We Have Three Questions, The One Not Answered By This Post Is Will Obama And Kerry Allow Israel To Attempt To Take Out The Nuke Facilities And If Israel Does It On Its Own, Will US Punish Israel?

Israel’s impending raid on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

Read More About: Don’t count out the Israeli military. It has a record of pulling off daring, surprise strikes.

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http://israel-commentary.org/?p=8250

Redacted from: A Raid on Iran

BY URI SADOT
The Weekly Standard
DEC 30, 2013

As world powers debate what a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran should look like, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to maintain that Israel is not bound by the interim agreement that the P5+1 and Iran struck in Geneva on November 24. Israel, says Netanyahu, “has the right and the obligation to defend itself.” One question then is whether Netanyahu actually intends to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. The other question, no less important, is whether Israel could really pull it off.

American analysts are divided on Israel’s ability to take effective military action. However, history shows that Israel’s military capabilities are typically underestimated. The Israel Defense Forces keep finding creative ways to deceive and cripple their targets by leveraging their qualitative advantages in manners that confound not only skeptical observers but also, and more important, Israel’s enemies.

Military triumphs like the Six-Day War of June 1967 and the 1976 raid on Entebbe that freed 101 hostages are popular Israeli lore for good reason—these “miraculous” victories were the result of assiduously planned, rehearsed, and well-executed military operations based on the elements of surprise, deception, and innovation, core tenets of Israeli military thinking. Inscribed on one of the walls of the IDF’s officer training academy is the verse from Proverbs 24:6: “For by clever deception thou shalt wage war.” And this has been the principle driving almost all of Israel’s most successful campaigns, like the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor, the 1982 Beka’a Valley air battle, and the 2007 raid on Syria’s plutonium reactor, all of which were thought improbable, if not impossible, until Israel made them reality.

And yet in spite of Israel’s record, some American experts remain skeptical about Israel’s ability to do anything about Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities. Even the most optimistic assessments argue that Israel can only delay the inevitable. As a September 2012 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies contends: “Israel does not have the capability to carry out preventive strikes that could do more than delay Iran’s efforts for a year or two.” (Excuse me. What’s the matter with that? This is an existential problem for Israel)

Part of the reason that Israeli and American assessments diverge is the difference in the two countries’ recent military histories and political cultures. While the American debate often touches on the limits of military power and its ability to secure U.S. interests around the globe, the Israeli debate is narrower, befitting the role of a regional actor rather than a superpower, and focuses solely on Israel’s ability to provide for the security of its citizens at home.

Any account of surprise and deception as key elements in Israeli military history has to start with the aerial attack that earned Israel total air supremacy over its adversaries in the June 1967 war. Facing the combined Arab armies, most prominently those of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, Israel’s Air Force was outnumbered by a ratio of 3 planes to 1. Nonetheless, at the very outset of the war, the IAF dispatched its jets at a time when Egyptian pilots were known to be having breakfast. Israeli pilots targeted the enemy’s warplanes on their runways, and in two subsequent waves of sorties, destroyed the remainder of the Egyptian Air Force, as well as Jordan’s and most of Syria’s. Within six hours, over 400 Arab planes, virtually all of the enemy’s aircraft, were in flames, with Israel losing only 19 planes.

The 1981 raid on Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak is another example of Israel’s ability to pull off operations that others think it can’t. The success caught experts by surprise because every assessment calculated that the target was out of the flight range of Israel’s newly arrived F-16s. Washington later learned that Israel’s success came from simple and creative field improvisations that gave the Israeli jets the extra mileage needed to safely reach Baghdad and return, and also to gain the element of surprise by extending their reach beyond what the tables and charts that guided thinking in Washington and elsewhere had assumed possible.

Surprise won Israel a similar advantage one year later in the opening maneuvers of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. For students of aerial warfare, the Beka’a Valley air battle is perhaps Israel’s greatest military maneuver, even surpassing the June 1967 campaign. On June 9, Israel destroyed the entire Soviet-built Syrian aerial array in a matter of hours. Ninety Syrian MiGs were downed and 17 of 19 surface-to-air missile batteries were put out of commission, while the Israeli Air Force suffered no losses.

