As violence ebbs, Jamaica is calm but tense

Security forces remain on alert after days of violence with gang members loyal to Christopher 'Dudus' Coke. Hundreds of detainees are still corralled in a sports stadium.

By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times

May 28, 2010

Reporting from Kingston, Jamaica —

Gun battles between drug gangs and security forces have receded, but tensions remained high here Friday as security forces remained on alert with hundreds of detainees still corralled in a sports stadium and many relatives of shooting victims anguished over not having been given access to loved ones' bodies.

A brief police-sanctioned tour of the eastern edge of the Tivoli Gardens slum, scene of much of the week's violence, hinted at the intensity of the conflict triggered Sunday night when the government served notice that it would arrest Christopher "Dudus" Coke, the city's most powerful "don" and alleged drug trafficker, and extradite him to the United States.

A three-story police station in Coronation Market was gutted by fire, one of four police posts that were attacked this week by forces loyal to Coke. The stalls of the usually thriving market serving Tivoli Gardens were nearly deserted, and the streets were littered with debris. One vendor watched troops in a nearby armored personnel carrier and refused to talk to a reporter. "I don't trust anyone at all," she said.

The official death toll after six days of violence stands at 73, although former Prime Minister Edward Seaga said in a television interview Thursday that he believes it could go as high as 150. Police efforts to arrest Coke were too heavy-handed, he said, adding that Prime Minister Bruce Golding should resign.

As many as 500 people may have been under arrest at one time, though many have been released. Contributing to the confusion, the New York Daily News reported that Coke was in New York preparing to give himself up to authorities there, although Jamaica Police Commissioner Owen Ellington said Friday that he believed Coke was in Jamaica.

American authorities requested Coke's extradition in August after his indictment by a federal court in New York on drug- and gun-trafficking charges. This week, as Jamaican armed forces conducted security sweeps, gang members loyal to Coke resisted, sparking gun battles.

As the city slowly recovers from the violence, multinational banks and aid groups were discussing holding an emergency summit next week, to propose a "mini-Marshall Plan" totaling hundreds of millions of dollars in economic aid for Jamaica, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Talk of the plan comes after aid groups, along with the International Monetary Fund, approved a $1.2-billion assistance package in January for the economically hobbled nation.

Although many businesses in downtown Kingston reopened Friday after being closed much of the week, troops enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew for most of the capital. The U.S. Embassy reopened Thursday, but a State Department advisory warning Americans to stay away is still in effect.

Crowds milled at the entrance of the National Arena in Independence Park, waiting for word on relatives picked up in the sweeps that began Sunday and continued through Thursday night. Relatives rushed a reporter to give him names of loved ones when a rumor spread that he was about to be allowed inside. Police have not allowed the media access to detainees.

Catharine Bremer, a street vendor, said her two sons, age 26 and 24, were arrested Thursday by plainclothes policemen. "The government doesn't give us a clue how they're doing so I am very worried," she said. "I can't eat and I can't sleep."

A dozen other relatives lingered in front of the Madden mortuary just outside a police cordon in Tivoli Gardens, where more than 50 bodies are in cold storage, according to a mortuary source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared government reprisal. As of Friday evening, police were still not allowing relatives to identify or claim bodies. Official autopsies won't be held until next week.

One of those waiting outside was Debbie Dale, whose son, Jamie, 21, was shot to death inside her house Wednesday in the Kingston Three neighborhood. She said about 10 officers knocked down her door and shot him at close range.

"They took me outside the house while they questioned him. Then I heard the shots. They dragged him out by the feet, threw him in a van and drove away. Only then could I go inside. There was blood everywhere," Dale said. "They said later he died in a shoot-out, but he didn't have a gun."

Residents alleged that some of the killings by security forces were random.

Speaking outside the mortuary, Lisa Jones said she was walking Wednesday with her boyfriend, Ian Gardner, in the Mountainview section of Kingston when security forces stopped them and led Gardner to a nearby store, where she said they shot him to death. A relative of Gardner said two officers had been killed in the area the night before and police were "looking for vengeance."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-jamaica-20100529,0,7448299,print.story

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Arizona's top cop vows to fight any U.S. bid to quash immigration law

Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard says he has urged Justice Department officials not to sue. Busloads of activists are heading to Phoenix to protest.

By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times

May 29, 2010

As opponents of Arizona's tough new immigration law prepare a weekend of protests, the state's chief attorney vowed Friday to "fight back vigorously" if the Obama administration files legal action to stop its implementation.

Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard said he met Friday with a Justice Department official, who informed him of possible legal action and asked for his input. Speaking at a Phoenix news conference, Goddard said he urged the administration not to sue, because five other legal challenges are pending. The law, set to take effect July 29, would require police to determine whether people they stop are in the country illegally.

Addressing concerns about racial profiling, Goddard also said he told the Justice Department official that Arizona police would enforce the law in a "fair and highly professional manner." The state is preparing a 90-minute video to train 16,000 police officers on the legal and constitutional standards involved in implementing the law, he said.

A federal lawsuit, Goddard said, would detract from efforts to fight crime and secure the border against illegal immigration, which surged 70% in Arizona from 2000 to 2008. Several polls have shown widespread support for the law in Arizona and nationwide.

"We need solutions from Washington, not more lawsuits," Goddard said.

Hannah August, a Justice Department spokeswoman, stressed that Arizona officials were not told there would definitely be a federal lawsuit and that department officials were in the state primarily to "ask questions and listen and discuss" the matter with authorities.

"We continue to have concerns that the law drives a wedge between law enforcement and the communities they serve and are examining it to see what options are available to the federal government," she said.

In a series of Memorial Day weekend events, immigrant rights advocates are preparing to march in Arizona, debate new legislative strategies in an emergency meeting there and protest against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Los Angeles.

Busloads of more than 200 labor, religious and civil rights activists left Los Angeles on Friday for Phoenix, where they plan to join as many as 50,000 others in protesting the law.

