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My Next Article will be about Experience Usa which is a consultant company and brings students from cyprus and turkey for WAT (work ‘n’ travel) to the US… are they bad or good? i will share all my experience that i had with this company…

COMING SOOOON!

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yeni yazimda Experience USA isimli WAT (work&travel) sirketi hakkinda sizlere deneyimlerimden bahsedecegim bakalim ne kadar iyi/kotu bir sirketmis herkez ogrensin…

COK YAKINDA!!!

Topik kali ini usulan dari oom Anung. Sebagai hadiahnya, kuucapkan terima kasih ya oom!!

Jadi yang mau dibahas adalah step-step yang perlu dipersiapkan untuk pindah ke US.

Setau gua, ada 3 cara kalo kalian mau hidup secara legal di US:

1. Pake visa student.
Jelas intinya adalah untuk sekolah disini. Kerja sih bisa, tapi jam nya terbatas.

2. Pake visa kerja.
Gua kurang jelas requirement nya gimana, tapi kalo gak salah ya lu harus dapet kerjaan dulu disini dan nanti perusahaannya akan sponsor untuk dapetin visa kerja ini.

3. Pake greencard.
Untuk gc, lu juga harus punya sponsor terlebih dahulu. Either itu perusahaan atau perorangan (harus direct relative). Si sponsor harus masukin petition ke kedutaan US (seluruh form buat proses ini bisa diambil di kedutaan atau di download dari website immigration nya US). Nanti kalo udah di-approved, baru kita yang masukin form buat kita. Kalo di-approved lagi, nanti kita harus ngelengkapi surat-surat (kayak surat kelakuan baik dari Mabes Polri, periksa kesehatan, imunisasi, dan lain-lain) dan dijadwalin untuk interview. Setelah interview, kalo di-approved, kita akan dikasih immigrant visa. Immigrant visa ini berlaku 6 bulan aja. Dalam waktu 6 bulan itu elu harus masuk ke US. Kalo udah masuk US, passport lu akan distempel. Stempel ini berlaku sebagai temporary gc dan berlaku selama setahun. Gc nya sendiri akan dikirim ke alamat di US. Nah kalo udah punya stempel di passport atau apalagi udah punya gc ya berarti elu legal untuk tinggal dan kerja disini. Masa berlaku gc adalah 10 tahun.

Untuk visa student emang ada agent yang bisa bantu. Tapi kalo buat visa kerja dan gc, gak perlu pake agent-agent-an. Ngurus sendiri aja. Urusannya sebenernya gak ribet, yang ribet itu pas mesti nyiapin surat-surat itu lho… Tau sendiri birokrasi pemerintahan kita kayak apa ribetnya kan… Semua tarifnya tarif resmi dan dibayar langsung ke kasir di kedutaan. Jadi gak perlu ada duit-duit untuk jasa lah atau uang rokok.

Yah sebenernya itu aja intinya untuk bisa pindah ke US secara legal. Gak ribet asal semua persyaratan terpenuhi.

Tapi yang gak kalah penting adalah beberapa hal lain yang juga harus dipersiapkan kalo emang mau pindah ke US:

A. Persiapan Mental

Mental tentu perlu banget dipersiapkan soalnya banyak sekali hal yang berbeda dsini, di antaranya:

1. Lifestyle

Gaya hidup udah pasti harus berubah. Yang sangat jelas adalah disini gak ada pembantu! Ada sih, tapi mahal banget. Jadi kalo kita tadinya udah terbiasa apa-apa nyuruh pembantu ya harus siap mental kalo ntar kudu nyuci baju sendiri, nyetrika sendiri, nyapu ngepel sendiri… Yang tadinya terbiasa kemana-mana dianter supir, sekarang harus nyetir sendiri atau bahkan naik bus. Yang tadinya terbiasa banyak yang dimintain tolong (misalnya minta tolong ama nyokap buat ngurusin ini itu, minta tolong ama bokap buat jagain tukang di rumah, minta tolong ortu/mertua buat nitip anak, dan lain-lain…  Iya ini pengalaman pribadi! Hahaha), sekarang gak ada lagi yang bisa dimintain tolong, semua harus bisa sendiri. Yang tadinya kalo pulang kantor tinggal leyeh-leyeh depan tivi, gak perlu nemenin anak main soalnya ada BS, sekarang harus nemenin anak main. Dan lain lain, dan sebagainya. Banyak banget yang akan berubah! And you have to be prepared!

2. Cost of Living

Jangan gampang langsung berbinar-binar mendengar akan mendapat gaji pake dollar! Karena cost of living disini juga pake dollar!
Jangan kaget, disini rata-rata apa-apa lebih mahal. Mulai dari makanan, layanan HP, layanan cable, biaya sewa apartment… Semuanya mahal!

Ok lah gak semua lebih mahal ya. Ada juga yang lebih murah. Kayak mobil misalnya, kan lebih murah tuh. Atau HP dan laptop juga kan lebih murah. Tapi… jangan lupa, asuransi mobil dan biaya maintenance nya lebih mahal! Jangan lupa kalao bayar provider HP dan internet juga lebih mahal!

Untuk makanan sehari-hari juga relatif lebih mahal. Kalo di Indo masih bisa ya kita makan di tempat yang cukup descent dengan harga belasan ribu rupiah, kalo disini rata-rata gua pergi makan siang tuh harus spend sekitar $8 (ini makanannya cuma salad atau sandwich lho ya! Bukan steak atau apa yang fancy).

Dan yang paling bikin shock adalah harga properti! Harga properti disini (kira-kira ya) tuh sekitar 8-10 kali lipat dari harga properti sejenis di Indo (tergantung daerah juga). Ini yang bener-bener gak make sense buat gua. Jadilah harga sewa disini juga bukan main aduhainya. Buat contoh aja nih, waktu kita masih nyewa apartemen di Santa Monica, 1 bedroom, 400 sqf (sekitar 40 meter persegi –> bayangkan kecilnya!), ini pun bukan yang lux ya, gedungnya biasa banget (cenderung jelek kalo dibandingin ama gedung-gedung apartemen di Jakarta yang megah-megah), bahkan washer dryer pun gak di dalam unit, harga sewanya $1,500 per bulan. Coba bandingin ama harga sewa apartemen sejenis di Jakarta, berapa kali lipatnya itu? Itung sendiri ya… Kalo mau yang apartement nya lebih lux, kita pernah tanya yang deket kantor gua sini, apartemen 1 bedroom, ukuran 700 sqf, harga sewanya $2,400 per bulan! Mau keselek gak dengernya? Gua sih waktu itu beneran keselek! Hehehe. Well, biar adil perbandingannya, kalo lu mau cuma nyewa kamar sih bisa juga… Kalo gak salah sekitar $700-800 per bulan. Itu kamar doang ya! Jadi kalo buat yang udah berkeluarga ya rasanya gak cocok.

Jadi kalo pindah kemari dan bisa dapet gaji 2-3 kali lipat dari gaji di Indo apakah berarti bisa nabung 2-3 kali lipet juga? Gak juga ya… Ternyata tidak berbanding lurus. Yah mainly karena harga properti itu. Silakan diitung-itung sendiri ya…

3. Jarak

US itu jauh banget dari Indo. Tiketnya pun mahal banget. Jadi kalo mau mudik itu banyak banget pertimbangannya yang berakibat gak bisa sering-sering. Ini perlu nih untuk mempersiapkan diri bakal sering-sering merasa kangen, dan siap-siap kalo sampe (moga-moga enggak) harus merasakan yang namanya homesick.

B. Tujuan Pindah

1. Buat sekolah lagi

Saran gua: go ahead! Gak usah mikir yang lain lagi, silakan pindah. Gua tetep merasa pendidikan disini emang lebih bagus. Lagian di Indo masih ada mindset kalo lulusan luar negeri akan lebih dihargai kan. Jadi kalo emang lu ada kesempatan untuk sekolah di US, ya why not? It’s good for you and your future!