The 1982 air battle was the culmination of several years’ worth of tension on Israel’s northern border. Israel was concerned that Syria’s deployment of advanced aerial defense systems in Lebanon’s Beka’a Valley would limit its freedom to operate against PLO attacks from Lebanon. When Syria refused to pull back its defenses and U.S. mediation efforts failed, Israel planned for action. Although Israel was widely understood to enjoy a qualitative advantage, no one could have imagined the knockout blow it was about to deliver. When Syrian pilots scrambled for their planes, their communications had already been severed and their radars blinded. Israeli pilots later noted the “admirable bravery” of their Syrian counterparts, whom they downed at a ratio of 90 to 0.

And then there is Israel’s most recent high-profile conflict with Syria. When Israeli intelligence discovered that Bashar al-Assad’s regime was building a plutonium reactor in the northeast Syrian Desert, Israeli and American leaders disagreed on the best course of action. Israel’s then-prime minister Ehud Olmert argued for a military solution, while the Bush administration feared the risks, demurred, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pushed to take the matter to the U.N. (That would have been a big help — almost as big as John Kerry’s and Tzippi Livni’s current recommendations in the latest “peace proposal”) The Israelis, however, confident in their cyberwarfare capabilities, knew they could disable Syria’s air defenses. And on September 6, 2007, Israel once again overturned the expert predictions and assessments of others and successfully destroyed the Syrian reactor at Al Kibar.

The question of how exactly Israel might act to stop the Iranian nuclear program is an open one. …What is certain, however—what many historical precedents make clear—is that it would be an error of the first order to dismiss Israel’s ability to take meaningful military action against Iran. Israel has left its enemies, as well as American policymakers and military experts, surprised in the past, and it may very well do so again. (And, let us say, Amen)

Uri Sadot is a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations and holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Princeton University.

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The Effects Of Fukushima Nuke Plant Reach America. It Is Not Pretty.

JAPAN RADIATION POISONING AMERICA?

New concerns hitting U.S. Pacific coast

Published: 14 hours ago

 STEVE ELWART About | Email | Archive

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Some tuna caught off California is showing evidence of radiation poisoning. (RT photo)

Like a slow-motion train wreck, the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster is still causing damage long after the world’s media has left the news story behind.

On March 11, 2011, the most powerful earthquake ever to hit Japan triggered a tsunami with waves that reached as high as 144 feet. These waves swamped the Fukushima nuclear power-plant complex, causing a resulting shutdown leading to the world’s worst nuclear incident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

The accident has been rated a level 7, on a scale of 1 to 7, on the International Nuclear Event Scale.

As a result of this disaster, the complex’s coolant pumps failed to operate and the power plant reactors overheated, leading to a release of radionuclides directly into the ocean exceeding that from any previous accident.

Water is currently being pumped into the reactors in an attempt to keep them cool and prevent further explosions, but handling the water is becoming a problem.

The contaminated cooling water is being released directly into the ocean and is making its way into the ecosphere. Water from the storage tanks has also seeped into the groundwater and from there, into the ocean. Efforts to use a various barriers to prevent contamination have not completely stopped the leakage.

In another effort to stem the radioactive water from reaching the sea, Japan has pledged to spend $470 million to construct an “ice wall” around the reactors to contain the water. Under the Japanese plan, a wall of frozen earth will be constructed around the reactors to prevent the water being used to cool the fuel rods from comingling with the sea.

“The world is closely watching whether we can dismantle the (Fukushima) plant, including the issue of contaminated water,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “The government is determined to work hard to resolve the issue.”

This is quite a change from previous statements the prime minister has made. In a speech Sept. 7 in front of the International Olympic Committee in Buenos Aires, Abe stated categorically, “Let me assure you the situation (the contaminated groundwater problem) is under control.”

Six days later, Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, disputed the prime minister’s claim at a meeting in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture.

“We regard the current situation as not being under control,” said Kazuhiko Yamashita, a senior official at Tepco.

Tokyo was awarded the 2020 Olympic Games following Abe’s speech.

“The quantities of water they are dealing with are absolutely gigantic,” said Mycle Schneider, an independent consultant who has previously advised the French and German governments and has consulted widely for a variety of organizations and countries on nuclear issues. “What is worse is the water leakage everywhere else – not just from the tanks. It is leaking out from the basements, it is leaking out from the cracks all over the place. Nobody can measure that.”

