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Veterans Injured in Oakland Uprising Against Crimocracy

Updated November 6, 2011
Added text and video of second injured vet in Oakland, Kayvan Sabeghi

FACES OF THE AMERICAN UPRISING


WALL STREET LOVES ISRAEL - Ed Morris, a 70-year-old American, is one of the "Faces of Occupy Wall Street". Morris told Newsweek why he joined the protests: "Our country has been so numb and so cruel and it’s great that people are waking up."


Scott Olsen is a 24-year-old from Wisconsin who joined Veterans for Peace after moving to San Francisco. Olsen is a former U.S. Marine who served two tours in Iraq in 2006 and 2007.


Veterans for Peace use non-violent protest methods to increase public awareness of the costs of war.


Olsen (right) was protesting peacefully with fellow Veteran for Peace, Joshua Shepherd, in Oakland on October 25...


when he was seriously injured after being struck by a projectile fired by police at close range. "Oakland Police Department fired a tear gas canister at his head, fracturing his skull," Shepherd said.


Olsen was peacefully protesting when he was shot in the head by the police projectile at very close range. The police then lobbed a stun grenade into the midst of the people who came to aid the fallen vet. This is clearly criminal conduct by the police. The best coverage of this incident is in the Daily Mail.

The following video clip shows the police lobbing a stun grenade at those who came to help the seriously wounded veteran.


Video Link - http://youtu.be/xWXm3cd5S-o

Interview with Mike Ferner of Veteran's for Peace about Scott Olsen:


Video Link - http://youtu.be/Vb49BvOUoTg

A second Iraq War veteran, Kayvan Sabeghi, has been seriously injured at the hands of the Oakland police. After police beat him with batons, Sabehgi was jailed and denied medical care, which he urgently needed. He is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen.

Sabeghi, 32, was walking home when he was beaten by police and charged with resisting arrest.

Sabeghi's business partner in a micro-brewery, Esther Goodstal, told the AP, "I saw he had bruises all over his body, and that's not right. No one should treat another human being like this."

The Iraq war vet had been taking part in Wednesday's march on the port, but left when it was over. "After that, he went out with his friend and had dinner," Goodstal said.

When dinner was over, Sabeghi decided to call it a night because he had to work Thursday. He was walking home in west Oakland sometime late Wednesday or early Thursday when he encountered a line of police at the protest who wouldn't let him through, Goodstal said.

"Literally, you (could) see his apartment," she said. "The police for some reason ... said, `No, you cannot pass.'" Goodstal said Sabeghi told her he tried to explain his situation and officers began hitting him with batons.


The police in Oakland have used excessive violence on the protestors, seriously injuring at least two Iraq war veterans. Thus far no criminal charges have been laid against the police who shot Scott Olsen in the head with a tear gas canister.


Video Link - http://youtu.be/xj0M4oEXjcA

AMERICAN DISTRUST OF GOVERNMENT AT HIGHEST LEVEL EVER

“89 percent of Americans say they distrust the government, 74 percent say the country is on the wrong track, and 84 percent disapprove of Congress...”
Source: New York Times/CBS News poll, 19-24 October 2011, “Snapshot shows U.S. public more disillusioned than ever”, International Herald Tribune, 26 October 2011

The on-going American protest movement is similar to the Palestinian Intifada in that it is a popular uprising against a criminal regime that has simply become too oppressive to bear any longer. While the U.S. government engages in costly illegal wars and targeted assassinations in at least 6 nations the American people chafe under the heavy costs incurred by the criminal war-mongering regime in Washington.

A common grievance of the anti-war protest movement across the United States is how greedy corporations are robbing the American people. The top 100 corporations that provide weapons and equipment for the Pentagon received hundreds of billions of tax-payer dollars in 2010 while the American people are being asked to tighten their belts and do without the basic benefits that people in most developed nations take for granted.


The top war contractors receive tens of billions of dollars "appropriated" for them by corrupt members of Congress - at the expense of the American taxpayer. General Dynamics, for example, No. 5 on the list, received nearly 4,730 Million dollars in defense contracts alone in 2010. General Dynamics has long been owned and controlled by the Crown family of Chicago, devoted supporters of Israel - and financial backers of Barack Obama. The corrupting relationship between these Zionist war profiteers and the Obama administration is discussed in greater detail in my recent article "Chicago's Elders of Zion and Obama's War for Profit"


Video Link - http://youtu.be/S880UldxB1o

Sources and Recommended Reading:

"ANOTHER U.S. Army veteran in intensive care after being hit with police nightsticks during Occupy Oakland clash", Daily Mail, 5 November 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057882/U-S-Army-veteran-Kayvan-Sabeghi-intensive-care-hit-police-nightsticks-Occupy-Oakland-clash.html

"Second Iraq War Veteran Hurt In Occupy Oakland Protests", by Robert Johnson and Linette Lopez, BusinessInsider.com, 5 November 2011,
http://www.businessinsider.com/second-iraq-war-veteran-hurt-in-occupy-oakland-protests-2011-11

"Iraq war hero critically injured in Oakland protests 'awake and lucid' in hospital as demonstrators vow to shut the city down with general strike", Daily Mail (UK), 28 October 2011 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054144/Occupy-Oakland-Police-officer-fired-gas-canister-protesters-helping-Scott-Olsen.html

"Hurt protester Scott Olsen was 'provoking no one'," San Francisco Chronicle, 28 October 2011
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/10/28/MND61LN3LM.DTL

Washington Technology Top 100 Government Contractors 2010, Top 100 Defense Revenue
http://washingtontechnology.com/toplists/top-100-lists/2010.aspx?Sort=Top-100-Defense-Revenue