2. Buat ngumpulin uang/nabung lebih banyak

Silakan pertimbangkan tentang biaya hidup yang kayak gua tulis di atas. Emang banyak orang yang mau pindah kemari dengan tujuan ini. Ya gak dipungkiri kalo emang bisa kok untuk ngumpulin uang lebih banyak dengan kerja disini. Tapi tentu dengan berbagai pengorbanan, misalnya ya itu cuma nyewa kamar instead of apartemen, jarang makan-makan di restoran, gak pergi nonton (tiket nonton disini pun jauh lebih mahal dari Indo. Kalo weekend night harganya sekitar $12, kalo siang-siang sekitar $7), gak beli ini itu. Yah kalo bisa sampe begitu ya bisa aja nyimpen uang lebih banyak. Tapi jadi gak enjoy life dong? Balik-balik silakan ditimbang-timbang lagi ya…

3. Buat kualitas kehidupan yang lebih baik

Yah secara overall disini lebih aman (gak dipungkiri, ada daerah-daerah tertentu yang gak aman juga, jadi harus pinter-pinter milih daerah tempat tinggal), udara lebih bersih, cuaca lebih enak, pendidikan anak lebih bagus (relatif). Yah ini juga yang jadi tujuan kita nyoba pindah kemari. Menurut gua kalo emang tujuannya yang ini ya go ahead, gak ada salahnya nyoba untuk pindah ke US.

4. Buat nyari pengalaman

Sama kayak yang nomor 1, go ahead, gak ada salahnya mencari pengalaman sebanyak-banyaknya di negara yang berbeda. Ini bisa mengasah kemampuan bahasa dan juga cara meng-handle berbagai macam orang dari culture yang berbeda-beda. Ini penting banget lho, karena tiap bangsa itu beda-beda dan aneh-aneh orang-orangnya. Hahaha.

C. Kondisi Personal

1. Usia

Menurut gua, kalo umur lu masih di sekitar 20-an, apalagi kalo baru lulus kuliah, gak perlu mikir-mikir lagi dah, langsung tancep aja! Bisa pindah ke negara lain itu pengalaman yang sangat-sangat berharga dan akan berguna buat masa depan lu. Kadang nekad itu perlu lho. Jangan sampe kayak gua yang gak berani nekad, eh.. nekadnya telat gitu! Hahaha.

Kalo umur udah di atas 30, silakan lebih banyak menimbang-nimbang lagi dari point-point di atas. Terutama tentang lifestyle, karena kemungkinan besar kalo pindah ke US, karir lu harus turun dulu. Padahal mungkin selama di Indo dengan pengalaman kerja yang hampir 10 tahun, karir lu udah lumayan tinggi kan… Jadi harus lebih banyak bikin analisa untung ruginya…

2. Single/Married

Buat yang masih single, atau married tanpa anak, menurut gua juga go ahead. Ini bakal jadi new adventure buat elu. Ya tentu dengan seluruh pertimbangan di atas.

Kalo udah ada anak, harus lebih mikirin cost of living yang tentu akan lebih tinggi lagi. Sekolah emang gratis, tapi les-les-an itu mahal lho!

Ada juga orang yang akhirnya mikir cuma suami aja yang pindah demi nyari uang lebih banyak, sementara istri dan anak nya tetep di Indo. Ya bisa aja sih, tapi kalo menurut gua kok sebaiknya pilihan ini dihindarkan ya. Rasanya yang namanay keluarga ya harus semuanya bersama-sama. Apalagi balik lagi kayak yang gua udah bilang, Indo-US itu jauh banget dan harga tiketnya mahal banget. Jadinya kalo hidup misah gini kan pasti gak bisa sering-sering ketemu.

Yah begitulah kira-kira point-point yang harus dipertimbangkan kalo mau pindah ke US. Moga-moga bisa ngebantu ya buat para pembaca yang lagi mikir-mikir pengen pindah…

PS. Buat Anung, berhubung dirimu masih muda dan single, cepatlah bergerak kalo emang mau pindah. Jangan keduluan si Halim. Hahaha.

PS lagi. Pembaca blog ini kan banyak nih yang tinggal di US juga, ataupun tinggal di negara lain, ayo pada bantuin nambahin point apa lagi yang perlu dipertimbangkan sebelum mutusin untuk pindah dari Indo… Thanks ya…

PS yang terakhir. Asumsinya ini untuk yang emang kerja ikut orang ya. Kalo buat bisnis sendiri sih definitely mendingan di Indo aja… Lebih ok pastinya…

Zenciler renklerinden dolayı aşağılandıkları Amerikadan, Amerikan halkından ve genellikle kendiler haksızlık yapan beyazlardan beklentileri eşit haklara sahip olma noktasındadır. Sadece bu haklara sahip olamadıkları için, renklerinden dolayı aşağılandıkları için Amerikanın içinde “Black America” kurmaya kalkışmamaktadırlar. Amerika içinde Amerika kurma düşüncesi içeren, görüşünü açıklayan bir zenci duydunuz mu? Zenci lider Malcolm X’in zencilere hak isterken “yoksa Amerikayı böleriz ha” diye bir sözünü, tehdidini işittiniz mi? Hele ki Amerika’da gerçekten Amerika’yı bölebilecek sayıda bir zenci nüfusu vardır. Kendi anadili olan binlerce renk ırk ve dinden insanın amerikadan değişik talepleri olduğunuz duydunuz mu?

Amerika’da yaşayan herhangi bir alt kimlik kendi ana dilini USA resmi dili olarak kabul edilmesini talep edebilir mi?

Aslında kürtlerle zencileri karşılaştırmak bir anlamda Amerikayla Türkiyeyi karşılaştırmak demektir. Türkiyede ezildiği için, dilini konuşamadığı için, fakir olduğu için, diğer halklarla eşit hayat şartlarını paylaşmadığı için sözüm ona vatanını bölmeye çalışan kürtler hangi Avrupa ülkesinde ezilmemektedir, arap ülkelerinde daha mı müreffehdirler. Almanyada yaşasalar kürtlerin hatırına Angela Merkel Kürtçe’yi devletin resmi dillerinden biri mi yapacaktır. Nicholas Sarkozy Fransada yaşayan ermenilere neden özerklik vermiyor, ermenice neden Fransa’da resmi dil değil.

Hayır… Hayır… Hayır

Siz devlet olarak halkı ezerseniz, yok sayarsanız, başka ülkeleri içişlerinize karıştırmaya hevesli olursanız, halkınızla olan sorunlarını kendi mahkemelerinizde hukuktan yana çözemez vatandaşlarınızı uluslararası mahkeme kapılarında hak arama mecburiyetinde bırakırsanız, her gün binlerce kişinin faili meçhul cinayetlere kurban gittiği ülkede askeri ve adli kurumlar olarak yan gelip yatarsanız her türlü bölünme, iç savaş, isyan gibi iç be dış tehditlere açık hale gelirsiniz. Ve bölünebilirsinizde. Yok edilebilirsiniz de.

Amerikada sırp, yunan, ingiliz, fransız, afrika gibi köklere sahip bir yığın kültürel halk yaşamaktadır. Hepsi ben amerikalıyım der. Resmi kurumlarında ve genel gündelik hayatta İngilizce konuşur, yazışır, anlaşır. Anlaşmanın dili ingilizcedir amerikada. Amerikada yaşamak istiyorsanız ingilizce konuşmak zorunda olduğunuzu kimse size söylemez siz bilirsiniz. Zaten aksi durumda aç açık kalırsınız, iş bulamazsınız. Türkiyede kürtler kürt olduğu için başka bir etnik köken tarafından aşağılanmamaktadır. Ancak devletin resmi dili türkçedir. Türkçeyi konuşmamakta inat ederseniz aç kalırsınız, açık kalırsınız, bilgi toplumundan uzak kalırsınız, kimseyle anlaşamayacağınız gibi dertleriniz anlatmakta da zorluk çekersiniz. Kimse sizi anlamaz. Avrupa’dadurum aynıdır. Bakınız Almanya-Fransa.

Avrupadan göç eden kardeşlerimiz Arnavutlar, Boşnaklar Türkiyede kendi anavatanında yaşamaktadır ve hepsi Türkçe konuşmakta, yazışmakta ve anlaşmaktadır.
Kafkasyadan göç eden kardeşlerimiz Gürcüler, Abazalar, Çeçenler Türkiyede kendi anavatanında yaşamaktadır ve hepsi Türkçe konuşmakta, yazışmakta ve anlaşmaktadır.

Ama binlerce yıl Anadoluda yaşayan ve yaşayacak olan “ne yazık ki” diyebileceğimiz Kürt halkını bazı kuvvetler (ağalar, aşirretler, örgütler, dış güçler, iç güçler ve dha fazlası) kürt halkını türk halkından soğutmak için, ayırmak için ellerinden geleni yapmaktadır. Halkları bölmenin ülkeyi bölmeye götüreceğine inanılmaktadır çünkü.

• Türkçe TV kanalları, basın, gazete medya araçları izlettirilmemektedir. Halk habersiz bırakılmaktadır.
  
• Türkçe eğitim yapan okullar yıllardır terör bahanesiyle bombalanmış öğretmenler öldürülmüştür. Eğitim düşmanlığı yapılmaktadır.
  