On Sunday, more than 100 leaders from major Latino organizations will convene in Phoenix to debate new strategies for winning some kind of immigration reform this year. They are close to pushing a new approach as hopes dim for passage of comprehensive legislation that would overhaul key pieces of the entire system and legalize the nation's estimated 11 million unauthorized migrants.

Many members of the National Latino Congress, which represents more than 500 organizations, have become impatient with the Senate's failure to introduce a comprehensive bill and will debate shifting toward an incremental strategy pushing smaller measures, according to Antonio Gonzalez of the William C. Velasquez Institute, a nonprofit public policy analysis organization.

Activists are particularly pushing measures to grant legal status to undocumented college students and farmworkers, both of which are backed by powerful interests.

The so-called Dream Act, which would offer legal status to undocumented youths who attend college or join the military, is now included in the Pentagon's strategic plan for fiscal years 2010-12 as a way to maintain the nation's all-volunteer military. And agribusiness has teamed up with the United Farm Workers union, along with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), to push a bill to provide a stable supply of legal farm workers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/immigration/la-me-immig-protest-20100529,0,440593,print.story

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ACLU, Santa Monica settle lawsuit over treatment of homeless

The American Civil Liberties Union has agreed to settle a lawsuit against Santa Monica over the city's treatment of the homeless, and a federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed the suit.

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu dismissed the suit with prejudice, meaning the ACLU would be prohibited from bringing any future actions on the same claim.

Santa Monica City Manager Rod Gould declined to discuss details of the settlement.

“The resolution agreement … will be available on the evening of June 8,” Gould said. Under the Brown Act, he said, the City Council must approve the resolution and report it publicly before city officials are free to discuss it.

In July 2009, the ACLU of Southern California filed a civil rights suit against Santa Monica, saying police routinely violated homeless people's constitutional rights and the Americans With Disabilities Act by harassing and arresting them even as the city failed to provide sufficient shelter beds.

Mark Rosenbaum, the organization's legal director, said he could not comment because the parties had agreed to keep details confidential until June 8.

When the suit was filed, however, he said: “Santa Monica is effectively running a deportation program for the homeless.” The suit was similar to previous legal challenges against Laguna Beach and Santa Barbara that Rosenbaum said had resulted in policy changes that have helped the homeless.

The city of Santa Monica immediately fired back, defending its efforts to get homeless people off the streets and into housing with social services.

A city count of homeless people in January showed that the number had declined for the second consecutive year. There were 742 homeless people counted 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. Jan. 29. Those included 264 living on the streets; 423 in institutions such as shelters, hospitals, jails and hotels; and another 53 in cars, vans, RVs or encampments.

The number marked a 19% reduction from the previous year, when 915 were found.

In its 20-page complaint, filed jointly with Munger, Tolles & Olson on behalf of six individuals, the ACLU alleged that “Santa Monica should be a kind of oasis for those forced to live and sleep outdoors -- a place where the climate and open spaces make homelessness somewhat less horrible than it would be most other places.” Rather, it said, the city “has made it a crime to be homeless.”

The complaint said police routinely prodded chronically homeless people to move on to other places, such as Venice, Culver City or downtown L.A.'s skid row.

A high percentage of those sleeping on the streets have mental illnesses or addictions.

The complaint mentions a 56-year-old woman with paranoid schizophrenia who said she fears that spaceships are trying to kill her. After being jailed three times, and having her fears scoffed at by police, she relocated to Venice.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/santa-monica-and-aclu-settle-lawsuit-over-treatment-of-homeless.html#more

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Housewife awarded $110,000 after alleging government infringed on her free speech rights

A Norco housewife whose protests against a group home for the developmentally disabled drew the scrutiny of housing discrimination investigators, has settled a lawsuit alleging the government inquiry infringed on her right to free speech.

Julie Waltz, 64, agreed this month to settle her case in exchange for $110,000 and the promise that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing will establish a “Julie Waltz First Amendment Policy."

The department agreed to adopt the new policy, seek to incorporate it in the California Code of Regulations and will publish it on its website and train employees in its use.

The dispute began when Waltz said she learned from public records that the group home next door to her house intended to serve clients who might make inappropriate sexual advances or who were fire-setters. At the time, however, the group home operator said no such individuals actually lived in the home.

Waltz covered her lawn with protest signs, including one that states in large red letters: “Your wife and kids are potential rape victims per Ca. govt policy.”

After her signs appeared, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing received a complaint from lawyers representing group home residents that alleged Waltz was subjecting them to “verbal, visual, and physical” harassment based on their disability.

The complainants said Waltz yelled at staff and residents at the group home, called the police on numerous occasions when disabled residents were seen outside in the front yard of the group home, used surveillance equipment to monitor group home staff and residents and followed a disabled resident of the group home on foot and yelled at her.

Waltz denied the charges and said the state offered to end the investigation if she removed her signs. Finally, after a nearly yearlong investigation, the state determined in 2007 that it was unable to substantiate the allegations against her and closed the case.

If found in violation of anti-discrimination laws because of her demonstrations, Waltz could have been ordered to end her protests, pack up her signs and pay fines.

In an interview this week, Waltz said, “I wouldn't say my speech is offensive, but even if it is, the very speech someone says is offensive is the speech we need to protect.”

The Center for Individual Rights, a conservative public interest law firm in Washington, represented Waltz pro bono. The firm's general counsel, Michael E. Rosman, said, “Although the state did not admit liability in this settlement, they have changed their policy and obviously have some understanding that they were doing something wrong.”

Department of Fair Employment and Housing Director Phyllis Cheng said in a prepared statement: “Thanks to Ms. Waltz, the DFEH has improved its policy and practice of conducting housing discrimination investigations. I am pleased that we have now strengthened the department's procedures in enforcing the civil rights of all Californians.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/norco-housewife-who-protested-group-home-next-door-is-awarded-110000-after-alleging-government-infri.html#more

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LAPD's massive car bomb grabber takes a page from 'Transformers'

Video on site

You could call it the Los Angeles Police Department's version of a Transformer.

