'Human shields' face heavy penalties

Toronto Star Newspapers Limited

U.S. threatening $10,000 fines, 12 years in jail
Activist, 62, says she prefers prison to payment

The United States is threatening $1million fines and 12-year prison sentences for anyone who did business with Iraq this year, including those who travelled there as "human shields."

About one dozen businesses and a half-dozen "shields" have been notified they face these penalties, Treasury Department officials said. The federal department won't divulge any information about those charged criminally with breaking sanctions, they said.

Faith Fippinger, 62, a pensioner from Sarasota, Fla., confirmed she has received a warning letter and phone call from Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets, with notice of the huge penalties.

Ride Don’t Drive It’s Global Cool

why limit this witch hunt to just the last year. Why not go back 10 years and punish individuals and companies that violated the sanctions imposed on Iraq????....Oh yeah, the vice president* would have to go to jail.

How does being a human shield count as doing business with Iraq? I hope the courts throw this out.

to quash activism in the ALL of the middle east. Read about Rachel and the ISM in this months Mother Jones -- it will break your heart.

Looks like I'll have to buy the paper version because the article isn't on their site yet. I am astounded that her story hasn't become a cause celebre. I look forward to becoming angrier from reading about it.

...driven by a soldier carrying out the policies of an American ally, the reaction to your death will take one of two forms in acceptable company:

1. Silence (if you are an insignificant person)
2. Victim vilification (if you are a significant person)

This handy formula explains all the literature* on the topic of Rachel Corrie that you will possibly encounter.




*Heretical samizdat excepted.

That's the lesson I got driven home to me here in this very forum."Who criticises Israel's policies criticises Judaism".

We discussed Rachel, but all the posts got locked and relocated to the "I/P Gulag".

Bush policies, Israeli policies, bah. The Israeli govt murdered Rachel just as sure as Bush* continues to murder innocent Iraqi civilians. And DU's policy in re discussion of this topic both infuriates and makes me sad.

Did they buy water? Did they buy food? Did they pay for a place to stay in Iraq? Did they buy gas?

in the US is the same has having business with the US government. I can see the argument but it's very weak.

Saddam could technically take any money at will a US citizen gave to an Iraqi citizen. Thus you give money to an Iraqi that money potentially has been given to Saddam.

On the other hand the US government could not (under normal situations) take money from a US citizen given to that citizen from an Iraqi.

prosecuting the *privatized military "support system" that has failed to deliver basic services, things like WATER, fresh food, toilet paper- military needs, i.e. lifesaving devices, spare parts, weapons that don't jam on the dust... LOOK AT WHAT THIS SHIT IS COSTING ON EVERY CONCEIVABLE LEVEL!!! A BILLION A WEEK, NO PLAN, NO FRIENDS LEFT AFTER FARTING IN ALL THEIR FACES AND A POISONED BLOODY PUSTULE ALL OVER THE DESERT. Big sigh...you know how we wimmenvolk do...

Those who made a bodily stand to counter this *clusterfuck should receive international support for their prescience. Prosecute THEM???
:wtf: :wtf: :wtf: Look at this MESS we all in. Then tell me there shouldn't have been many more stepping up to the plate to deflect this FUCKING WANTON DESTRUCTION.

I know many have expressed offence upon reading such obscene words. Please be tolerant that in "my language" they are not considered obscene. Perhaps better described as diacritical marks. ;-)

You are absolutely on point and right to scream about it. Who speaks, who cries out for the victims of the atrocities we are inflicting in the middle east? WHO???

I hope that WE do. Never apologize, never ever feel bad for standing up and trying to protect the defenseless in anyway you are able -- and thanks for sharing your voice here, today. :hi:

bring stability to the area with the Bushco plan.

These rabid born-again Christians are going to keep on until everyone everywhere hates us, deservedly so. This is so un-Christian that I think their trip to heaven is going to be a brief one. If they really believed as fully as they say, they'd be scared to death.

a priest who received similar notification. He was told the charges were going to be dropped, but he demanded to be held accountable when he heard about Mrs. Fippinger, saying she shouldn't have to go through that alone.

room over her head, three squares, and appropriate health care and other perks, or do they save those for the MURDERERS!

Be careful who you "select." There's folks who still sympathize with the Nazis.

http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm

It's coming, and obviously over several thousand dead bodies!

and this has to be the worse type of harassment.

But in all honesty I don't believe the charges will hold water. 'Tis more upsetting than anything else.

snip>
"They were trying to treat people but children were dying." Fippinger wept as she described comforting a "beautiful, pregnant woman" whose arms were ripped off in a bombing attack, then gave birth prematurely. "She kept saying to me, `I can't hold my baby. I can't hold my baby.''
<snip>

Our government produces scenes like the above and then wants to destroy people who feel such things are wrong and have the balls to do something about it.

Today's America sickens me.

The corrupt Bush administration takes deadly aim at a target it thinks it can hit, but after their resounding "success" in Afghanistan, Iraq, with the US spy plane taken by the Chinese, and countless other efforts to win even a small victory, well, let's just say I like Faith's chances against this bunch of thieves. They're only good at stealing.

The US Justice Department has sued Voices in the Wilderness to try to collect a fine of $20,000 from VitW for bringing medicines to the people of Iraq. Over the past seven years, Voices in the Wilderness has organized more than 65 delegations to Iraq made up of teachers, veterans, social workers, artists, health care professionals, trades people and people of faith. Many of these delegates carried symbolic amounts of medicine as an act of civil disobedience against the injustice of the economic sanctions; they then returned to the United States to tell about the brutalizing effects of the sanctions, magnified by the US bombing of the Iraqi civilian infrastructure during the Gulf War.

http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/newPages/SBsummons_call_for_voices.html

They also have an action page that provides links and ideas for what citizens can do:
http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/newPages/SBsummons_what_you_can_do.html

deal... No. Sorry, that was Rummy.

:kick:
For those that missed it yesterday.