• Devlet hizmetleri bombalarla yok edilmiş iş makinaları, ulaşım araçları tahrip edilmiştir. Halkın ekonomik gelişmesinin önüne geçilmiştir.
• Teröre maruz kalan bölgenin gençleri dağlara zorla götülererek aileleriyle devletiyle olan irtibatlar kesilmiş. Türlü beyin yıkama ve işkencelere maruz bırakılarak halkına düşman edilmiştir.
  
• Bu tahribatın arkasında durmaması gereken yerel siyasetçiler teröristlerden daha da öne çıkmıştır. Daha fazla şiddet gösterisinde bulunmuşlardır.

Ülkemizde nedense terörist diye hep dağda gezen işsiz, güçsüz, fakir, sistemin çarkları arasına sıkışmış 18-25 yaş grubundan TV de anaları ağlatılan insanları, daha doğrusu gençleri biliyoruz. Oysa bugün mecliste bağdaş kurup oturan, kışlada komutanlık  yapan, okullarda öğretmenlik yapan, hastanelerde doktorluk yapan bir çok alanda faaliyet gösteren teröristlerde vardır. Bir çok terörist bugün spor kulüplerinde, belediye başkanlıklarında, ticaret ve sanayi odalarında, holding yönetimlerinde bulunmaktadır. Terör dağdan inmiş odamıza girmiştir. Bugün bomba yapıp insan öldüren nasıl teröristse insan hakları, demokrasi, AB yaşam biçimi önünde duran da aynı ölçüde teröristtir. Kamera ve TV ler önünde “biz AB ciyiz” deyip Avrupa yaşam standartlarını halkına sözde layık görüp, kameralar ardında dört duvar arasında  çekildikten sonra “biz en iyisini biliriz“, “biz kurduk biz yönetiriz” “Bu halk cahil, anlamaz” diyenler de emin olun bir günde bir karakol basıp onlarca askeri öldüren “darbetül-Harb” çılar teröristle aynıdır. Çünkü biri insanı öldürürken diğeri de o insanların geleceğini, ümitlerini öldürmektedir. Ve her ikisi de cahilliğinin farkında değildir. Cahilllikte ortaktırlar.

Kürtlerle zencileri karşılaştıranlar emin olun ki Amerika’yı yöneten o koca koca siyasetçiler gelseler Türkiye’yi yönetemezler.

Kürtlerle zencileri karşılaştırırken Amerika’da yaşayan Amerikada bina, toprak satın alan, ABD vatandaşlığına geçen Çinlileri de unutmamak gerekir. Bunun Türkçesi; Türkiye’de yaşayan kürtleri düşüneceğize İsrail’de yaşayan ama Türkiye’de doğmuş sayıları milyonu aşmış israil vatandaşının ileriki zamanlarda başımıza açağı işleri düşünmelisiniz. Su uyur düşman uyumaz.

Kürtlerle zenciler arasındaki en büyük benzerlik yaşadıkları toplumlar içinde siyasette, genel hayatta, sporda, ekonomide en üst makamda bulunmalarıdır. Michael Jackson, Obama,  Colin Powell, Kerim Abdülcabbar, Michael Jordan gibi sayabileceğimiz bir sürü zenci Amerikanın, Turgut Özal, İbrahim Tatlıses, Hülya Avşar gibi sayabileceğimiz bir sürü kürtte  Türkiye’nin en ünlü, en çok para kazanan ünlülerine örnektir…

Aslına bakarsanız bu iki ülkede kürtler ve zenciler dışında kalan diğer kesimlerin daha fazla şikayet etmeleri gerekmektedir.  Sorunlar iyi analiz edilirse eşitlik ve adalet açısından yapılan bir haksızlık varsa onlara yapılmaktadır.
)

When my now husband retired from the US Airforce in 2005 and decided to move back to Texas to be closer to his children, it was either I go with him or stay in Britain and end the relationship. No brainer really. So we started investigating the possibilities.

I had two paths open to me:-

(1)    Get married in the UK and wait for up to a year before being able to join my husband in the States; or

(2)    Apply for a Fiancée visa, join my soon-to-be husband in the States almost immediately and get married within 90 days of landing on American soil.

We decided to go with the second option because we didn’t want to potentially be separated for a year (or possibly more).

I applied for my visa in May 2005. I was able to visit my husband on a tourist visa for 3 months but then had to return to Britain to complete my medical evaluation and interview at the US Embassy in London.

The medical evaluation included making sure all my vaccinations were up to date; having a chest x-ray to make sure I did not have Tuberculosis; a blood test to make sure I didn’t have HIV or VD; and a full physical examination.

The interview was a joke: half an hour waiting outside the embassy in the rain before they would let people in; an hour and a half sitting in the waiting area; and 5 minutes holding my hand up and swearing that the information in my application was correct.

On January 11, 2006 I received my visa and managed to fly to the States on January 30 where upon I had the extremely fun task of getting through Customs and Immigration at George Bush International airport in Houston.

Oh, and I was carrying my wedding dress with me on the plane.

We actually decided to have two weddings. An official one to get the paperwork moving for my Greencard; and a second one where I could wear my white dress and party with our families.

The official wedding was held in Fort Worth on February 18 of the same year.

Now, we did all of this without advice from an Immigration lawyer. We did think about it, but decided that we couldn’t afford that expense. So we check the USCIS website for the right forms and fees and completed everything on our own. Even though we are both intelligent and well-educated people, occasionally we’d have to re-read the forms several times in order to make sure we understood exactly what they were asking for! It really was quite stressful. Having a lawyer may have made things easier for us in hindsight.

I received my Conditional Resident card in October 2006 which was good for 2 years, then reapplied for my Permanent Resident card (aka Greencard), which I received this year. Now I am eligible to apply for Naturalization to become an American citizen.

It will be a relief to finally have all the blasted paperwork out of the way. Oh and we’re also down about $3000 – $4000 in USCIS fees once we pay for my Naturalization.

So there you go, in brief, is my immigration experience.

I skipped over the cabin fever I had during 2006 waiting from my Conditional card. I needed that before I could get my Texas driving license and Social Security Number. And I needed both of those before I could get a job! Let me just say I was getting ready to tear my hair out and questioning the wisdom of immigrating in the first place.

But I’m here now, and looks like I’m here to stay (sorry folks!). I’m even applying to law school in the hopes of learning in more details about immigration law. Who knows, maybe one day I can help other people in my situation.

Thanks to www.condron.us for this website.

7/25/09 Got a letter from My British Politician, says she will ask police if they are done with my laptop…still no crime, no charges…

In another attempt to prevent me from just ‘coming home’ after false accusations destroyed my life, the US consulate incorrectly (or again, perhaps on direct instruction from Washington?/DHS?/antiterror-twit-squad??) entered the visa in my passport, giving me 10 days to re-enter the country, so if I had, in fact, tried to rebuild my life in the UK, I would have had to relinquish all connections again….
There were 2 DHS employees waiting at the airport for me in the UK. At this point, its not hard to spot them. Middle-aged chubby african-americans, there may have been more, but I didn’t give a shit, I had taken a tranquiliser to keep me calm. When I got here, they said that the 10 days was an error (to allow them to track my travel plans no doubt) I just bought the most expensive flight ever simply to be able to come home, now I dream that they are trying to cancel the visa I have…
If it takes them 20 years to fuck up a greencard application so badly they needed to jail me, I can’t imagine what it would be like to get ‘permission’ to travel…I am now a prisoner inside the USA, no job, no home, no health insurance. A ‘gilded cage’ as the DHS guy said…

Do they really think that people that have been through what I have been through, and witnessed, will just go quietly?? Yeah I am British, and we have heart and character, and maybe I am the last of them, but we don’t stand by and let this kind of thing happen to people..jails full of elderly!! sick.

I wonder if Ghandi ever felt this way; I wonder if he ever just wanted to call someone a C**t…!! Like Mother Theresa doubted the existence of God with her last breath….each person who has ever touched my green card file deserves to die of bowel cancer, and I hope they do, in reparation for the deaths of so many in the US Immigration jails.

I wonder if that idiot at the airport who told me to ‘keep my nose clean’ (immigrants waiting 20 years for their fuckin greencard don’t commit crimes, divvy) Doesn’t he realise that they would drag him away for being mexican, if they got the chance…but hey, to him its just a good Govt paycheck…..another sad case of amazing ignorance. he told me, pointing at his computer, according to their records, I broke the law….I told him that nothing they have on me is accurate. He asked me ‘off the record, how come your spanish is so good?’ I was tempted to ask him, ‘off the record, how come america has only ever arrested one female serial killer??’ but, I thought the better of it…I just didn’t care, I wanted to go home, and I’ve spent enough time with a flashlight shining up my ass this past year.