The Batcat is a 39,000-pound, remote-control vehicle that looks like a forklift truck on steroids with a massive telescopic arm.

It can grab a vehicle like unsuspecting prey and move it from a densely populated area to safer location.

“We can pick up a large vehicle bomb and move where we want without risk to anyone's life,” said LAPD Capt. Horace Frank. “The beauty of this thing is no one needs to get near.”

The Batcat -- formally called the Bomb Assault Tactical Control Assessment Tool -- is one of a new of generation of unmanned ground vehicles that operate much like the Air Force's predator drones. It was built on the base of a massive piece of Caterpillar construction equipment known as Telehandler.

From there, the LAPD's bomb squad geeks conceived of installing a remote operating system that turned it into one of world's largest radio-controlled vehicles.

The Batcat in its shiny black finish can be remotely driven at 6 mph. Its massive arm can extend 50 feet forward or vertically and can be equipped with a claw, forklift or bucket. The vehicle, along with a trailer and other accessories, cost the LAPD nearly $1 million.

During a recent test at Camarillo Airport, officials used the Batcat to tackle an ammonium nitrite and fuel oil bomb inside a rental van. Bomb squad technicians first used a small robot to disable the control unit inside the van that acts as the bomb's timer and brain.

They then maneuvered the Batcat's massive arm to attach to the top of the van an eight-pound C4 explosive counter charge. A controlled explosion quickly removed the danger of the larger bomb within the truck. The Batcat then grabbed the truck and hauled it away.

“The FBI created the bomb so we had no idea what we were going to tackle,” said Jeffrey Ennis, a bomb squad officer with 20 years of LAPD service who helped conceive the Batcat.

Remote vehicles like the Batcat, he says, are the future for bomb disposal. Officials said they want to use machines rather than humans to deal with potential explosives.

“You aren't going to see someone out there unless the bomb is wrapped around a person,” explains Det. Paul Robi, a bomb squad supervisor with 25 years of service with the LAPD. In the modern bomb squad world, he said, “its starts with remote and ends with a remote denotation.”

Robi said that even the most routine of calls can turn deadly. The 5086 decal on the Batcat is a lasting reminder. The 50 stands for 1950, year the squad was founded.

But the 86 is a reference to 1986, the year two bomb squad veterans, Arleigh McCree and Ron Ball, were killed. They were defusing two pipe bombs in the North Hollywood garage of a homicide suspect when an explosion occurred. “Even a 200-year-old cannonball can be a killer because something stored for a long time can become unstable,” Robi said.

With the Batcat and the smaller Andros robots, bomb squad officers can remotely pick up explosives and then drive them up to a huge, hollow high-impact steel chamber known as a total containment vessel.

Bombs, Robi said, are a real part of Los Angeles history.

In 1979 the Alphabet Bomber killed three people at Los Angeles International Airport. In 1990, aerospace engineer Dean Harvey Hicks parked a truck filled with 2000-pound of ammonium nitrate near an Internal Revenue Service office in West Los Angeles that could have leveled two blocks.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/05/los-angeles-police-departments-massive-car-bomb-grabber-the-batcat.html#more

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Census nonsense

By counting illegal immigrants the same as citizens in the census, some states get more congressional seats than they deserve.

Richard Greener and George Kenney

May 29, 2010

Official political innumeracy, enshrined in the census, steals our democracy. We count illegal immigrants the same as citizens and assign states congressional seats accordingly. This awards some states more representatives than they deserve. The census should, instead, count citizens separately, and Congress should reapportion representatives only on the basis of citizen populations. That would ensure that the votes of citizens in all parts of the country are as nearly equal as possible.

Although this largely unrecognized problem doesn't garner headlines, the failure to fix the census may have greater consequences as our political realities change. The unpleasantness in Arizona since it passed a tough immigration law is a likely prelude to infinitely more divisive conflicts.

The Constitution contains a mandate for a census. One of its stated objectives is to enable the proper apportionment of representation, state by state, in the House of Representatives. From the start, however, apportionment has been a mangled affair, a stain on our claim to be a true and fair representative democracy.

The deal worked out in Philadelphia in 1787 counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, even though they could not vote. The third U.S. Congress, meeting from 1793 to 1795, relied on the census of 1790 to apportion its 106 House members. Southern slave states were overrepresented by 10 seats as a result, after applying the three-fifths rule. No one even pretended that the slaves who accounted for those extra seats had any representation at all. The long-term consequences of such unfairness proved catastrophic.

The Civil War settled many issues, but democratic apportionment in Congress was not among them. In fact, the disproportion was made worse by the 14th Amendment, which allowed former slave states to count their now-freed Negroes without the two-fifths reduction. Technically free from slavery, Negroes in the old Confederacy would account for even more Southern seats in Congress, yet they would not see their right to vote enforced for another full century — until the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Congress remained true to the Constitution, regularly increasing the number of seats in the House based on census results from 1790 through 1910. But no additions have been made in the 100 years thereafter (except for the temporary increase to 437 districts when Alaska and Hawaii became states in 1959).

The reapportionment of today's static 435 seats according to census results would be a respectable example of representative democracy if each individual included in the count had a vote. But, just as in 1790, the system remains badly fractured and fundamentally unfair.

Worse yet, to the extent that the census accurately counts illegal immigrants, the greater the disproportionate representation accruing to states with large illegal communities, which cannot vote. Estimates vary, but a 2007 study by the Connecticut Data Center found that the 2010 census may affect the allocation of a dozen congressional seats on the basis of some states' illegal immigrant populations.

Adding to the complexity of the problem, in states that gain such seats, many fewer votes are needed for a candidate's election. That's because the added seats mean there are fewer residents in each district and, in the districts with the highest number of illegal immigrants, fewer eligible voters. We do not know empirically whether these "cheaper" votes carry any political bias, but it is not unreasonable to worry that they do since the illegal immigrants counted who created the new seats are not represented by the eventual occupant in Congress. None of this is fair, in either the local or national context. And the 2010 census is certain to aggravate the situation. We should do something now to prevent this.

