Standing Rock was a hard-earned victory and while the support of veterans was brief, it was effective and proves to the US government that people will no longer stand for the abuse of our Native population.

Tim King Global News Centre

(CANNON BALL, ND)  The only word to describe the government of North Dakota and the police and soldiers associated with harming Native people who stand in objection to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), is disgusting.  Foul has a place as well.  These cretins, including John Stewart “Jack” Dalrymple, are the remaining vestiges of a while world of treaty violating terror that is bound to be strongly reinforced with the presidency of Donald Trump.

But they are going to learn that the people of this nation are done with it.  The veterans I met while attending the “Veterans Stand for Standing Rock” movement are the best people I have ever met in my life, on a level only with the Native tribal populations fighting to save the earth for all of us.  The average American, loaded with credit card debt and mortgage obligations are of little help, they are in the trap like a hamster on a wheel running hard to keep up and keep what they have.

But throughout the United States and beyond, are countless people who are willing to resist and fight back and we scared the hell out of Dalrymple and company when thousands and thousands of us descended on Standing Rock, showing our deep and sincere support and respect for people who have been fighting for months and months in the face of Nazi-like abuse to make DAPL die, and it is dead.

The latest development, unsurprisingly, is a tribal request for the Red Warrior Society to leave Standing Rock.

They ARE Standing Rock.

No group has held the line more or taken more abuse than the Red Warriors, and its eviction has a lot to do with the rumor mill. The rumor was that Red Warriors were arming themselves, this was absolutely untrue and a detailed search of their camp yielded nothing close to a weapon.  Still, they were asked to leave.  Many Standing Rock participants were angered that Red Warriors asked them to get up early and participate in direct actions.  Many say they were roused before they had a chance to eat breakfast.  Red Warriors were demanding of time but their intentions were always true.

Native people have long dealt with division dissent.

From the earliest days when Native people were coerced into working with the US Cavalry which was in the direct process of conducting a Genocide of indigenous population, to today’s more mellow Native leaders who still believe treaties and laws will help Native people, the more edgy groups like Red Warrior Society are scary.  But what is more scary than black blood being pumped beneath the Missouri River?  The catastrophic damage the pipeline represents is untenable, and just outright stupid.  What good is anything if our water is polluted beyond repair?

Another tragic consideration is the naivety and abject ignorance of Americans who have not a clue how badly their water supplies have already been contaminated.  The book I co-authored with Robert O’Dowd, “Betrayal”, details how the Marine Corps has horribly contaminated all of its military reservations, most of which were constructed during WWII.  In only a few decades, underground water supplies were ruined.

Fracking is another major issue that plagues our country today.

Red Warriors and caring veterans are all parts to the puzzle of resolution and I hope that any means necessary are used to end the vast mistreatment of our planet.

Mni Wiconi - “Water is Life”

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Tim King: Salem Insider Editor and Writer

[email protected]

(Facebook.com/TimKing.Reporter)

With almost 25 years of experience on the west coast and worldwide as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor, Tim King is Salem-News.com’s Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine who follows stories of Marines and Marine Veterans; he’s covered British Royal Marines and in Iraq, Tim embedded with the same unit he served with in the 1980′s.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from traditional mainstream news agencies like The Associated Press and Electronic Media Association; he also holds awards from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs; and was presented with a ‘Good Neighbor Award’ for his reporting, by The Red Cross.

Tim’s years as a Human Rights reporter have taken on many dimensions; he has rallied for a long list of cultures and populations and continues to every day, with a strong and direct concentration on the 2009 Genocide of Tamil Hindus and Christians in Sri Lanka. As a result of his long list of reports exposing war crimes against Tamil people, Tim was invited to be the keynote speaker at the FeTNA (Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America) Conference in Baltimore, in July 2012. This is the largest annual gathering of North American Tamils; Tim addressed more than 3000 people and was presented with a traditional Sri Lanka ‘blessed garland’ and a shawl as per the tradition and custom of Tamil Nadu.

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide; and maintains that the label ‘terrorist’ is ill placed in many cases; specifically with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, where it was used as an excuse to slaughter people by the tens of thousands; and in Gaza, where a trapped population lives at the mercy of Israel’s destructive military war crime grinder. At the center of all of this, Tim pays extremely close attention to the safety and welfare of journalists worldwide.

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