Why does my file from the FCO state that the Chicago Director of USCIS has a ’special interest’ in effecting my deportation? at whose behest?? My husband? some lawyer who thinks maybe they are liable for not doing anything after taking fees from me? Judge Vinakor perhaps, who wanted me to pay all the fees again?

Am I allowed to say how much I hate these bureaucrats who are just making time on the govt/taxpayer dime…by messing with my life?
I don’t believe I am.

But I got the name of the guy they assign to track me, I know his name already…strange hey. Maybe they should ask me HOW I know. Stick me in with the scientists, do the tests, and put me on the damn payroll. They tried to 20 plus years ago in the UK. People like me can’t help what we see and hear.

By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer Deepti Hajela, Associated Press Writer – 30 mins ago
NEW YORK – Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants violated the U.S. Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found.

Latinos made up a disproportionate number of the people arrested who were not the stated targets of the raids, and many of their arrest reports gave no basis for why they were initially seized, said the report, which was based on data from raids in New York and New Jersey.

The Immigration Justice Clinic at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law analyzed home raid arrest records from Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Long Island and throughout New Jersey. The clinic, founded last year, represents indigent immigrants facing deportation.

Its report, released Wednesday, said that since ICE agents use administrative warrants — instead of judicial warrants, which give law enforcement unfettered access — they must have a resident’s consent to enter a home or else violate the constitutional right to protection against unreasonable searches.

On Long Island, 86 percent of arrest records from 100 raids between January 2006 and April 2008 showed no record of consent being given, the report found. In northern and central New Jersey, no record of consent being given was found for 24 percent of about 600 arrests in 2006 and 2007, it found.

Peter Markowitz, director of the clinic and one of the authors of the report, said raids often are carried out with great force, with immigration officials pushing their way into homes in pre-dawn or late-night hours.

The raids are ostensibly aimed at targeted individuals who present threats either to national security or community safety, but arrests of illegal immigrants nearby, known as collateral arrests, are also made.

While the report only analyzed data from two states, it said the pattern suggested the problem was nationwide. It listed examples from California, Texas, Arizona, Massachusetts, Georgia and other places.

A federal judge in Connecticut last month ruled that federal agents violated the constitutional rights of four illegal immigrants in a 2007 raid under similar issues. The judge ruled the immigration agents went into the immigrants’ homes without warrants, probable cause or their consent, and he put a stop to deportation proceedings against the four defendants.

“The widespread illegality by a law enforcement agency should be kind of shocking to anybody,” Markowitz said.

In a statement, ICE said its agents uphold the country’s laws.

“We do so professionally, humanely and with an acute awareness regarding the impact enforcement has on the individuals we encounter,” it said.

The agency said it also had a mandate to pursue all illegal immigrants, whether targeted or not. A spokesman for the agency declined to comment further.

The agency has about 100 Fugitive Operations Teams around the country; in fiscal year 2008, the teams made more than 34,000 arrests.

The report also found that Latinos were a disproportionate number of collateral arrests. In both New Jersey and on Long Island, two-thirds of the targeted detainees were Latino. But 87 percent of collateral arrests in New Jersey were Latino, as were 94 percent of the collateral arrests in Long Island.

Collateral arrest records can indicate why the person was seized and questioned. But the report found that almost all of the records that didn’t contain that information were for Latinos taken into custody. The report said that supported community complaints that Latinos were targeted for arrest simply because of how they looked or how well they spoke English.

The report makes several recommendations, including limiting the use of home raids to a last resort for targets who pose a serious risk to national security or have violent criminal records; the use of judicial rather than administrative warrants, and the videotaping of all home raids.

It also calls for the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General to conduct an investigation.

“These are violations that go to the very heart of the Constitutional expectation of privacy in this country,” Markowitz said.

Immigrant Population

Source: Steven Camarota “Immigrants in the United States – 2002: A Snapshot of America’s Foreign-Born Population” (Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, 2002). Data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

© Flavia Westerwelle

TransDomo,LLC
Greenville, SC
Phone: 864.908.0690
Email: info@transdomo.com
Transdomo
Westerwelle / USA Immobilien
Ausgewandert
USA Fotos

Another brilliant film.

Have you seen the very first flag of America? It had the ‘eye.’

This film, also made by some of the filmmakers of “The Arrivals,” talks about Egyptian citizenship, that is, the American greencard (green for reptiles). The Dajjal used to advertise it as one of the most precious degrees to possess. There was even a lottery for greencards. Nowadays, people are being offered greencards that they aren’t willing to accept regardless of what the Dajjal does in their own countries. The people offering them are all Satanists, that is, people who have sold their souls to the Dajjal, which is why the Reptilian cards were refused. (Reptilian for evil Djinn worship, and these Satans include disgusting things like snakes and lizards).

Now we know that the Muslims must form a ‘moderate community’ as the Qur’an puts it. But Satanists are all extremists and that’s the reason why they go after innocent Muslims calling them terrorists. The fact is that Satanists are radicals, and it’s impossible for people to look beyond themselves which is a reason why we see God only with our human limitations.

In any case, this film reveals that Egyptian citizenship worked exactly the same way. People were told they had to earn it like a degree.

Secondly, this film shows that the Satanic secret societies, the Freemasons, Illuminati or Dajjal/Anti-Christ are aware that they are Gog and Magog. In fact, Gog and Magog are considered guardians of London; you should Google this: “Gog and Magog Guildhall London.” That’s why various Islamic scholars have written that the Dajjal is the same as Gog and Magog. These scholars include Israr Ahmed from Pakistan.
 

And did you know that the City of London is governed by an entity called City of London Corporation? In other words, the Freemasons are running businesses calling them governments. But we already knew that, didn’t we? The oil business has been running best in recent years.

Here’s what Wikipedia says about Gog and Magog at Guildhall: “Two giants, Gog and Magog, are associated with the Guildhall. Legend has it that the two giants were defeated by Brutus and chained to the gates of his palace on the site of Guildhall. Carvings of Gog and Magog are kept in the Guildhall and taken out and paraded in the annual Lord Mayor’s Show… An early version of Gog and Magog were destroyed in the Guildhall during the Great Fire of London. They were replaced in 1708 by a large pair of wooden statues carved by Captain Richard Saunders. These giants, on whom the current versions are based, lasted for over two hundred years before they were destroyed in the Blitz. They in turn were replaced by a new pair carved by David Evans in 1953 and given to the City of London by Alderman Sir George Wilkinson, who had been Lord Mayor in 1940 at the time of the destruction of the previous versions.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildhall,_London

And, you know the story of Dhul Qarnain in the Qur’an (Chapter of the Cave, Surah Al-Kahf).

Another page on Wikipedia reads the following: “Given this somewhat frightening Biblical imagery, it is odd that images of Gog and Magog depicted as giants are carried in a traditional procession in the Lord Mayor’s Show by the Lord Mayor of the City of London. According to the tradition, the giants Gog and Magog are guardians of the City of London, and images of them have been carried in the Lord Mayor’s Show since the days of King Henry V. The Lord Mayor’s procession takes place each year on the second Saturday of November.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gog_and_Magog

We know the Dajjal or the Anti-Christ/Satanic secret societies are worshipping evil spirits or Djinns. So Gog and Magog must be those evil Djinns the City of London honors through this parade.

United Kingdom? — Hmmm… Humans united with Satans among Djinns to keep a ‘democratic’ kingdom.

No — democracy is something that’s only taught to the poorest countries of the world; the richest countries don’t practice it. It’s taught to the poorest countries because when you teach such things to the illiterate you’re calling for political disturbance which generates cash for the Dajjal.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bRnsbdCF5s

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKR80R17Ipg&feature=related

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AwOMd7jTxs&feature=related

Part 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANDHrHC_DVw&feature=related

Part 5: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO6IJYKUiFM&feature=related

Part 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZZ5M-1k2rU&feature=related

As a new project for a customer, I designed a new website named “GreenCard Registration Service – DVLottery” known in Persian as ” سيستم ثبت نام در قرعه كشي گرين كارت – لاتاري “. My favorite CMS, WordPress, has been used as the core of the website and the theme is the modified free version of “Arthemia”, wordpress theme, and been transted to Persian. 

Greencard Registration Service

It took me about a month for all the graphics and codings. SEO was of most important matters for this site and I tried to do my best for making best uses of WP plugins as well as meta tags definitions. 

For the registration forms I used CForms plugins; very much reliable and most customizable plugin for this purpose.