It is clear that the repercussions from this disaster are far from over.

There has been a debate over the size of the Pacific Ocean and the quantity of the contamination. Some say that even though the U.S. is directly across the ocean from the accident, the volume of the water will easily disperse the contaminants.

Others say the particular isotopes from the reactor do not disperse easily and don’t sink to the bottom. They remain in the water column, from top to bottom.

In this last scenario, sea life has a much greater chance of contacting and carrying the suspended radiation. They either breathe it or eat it in others. Scientists are watching carefully for any signs of contamination in the ocean’s biosphere.

According to Maxim Shingarkin, deputy chairman of Russia’s State Duma Committee for Natural Resources, “Currents in the world ocean are so structured that the areas of seafood capture near the U.S. northwest coast are more likely to contain radioactive nuclides than even the Sea of Okhotsk, which is much closer to Japan. These products are the main danger for mankind because they can find their way to people’s tables on a massive scale.”

This is an issue of significant importance to the United States since, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. imported almost 45 million pounds of fish from Japan in 2012.

There is evidence the radioactive water emanating from the plants starting two years ago has made its way into the ocean currents and will soon start to affect the ecosystems in North America as early as the spring of 2014.

Some say it is already here.

Reports are coming in that the North American food supply is already being affected by Fukushima.

Bluefin tuna caught off the San Diego coast is showing evidence of radioactive contamination. This is the first time that a migrating fish has been shown to carry radioactivity 3,000 miles from Fukushima to the U.S. Pacific coast. It is a nutrition source that accounts for approximately 20,000 tons of the world’s food supply each year.

According to the report published by the National Academy of Sciences, “We report unequivocal evidence that Pacific Bluefin tuna, Thunnus orientalis, transported Fukushima-derived radionuclides across the entire North Pacific Ocean.”

“We were frankly kind of startled,” said Nicholas Fisher, one of the researchers reporting the findings online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“That’s a big ocean. To swim across it and still retain these radionuclides is pretty amazing,” Fisher said.

To rule out the possibility the radiation found in the tuna was carried by ocean currents or dropped into the ocean through rainfall from the atmosphere, the team also analyzed Yellowfin tuna, found in the eastern Pacific, and Bluefin that migrated to Southern California before the nuclear crisis. They found no trace of cesium-134 and only background levels of cesium-137 left over from nuclear weapons testing in the 1960s.

The report went on to say: “The levels of radioactive cesium were 10 times higher than the amount measured in tuna off the California coast in previous years. But even so, that’s still far below safe-to-eat limits set by the U.S. and Japanese governments.”

The results were surprising enough to conduct further tests this coming summer with a larger sampling of migratory fish. The tuna that were the subject of the previous study were exposed to radiation from Fukushima for approximately one month. The upcoming study will be looking at fish that have been swimming in radioactive waters for a longer period.

They will also be expanding their study to cover other migratory species including sea turtles, sharks and seabirds.

There have been many other reports of fish and sea-creature populations dying in the Pacific. Also, there have been many discoveries of cesium–137 in high concentrations in seafood caught in the Pacific and sold in North America. There have also been many reports of unexplained deaths among wildlife:

• Vast amounts of sea stars are “melting” off the west coast of North America

• Killer whales are dying off the coast of British Columbia

• There is an epidemic of sea lion deaths due to starvation along the California coastline. The question is: why are they starving? Has the food chain been disrupted?

• Polar bears, seals and walruses along the Alaska coastline are suffering from fur loss and open sores

• Along the Pacific coast of Canada and the Alaska coastline, the population of sockeye salmon is at a historic low

• Something is causing fish all along the west coast of Canada to bleed from their gills, bellies and eyeballs

• Experts have found very high levels of cesium–137 in plankton living in the waters of the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and the west coast, affecting the food chain in a process called “biomagnification”

As of now, there has been no direct correlation between these events and Fukushima, but the timing of the events and some contributing factors are giving scientists pause and are giving substance for calls for more studies.

While the evidence may circumstantial at this point, it is enough for countries to take action.

