International Assessment and Strategy Center.

Gen. Renuart said a large sea-based X-band radar, a very high-powered radar system used to track and target missiles, has sailed from Hawaii in preparation for the test.

The ground-based missile-defense interceptors, the ground-based radar and the Aegis cruisers around Japan "have been in place for a period of time," he said.

"I'm comfortable we have all we need," he said.

Gen. Renuart said he had requested using the X-band radar, which is built on a floating oil-rig platform, for use in an April test-firing of a long-range rocket by North Korea.

Defense officials said the general's request at that time was turned down by the Pentagon, prompting some critics to say that not deploying the radar -- which was undergoing maintenance at the time in Hawaii -- was a missed opportunity to collect test data on the missile.

"We had requested the X-band radar [earlier this year] before we really knew what was going on at the launch site," Gen. Renuart said.

A risk assessment was done on whether to halt the upgrading of the radar and send it to sea.

"Once it became clear that this was not an ICBM launch, but rather a space-launch test, and understanding that we don't intercept space launches, there really wasn't the need to interrupt the modification and improvements," Gen. Renuart said.

Regarding the current North Korean preparations, Gen. Renuart said current indications are "this seems to be that if something occurs, it will be ICBM-focused."

The X-band radar will provide technical information on the North Korean missile, he said without elaborating.


http://license.icopyright.net/user/viewContent.act?clipid=321118231&mode=cnc&tag=3.7280%3Ficx_id%3D%2Fnews%2F2009%2Fjul%2F02%2Fus-ready-for-n-korean-missile%2F

A Military "Take-Over" of Local High School?

Brian Roa | The Chicago Model of Militarizing Schools
http://www.truthout.org/062909T?n


For the past four years, I have observed the military occupation of the high school where I teach science. Currently, Chicago's Senn High School houses Rickover Naval Academy (RNA). I use the term "occupation" because part of our building was taken away despite student, parent, teacher and community opposition to RNA's opening.

Senn students are made to feel like second-class citizens inside their own school, due to inequalities. The facilities and resources are better on the RNA side. RNA students are allowed to walk on the Senn side, while Senn students cannot walk on the RNA side. RNA "disenrolls" students and we accept those students who get kicked out if they live within our attendance boundaries. This practice is against Chicago policy, but goes unchecked. All of these things maintain a two-tiered system within the same school building.

This phenomenon is not restricted to Senn. Chicago has more military academies and more students in JROTC than any other city in the US. As the tentacles of school militarization reach beyond Chicago, the process used in this city seems to serve as a model of expansion. There was a Marine Academy planned for Georgia's Dekalb County, which includes 10 percent of Atlanta. Fortunately, due to protest, the school has been postponed until 2010. Despite it being postponed, it is still useful to analyze the rhetoric used to rationalize the Marine Academy. Many of the lies and excuses used to justify school militarization in Chicago and Georgia may well be used in other cities as militarism grows.

Not for Recruiting?

A favorite lie used to defend the expansion of military academies is that they are not used to recruit for the military.

"This is not a training ground to send kids into the military," Dekalb Schools' Superintendent Crawford Lewis told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March. Those same words could have come straight from Col. Rick Mills, director of military academies and JROTC in Chicago, who explained away recruitment in a similar fashion.

"This is not a recruiting tool, but a way to help students succeed at whatever career they might choose," Mills told the Chicago Tribune.

Yet military academies receive money from the Department of Defense (DoD). The DoD would be derelict in its responsibilities were that money not spent as an investment in future soldiers. Accepting the claim that there is no recruiting in military academies makes about as much sense as allowing gangs to fund and operate within schools, on the assumption that they won't recruit on school grounds.

Moreover, since military academies are staffed with ex-service members (many don't even require valid teaching certificates), students are likely to receive career advice that favors a military path.

There are more blatant examples of recruiting at RNA. The cadets - the label applied to students at military academies - have taken a school-sponsored field trip to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Furthermore, last year the school hosted Adm. Michael Mullen, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mullen told the cadets that the Navy was a "great career choice." RNA has hosted ten admirals in their short four-year history.

In addition to these direct tactics, the academies use more insidious approaches. A military culture permeates these schools. Students dress in uniform, receive demerits, and are introduced to the military hierarchy and way of life. For example, I have witnessed students marching with fake rifles. This cultivation of a militarized mind is the best explanation for why 40 percent of all Naval Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program graduates wind up entering military service. This statistic is especially telling, considering that less than one percent of the population has served in the military at any given moment since 1975.