Nyt se alkaa

Tarkastin tänään asian ja olen siis menossa golfkurssille Paloheinään. Ihan oikein muistin. Hieno homma, että noilla kurssit rullaa nonstoppina läpi koko kauden. Paloheinä on selkeesti panostanut kurssituotteeseensa ja paketoinut siihen mukaan muutakin kuin sen muutaman kerran lyönti- ja sääntöharjoittelun ja mailojen lainan niinku muualla. Lukaisin tänään tarkemmin kurssiesittelyn, joka paljasti seuraavaa:

Kurssin hintaan (190e) sisältyy tällä kaudella:

(1) rautamaila omaksi

(2) oikeus pelata kaksi kierrosta Paloheinän kentällä

(3) oikeus käyttää rajattomasti lähipelialuetta ennen kokeen suorittamista ja

(4) oikeus lainata ilmaiseksi mailoja itsenäistä harjoittelua varten ennen green card -kokeen suorittamista.

Ei Mansessa ole jaksettu panostaa tuolla tavalla lajin aloittamiseen sekä asiakkaiden pitämiseen. Paloheinässä taas asiakas pyritään sitouttamaan golfseuraan/kenttään alusta alkaen myöntämällä mm. noita harjoitusmahdollisuuksia ja kierroskokeiluja. Kaupan alan ammattilainen nostaa hattua Paloheinälle ja saapuu innoissaan Hanna Teerijoen (PGA) oppiin ens viikolla.

Kurssilla käydään läpi golfin perusteet. Lyönneistä putti, chippi, bunkkerilyönti ja pitkät lyönnit. Lisäksi tietty säännöt ja etiketti, jotta kentällä osaa toimia oikein, eikä joudu vaaratilanteisiin. Kaikissa lajeissa, joissa on mahdollisuus saada kivikovasta pelivälineestä, tai pahimmillaan äkäisen pelaajan mailasta päähän, pitäisi olla samanlainen “ajokortti”vaatimus.

Greencardin voi suorittaa heti kurssin jälkeen ja sen hinta on 30 euroa. Muualla kuin Paloheinässä kurssilla olleille hinta on 80.  Kortin saamisen jälkeen voi liittyä jäseneksi johonkin golfseuraan. Itse ajattelin Kajaaniin golffia. Täytyy katsoa, millaisia etuja muualta saa. Seuraan kuuluminen on fiksu  juttu, koska silloin kuuluu automaattisesti myös Suomen golfliiton vakuutuksen piiriin ja voi osallistua seuran järjestämään toimintaan.

Sain Jontelta lainaks sen Ralph Laurenin golfhousut. Perus mustat, oikein hyvät. =) Omasta takaa mulle olikin Catmandoon paita, koska oon meinannut aloittaa golfin aikaisemminkin. Kengät  (ja golfhanskan) kävin ostamassa Intersportista, koska toisen jalkaan muotoutuneita kenkiä ei voi oikein lainata. Ja ois se vähän epähygieenistäkin… Ei hyvä.
Eiköhän näillä varusteilla pääse alkuun. Hiukkasen himotti ostaa  mailat, mutta tyydyin tosiaan hankkiin vaan kunnon golfhanskan ensi-innon taltuttamista varten. Se kuulemma kannattaa olla, koska saa paremmin tuntuman mailoihin alusta asti ja säästyy rakoilta kämmenessä.

• Etusivu
• Uutiset
• Kenttä
• Range
• Hinnat & kurssit
• Yritykset & ryhmät
• Yhteystiedot
• Helsinki City Golf RY

Uusin: 12.08.2009

GREEN CARD -KURSSIT

Hanki pelivalmius Hanna Teerijoen suosituilla kursseilla 2009:

GREEN CARDIN SUORITTAJILLE LAHJAKSI
RAUTAMAILA JA KAKSI PELIKIERROSTA!

Paloheinän suositut green card -kurssit pyörivät läpi koko kesän syksyyn saakka. Palloilulajien monitaiturin Hanna Teerijoen (PGA) johtamat kurssit järjestetään kahdesti viikossa: iltakurssi kolmena arki-iltana, viikonloppukurssi kahtena viikonloppuaamuna.

Kurssin hinta on 190 euroa, alle 18- ja yli 65-vuotiaille 150 euroa.

Kurssin hintaan sisältyy kaudella 2009: (1) ilmainen rautamaila omaksi, (2) oikeus pelata kaksi kierrosta Paloheinän kentällä, (3) oikeus käyttää rajattomasti lähipelialuetta ennen kokeen suorittamista ja (4) oikeus lainata ilmaiseksi mailoja itsenäistä harjoittelua varten ennen green card -kokeen suorittamista. Etujen yhteenlaskettu arvo on jopa 80 euroa.

Kurssin hinta sisältää edellä lueteltujen etujen lisäksi opetuksen, avajaiskahvin, kurssimateriaalin (sääntökirjan) ja opetusvälineet (mailojen ja pallojen lainan).

Kurssilla käydään läpi putti, chippi, bunkkerilyönti, pitkät lyönnit, säännöt ja etiketti. Se, joka ei läpäise loppukoetta, saa tarvittaessa ilmaisopetusta 4 x puoli tuntia. Kullekin kurssille mahtuu kymmenkunta oppilasta per opettaja. Jos kurssin koko kasvaa, se jaetaan ryhmiin ja opettajien määrää lisätään.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Paloheinä Golf tarjoaa viikoittain kaksi kurssivaihtoehtoa läpi koko kauden:

ILTAKURSSI

MAANANTAI, TIISTAI JA TORSTAI (säiden salliessa ensimmäinen iltakurssi alkaa 13.4 2009)

KELLO 17.30-20.30

VIIKONLOPPUKURSSI
LAUANTAI JA SUNNUNTAI (säiden sallisessa ensimmäinen viikonloppukurssi alkaa 11.4.2009)

KELLO 9.00-13.00
_______________________________________________________________________

ILMOITTAUDU SÄHKÖPOSTITSE
caddiemaster@paloheinagolf.fi

SOITA

(09) 756 24412 tai (09) 756 2440

Kurssin varausmaksu/käsiraha 30 euroa (maksetaan tilille Paloheinä Golf Oy 174530-36725) ja se vähennetään kurssin kokonaishinnasta. Koko kurssin hinnan voi maksaa myös kerralla ko. tilille.

________________________________________________________________________________

Kurssia seuraa GREEN CARD -koe, joita järjestetään maanantaisin kello 12 ja perjantaisin kello 17. Erillinen koemaksu on 30 € (muilla golfkentillä kurssin käyneiltä 80 €). Koe kestää 2-3 tuntia. Se sisältää lyönti-, lähipeli-, teoria- ja pelikokeen.

Kokeeseen osallistumisen edellytys on green card -kurssin, nappula- tai junnuleirin suorittaminen. Kurssin käynyt voi vapaasti valita kokeensa ajankohdan. “Golfin ajokortti” annetaan kokeen läpäisseille käteen välittömästi.

Thanks to www.condron.us for this website.

Yesterday i met with a couple of former colleagues for lunch at the Oregon College for Arts and Craft. It was really nice to get this connection again. We had been finishing up Spring 10 last November when i left the company and half a year later they are already about to embark on Spring 11.

I am taking this occasion on filling you in on my progress with seek. I have been doing some sourcing work and have even found vendors here in town. I have some interesting ideas in terms of incorporating prints into the line to freshen things up. This is a bit harder to do on my own with such small volume then with a big corporation behind, but i am determined to find a way to do this. I have also had the chance to connect with some Yoga pros here in Portland and have them test the garments. So far i have gotten great feedback which is so valuable in developing new styles. And started sketching out some new style ideas as shown above. I plan to be working on new patterns and prototypes in the coming weeks before we are off to Spain. Now that i am much more versed on the machine i feel able to successfully do this myself. 

Unfortunately i still don’t have any idea on when i will be holding the treasured Travel and work permit to get the business up and running again. This is especially unfortunate as i have gotten requests from Nimli in NY and Sutramidtown in Phoenix last week to carry the line. Right now, i was able to push it off to later next month. I am still keeping my hopes up high – maybe things have changed until then and i can go into a drop-ship arrangement with Nimli and continue working with the Greenloop. Things will eventually change. I might even change the product focus. Obviously eco friendly. I have been mulling things over the last couple of weeks and months and am excited to shift perspectives and explore new avenues. The picture is getting clearer but it isn’t time yet to put pen to paper, craft a business plan or even talking much about it here on my blog. Yet. But i am getting close. Hope you stick it out with me

"Jesh, mä ostin täydellisen".

