by Elizabeth Higgs

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Private LaVena Lynn Johnson killed herself on July 19, 2005, eight days before her twentieth birthday. Exactly how did she end her life? She punched herself in the face hard enough to blacken her eyes, break her nose, and knock her front teeth loose. She douched with an acid solution after mutilating her genital area. She poured a combustible liquid on herself and set it afire. She then shot herself in the head. Despite this massive self-inflicted trauma, she somehow managed to drag her then fully clothed body into the tent of a KBR contractor, leaving a trail of blood along the way and set the tent ablaze in a failed attempt to cover up her crimes against herself.

If this story sounds plausible to you, you may have missed your calling as an officer in the U.S. Army, because Army officers, speaking with a straight face, would have you believe that such a thing is not only possible, but actually happened.

In reality, LaVena Johnson was raped, beaten, and murdered by someone on a military base in Balad, Iraq, and the Army doesn’t want you to know about it. Army officers most especially didn’t want her parents to know about it, so they concocted the suicide story, informing them that their daughter had shot herself in the head in her barracks.

When LaVena’s body was returned to her parents, however, her father, Dr. John Johnson, immediately noticed that her nose was broken and her lip was torn. He was surprised to discover that her gloves were glued to her hands (as it turns out, to hide burns). As a former military man himself, he also recognized that the exit wound from the bullet could not possibly have come from the weapon the military claimed LaVena used to kill herself. He knew then that the Army was lying to him, that his daughter had been murdered. He made these discoveries three years ago. Today, the Army is still lying to him, and to us.

LaVena Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from a Missouri high school because she believed it was right to serve her country. She loved America, was very patriotic, and she thought joining the military was the best way to express that patriotism. Although her mother had assumed that her daughter, a violinist and honor student, would go straight to college, LaVena had made other plans. After her death, her company commander described her as having been “clearly happy” during her time in the Service. She enjoyed her job, took pride in it, and cared about the U.S. Army.

Unfortunately, the Army did not care about her. In fact, the disdain and contempt in which the Army held – and continues to hold – her seems to have no bounds. Her father stated last year in an interview given for a Missouri television station that the U.S. Army “turned on her” after her murder. I differ with Dr. Johnson on only one point: the U.S. Army never did give a damn about his daughter.

After filing a FOIA request for release of a CD-ROM contained in LaVena’s file but withheld from the family for over two years, and under added pressure from a congressman, the Army finally gave the Johnsons the CD. On it they found horrific photographs from the autopsy that clearly showed the extent of their daughter’s injuries. It proved that the original black and white photos of LaVena’s body originally sent to them had been doctored. Also on the disk were damning sketches of the crime scene that gave her parents further information contradicting the Army’s statements.

In a heart-wrenching interview conducted last month with LaVena’s parents, her mother, Linda Johnson, describes the members of the military responsible for this cover-up as “lying demons.”

One wonders whether LaVena would have enlisted in the Army if she had known that Veterans Administration statistics show that one third of the women who serve in the military are victims of sexual assault by a fellow soldier. Or if she had known about an emerging pattern of “suicides” of women soldiers who were also victims of sexual assault.

According to the Department of Defense FY07 Report on Sexual Assault in the Military,

“The Army remains committed to thoroughly investigate and take appropriate action in all unrestricted reports of sexual assault,” and the Department of Defense “continues its commitment to eradicate sexual assault in the military services.”

Military leaders have no real interest in stopping sexual assaults. If they did, LaVena Johnson’s rape and murder would be included in their statistics. But they would rather not admit that these crimes occur if they don’t have to. So, if the victim is dead, all the better. Just report that death as a suicide.

LaVena Johnson was awarded a posthumous promotion to Private First Class, a bone thrown to her family, no doubt. But her spirit cries out for justice. Please call your representatives in Congress and demand action on her case. The telephone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard is 202/224-3121. Please help her parents to obtain a proper investigation of their daughter’s death. The major media have ignored LaVena’s story, and without a vociferous public demand for action the government will continue to stonewall.

LaVena Johnson was raped and murdered. Do not let the military sweep this under the rug.

Itching to get the US into what would probably start WW4, Dick Cheney had a special meting on how to advance the war.  Seymour Hersh reports that there were 11 propositions, but the one Cheney was especially excited about was the plan to use Navy Seals dressed as Iranians in fake Iranian ships fire on other NAvy Seals.  Embarrasingly, Seymour Hersh first asks “How much press is here” before rattling this shocking revelation.  Mr. Hersh, what were the other 10 plans???

Old-Thinker News | July 24, 2008

By Daniel Taylor

Related: Media hails Obama’s Speech As Call For “New World Order”

Barack Obama’s July 24th speech in Berlin brought to light the Democratic Presidential candidates’ globalist views, mirroring those of the Council on Foreign Relations and other globalist think tanks. Obama’s praise of the European Union, calls for the “tearing down” of walls between nations and religions, and finally for world unity against climate change and terrorism reveal that an Obama Presidency will not bring change, but rather a continued erosion of national sovereignty and steps closer to world government.

Interestingly, Obama’s speech was delivered beneath the “victory angel” statue in Berlin. As the Guardian reported on the 21st,

“The centrepiece of the European leg of Obama’s visit will be his Berlin speech. Liberal and conservative politicians in Germany expressed consternation that Obama plans to address the crowds from beneath the golden angel statue which graces Berlin’s Siegessäule, a landmark which Hitler moved to its present location as part of his bid to transform Berlin into the world capital Germania.”