Due to radiation fears, Fukushima Prefecture fishermen have had to dump most of their catch. Two years into the nuclear disaster, South Korea still bans Japanese fish and seafood imports from eight Japanese prefectures. The ban covers an area of Japan that exported 5,000 metric tons of fishery products, or about 13 percent of the 40,000 total tons imported last year to South Korea.

In eastern Japanese ports outside of the prefecture, hundreds of pounds of fresh fish are sent to Onjuku, a small town a few hours away from Tokyo.

Once they arrive, samples of the fish are checked for radiation in a move to restore the world’s confidence in Japan’s food supply in the wake of Fukushima.

Japan’s Marine Ecology Research Institute, or MERI, operates out of Onjuku and is charged with the testing. MERI was established in the mid 1970s to certify that fish supplies remain safe despite wastewater discharge from the nuclear plants. It is now working overtime to assure the world that Japan’s fish are safe to eat.

Even with these assurances, many buyers are not sure just how much to trust the quasi-government laboratories. The U.S. has recently banned agricultural and fishery imports from 14 prefectures in Japan, up from the eight that South Korea banned.

Leung Ka-sing, an associate professor at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University’s department of applied biology and chemical technology, has stated his country should expand its ban on fish products from the current conditional ban on eight prefectures to all of Japan. This is in response to public fears of contamination from ongoing leaks at the Fukushima nuclear plant. He said the ban would act as a preventive measure and address fears over radiation.

The events in the Pacific Rim do not seem to be isolated incidents. They may not be provocative. The oceans are large, and they contain a massive population of species that get sick from time to time. But they are in numbers that warrant an in-depth discovery and full disclosure.

Radiation is found everywhere in the world, so some radiation in food can be expected. How much is a safe level seems to vary over time. Immediately following the World War II atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, American military construction crews were sent into the cities to clear irradiated rubble, telling the crews that the work was safe.

Only years later did they find out it wasn’t safe, and that serious, permanent injury resulted from working in the area.

Gordon McDonald, Ph.D, executive director of Research for the Koinonia Institute, contributed to this report.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/japan-radiation-poisoning-america/#OtOAR4MefSjlOW3I.99

What Lies, Deceits, And Coverups Have Occurred In 2013? This Article Will Make You Sick!

OPERATION SPIKE

TOP 10 MAJOR MEDIA COVER-UPS OF 2013

WND's annual review presents news that wasn't 'fit to print'

Published: 9 hours ago

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In an administration known for its dissembling, deciding which lies are its biggest is a challenge.

But as health care takes center stage in the run-up to the 2014 mid-term elections, the many lies that were used, with the aid of a compliant media, to convince the nation that the passage of Obamacare presented nothing to worry about top WND’s annual list of the 10 most “spiked” or underreported stories of the last year.

At the end of each year, many news organizations typically present their retrospective replays of what they consider to have been the top news stories of the previous 12 months. WND’s editors, however, long have considered it more newsworthy to publicize the most underreported or unreported news events of the year – to shine a spotlight on those issues that the establishment media successfully “spiked.”

WND Editor and CEO Joseph Farah has sponsored “Operation Spike” every year since 1988, and since founding WND in May 1997, has continued the annual tradition.

Produced with the help of WND readers, here are the WND editors’ picks for the 10 most underreported or unreported stories of 2013:

1. The lies by Obama, Sebelius, Reid, Pelosi and others concerning Obamacare

Before President Obama’s so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was rammed through Congress and signed by the president March 12, 2010, 85 percent of Americans had health-care coverage. Further, an ABC News/Kaiser Family Foundation/USA Today survey found that 88 percent of the insured rated their coverage as excellent or good and 89 percent were satisfied with the quality of care they received.

Those facts belie the insistence of Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi that the health-insurance system was broken beyond repair and needed a complete overhaul orchestrated by the federal government, which, they contended, somehow could serve Americans better than the free enterprise system alone.

The Democrat leaders promised Americans that if they already had insurance, they had nothing to worry about.

They declared over and over again: “You can keep your doctor,” “You can keep your health-care insurance plan” and “The Affordable Care Act is about insuring more people and about affordable health care.”

Pelosi infamously said Congress needed to pass the bill “to see what’s in it.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Americans certainly are finding out what’s in it as millions lose their insurance while only a fraction of the number needed to sustain the system have signed up.