Lukaisin tänään taas pitkästä aikaan Ellien keskusteluketjua, johon kävin aikoinani kommentoimassa. Alkoi vituttaa, ku joku kaikkitietävä tanttu iski siel nyrkkii pöytään ja puukkoo selkään ja valitti, kuinka me markkinoidaan itteemme ketjussa eri nimimerkeillä. Toi on mun mielestä akkojen touhua. Muijat markkinoi toisia muijia esim. kundeille.

Mäki juttelin hetki sit puhelimessa yhden hyvän naiskaverini kanssa ja ihmettelinki, et miks se kuulosti alust asti ihan oudolta. No, lopuks se sai sit kakastuu, et “mul ois yks tosi kiva ystävä X. Hän on lääkiksessä ja käy duunissa yhdessä labrassa. Semmonen kivannäköinen, vähän aikaa sit eronnut mimmi, joka harrastaa motskareita ja golffiin. Mä lupasin vähä pohjustaa tätä juttuu, ku se ei viittiny soittaa. Niin, lähtisitsä sen kaa joskus ajeleen”.

Siis mistähän helvetistä tossa oli kyse?

En tietenkään lähde, jos muidu ei ees itte uskalla soittaa mulle. Mä en vaan käsitä ämmii, jotka on lähempänä kolmeekymppii ja niiden kaverin pitää pohjustaa soittoo tai tapaamista. Ja sit joku toinen ottaa yhteyttä ja vetää tommosen hirveen markkinointispiikin! Ihan ku lehtimyyjä, en saanu sanottuu ees mitään siihen väliin. En mä naista kuitenkaan ostamassa ole, vaikka mielessä on joskus käynyt Vaimonvälityspörssin pystyttäminen. Tarvetta vissiin ois.

Ja tota mä en ymmärrä yhtään, et ihmisii markkinoidaa aina ekana titteleille ja harrastuksilla. Lekuri, kauppislainen, teekkari, TAIKkilainen, ihan sama. Ei se tuleva ammatti oo se koko nainen kuitenkaan. Ei mul oo mitään hoitsu- tai jakupukuperversioo, mut tiedän, et joillain on ja siks ne deittailee vaan tiettyy ammattiryhmää. Sama se on tosin naisillakin: miehen pitäis olla  poliisi, palomies, arkkitehti tai lentäjä tai mielellään nuo kaikki. Naispuoleista kaveria lainaten: “Insinööreistä, kirvesmiehistä, stuerteista ja ekonomeista ei ole mihinkään. Insinööreillä ei käy flaksi mimmimarkkinoilla käy, koska ne on yleisesti kuivii nörttei, jotka istuu vaan koneella. Sama homma ekonomeilla, pyörittelee aamupöydässä kirjanpitoo sanomalehden kulmaan ja illan herkkien hetkien aikaan mielessä on jo seuraavan päivän pörssiuutiset. Kirvesmies taas on aina kirvesmies: pyrkii virheettömään kaatoon. Stuertit – siis häh, nehän on kaikki homoja”.

Että sillä viisii.. Äijät, valitkaa tarkkaan, mihin ammattiin kouluttaudutte, jos meinaatte naisen saada. Ei mutta ihan totta puhuen, mun mielestä toi on aika räikeetä yleistämistä. Hei haloo, vaihteluu elämään! Avatkaa silmät ja eläkää laveemmin! Pois tuo rajoittuneisuus! Ja niin joo, tohon harrastusjuttuun… Eihän se tarkoita automaattisesti mitään, et pariskunnalla on samat harrastukset ja mielenkiinnon kohteet. Tietty se antaa keskusteltavaa ja yhteistä tekemistä, mut ei se kuitenkaan niin paljon yhdistä, että itte ensisijaisesti ettisin samoi juttui haarastavaa mimmii. Niin, jotain voimannostaja prätkälesboo!? Kyl ne harrastukset siitä sit muotoutuu yhteen sopiviks hiljallee, ku suhde vakiintuu. Ainaki mulle on käyny yleensä niin, et jompikumpi innostuu toisen harrastuksesta ja siitä tulee yks yhteinen juttu. Seijaki ajo prätkäkortin ja mä innostuin kössistä. Jonki verran tuli yhdessä ajeltuuki ja pelattua sitäkin enemmän.

Jos sopivaa kumppanii alkaa ettii vaan ja ainoastaan yhteisten harrastusten pohjalta, valikoima on suppee. Ajatteleeko ihmiset oikeesti noin ahdasmielisesti? Saatanan parisuhdemarkkinat… Ei ihmisii voi ostaa…

Moro ny!

Ps. Ehdotuksia päivän pimuks? Mul ois pari, mutten osaa valita. Päivän pimust tulki mieleen, et ilmoittauduin suorittaan greencardii. Meen johku Lempäälään… Vai olikohan se Pirkkala. Vai Nokia… No, meen kuitenki. Kiitos Natalie Gulbis! Saas nähä, mitä tostaki seuraa. Mä en oikeen oo semmonen hillintää ja hirveetä hienomotoriikkaa vaativien harrastusten kuningas…

Pps. Ei tsiigus sentään, joku kyseli Elleissä, miten se pääsis Päivän Pimuks. Erkka, onx toi joku sun  läppä?! Ei kai toi nyt voi olla tosissaan…

do ya think maybe somebody lied about me, for all this crap to happen?

Thanks to www.condron.us for this website.

Check this Huff Post investigative report out. It shows how prisoner abuse/torture was applied to innocents and how upper echelons were directing it and tried to cover it up. The report was up for only a few hours before being replaced this morning. Could it be too controversial? It is the best reporting I’ve seen.- courtesy of WatchTVGetStupid – poster at Huffington Post.

Hussam Mohammed Amin: Former Iraqi Weapons Monitor Describes U.S. Abuse For First Time
Michael Bronner | Huffington Post Investigative Fund
First Posted: 07-23-09 03:25 PM | Updated: 07-23-09 06:49 PM

CommentsBy Michael Bronner
Special to the Huffington Post Investigative Fund

Major General Hussam Mohammed Amin, named the “Six of Clubs” on the Bush Administration’s card deck of “Iraq’s Most Wanted,” had, perhaps, the most impossible job in pre-war Iraq.

Reporting to Saddam Hussein’s powerful deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, Amin was the man in the middle through 12 years of fractious international weapons inspections between the two American wars — Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom — charged with managing the cat-and-mouse between Saddam and the aggressive teams of United Nations weapons inspectors. He visited the U.N. in New York a dozen times over the years with Iraqi delegations, and his white-mustachioed face was well known to anyone following the weapons fray.

In December 2002, as the prospect of war grew increasingly inevitable, Amin coordinated Iraq’s “full and final” disclosure of chemical, biological and nuclear programs to the U.N. Iraq produced a 12,000-page declaration–12 CD-ROMs and 43 spiral-bound volumes — that would be devoid of revelations, Amin told reporters, “because Iraq is clean of weapons of mass destruction.” He made one of his last public appearances at a Baghdad press conference two months later, in March 2003, as American troops massed on the Kuwaiti border.

As war rolled over the Iraqi regime, Amin disappeared from view. The only public information about him since was the announcement by U.S. Central Command that he was captured “on or around” April 27, 2003.

After the Iraqi insurgency began to dominate the news and the U.S. government figured out that Amin had essentially been telling the truth about WMD all along, the mechanical engineer was largely forgotten, except for sporadic interrogations about the Saddam regime. He was held without charges for nearly three years.

Amin’s story of his incarceration, related here for the first time, offers another instructive chapter in the scandalous history of detainee treatment — one that encompasses both physical torture and the more subtle moral quandary of leaving prisoners to languish indefinitely without any meaningful legal process, the status quo for prisoners at U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. It again raises key questions the Obama Administration has yet to fully answer as it assumes control of America’s unconventional wars: How can it square urgent, real battlefield needs with the rule of law and the spirit of the nation’s ideals?

Story continues below Hussam Amin’s story is not one the Bush Administration meant to be heard, at least not for a while.

“I am sorry,” Amin said, rebuffing me when I reached him, through a series of intermediaries, in the country of his exile far from Iraq. “We signed a paper, at the prison when we were released, [agreeing] not to talk to any media, or not to say anything. I am sorry,” he said again. “I am a refugee now.”

The “paper at the prison” Amin feared was his “Conditional Release Agreement” with Multinational Forces-Iraq, the U.S.-led military command, barring former prisoners from making political statements “inside or outside Iraq” for 18 months after their release, which also required the bond of a family member.