To be prudent, we should also consider a not implausible, worst-case scenario. Suppose that the Mexican government collapses, sending hundreds of thousands of refugees across the border. Those who manage to stay will be counted in a future census. Using current procedures, their presence would result in the shift of many congressional seats. States composed of mostly citizen populations would lose representation and quite rightly feel cheated.

The present potential for disaster, for severe damage to the principles of democratic representation and for the future of the republic itself should be a paramount concern for all Americans. The good news is that the Constitution leaves the manner of conducting the census, and the apportionment of the House, up to Congress. Passing a census reform law should be a relatively simple fix, if we have the leadership and the will to do so.

Richard Greener, a former broadcast industry executive, is a writer in Atlanta. George Kenney, a U.S. diplomat during the George H.W. Bush administration, is a writer in Washington and producer and host of a podcast at electricpolitics.com.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-adv-kenney-census-20100529,0,1449944,print.story

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EDITORIAL

Female genital cutting: not even a 'nick'

The American Academy of Pediatricians backs away from an ill-conceived move to relax its rules on the practice.

May 29, 2010

Late last month, 330 villages in Senegal held a ceremony to announce that they would end the practice of female genital cutting. That brought the number of Senegalese communities to abandon the practice to 4,229, and when the number reaches 5,000, complete eradication will be achieved. Similar pronunciations and celebrations are occurring in other countries — in Gambia and Somalia, and in Mauritania, where on Tuesday 78 villages participated.

The growing movement to end the ancient practice of slicing off part or all of a girl's clitoris and/or labia — historically done to prepare her for adulthood and marriage — is the result of years of work by local and international activists. Particularly noteworthy has been the success of the nonprofit Tostan, which means "breakthrough" in Wolof. The organization spends almost three years teaching villagers about health and human rights. Thus, when a community opts to end genital cutting, it is generally because of a recognition that cutting not only endangers girls' physical well-being but runs counter to the universal right to stewardship of one's body. And that understanding leads to other changes: As villagers learn about the health effects of childbearing, girls are less likely to be married off as children and more likely to go to school. And as women become better educated, they are more likely to participate in the economy and open businesses.

Into this delicate international effort, the American Academy of Pediatricians blundered with all the finesse of a water buffalo, suggesting last month that the ban on genital cutting in the United States be relaxed so that physicians could accommodate immigrant parents and "nick" the clitoris of young girls. A symbolic procedure performed stateside, the academy maintained, might spare a girl a brutal experience outside the country.

The outcry against such a misguided proposal was immediate. That doctors wanted to save girls from greater harm was commendable, but this policy was potentially disastrous. First, when "minor" cutting has been embraced in Africa, it has often provided a cover for more severe cutting. Second, the purpose of genital cutting is to diminish or destroy female sexual desire; it is the first step toward a girl's subjugation to family honor, to a father's authority and a husband's mastery. Even a symbolic nick is a violation of a girl's human rights. And lastly, fine distinctions about "nicking" could easily have been lost in translation; the new message to the Middle East and Africa would have been that American doctors will cut girls.

Thursday, the academy retracted the proposal and reaffirmed its opposition to all forms of female genital cutting. We commend it for heeding the pleas of activists in the field and women who have survived being cut. Pediatricians have an important role to play as well, but it is to explain to parents why cutting is forbidden here — detailing the health problems it creates for girls and emphasizing the legal consequences parents face by having it done to their daughters.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-cutting-20100529,0,4802754,print.story

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From the New York Times

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What Happened to Valor? The saga of Sgt. Rafael Peralta continues more than five years after he was killed in the line of fire. by KATHERINE ZOEPF ON NOV. 15, 2004, several Marines in dress uniforms came to Rosa Peralta's San Diego home to tell her that her 25-year-old son, Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta, had been killed in Falluja by an improvised explosive device. Rosa Peralta was widowed three years earlier when her husband, a mechanic, was crushed to death in a freak accident while working on a garbage truck; now her son's death seemed every bit as senseless. A few days later, while watching the nightly news, Peralta heard a different account of her son's death. According to the televised report, Rafael Peralta emerged as the hero of the Second Battle of Falluja after deliberately sacrificing his life to save fellow Marines. He was with a unit clearing houses of weapons and insurgents when a group of insurgents attacked from the back room of a home the Marines had entered.

When I visited Rosa Peralta in December, she choked briefly with emotion as she remembered hearing, for the first time, her son called a hero. Shortly after the news story appeared, the Marine Corps informed her that what she heard was true and that the Marines were initially mistaken about the circumstances of her son's death. Around this time she was also told unofficially, by Marines who knew her son, that he had been nominated for America's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, and that he was considered certain to receive it.

“I didn't know anything about medals,” Peralta told me. But she said that the idea that her son would be remembered as a national hero slowly became a source of comfort to her. The Peralta family, which includes Rafael's three siblings, moved to San Diego from Tijuana, Mexico, when Rafael was a teenager, and he joined the Marines the first moment he could legally do so, on the same morning he got his green card. Though the Peralta parents spoke little English and felt like foreigners in Southern California, Rafael “really loved this country” and loved being a Marine, Peralta told me. As the months after his death wore on, she began to look forward to the day when she would receive the Medal of Honor on his behalf.

But that day never came. Almost four years later, on Sept. 17, 2008, Peralta was summoned to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego, where Lieut. Gen. Richard F. Natonski informed her of the Pentagon's decision: Rafael Peralta would not be awarded the Medal of Honor after all. Instead he would receive the Navy Cross, the second-highest American military decoration that can be awarded to a Marine. Natonski was not able to offer an explanation at the meeting, but George Sabga, a former Marine who has known Rosa Peralta since her son was killed (and now works, pro bono, as the Peraltas' lawyer), soon uncovered the story: after Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates reviewed the findings on the circumstances of Rafael Peralta's death compiled by a review board made up partly of civilian medical specialists, he decided that it could not be determined with sufficient confidence that Peralta deliberately pulled the grenade under his body.

