Kahzootoh

You said they initially presented themselves as offering a modeling gig? Could you tell us more about how they contacted/recruited you?

Money, but more importantly they have infrastructure.

• They have various compounds where Scientologists live and work, which gives the cult enormous power to endure fallout by going into a sort of siege mentality and waiting out whatever is going on in society from their compounds.

• When L Ron Hubbard first found his cult being kicked out of country after country over its quasi authoritarian activities, he stumbled upon a clever idea: take to the seas and keep the worst parts of Scientology off shore. For several years Hubbard’s diehard cultists lived aboard a small flotilla where he exercised absolute power. Scientology still has one large cruise ship and there is little reason to believe they couldn’t go Sea based again, maintaining a small amount of shore based support groups while the cult members are put on boats and essentially isolated from the world until the government tires of trying to restrain Scientology.

• They’ve used money to build up their influence overseas, particularly in Latin America. If need be, they can relocate Jim Jones style to a country where the government is happy to turn a blind eye to their activities for a payoff.

In many ways they’ve built a state within a state, whereas a mega church like say of Joel Osteen doesn’t have compounds which are basically small towns full of people who will provide Osteen with food, clothing, housing, and even produce his television program for little more than being allowed to remain in the compound.

One of the biggest criticisms of the British during WW2 is that they made little effort to separate devoted Nazis from those who were not in their POW system.

The result of mixing the fanatics with the apathetic was that in several camps, the devoted Nazis were able to enforce limits on cooperation with the British through violence and terror.

Both the Soviets and Americans made efforts to separate devoted Nazis from their more compliant German POWs.

Because of the overall risks to the ability to work with the Afghans. Let’s say that the local police/militia commander is engaging in the practice. If he is stopped, he is probably going to be resentful, he has family/tribal/political connections, and the odds of retaliation in some form are a given.

It’s important to understand that the accused will almost certainly deny the practice, the victims will be hesitant to step forward, and the accused will likely have tons of kinsmen providing an alibi or holding protests on his behalf: even if you stop him, removing him from his position of power is unlikely.

With that in mind, his retaliation could take the form of cooperating with the Taliban, having his politically connected relatives retaliate via legislation, or simply not cooperating with foreign forces. This is a culture where not taking revenge is abnormal, especially when your honor has been impugned.

For military authorities, turning more and more of their allies (particularly those in leadership roles) into enemies is an unwelcome prospect.

How did the City of Chicago reach out to you?

Did someone think “hey Florida has gator problems all the time, we should call and ask them for their gator guy’s number”?