By the end of November, only 137,204 people had “selected a marketplace plan.” By Sunday, the administration announced, 1.1 million had signed up, far short of the expectation of 3.3 million. But the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services won’t say how many people have actually enrolled. To become enrolled, the insurer must receive the first month’s premium payment.

Some who have signed up for coverage on the notoriously failed website are receiving email notices informing them they shouldn’t assume they are covered unless they “have seen the Confirmation Letter from the Disbursing Office.”

A poll in December found that 58 percent of uninsured haven’t even looked at exchanges yet. Also, 59 percent of those without coverage think getting insurance would “hurt them financially.”

Those who have signed up might have insurance beginning Jan. 1, but analysts are warning that the plans are likely to give them access to fewer doctors and hospitals. So much so, they warn, that the system could begin to resemble Medicaid, the health care program for low-income Americans.

A panel of doctors testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that they are being dropped from patient provider networks because of Obamacare.

While much has been made about the Obamacare website’s inaccessibility, those who have been able to complete the process have become susceptible to ID theft because the site doesn’t fails to meet the standards of the Federal Information Security Management Act.

Sebelius has refused to answer forthrightly about whether and how often she met with President Obama about Obamacare and the website prior to the rollout. HHS, meanwhile, is obstructing a congressional investigation by instructing contractors working on the website not to release documents to the investigators.

Among the many other problems: Most insurers aren’t advertising the Obamacare taxes that are added to premiums. Individual tax filers earning more than $200,000 and families earning more than $250,000 will pay a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax in addition to the existing 1.45 percent Medicare payroll tax. An extra 3.8 percent Medicare tax also is assessed on unearned income, such as investment dividends, rental income and capital gains.

In a rare, candid moment at Obama’s pre-Christmas press conference, the president summarized not only his health-care fiasco, but his entire administration, writes WND founder and CEO Joseph Farah.

“Since I’m in charge,” Obama said, obviously, we screwed it up.”

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/12/top-10-major-media-cover-ups-of-2013/#QSzrpIRMR200A6jB.99

NSA Spying On Us Gets Even Worse--If Someone Wrote This, No One Would Believe It.

The NSA Intercepts Computers, Plants Bugs

December 31, 2013 by Sam Rolley 

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If you got a shiny new computer for Christmas, you may want to check it for bugs. A report from the German magazineDer Spiegel reveals how the National Security Agency’s intrusive data collection efforts go far beyond so-called “metadata” collection, detailing how the NSA sometimes intercepts computer deliveries in order to plant spyware to monitor user activity and gain backdoor access to the electronics.

According to the report, NSA has intercepted and compromised computers, hard drives, routers and other electronic equipment from Cisco, Dell, Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor, Samsung, Huawei and other big-name technology companies.

In what is described as one of the NSA’s “most productive operations,” the agency can collaborate with the FBI and CIA to intercept new computers and electronic equipment en route to it intended destination and retrofit the devices with espionage software or hardware designed to create a log and provide access to a user’s every activity.

Based on information obtained by the magazine, NSA expects to have backdoor access to 85,000 computers around the world by the end of 2013 via physical modifications or network hacking. That’s up from 21,252 in 2008.

Der Spiegel also reports that the NSA also has a listing of tools resembling a mail order catalog to give its spies the ability to do everything from computer monitoring to phone call interception.

From the report:

…And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA’s specialists seem already to have gotten past them.

This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies … for tapping their targets’ data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000.

With its ability to intercept computers and install spy software in addition to its digital data penetration and collection abilities, the NSA has essentially gained the ability to penetrate the security of just about every major technology firm.

Many of the firms that the NSA exploits to gain user data by physical and electronic means have no idea that they are providing information to the spy agency, according to the report.

In one example, Der Spiegel reveals that the NSA has the ability to spy on all of Microsoft Corp.’s crash reports, the messages sent to users and Microsoft engineers when a program malfunctions on a consumer’s machine. The crash reports are used to help the agency find better ways to infect users’ computers with spyware. The magazine cites one NSA document that jokingly replaces the standard Microsoft error message a user sees when a crash report is sent with, “This information may be intercepted by a foreign sigint (signals intelligence) system to gather detailed information and better exploit your machine.”