Rosa Peralta was stunned. Her family had received thousands of letters expressing admiration for her son's already-famous heroism. When Marine officials asked her how she would like to have his Navy Cross presented, she declined it. “I said no,” she told me. “I can't take that medal now.” In the year and a half since, Peralta has continued to refuse to accept the Navy Cross on Rafael's behalf, a decision that has placed her in the thick of a growing controversy over how — and how often — Medals of Honor are being awarded.

THE AMERICAN MILITARY has dozens of medals that can be awarded for performance or participation in various endeavors, but only a small handful, known as “valor awards,” are given for acts of courage. The highest and most revered of these is the Medal of Honor. (It is sometimes mistakenly called the Congressional Medal of Honor, presumably because, unlike other military decorations, the Medal of Honor is awarded in the name of Congress.) According to military regulations, the Medal of Honor is awarded to a soldier who performed a deed of “personal bravery” that was “beyond the call of duty” and “involved risk of life.” The heroic actions of Medal of Honor winners are frequently cited by military instructors, and their names are even on occasion chanted in cadences during boot-camp training runs. By custom, all service members, regardless of relative rank, salute a Medal of Honor recipient.

Despite its symbolic importance and educational role in military culture, the Medal of Honor has been awarded only six times for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. By contrast, 464 Medals of Honor were awarded for service during World War II, 133 during the Korean War and 246 during the Vietnam War. “From World War I through Vietnam,” The Army Times claimed in April 2009, “the rate of Medal of Honor recipients per 100,000 service members stayed between 2.3 (Korea) and 2.9 (World War II). But since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, only five Medals of Honor have been awarded, a rate of 0.1 per 100,000 — one in a million.”

Since that article was published, President Obama , on Sept. 17, presented the sixth post-9/11 Medal of Honor to the family of Army Sgt. First Class Jared C. Monti for his heroic efforts, under intense enemy fire, to rescue a wounded fellow soldier in Afghanistan in 2006. Monti died in the attempt. In fact, all six medals since 9/11 have been awarded posthumously. For service during World War II and the Vietnam War, by comparison, roughly 60 percent of all Medals of Honor were awarded posthumously.

The steep decline in the awarding of Medals of Honor — along with the absence, post-9/11, of any Medal of Honor bestowed on a living serviceman — has spurred many military officers and veterans to speak out in protest. These servicemen complain that higher-ups at the Pentagon either downgrade valor-award nominations — as with Peralta's Navy Cross — or reject them altogether. Petitions supporting a Medal of Honor for Peralta have circulated widely, and there have been calls to reconsider awarding the Medal of Honor to other servicemen, like Army Staff Sgt. Travis Atkins, who received the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously for tackling a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2007, shielding several nearby soldiers from the blast. On the blog of the U.S. Army 's Combined Arms Center, based in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., Major Niel Smith wrote: “I, like many commanders, have submitted soldiers for combat valor awards which have been knocked down at higher levels. I defer to their judgment, but I think we are overhesitant to reward bravery that doesn't result in death.”

Last year, in response to the controversy, Congress required the Pentagon, as part of the National Defense Authorization Act, to review its criteria for Medal of Honor awards. (The report is scheduled to be released on July 31.) A Defense Department spokeswoman, Eileen M. Lainez, assured me in an e-mail message that the criteria for awarding the Medal of Honor are “longstanding and have not changed.” Addressing the drastic drop in Medal of Honor awards, she cited changes in the nature of warfare, noting that the enemy forces of Vietnam and earlier wars typically engaged in “close conflict” with U.S. forces, whereas today's “non-uniformed insurgents” rely on “remotely detonated improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.'s), suicide bombers and rocket, mortar and sniper attacks” — all tactics, her statement implied, that create fewer opportunities for U.S. soldiers to demonstrate the traditional valor of close-quarters combat.

In January, I sat down with Gen. David H. Petraeus , commander of the U.S. Central Command, at Washington's Fairfax hotel, to ask him about the Medal of Honor controversy. I raised the issue of Sergeant Peralta and asked why his nomination was downgraded. Petraeus declined to address Peralta's case (internal deliberations over Medal of Honor recommendations are kept confidential, and Peralta was not under Petraeus's command at the time he was nominated for the medal), but he did speak of a generalized anxiety among commanders, surrounding the Medal of Honor, about getting a recommendation wrong. “They're something that everyone in the chain of command wants to ensure is done absolutely right,” he said.

Petraeus emphasized the thoroughness of today's review process, noting that the packets of data that are circulated to review-board members about Medal of Honor nominees are often as thick as phone books. “They want to ensure that these medals are approved for those who have earned them, but they also want to make sure that they never, ever, in a sense, get it wrong,” he said, referring to the review boards. “There's a band there, and the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross is sort of in the eye of the beholder on a given day. And that's tough. But decisions do have to be made.”

IS THERE LESS heroism today, or fewer opportunities for it, than in earlier eras? Has the Pentagon, despite its insistence to the contrary, raised its standards for what counts as bravery? Has a rigorous review and investigation process made it all too easy to raise doubts about individual acts of bravery? In an age of the all-volunteer military, is the Pentagon taking sacrifice for granted and failing to recognize “today's heroes,” as many servicemen and veterans are arguing?

Some analysts agree with the Pentagon that there is less heroism today — at least in its traditional forms — as a result of the nature of modern warfare. When I spoke with Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense-policy specialist at the Brookings Institution , he argued that counterinsurgency efforts, which place greater emphasis on avoiding the use of force (to minimize civilian casualties), call for “a quieter daily kind of courage,” one that rarely requires “that moment of extreme valor” typically honored with a medal.

Many combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan dispute this explanation. Duncan D. Hunter, a Republican congressman from Southern California, served two tours as a Marine in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and one tour in Afghanistan in 2007. He led the effort last year to include the language in the National Defense Authorization Act requiring the Pentagon to review its criteria for Medal of Honor awards. When I met with him recently in his Washington office, he insisted that moments of extreme valor are still occurring frequently — almost as frequently as they did in Vietnam or during World War II. “Warfare has changed,” he said. “But 90 percent of it hasn't. You've still got to take ground, and you've got to hold it.” He raised the possibility that, in today's all-volunteer military, expectations and standards have gone up: an action that would have been considered heroic in the mid-20th century is seen today almost as routine conduct — “just being a Marine.”

