PressTV:
Mass murderers brazenly hold conference, discuss tools of trade
June 6, 2014 by
US
troops in Iraq
Fri Jun 6, 2014 2:12PM GMT
By David
Swanson
Related Interviews:
A unique conference is
planned in Charlottesville, Va., featuring the latest technologies for the
practice of large-scale killing.
The Daily Progress tells us that, “to allow participants to speak more freely about potentially sensitive topics, the conference is closed to the media and open only to registered participants.”
Well I
should think so! Registered participants? How does one get registered for such
a thing?
“From a local perspective,
this industry is really growing in Charlottesville,” says one expert, speaking
with great objectivity, as if this growth were a matter of complete moral
indifference.
Exactly
how many people will be there?
“About
225 people are expected to attend the inaugural event, which is attracting
government, business and academic leaders, said conference chairwoman and
organizer Joan Bienvenue, who is also the director of the UVa Applied Research
Institute.”
Wait,
what? The University of Virginia has an “applied research institute” for
applying research to the practice of mass murder?
Is there
no shame left in any institution?
“Sen.
Timothy M. Kaine and Rep. Randy Forbes, R-4th, are also scheduled to give key
speeches at the conference.”
I guess
that answers my question.
And
where exactly will this blood-soaked confab take place?
“Located
in Albemarle County, Rivanna Station is a sub-installation of the Army’s Fort
Belvoir. The local base employs mostly civilians and houses operations of the
National Ground Intelligence Center, Defense Intelligence Agency and National
Geospatial Intelligence Agency.”
The
National Ground Intelligence Center, previously downtown in what became the SNL
Financial building, is now north of Charlottesville, and the University of
Virginia has built a “research park” next door, where this conference will be
held. The NGIC famously played an utterly shameless role in marketing the
war on Iraq that took at least half a million lives and destroyed that nation.
When the
experts at the Department of Energy refused to say that aluminum tubes in Iraq
were for nuclear facilities, because they knew they could not possibly be and
were almost certainly for rockets, and when the State Department’s people also
refused to reach the “correct” conclusion, a couple of guys at the NGIC were
happy to oblige. Their names were George Norris and Robert Campus, and
they received “performance awards” (cash) for the service.
Then
Secretary of State Colin Powell used Norris’ and Campus’ claims in his U.N.
speech despite the warning of his own staff that they weren’t true. NGIC
also hired a company called MZM to assist with war lies for a good chunk of
change. MZM then gave a well-paid job to NGIC’s deputy director Bill Rich
Jr, and for good measure Bill Rich III too.
MZM was
far and away the top “contributor” to former Congressman Virgil Goode’s
campaigns, and he got them a big contract in Martinsville before they went down
in the Duke Cunningham scandal. Rich then picked up a job with a company
called Sparta, which, like MZM, was conveniently located in the UVA Research
Park.
Local
want ads in Charlottesville offer jobs “researching biological and chemical
weapons” at Battelle Memorial Institute (located in the UVA Research
Park). As you may know, researching such weapons is rarely if ever done
without producing or at least possessing them. Other jobs are available
producing all kinds of weaponry for all kinds of governments at Northrop Grumman.
Then there’s Teksystems, Pragmatics, Wiser, and many others with fat Pentagon
contracts.
From
2000 to 2010, 161 military contractors in Charlottesville pulled in
$919,914,918 through 2,737 contracts from the federal government. Over $8
million of that went to Mr. Jefferson’s university, and three-quarters of that
to the Darden Business School.
And the
trend is ever upward. The 161 contractors are found in various industries
other than higher education, including nautical system and instrument
manufacturing; blind and shade manufacturing; printed circuit assembly; real
estate appraisers; engineering services; recreational sports centers; research
and development in biotechnology; new car dealers; internet publishing; petroleum
merchant wholesalers; and a 2006 contract with Pig Daddy’s BBQ.
Have we
at long last no sense of decency? War has taken 200 million lives in the
past 100 years, costs the world $2 trillion a year and the United States half
of that. It is the top destroyer of our natural environment and
undergirds all the removal of our civil liberties and the creation of mass
surveillance. Military spending produces fewer jobs that other government
spending or even tax cuts. Numerous top officials say it produces more
enemies than it kills.
And who
does it kill? Over 90% are civilians of all ages. Over 90% are on one side of
conflicts between wealthy and poor countries. These one-sided slaughters
leave behind devastated nations: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya.
A poll of
65 nations found the U.S. is most widely viewed as the greatest threat to
peace. For 3% of what the United States spends on a program of killing that
endangers us, impoverishes us, and erodes our way of life, starvation could be
eliminated worldwide. It wouldn’t take much to become the most beloved nation
rather than the most feared.
And
wouldn’t it be nice to live in a society where our top public program didn’t
have to be kept hush-hush to protect “sensitive topics”?
DA/AB
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