A few days later, however — a few hours before my overnight flight back to New York — Amin let me know that he would be sitting at a small coffee shop in his neighborhood. He’d be wearing a gray shirt, he said. He asked that I not bring along any Iraqis, or disclose his whereabouts.

“I do not tell this story, ever to anyone,” said the tentative, physically diminished 57-year-old man, crushing out a cigarette as we settled into a booth. But over the next several hours, Amin did tell the story, with an unsettling mix of humor, irony and anger.

Eventually Amin would entrust me with one of the few things he managed to take with him when he was quietly released from custody just before Christmas in 2005: 40 pages of an illicit diary he kept during his captivity at Camp Cropper, the U.S.-run prison for “high value detainees” near Baghdad– the only first-person account to emerge so far from the war’s secret-most cells.

The Black Bag: ‘Now I will die’

In Amin’s telling, the weeks immediately following the invasion found him moving furtively around Baghdad, dogged by overtures from an Iraqi-American physician rumored to be working with the CIA, offering, through relatives, to help Amin turn himself in. Then, on April 12, 2003, Amin’s friend and former colleague, chemical engineer Amer al-Sa’adi (the “Seven of Diamonds” on the card deck, also a high-profile liaison to the U.N. before the war), made a gallant public surrender, declaring before news cameras that he would prove to America that Iraq had been honest all along. Amin made what he calls a patriotic decision to join al-Sa’adi and arranged a meeting.

Amin was given the address of a house in the Karada section of Baghdad, from which he was taken in a small convoy of cars to a former presidential site in Ramadi and turned over to the U.S. military. There, he said, he was interrogated for several hours by a “respectful, logical and professional” American colonel with a “good background” on Iraq’s prior WMD programs. Afterwards, he said, he and the colonel shared lunch.

It was shortly after lunch, Amin said, that he was suddenly overwhelmed by soldiers, his hands and feet bound and a black bag pulled over his head. They hustled him away to a Saddam-era base that U.S. forces used as the first stop for their top prisoners.

Lt. Gen. Hussam Amin, of the Iraqi National Monitoring System, left, speaks with Hans Blix, chief U.N. weapons inspector, right, at Saddam International Airport in Baghdad, Iraq, Nov. 20, 2002. Blix and about a dozen U.N. officials were leaving after a two-day visit to Iraq in which they discussed the inspection process with Iraqi officials. (AP Photo) Camp Nama was run by a secretive U.S. Joint Special Operations task force, and was off-limits even to most military personnel. Those who did have access retained operational anonymity — few knew even each other by their real names. The CIA would eventually become worried enough about being associated with what went on there that it barred employees from setting foot inside.

His senses swimming in the suffocating blackout bag, Amin couldn’t anticipate where the next blow was coming from, he said — or whether it would be a punch, a kick or a whack with “some kind of special metal stick” as unseen interrogators demanded the location of nonexistent weapons. He lost track of time, unsure whether he’d been there hours or days. At some point amid the fusillade, he was told that he would be executed. He believed it. He felt blood running down his face and neck — three jagged gashes across his forehead that would require stitches. “Every day, I thought, ‘Now, I will die,’” he said — which was precisely the point: He was in “Purgatory,” the task force’s nickname for the initial interrogation/disorientation ordeal.

At some point his captors briefly removed the bag. He was ordered to lie on his side and keep his eyes fixed to the wall inches from his face. It hurt to breathe. He tucked his head in and snuck a glance at his chest: It was black with bruises. Each time he nodded off, one of his minders would kick him or hit him with the stick. “Even when you are sleeping, they beat you,” he told me, shaking his head slowly. “You wake by punching.”

For Amin, Purgatory would last five days, he said, after which he was packed off to Camp Cropper, a large prison near Baghdad Airport holding thousands of detainees, and logged into a solitary cell.

Some details of Amin’s account could not be directly confirmed, but they are consistent with later news reports and recent interviews about widespread abuses of prisoners at Camp Nama in the early months of the war. What occurred at the secret prison represents something of an overlooked angle to the ongoing torture debate, which has focused on the more exotic CIA techniques, like waterboarding, used on al-Qaeda prisoners. In Iraq, it is those captured by the U.S. special operations teams who allege the most severe treatment.

“That was standard procedure when they were grabbed by special forces,” said Rod Barton, an Australian bioweapons expert who was one of the senior advisors to the CIA from the Iraq Survey Group, the team sent by the invasion force to hunt for WMD after the invasion. “Purgatory was official policy, not the result of a few undisciplined soldiers, and in that regard it was most disturbing…What the special forces were doing was physical. They were hitting people — at least. This goes beyond psychological torture.”

The U.S.-led special operations task forces in Iraq included a melange of military and non-military players including the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 2nd Ranger Battalion, Navy SEALs, Delta Force, Special Forces, British Special Air Service (SAS), Polish Special Air Service, CIA, DIA, FBI, Marine Corps recon troops and Blackwater contractors, according to one former task force member who spoke to me at length about his experience with the unit.

Barton, who had long experience as a weapons inspector in Iraq (which included extensive interactions with Amin in his capacity as U.N. liaison), told me he first realized something was deeply wrong while reviewing files of other former weapons scientists held at Camp Cropper. People he’d interviewed over a decade of U.N. inspections were unrecognizable in the mug shots taken when they were logged into Camp Cropper.

Barton recalled two January 2004 briefings (also recounted in his 2006 book, The Weapons Detective) in which Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, military commander of the Iraq Survey Group, inquired about bruises and abrasions visible on detainees’ faces after viewing slides that included the induction photos. Dayton was told the detainees were injured “resisting arrest.” In reality, Barton said, they’d been through Camp Nama.

Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq, also dealt with Amin extensively before the war. “He was a quiet, thoughtful, beleaguered guy,” Duelfer said, likening Amin’s job to that of a Hollywood continuity supervisor — charged with keeping track of every detail in the script, guarding against inconsistencies and struggling to mitigate those that inevitably emerged. “His headaches were enormous. Any little discrepancy we’d come across, he’d have to sort that out.”

The peril associated with a slip was significant: After contending with the inspectors by day, Duelfer said Amin then had to report to Saddam’s Special Security Organization, the elite intelligence service tracking every detail of the inspectors’ activities, as well as the inspectors themselves.

Senior technocrats like Amin could have been relatively easily induced to cooperate without being abused, or even arrested, Duelfer believes. He said he made an effort to get some detainees including Amin released. He was unsuccessful. “The same quality of intelligence that went into the miscalculations about Iraqi WMD went into creating the stupid blacklist of people to be captured,” he said. “It was almost like they made a list of every Iraqi whose name they knew. Some of them were people who opposed Saddam and could have been really helpful to us, but they’d end up in prison and you couldn’t get them out.”

A spokesman for Special Operations Command, Kenneth McGraw, declined to comment on Hussam Amin’s case, other than to say the command has “no record of an allegation” from him. He said that from April 2003 to date, 68 members of Special Operations forces have been disciplined for detainee abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Yet the accumulated evidence shows that violence was systemic in these kinds of interrogations at Camp Nama and other facilities.

Stories about what was happening at Camp Nama began circulating later, after the military responded to the welling Iraq insurgency by expanding operations at the base. Interrogations were conducted in “the ‘Black Room’…a windowless, jet-black garage-size” cell where “some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts…and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball,” according to a 2006 report by the New York Times. A Human Rights Watch report from the same year includes whistle-blowing soldiers’ descriptions of physically abusive interrogations “of hundreds of anonymous, and often innocent detainees” at Camp Nama and other facilities in Iraq, noting that a policy of abuse was “apparently built into the interrogation regime.”

That was corroborated to me by another American covert operator who served in Iraq during this time and has first-hand knowledge of the facilities and methods. “There were all kinds of teams operating under all kinds of rules,” said the man, who spoke on condition that his name and U.S. government employer not be identified. “If, for example, the CIA wanted something done that fell outside its guidelines, it would get another group to do it that could.”

Which groups had what rules, and who approved them? It’s hardly just a history lesson. America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to revolve around the capture of people on CIA and Special Operations “blacklists.”

Isolation: ‘I felt I was lucky’

At Camp Cropper, Amin no longer was beaten, but he found himself in a void. His cell, he said, was fetid, dark and airless, one corner doubling as a urinal. He had no bed for the first five months, only a blanket and a crushed water bottle for a pillow. Detainees weren’t allowed to shower or shave; Amin showed me with a hand how long his beard grew.

These descriptions were nearly identical to those of another former Cropper prisoner I’ve interviewed who was detained during that period, as well as those of intelligence personnel who visited the camp. “Cropper was a really, really horrible place, in the early days in particular,” one Iraq Survey Group member acknowledged during a recent background discussion.