Other observers have suggested — and Petraeus's comments to me could be seen to support the idea — that the military, after its recent experiences with Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman , is hesitant to publicize or otherwise herald tales of heroism, for fear of later embarrassment. Both Lynch, in 2003, and Tillman, in 2004, were initially celebrated as war heroes. But Lynch herself was highly critical of those who described her as a heroine, later testifying before Congress that she had been falsely portrayed as a “little-girl Rambo from the hills.” Tillman's family also testified before Congress, suggesting that his story was deliberately manipulated by officials in order to gather support for the war effort. “They have to be very careful,” O'Hanlon told me. “The idea of first building up this great story and then having it proven factually inaccurate would be very damaging.”

For many criticsof the Pentagon's handling of the Medal of Honor, Rafael Peralta's case is a vivid example of the perils of an overly cautious, overly bureaucratic approval process. The standard for awarding the Medal of Honor has always been “incontestable proof of the performance of service,” but critics charge that in recent years the standard for “incontestable” must have been raised. “The eyewitness accounts, it seems, they mean much less than they used to,” Hunter told me. “Now there's much more weight placed on forensic evidence.”

George Sabga obtained redacted copies of the Medal of Honor recommendation packages that were submitted for Rafael Peralta by the Marine Corps in 2005, which he shared with me. The contents of these packages suggest that, long before the case reached the Pentagon, a pathologist working on an earlier-level review of Peralta's Medal of Honor case raised questions about his gunshot wound. The pathologist expressed the opinion that, given the particular location of the head wound that Peralta received at the start of the firefight, he would have been cognitively disabled and could not deliberately have brought the grenade in toward his body. A letter included with the pathologist's report suggests that Peralta's “scooping/grabbing” was more likely to have been a result of “involuntary muscle spasms” than of a conscious act of courage.

After the pathologist's report, the packet was returned to Peralta's division for reconsideration. General Natonski, then commanding general of the First Marine Division, was evidently unconvinced by the pathologist's interpretation. He ordered a thorough review of the investigation, enlisting medical specialists of his own. In a letter addressed to the secretary of the Navy, dated Aug. 8, 2005, Natonski restated the case on Peralta's behalf: “This package is being resubmitted based on re-interviews and sworn statements from eyewitnesses as well as new statements from three neurosurgeons with outstanding credentials who have given their medical opinion. These doctors opine that Sergeant Peralta could have scooped the grenade under his body despite his head wound. However, regardless of the medical opinions rendered after the fact there is sufficient eyewitness testimony and physical evidence (grenade fuse lodged in Sergeant Peralta's flak jacket) to support this award recommendation.” But the pathologist's original opinion, it appears, continued to sway those in the Pentagon reviewing the file.

MUCH OF THE anger expressed by officers and veterans groups about the decline in Medal of Honor awards reflects their perception that Pentagon officials are disrespectful, even dismissive, of eyewitness accounts by servicemen. The feeling is compounded by the fact that, in today's military, younger servicemen sometimes have far more combat experience than their seniors now working in the Pentagon, who often progressed through the military hierarchy in a time of relative peace: after Vietnam but before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In a phone conversation with me, Robert Reynolds, one of the Marines who was with Peralta during the firefight in Falluja, expressed frustration that his testimony was not taken seriously. He, like Peralta, was shot during the firefight, and he said he clearly recalled Peralta smothering the grenade. “Knowing what Sergeant Peralta did for me,” he said, “it angers me to know that the Marines that day are basically called liars.”

Peralta is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego. One recent afternoon, Rosa Peralta, along with Rafael's 19-year-old brother, Ricardo (only weeks from beginning Marine Corps boot camp himself), and George Sabga, drove to the cemetery with me. As we stood around Peralta's simple white marble headstone, Sabga recounted the moment when he and Rosa Peralta learned that Rafael would not receive the Medal of Honor. General Natonski had slid a copy of the Navy Cross citation across the table to Rosa. “Without hesitation and with complete disregard for his own personal safety,” the citation read, “Sergeant Peralta reached out and pulled the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast and shielding fellow Marines only feet away.”

The wording of the citation is strikingly similar to the description of the events as Peralta's fellow Marines have related them, not as the pathologist interpreted them. “I asked the general, ‘How can you say that there were doubts and yet you give us a Navy Cross citation that says that Sergeant Peralta did the exact same thing that the Marines say he did?' ” Sabga recounted. “I told him, ‘Every single Medal of Honor from now on is going to be tainted because of what's been done to Peralta.' The Marines are never going to give up. We're never going to give up fighting for Peralta's medal.”

Katherine Zoepf, who writes regularly for The Times, is working on a book about young women in the contemporary Arab world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magazine/30medals-t.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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189 Nations Reaffirm Goal of Ban on Nuclear Weapons

UNITED NATIONS — Hard-fought negotiations over the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended here on Friday with 189 nations reaffirming their commitment to eliminating all nuclear weapons and setting a new 2012 deadline for holding a regional conference to eliminate unconventional weapons from the Middle East.

The complicated 28-page final document from the treaty review conference calls for the United Nations secretary general, along with the United States, Russia and Britain, to appoint a facilitator and consult with the countries of the Middle East convening the conference.

That goal was considered the landmark achievement of the negotiations, aside from reaffirming the basic premise of the treaty. Review conferences are held every five years and the last one, in 2005, ended in disarray, the gap between states with nuclear weapons and those without too wide to bridge.

Given the current tense realities in the Middle East, senior government officials and diplomats on all sides conceded that even calling such a conference, much less accomplishing any of its goals, remained a distant prospect.

“People are not going to come to a disarmament conference voluntarily if they are at war with their neighbors,” said Ellen O. Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, who led the American delegation. Washington's support for such a conference does not supersede the longstanding United States policy that disarmament requires a comprehensive peace in the region first, she said.