Obama’s speech stated in part:

“That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.”

…

“Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more — not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.”

…

“The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.

As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.

In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.”

Barack Obama’s remarks mirror those of Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who stated that the problems of climate change and terrorism would require a surrender of national sovereignty and ultimately the formation of a world government. “Some governments are prepared to give up elements of sovereignty to address the threat of global climate change,” stated Haass. “The goal should be to redefine sovereignty for the era of globalization, to find a balance between a world of fully sovereign states and an international system of either world government or anarchy.”

Obama is not the only presidential candidate with globalist ideals. John McCain’s proposed League of Democracies and support of North American integration is one example. Hillary Clinton’s open support for world government is another.

Obama’s promise of “change” will bring no such thing. A continuation of globalist policy towards world government and weakened national sovereignty will undoubtedly be pursued.

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A congressional committee has heard testimony about the case for impeachment of President Bush. VOA’s Dan Robinson reports, while majority Democrats have ruled out formal impeachment efforts, they approved the public hearing to examine limitations on presidential powers and arguments about what constitute impeachable offenses.

Critics say President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be impeached because of a range of alleged legal and constitutional abuses.

The list includes administration justifications to Congress and Americans for the war in Iraq, authorization of secret electronic surveillance, approval of harsh interrogation techniques, and defiance of congressional subpoenas.

Dennis Kucinich, 25 Jul 2008

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a former Democratic presidential candidate, introduced formal impeachment resolutions in the House of Representatives, listing numerous actions by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and appeared as a witness at Friday’s hearing:

“The decision before us is whether Congress will endorse with its silence the methods used to take us into the Iraq war. The decision before us is whether to demand accountability for one of the gravest injustices imaginable. The decision before us is whether Congress will stand up to tell future presidents that America has seen the last of these injustices, not the first,” he said.

Since Democrats took control of Congress two years ago, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has drawn sharp criticism from within her party for refusing to endorse formal impeachment proceedings against the president.

Although Kucinich presented his resolutions on the House floor, each was turned back to the House Judiciary Committee.

Two committee Republicans asserted that the Friday event amounted to a formal impeachment hearing. Panel chairman John Conyers had this exchange with Iowa Republican Steven King:

“KING: These are impeachment hearings before the U.S. Congress. I never imagined I would ever be sitting on this side when something like this happened.

CONYERS: To the regret of many, this is not an impeachment hearing. To have an impeachment hearing, the House of Representatives has to vote to authorize that a committee begin an inquiry, and that has not taken place yet.”

Republican Lamar Smith asserted there is no basis on which impeachment can be pursued, and accused Democrats of playing political games. “Nothing is going to come out of this hearing with regard to impeachment of the president. I know it, the media knows it, and the [House] speaker knows it. The Democratic leadership has said time and again they have no intention of bringing any impeachment resolution for the president or the vice president to the House floor. Why is that? It is because they know it won’t pass. That is because there is no evidence to support impeachment.”

Stephen Presser of Northwestern University School of Law, asserted there has been no proof that President Bush put his own interests over those of the nation. “For a president to be impeached, he must have committed some grave offense that is contrary to his oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of his country. He must put his interests above the Constitution and the laws,” he said.

Jeremy Rabkin, Professor of Law at George Mason University, asserts that any impeachment effort would be unwise. “To put everything on to the somebody must pay for mistakes and impeachment is the way is to make the country ungovernable,” he said.

Bruce Fein, a former Associate Deputy U.S. Attorney General and one of the first constitutional legal scholars to call for impeachment, was joined by Vincent Bugliosi, a former Los Angeles County Prosecutor:

“FEIN: The Executive Branch has vandalized the Constitution every bit as much as the barbarians sacked Rome in 410 A.D. The Executive Branch has destroyed the constitution’s time honored checks and balanced [and] taken the nation perilously close to executive despotism.

BUGLIOSI: Whether Republican or Democrat, all Americans should be absolutely outraged by what this administration has done. How dare they do what they have done. How dare they!”

Also testifying were Bob Barr and Elizabeth Holtzman, former Republican and Democratic members of Congress:

“HOLTZMAN: The only remedy and that is the one the framers gave to the Congress of the U.S., the House and the Senate, is the remedy of impeachment because no one can interfere with it.

BARR: If we don’t get a handle on this now, in some form or fashion, the next administration and the one after that, regardless of party, will take these abuses, these powers, these liberties with the fundamental institutions of our government, and take them to even higher and higher levels.”

Frederick Schwarz, of New York University’s School of Law, says any impeachment effort at this stage would be too late and politically divisive, but recommends creation of a bipartisan investigative commission. “I recommend that the Congress and the new president sign a bill that sets up an independent nonpartisan and bipartisan investigatory commission that will look at what has been done wrong, look at what has been done right, and recommend remedies for things that have been done wrong,” he said.

Elliott Adams represented the anti-war organization Veterans for Peace. “When our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence, they were not worried about political will or about how much time there was or about what parties might effect their political future. They were just worried that they were going to be hanged by the neck, yet they did the right thing. Now gentlemen it is your time to stand up,” he said.

Congressman Conyers, at the urging of panel Republicans, repeatedly admonished anti-Bush demonstrators not to interrupt the public hearing. Prominent administration and Iraq war critic Cindy Sheehan was expelled from the room at one point.