In an email to USA Today, Microsoft said that it was completely unaware of the government’s activities.

“Microsoft does not provide any government with direct or unfettered access to our customer’s data,” a company representative said. “We would have significant concerns if the allegations about government actions are true.”

When The Cops No Longer Obey The Law, How Long Can Civil Society Continue?

2013: The Year Of Too Many Cops Doing Too Many Bad Things

December 31, 2013 by Ben Bullard 

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Milwaukee officer Michael Vagnini, who was sentenced to 26 months in prison earlier this year for conducting a series of illegal strip searches over the course of at least two years

This may have been the year the police state topped itself for abuse of power and double standards. We’ve reported this year on plenty of outrageous crimes for which cops have received little or no punishment, but there were too many cases of cop abuse this year to stay on top of in real time.

Take the case of Milwaukee officer Michael Vagnini, who was sentenced to 26 months in prison earlier this year for conducting a series of illegal strip searches over the course of at least two years. The searches involved anal probing, willful humiliation and genital fondling; and a series of lawsuits filed by the victims allege far worse.

Vignini’s family thinks the sentence is too harsh, but the victims’ attorneys can’t believe two years is all he got.

Vagnini pleaded no contest in April to four felony charges of misconduct in public office, as well as to four misdemeanor charges for conducting illegal strip searches, in exchange for prosecutors’ dropping of seven counts of sexual abuse against him. He, along with three other officers, had all been placed on suspension with pay for their involvement in the ring of illegal searches, but Vagnini’s participation — along with the fact that all the victims are black — provided the common threads that ran through each incident.

Cavity searches in Wisconsin cannot be done by police officers — only medical professionals under the sanction of a search warrant.

Vagnini’s abusive behavior may have begun before 2008, when anecdotal complaints of illegal searches began coming in to the Milwaukee Police Department; but the department began investigating the allegations in 2010. Court documents reveal that he would initiate contact with his targets by pulling them over on probable cause for not wearing a seat belt or having windows with illegal tinting.

Then, according to a summary of lawsuits filed against Vagnini, he’d start “searching.” From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Robert Mann, 55, contends that Police Officer Michael Vagnini stopped him as he was walking near N. 31st St. and Atkinson Ave. in June 2011 and without probable cause, pulled down Mann’s pants and put his hand in Mann’s rectum “in an unsafe, unhygienic, and intentionally humiliating fashion.”

No drugs were recovered from Mann.

[A] juvenile, identified as K.F., was 15 when he was riding in a friend’s car that was stopped by police on N. 26th St. in December 2011. According to the suit, he was ordered out of the car before Vagnini reached into the teen’s pants, touching his genitalia and his anus while Police Officer Jacob Knight watched.

No drugs were found, but K.F. was still taken to a police station and cited for an ordinance violation. The suit does not specify the violation.

In July 2009, Chavies Hoskin, 28, was stopped while driving on N. 13th St. Vagnini reached into Hoskin’s pants and pulled a bag with cocaine from Hoskin’s anal area, while Sgt. Jason Mucha and Officer Thomas Maglio watched.

Hoskin was charged with delivery of cocaine. His suit contends that the officers lied in reports, and that Vagnini also falsely testified under oath about how and where he found the cocaine.

Because Vagnini avoided sexual abuse charges, he does not have to register as a sex offender. The other three officers, whom the investigation deemed to have only assisted while Vagnini performed the cavity searches, got fines and community service.

“[W]hy should twisted individuals get lighter sentences for these acts due to their wearing a badge and a uniform?” asks watchdog website Police State USA. “If a gang of strange men approaches a person, accosts them, threatens them with violence, detains them against their will, and penetrates their orifices with parts of their bodies, that should be considered rape or sexual assault, and those involved should be considered accomplices.  That’s what would happen to a normal person without a badge.  ‘Official misconduct’ is only the tip of the iceberg for these monsters.”

Maybe so. Nevertheless, 26 months is apparently a devastating sentence for Vagnini’s family, who packed the courtroom awaiting the June ruling. “His wife broke down sobbing when Circuit Judge Jeffrey Wagner finally announced the sentence at the end of the two-hour hearing, and Vagnini was led away in handcuffs,” the Journal Sentinel reported.