But in 1995 Arab states accepted the indefinite extension of the nonproliferation treaty, in exchange for a commitment for such a Middle East conference. Since there had been no movement on the issue for 15 years, Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt had made it clear from the outset that fellow Arab states and the nonaligned movement demanded some concrete steps to support the document this year.

Tensions over the content of the final document after a month of negotiations went down to the wire, with diplomats portraying the last few days as a poker game with the United States and Iran each trying to call the other's bluff so that one might be blamed for the failure of the conference to reach consensus.

In the end, the United States accepted one reference to Israel in the final document, in the section on the Middle East, which basically repeats a previously stated position that Israel should join the 40-year-old nonproliferation treaty. The Israeli Mission to the United Nations would not comment on the outcome. The Israeli government has never confirmed the widespread consensus that it holds at least 100 nuclear missiles.

The document also emphasizes the need for countries to respect treaty guidelines for keeping their nuclear programs open to international inspection and suffering the consequences if they do not. Such measures are likely to strengthen the Security Council's stand in its current confrontation with Iran over possible new sanctions because of suspicions that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran vehemently denies.

“My guess is that language caused the Iranians pretty significant heartburn even though they decided to go along with it,” said Gary Samore, the White House coordinator for unconventional weapons.

Much of Friday was spent waiting to hear if Iran would accept the final document. Diplomats said that the conference chairman, Libran N. Cabactulan of the Philippines, even called the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, temporary Security Council members who have been trumpeting their ability to reach a compromise with Iran, to prevail on Tehran not to foil the agreement.

In a speech after the document was adopted, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian envoy, listed at least nine ways in which Iran thought the document was weak. A proposed 2025 deadline for the elimination of all nuclear weapons had been scuttled by the nuclear weapons states, he noted, as had a proposal for a legally binding commitment from states with nuclear weapons not to use them against those without.

“It is of course far from our expectations, but at the same time it is a step forward toward our goal of disarmament,” Mr. Soltanieh told reporters. Iran had also pushed for more stringent language demanding that Israel join the nonproliferation treaty.

Earlier in the week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gen. James L. Jones , the national security adviser, met with Arab ambassadors at the White House to work out compromise Middle East language. The United States accepted dropping direct linkage between a comprehensive Middle East peace and the regional denuclearizing conference, Arab diplomats said, as well as the one reference to Israel.

The United States repeatedly said Friday that it objected to the language singling out Israel, but accepted it because consensus on the overall document underscored President Obama 's commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons.

“There is no problem with the language, but having that language in the Mideast section we think sends a really negative political signal,” Mr. Samore said. “It suggests the conference will be designed to single out Israel.” That would decrease the likelihood of such a conference ever happening, he said, which is why the United States insisted in retaining a role as a sponsor.

Given that all 189 states that have signed the nonproliferation treaty had to agree to the wording, including 64 separate ways to move forward, all the major players found flaws in the outcome. It meant many steps had to be watered down.

Although the document singles out North Korea by name, for example, saying its nuclear program constitutes a threat to “peace and security,” it was not as strong as the condemnation initially proposed.

Aside from Israel, the document also calls on India and Pakistan, both holding nuclear weapons but not nonproliferation treaty members, to join it.

While rejecting a deadline, for the first time the main five nuclear weapons states accepted vague language referring to a new, stronger international convention on eliminating nuclear weapons, and the idea of a “timeline” was introduced.

Despite differences over the pace of disarmament and proliferation concerns, the document breathes new life into a treaty seen as under threat, analysts said. “That is the positive, there is much more attention on future action and new benchmarks,” said Prof. William C. Potter, the director of the center for nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29nuke.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Deportation for a Suspect in Bomb Case

BOSTON (AP) — A man arrested in Massachusetts during the investigation into the failed Times Square car bombing has been ordered by an immigration judge to be deported to his native Pakistan .

Judge Robin E. Feder made the ruling on Thursday in the case of Aftab Khan , said Kathryn Mattingly of the Executive Office for Immigration Review .

Mr. Khan was one of three men arrested on immigration charges on May 13 and suspected of supplying money to the primary suspect, Faisal Shahzad , through an informal transfer network. Authorities said the men might not have known how the money would be used.

Mr. Khan has 30 days to appeal the decision and will not be deported before then, said Gillian Brigham, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.

A copy of the decision, which can be obtained only through a Freedom of Information Act request, was not immediately available on Friday. A lawyer in the office of Mr. Khan's attorney, Saher J. Macarius , said the office had not received the decision.

At a hearing on May 20, Mr. Macarius asked Judge Feder to allow Mr. Khan to voluntarily leave the country, while the federal authorities asked the judge to keep Mr. Khan in the United States.

Mr. Shahzad, 30, of Bridgeport, Conn., is accused of leaving a sport utility vehicle rigged with a car bomb in Times Square on May 1. The bomb never exploded, and no one was hurt. Mr. Shahzad was arrested on May 3 on a plane that was preparing to take off for Dubai from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Mr. Khan, a gas station attendant who lived in Watertown, Mass., said he had never heard of Mr. Shahzad before his arrest. But federal officials said Mr. Khan had Mr. Shahzad's first name and number in his cellphone and written on an envelope in his apartment. After the hearing, Mr. Macarius questioned whether the confiscated cellphone belonged to Mr. Khan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/nyregion/29carbomb.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Endangered Parks

There are more than 13 million acres of state parks in the United States. The national park system is far bigger — some 84 million acres — but state parks are far more heavily used, if only because they are our neighborhood parks. As states look for ways to slash budgets during this recession, state parks are in serious trouble.

How bad is the problem? The National Trust for Historic Preservation has put all of the nation's state parks and state-owned historic sites on its list of America's most endangered historic places. New York had closed 55 of the state's 179 parks and historic sites, but the Legislature has now eked out just enough money to keep them all open for another year. In all, 26 states have already closed parks, limited hours, reduced staff and budgets, or deferred maintenance.

