http://mises.org/daily/574/Intellectual-Roots-of-Terror

Patrick Barron comments on today’s Open Europe summary:

Meanwhile, the Guardian reports on Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s speech in Warsaw today, in which he is expected to argue, “Any change to governance structures must not lead to a weaker and divisive Europe where the aims of ‘Euro ins’ are set against those of ‘Euro outs’. There can be no inhibiting of trade, for example, and no obstructing the single market. Any decision that affects the 27 must always be taken by the 27.”
Open Europe blog Spectator Coffee House blog FT Mail Guardian Times

One of the tactics of the Euro elitists is to equate support for the Euro as support for free markets and opposition to the Euro as opposition to free markets. This is a logical fallacy. Many countries engage in free trade with one another even though they do not use a common currency. Nevertheless, if Nick Clegg’s desire is to expand trade while minimizing currency conversion costs, he should support a return to the classical nineteenth century gold standard in which each country’s currency was merely an expression of a certain weight of gold. He should reflect upon these words of Ludwig von Mises in Human Action:

“The gold standard was the world standard of the age of capitalism, increasing welfare, liberty, and democracy, both political and economic. In the eyes of the free traders its main eminence was precisely the fact that it was an international standard as required by international trade and the transactions of the international money and capital market. It was the medium of exchange by means of which Western industrialism and Western capital had borne Western civilization into the remotest parts of the earth’s surface, everywhere destroying the fetters of age-old prejudices an superstitions, sowing the seeds of new life and new well-being, freeing minds and souls, and creating unprecedented progress of Western liberalism ready to unite all nations into a community of free nations peacefully cooperating with one another.”

Dress witches in pink and avoid white paper to prevent racism in nuseries, expert says

Teachers should censor the toy box to replace witches’ black hats with a pink ones and dress fairies in darker shades, according to a consultant who has issued advice to local authorities.

From the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz to Meg, the good witch from the Meg and Mog children’s books, witches have always dressed in black.

But their traditional attire has now come in for criticism from equality experts who claim it could send a negative message to toddlers in nursery and lead to racism.

Instead, teachers should censor the toy box and replace the pointy black hat with a pink one, while dressing fairies, generally resplendent in pale pastels, in darker shades.

Another staple of the classroom – white paper – has also been questioned by Anne O’Connor, an early years consultant who advises local authorities on equality and diversity.

Children should be provided with paper other than white to drawn on and paints and crayons should come in “the full range of flesh tones”, reflecting the diversity of the human race, according to the former teacher.

Finally, staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.

The measures, outlined in a series of guides in Nursery World magazine, are aimed at avoiding racial bias in toddlers as young as two. (Read more)

Israel announced plans on Tuesday for 1,100 new housing units in an area of South Jerusalem outside Israel’s pre-1967 boundaries. The move reflects Israel’s continued rejection of Palestinian demands for a halt in settlement construction as a condition for peace talks. (Read more)

Commentary at zerohedge.

Several months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes.

Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents’ request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding. (Read more)

My comments below.

(DoJ) – WASHINGTON – September 23, 2011 – A former captain in the U.S. Army Reserve stationed in Afghanistan was sentenced today to 120 months in prison for soliciting $1.3 million in bribes from contractors involved in U.S.-funded reconstruction efforts and participating in a conspiracy to traffic heroin from Southeast Asia.

The sentence was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Neil H. MacBride for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Sidharth Handa, 32, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga in the Eastern District of Virginia. Handa was also ordered to pay $315,000 in restitution. Handa, of Charlotte, N.C., pleaded guilty on June 21, 2011, to soliciting and accepting bribes while serving as a public official and to conspiring to distribute a kilogram of heroin.

“Mr. Handa used his official position assisting the United States’ reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan to line his pockets,” said Assistant Attorney General Breuer. “He promised multi-million dollar contracts to Afghan businessmen in exchange for cash. He was so meticulous about collecting his bribes that he kept track of them on a spreadsheet. We will not tolerate this kind of fraud and abuse. Today’s sentence reflects the disgracefulness of Mr. Handa’s conduct.”

“This case is the largest bribery prosecution to date from our mission in Afghanistan,” said U.S. Attorney MacBride. “From the day he stepped foot in Afghanistan, Mr. Handa negotiated a staggering amount of bribes from contractors in a blatant breach of the trust our military put in him. His actions brought shame to our mission, harmed our reconstruction efforts, and defrauded American taxpayers who funded the contracts he looted.”

According to court records, Handa was stationed in Afghanistan from March through November 2008 and served as the liaison to the local governor and engineers on the Kunar Province Reconstruction Team (PRT). In that position, Handa assisted in awarding reconstruction project contracts funded by the U.S. government to local contractors through a competitive bidding process. Handa admitted that almost immediately upon his arrival in Afghanistan, he became engaged in a scheme to secure bribes from contractors who sought to secure large PRT construction projects. With the help of an Afghan interpreter, Handa typically solicited bribes equal to 10 percent of the overall contract value, though the actual bribe payment was negotiated based on the contractor’s ability to pay. The total value of bribes contractors agreed to pay amounted to $1,323,000, and Handa and the interpreter collected $315,000, which they split evenly.

Handa admitted that after leaving Afghanistan, he tried to collect over $1 million in bribe money that contractors had pledged to pay. A cooperating witness (CW) offered to help Handa collect the money, and through 2010 and early 2011 Handa provided the CW with details of outstanding bribes and other relevant facts to help secure the promised bribes. During the course of these conversations with the CW, Handa indicated that he knew people in the drug business and he and the CW developed plans to sell kilogram quantities of Southeast Asian heroin to Handa’s drug contacts.

According to court documents, on April 7, 2011, Handa met with the CW and an undercover officer in a northern Virginia hotel, where Handa received what he believed was $500,000 in collected bribe payments and acknowledged that he knew the right people to receive the kilogram of heroin the undercover officer showed him. Law enforcement arrested Handa as he was leaving the hotel with the bribe money, a loaded handgun and a spreadsheet detailing specific bribe amounts paid and outstanding.

This case was investigated jointly by member agencies of the International Contract Corruption Task Force, including the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, and also by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The case is being prosecuted by Senor Trial Attorney David Bybee of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kosta Stojilkovic and Dennis Fitzpatrick of the Eastern District of Virginia. (Read more from mssparky.com)

Close to home for me. Here’s my take on the whole mission:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/10/e-mail-from-afghanistan/7103/

I think the whole thing is a crime and a fraud. Handa’s mistake was participating in the illegal variety of crime and fraud.

But even limiting my observation to that, my sense is that he’s just the one who got caught.

Also reported here: http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-currents/2011/09/23/former-army-reserve-captain-sentenced-to-10-years-for-bribery/

Edit: Ha! Look at the comments on mssparky.com.

Fixa says:
September 25th 2011 at 5:42 pm
I was stationed to and I think its fucked up he couldn’t hook me up with any money I think SH3 Simmons snitched on him. Karma is a bitch shouldve shared the wealth sucka.

bryan says:
September 25th 2011 at 6:59 pm

Simmon’s problably did snitch, but he Honda was always a moron. Endangering our lives, his paycheck was more than enough income to make an easy life. Sadly our society has gotten greedy and always wants more. Thank you Fixa for sharing the link, and to think Camp you lost your clearance so this ass could scrap thousands from our tax dollars.

Roman says:
September 25th 2011 at 10:19 pm

@ bryan — yeah. It sounds like they didn’t need a snitch. He might have gotten busted trying to traffic heroine, and the spreadsheet of bribes led to the PRT corruption.

You can buy the report from the Cato Institute.