In his cell, Amin could hear the roar of planes from the nearby airport, and then, more and more, the war. Six months into his incarceration, he bent over surreptitiously squirreled sheets of Red Cross tablet marked “Family News Only” and began to write his prison diary. As the pages accumulated, he hid them in his cell. The entries, varying in length from a few lines to a few pages, range from banal to arresting.

It would be more than a year before Amin was permitted to mix with or talk to his former colleagues, fellow inmates at Camp Cropper. “When this segregation was lifted…we were congratulating each other as if we were out of the prison itself,” he noted in his diary.

Amin then learned he was not the only one to go through Purgatory. “Inside the prison I saw injured colleagues…who were barbarically tortured,” he wrote later, citing several by name. “When I heard my friends’ stories, I felt I was lucky because I stayed [in Camp Nama] only [five] days and the level of torture was less than what they suffered.”

While Amin and others were sitting in their cells, the U.S. District Court in Washington on July 7, 2003, issued one of the clearest definitions to date regarding torture in Iraq. The historical irony: The case involved not Iraqis in U.S. detention, but rather American servicemen who had been held by Saddam Hussein’s regime during the first Gulf War.

The case, Acree v. Republic of Iraq, is named after retired Marine Col. Clifford Acree, who was taken prisoner and horrendously beaten after his OV-10 “Bronco” aircraft was shot down over Iraq on July 17, 1991. Acree suffered a fractured skull and broken nose, and lost 30 pounds during the ordeal. He and 16 other American POWs filed suit in 2002, naming as defendants the Republic of Iraq, the Iraqi Intelligence Service and Saddam Hussein.

Awarding the plaintiffs combined damages of $959 million, the court noted among other things that “the torture inflicted included severe beatings, mock executions, threatened castration, and threatened dismemberment. The POWs were systematically starved, denied sleep, and exposed to freezing cold. They were denied medical care and their existing injuries were intentionally aggravated.” The Bush Administration sought, successfully, to overturn the Acree decision so as not to place a financial burden on the new Iraqi government.

Freedom: ‘Poor Those Who Imprisoned Me’

In early 2004, Amin notes in his diary, his captors finally provided him with proper medical treatment: “After all the suffering, I was taken to day to Ibn Sina Hospital while handcuffed,” he wrote on Jan. 5. “They also put a bag over my head so that I don’t see anything. I was diagnosed with gastric ulcer accompanied with interior bleeding. I felt that [my wife] and the girls were thousands of miles away, when they were only 2,000 meters away…”

Amin said he lost 50 pounds in his first year of captivity. His diary notes that in February 2004 “they started giving us rice after all we had [previously] was MREs [military-issue Meals Ready-to-eat]. Apparently the Red Cross had interfered when they saw we were losing weight. They began giving us an apple or an orange every day. When I came here, I was 86 kg [190 lbs]. After two months, my weight became 76kg [168 lbs]. Now I am only 64kg [141 lbs]…” A month later, on March 25, he wrote: “According to the medical check, 15 of the prisoners were diagnosed with TB. They were all taken to building #6 so that they won’t spread the sickness to others.”

I read those entries to a Red Cross official, who said neither marked weight loss or disease were acceptable, and the weight loss in particular is hard to justify given the US military’s ample food supplies in Iraq. One explanation may be the use of “dietary manipulation,” which has been cited among the “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed by U.S. military interrogators in Iraq.

Dietary manipulation was one of 14 interrogation techniques that were outside the Army Field Manual but used as a matter of policy by the Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq when it was under the leadership of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who President Obama has now tapped to run the war in Afghanistan. The 14 techniques were more “than…any other military organization at that time,” according to a 2004 report by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, then the Naval Inspector General. Other techniques including use of muzzled dogs, “safety positions,” sleep adjustment/management, “mild” physical contact, isolation, sensory overload and sensory deprivation.

McChrystal’s tenure began shortly after Amin’s five-day stay at Camp Nama but coincided with the abuses alleged in the New York Times and Human Rights Watch reports.

President Barack Obama meets with Army Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, in the Oval Office at the White House, May 19, 2009. McChrystal, who was head of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, is now the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
None of the senators on the Armed Services Committee asked McChyrstal about Camp Nama during his confirmation hearing for the Afghanistan post last month. McChrystal testified that he does not condone mistreatment of detainees and that he was uncomfortable with some of the interrogation techniques he found in place in Iraq when he assumed his command in October 2003, adding that he immediately sought to reduce the use of certain methods.

In a sharp follow-up query to McChrystal after the hearing, however, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) pointed out that seven months into his command McChrystal made a request to Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. military operations in the Middle East, for permission to use five additional “enhanced” interrogation techniques not listed in the Army Field Manual – techniques that had been suspended by Abizaid two months prior – including “sleep management,” “control positions,” and “environmental manipulation.” As an addendum, McChrystal asked that, in “exceptional circumstances,” handcuffs be allowed to “enforce the detainee’s position.”

Abizaid denied McChrystal’s request to use control positions, but approved the other four, which, in his written response to Levin’s query, McChrystal said he used “sparingly.” He also noted that he chose not to request permission to use physical contact or diet manipulation, “techniques which were in use by the SMUs [Special Mission Units] when I assumed command,” he wrote.

Clifford Acree, the Marine pilot tortured under Saddam, was freed after 47 days of captivity. Some prisoners at Camp Cropper continue to languish without charges six years after the invasion, and many more at Guantanamo have been held for nearly eight years. Last week The Washington Post reported that inmates at the U.S.-run Bagram in Afghanistan have been protesting their indefinite detention by refusing to leave their cells since at least July 1 for showers or exercise.

In his journal and during our interview, Hussam Amin described the open-endedness as the most excruciating torture of all, each repetitive round of ongoing interrogation cruelly dangling the promise of release as the Bush Administration strained against all odds to justify the war:

“I have been interrogated dozens times by the CIA, the FBI, the U.S. army, the U.S. military intelligence, the State Department, the British intelligence and even a professor from Harvard University. All of them agreed that it’s unfair that I stay in prison and that I was just doing my job through collaborating with the weapons of mass destruction inspection team,” Amin wrote on April 26, 2005. “The last interrogation was by Charles Duelfer, the head of the [Iraq Survey Group]. He told me that keeping me in prison for this long is wrong and that he and the team are sympathetic. Moreover, he told me that he expected me to be out of prison ‘very soon,’ and that was in November of 2004. They lie to me every time.”

On December 23, 2005, in the darkness before dawn, Hussam Amin’s American military guards placed the black bag over his head once again. He was driven to a nondescript stretch of highway outside the Baghdad International Airport compound, where the bag was removed for the last time: After nearly three years, he was quietly reunited with his family, one of 22 Iraqi officials released that night, among them several once considered “Iraq’s Most Wanted.” Included in the group were “Mrs. Anthrax” (Dr. Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, an American-educated scientist named the “Five of Hearts”), “Dr. Germ” (Dr. Rihab Rashid Taha) and others.

On the eve of his release, U.S. military officials at Camp Cropper, fearing for Amin’s safety from insurgents, had tried to persuade him to accept safe passage to exile in a third country. Amin refused, hoping to live quietly with his family in Iraq. As it turned out, however, the U.S. military knew better. After a flurry of death threats, Amin fled just a few weeks later, joining an estimated two-million-more anonymous countrymen for whom Iraq is no longer safe. His experience has been much like theirs. His family is divided — his wife and daughters living with him, his sons unable to get visas and marooned in Iraq. He has lost two nephews to the insurgency. He searched for over a year for work, finally landing a menial job well outside his field and expertise. When I met him, he was logging 12-hour days on a construction site.

As the months at Camp Cropper stretched into years, Amin had joined the long line of prison diarists who turned to verse: In one poem, in which he seems to question some of his own choices in life, he also addresses his captors, posing the notion that neither he, nor they, will escape the experience of Iraq:

Alas, you don’t see that one day you destroyed your

Life in this place

You destroyed the value of your life no matter where

You end up on this planet…

Today, I am a prisoner inside my homeland

A stranger, who came from very far

To steal my freedom, leads this prison

Yet he failed, for Baghdad, Tikrit and any other city

Live in my veins. Never leave me. And will never leave them,

Poor those who imprisoned me; they don’t know any of this.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Michael Bronner has written for Vanity Fair and the New York Times op-ed page, and reported from Iraq and Guantanamo for the weekday edition of CBS’ 60 Minutes. Hussam Amin’s diaries were translated by Alaa Majeed, an Iraqi journalist now based in New York. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund is an independent nonprofit journalism venture based in Washington, D.C.