The Choice Argument

Military academies are promoted as an option within the public school system for parents. We heard it from Arne Duncan (ex-CEO of CPS and current secretary of education) and we hear it from Dale Davis, public information officer for the Dekalb County School System, who calls the military school "an addition" for parents to consider. Compare that with what Colonel Mills said in December 2007 in the Online News Hour: "The purpose of the military academy programs is to offer our cadets and parents an educational choice among many choices in Chicago Public Schools and to provide an educational experience that has a college prep curriculum, combined with a military curriculum."

We must dissect what kind of "choice" parents are given. If one's only choices are a school in desperate need of repair or a shiny new military academy, parents will often "choose" the "better" school.

The unbalanced funding presents an incredibly difficult decision for many parents, as Marivel Igartua, mother of a cadet inside the Naval Academy, told me. She didn't want to have to send her daughter to RNA, but she felt squeezed into the choice because her area school was in such bad shape. The unequal allocation of resources, which favors military academies, can serve as a form of economic coercion upon parents.

If public schools were given the resources they need to improve, then we could offer parents a more real choice.

Military pushers also argue that the academies are a popular option among parents. According to Mills, quoted in In These Times in 2005, "These kinds of programs would not be in schools if there weren't kids who wanted it, parents who supported it and administrators who facilitated it."

Arne Duncan claimed there were waiting lists filled with children hoping to attend a military academy. However, CPS has never released the so-called waiting lists, and concrete numbers tell a different story. RNA's goal for student enrollment for this year was 500-600 students. RNA finished the year with 376 students. Where's the demand?

Military Academies in the Context of Dismantling Public Education

Viewing militarization in the broader scope of "school improvement" can provide a helpful lens. In Chicago, military academies often represented one offshoot of a general plan to break down public education and replace it with charter schools and contract schools, siphoning public money to business people and "nonprofits." However, these "chosen" schools don't perform any better than public schools. A recent Chicago study compared ACT scores between charter schools and neighborhood schools, and no statistically significant difference was found. There was a difference in the number of English language learners and special-needs students accepted. Charters received fewer of both students. We see the same dichotomy with Senn and RNA.

What may be more problematic is that sometimes the charterization movement masks hidden agendas Sometimes the hidden agenda is union busting. Sometimes it's gentrification. Sometimes it is militarization. We have seen all of these hidden agendas in Chicago. We all agree that public schools are in desperate need of renovation and repair. But simply demonizing public schools as failing without giving them the resources to succeed - and replacing them with experimental schools - is unjust.

The push to destroy public schools and replace them with military academies and charter schools was further facilitated under the mayoral control of schools in Chicago. Mayoral control means that a city's once publicly elected school board is replaced by mayoral appointees partial to the agenda set forth by the mayor. In Chicago, it also meant replacing the school superintendent, who was legally mandated to have public education experience, with a CEO, who is only mandated by his scruples. Duncan served as the CEO for several years. He helped administer and finish off the largest militarization of a school system in the US, under the banner of "school improvement."

If we look at the history of Chicago's "school improvement" plan, we can see the hidden agenda pushed by the charter movement. According to Pauline Lipman, writing in Substance News in 2005, it is a plan whose blueprint was ripped from the Commercial Club of Chicago, a conglomerate of Fortune 500 companies in Chicago. Schools are closed and reopened while students are shuffled around to other schools, which are often performing worse than their original school. Little regard is paid to the education of the majority of students, almost all of them poor, black and Latino/a. Simply put, Chicago's plan is not a school improvement plan. It is the dismantling of a public good for the benefit of a chosen few. School militarization was accelerated as this plan was being implemented in Chicago.

The pushing of similar plans can be expected throughout the US now that Duncan is secretary of education. With the stimulus bill's $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools and colleges, Duncan is in an incredible position of power. He could use it to promote renovation and increase resources to existing public schools. Or he could spend it on costly privatization and militarization, squandering our tax money and endangering our children's futures.

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Brian Roa is a science teacher at Chicago's Senn High School and a member of CORE (Caucus of Rank and File Educators), a caucus in the CTU which works for equitable education for all students and against the charterization schemes in Chicago

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UN Security Council imposes tough new sanctions on North Korea for its nuclear test

By EDITH M. LEDERER , Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - The U.N. Security Council imposed punishing new sanctions on North Korea Friday, toughening an arms embargo and authorizing ship searches on the high seas in an attempt to thwart the reclusive nation's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The unanimous support for the resolution reflected international disapproval for recent actions by North Korea, which defied the council by conducting a second nuclear test on May 25 and heightened global tensions with recent missile launches that raised the specter of a renegade nuclear state.