Closed parks do not simply lie there, waiting patiently for times to improve or for officials and legislators to behave more prudently. Their buildings, roads and bridges deteriorate. They lie open to vandalism. A closed park isn't just any shuttered property. It's a repudiation of the extraordinary value they offer residents.

While these times are especially bad, the problem is not new. Budgets for state parks have been slipping for years. The best hope of restoring the parks to solvency may well come from federal intervention, from increased private and nonprofit financing and from state programs that raise money from vehicle registration fees and offer, in turn, free admission to parks. It is critical to keep the parks open for the health of their lands and for the well-being of the citizens who use them — all of us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/opinion/29sat4.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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WEEKLY ADDRESS: President Obama Invites All Americans to Honor America's Fallen Heroes this Memorial Day

WASHINGTON – In this week's address, President Barack Obama asked all Americans to join him in remembering and honoring our men and women in uniform who have died in service to the country.  The commitment these heroes have demonstrated – the willingness to lay down their lives so the rest of us might inherit the blessings of this nation – has helped make America the most prosperous, most powerful nation on earth and it is what we honor on Memorial Day. 

The full audio of the address is HERE . The video can be viewed online at www.whitehouse.gov .

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Weekly Address
Washington, DC

This weekend, as we celebrate Memorial Day, families across America will gather in backyards and front porches, fire up the barbeque, kick back with friends, and spend time with people they care about. That is as it should be. But I also hope that as you do so, you'll take some time to reflect on what Memorial Day is all about; on why we set this day aside as a time of national remembrance.

It's fitting every day to pay tribute to the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States of America. Still, there are certain days that have been set aside for all of us to do so. Veterans Day is one such day – when we are called to honor Americans who've fought under our country's flag.

Our calling on Memorial Day is different. On this day, we honor not just those who've worn this country's uniform, but the men and women who've died in its service; who've laid down their lives in defense of their fellow citizens; who've given their last full measure of devotion to protect the United States of America. These are the men and women I will be honoring this weekend, and I know many of you are doing the same.

There are any number of reasons America emerged from its humble beginnings as a cluster of colonies to become the most prosperous, most powerful nation on earth. There is the hard work, the resilience, and the character of our people. There is the ingenuity and enterprising spirit of our entrepreneurs and innovators. There are the ideals of opportunity, equality, and freedom that have not only inspired our people to perfect our own union, but inspired others to perfect theirs as well.

But from the very start, there was also something more. A steadfast commitment to serve, to fight, and if necessary, to die, to preserve America and advance the ideals we cherish. It's a commitment witnessed at each defining moment along the journey of this country. It's what led a rag-tag militia to face British soldiers at Lexington and Concord. It's what led young men, in a country divided half slave and half free, to take up arms to save our union. It's what led patriots in each generation to sacrifice their own lives to secure the life of our nation, from the trenches of World War I to the battles of World War II, from Inchon and Khe Sanh, from Mosul to Marjah.

That commitment – that willingness to lay down their lives so we might inherit the blessings of this nation – is what we honor today. But on this Memorial Day, as on every day, we are called to honor their ultimate sacrifice with more than words. We are called to honor them with deeds.

We are called to honor them by doing our part for the loved ones our fallen heroes have left behind and looking after our military families. By making sure the men and women serving this country around the world have the support they need to achieve their missions and come home safely. By making sure veterans have the care and assistance they need.  In short, by serving all those who have ever worn the uniform of this country – and their families – as well as they have served us.

On April 25, 1866, about a year after the Civil War ended, a group of women visited a cemetery in Columbus, Mississippi, to place flowers by the graves of Confederate soldiers who had fallen at Shiloh. As they did, they noticed other graves nearby, belonging to Union dead. But no one had come to visit those graves, or place a flower there. So they decided to lay a few stems for those men too, in recognition not of a fallen Confederate or a fallen Union soldier, but a fallen American.

A few years later, an organization of Civil War veterans established what became Memorial Day, selecting a date that coincided with the time when flowers were in bloom. So this weekend, as we commemorate Memorial Day, I ask you to hold all our fallen heroes in your hearts, and if you can, to lay a flower where they have come to rest.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/weekly-address-president-obama-invites-all-americans-honor-america-s-fallen-heroes -

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From ICE

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Charlotte ICE gang operation yields 12 arrests

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents assigned to the Charlotte Gang Unit continue making arrests in North Carolina with its recent weekend effort yielding 12 arrests and the seizure of cocaine, marijuana and brass knuckles.

Among the 12 arrests last weekend were four gang members and affiliates: one Asian Boyz gang member, two MS-13 gang members and one MS-13 affiliate. All four are foreign-born nationals from Vietnam, Uruguay and Honduras. One is a naturalized U. S. citizen, one has lawful residency status and the other two are illegally present in the country. Two face state charges and two face immigration charges.

The additional eight individuals arrested face various charges ranging from immigration violations to drug and weapons charges. One individual arrested had an outstanding warrant issued by the state.

One is a U. S. citizen and the others are illegal aliens from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

"With each arrest we make, we're making an impact in our community," said Delbert Richburg, assistant special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in North Carolina. "Whether you're here legally or illegally, if you're breaking the law and terrorizing our community, we will use every law enforcement tool at our disposal to put you behind bars."

The arrests were made as part of an initiative by ICE's National Gang Unit dubbed Operation Community Shield. As part of the initiative, ICE partners with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs. Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies are essential to the initiative's success and they help further ensure officer safety during the operations.

ICE's National Gang Unit identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements to deter, disrupt and dismantle gang operations by tracing and seizing cash, weapons and other assets derived from criminal activities.

Through Operation Community Shield, the federal government uses its powerful immigration and customs authorities in a coordinated, national campaign against criminal street gangs in the United States. Transnational street gangs have significant numbers of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border.

Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 15,600 gang members belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide.

More information on the National Gang Unit at ICE is available at: www.ice.gov .

The public is encouraged to report suspicious activity by calling the ICE toll-free hotline at: 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1005/100528charlotte.htm

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