North Korea has repeatedly warned that it would view new sanctions as a declaration of war, but it boycotted Friday's vote — in sharp contrast to the October 2006 Security Council meeting where sanctions were imposed after the country's first nuclear test. Then, the North Korean ambassador immediately rejected the resolution, accused council members of "gangster-like" action and walked out of the council chamber.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who shepherded the resolution through two weeks of complex and sometimes difficult negotiations, told reporters in Washington that the administration was "very pleased" with the council's "unprecedented" and "innovative" action.

She cautioned that North Korea could react to the resolution with "further provocation."

"There's reason to believe they may respond in an irresponsible fashion to this," she said.

North Korea said Monday in its main newspaper that it would respond to any new sanctions with "corresponding self-defense measures." On Tuesday, the North said it would use nuclear weapons in a "merciless offensive" if provoked.

The resolution seeks to deprive North Korea of financing and material for its weapons program and bans the communist country's lucrative arms exports, especially missiles. It does not ban normal trade, but does call on international financial institutions to halt grants, aid or loans to the North except for humanitarian, development and denuclearization programs.

China and Russia, the North's closest allies, supported the resolution, but stressed that it did not authorize the use of force against North Korea, a key demand by both countries. Diplomats said during the negotiations both countries pushed to ensure that the measures not hurt ordinary people in North Korea who face daily hardships.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called the North's repeat nuclear test "a serious blow" to efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and said the resolution was "an appropriate response," targeted at the weapons programs.

China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Yesui said the nuclear test had affected regional peace and security. He strongly urged North Korea to promote the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and return quickly to Beijing-hosted six-party talks aimed at dismantling its nuclear program.

The resolution demonstrates the international community's "firm opposition" to the atomic test, Zhang said, but it also "sends a positive signal" by showing the council's determination to resolve the issue "peacefully through dialogue and negotiations."

The provisions most likely to anger the North Koreans deal with searches of cargo heading to or from the country.

The resolution calls on all countries to inspect North Korea cargo at their airports, seaports or on land if they have "information that provides reasonable grounds to believe" it contains banned arms or weapons, or the material to make them.

It also calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels carrying suspect cargo on the high seas if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under. If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel "to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities."

The resolution does not authorize the use of force. But if a country refuses to order a vessel to a port for inspection, it would be violation of the resolution and the country licensing the vessel would face possible sanctions by the Security Council.

As a sign of China's uneasiness about ship searches, Zhang stressed that "countries have to act prudently, in strict accordance with domestic and international laws, and under the precondition of reasonable grounds and sufficient evidence."

Rice said the United States would "intensify our existing efforts to gather information that would allow us to determine if there is a suspect vessel on the high seas," she said.

If a vessel refuses inspection, Rice said, the United States will "shine a spotlight on it, to make it very difficult for that contraband to continue to be carried forward."

However, she said, while the U.S. will work to ensure that full implementation is achieved and "the bite is felt ... we're not going to get into a tit-for-tat reaction to every North Korean provocative act."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, urged all concerned parties "to refrain from taking any measures that can exacerbate tensions in the region and to exert their best efforts to re-engage in dialogue, including through the six-party talks," U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said.

In other key provisions, the resolution demands a halt to any further nuclear tests or missile launches and reiterates the council's demand that the North abandon all nuclear weapons, return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, allow U.N. nuclear inspections, and rejoin six-party talks.

The previous sanctions resolution imposed an arms embargo on heavy weapons, a ban on material that could be used in missiles or weapons of mass destruction and a ban on luxury goods favored by North Korea's ruling elite. It also ordered an asset freeze and travel ban on companies and individuals involved in the country's nuclear and weapons programs.

The new resolution calls on all countries to prevent financial institutions or individuals in their countries from providing financing or resources that could contribute to North Korea's "nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related, or other weapons of mass destruction-related programs or activities."

U.S. deputy ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo called the measures "innovative" and "robust."

"This resolution will give us new tools to impair North Korea's ability to proliferate and threaten international stability," she told the council.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/47921737.html?elr=KArksUUUU