In $3.8 Trillion Budget, Obama Pivots to Trim Future Deficits

By JACKIE CALMES and JEFF ZELENY

WASHINGTON — President Obama sent Congress on Monday a proposed budget of $3.8 trillion for the fiscal year 2011, saying that his plan would produce a decade-long reduction in the deficit from $1.6 trillion this year, a shortfall swollen by $100 billion in additional tax cuts and public works spending that he is seeking right away.

“We simply cannot continue to spend as if deficits don’t have consequences, as if waste doesn’t matter, as if the hard-earned tax money of the American people can be treated like Monopoly money,” Mr. Obama said at the White House.

But at the end of the decade, the yearly deficits would begin moving up again, as the projected costs of health and retirement programs for an aging population start to escalate, according to forecasts in the administration’s new blueprint.

No budget proposal is ever enacted wholesale by Congress, and the spreadsheet-boggling numbers in the White House plan are sure to produce anguished partisan and ideological debates over how best to address the deficit and the nation’s lingering economic problems between now and the start of the new fiscal year next Oct. 1 — if indeed Congress manages to complete its work by then, right before the midterm elections.

“We won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight,” Mr. Obama told reporters, saying that his budget includes investments in education and other areas that are critical to the country’s future. “We will continue to do what it takes to create jobs”.

The president said that the proposed budget was built around the goal of turning the country around “after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy”.

In brief remarks in the Grand Foyer at the White House, the president outlined the principles contained in his budget, saying: “Changing spending as usual depends on changing politics as usual”. He offered several examples of programs he believes should be eliminated and urged Congress to follow suit.

“I’m asking Republicans and Democrats alike to take a fresh look at programs they supported in the past to see what’s working and see what’s not and trim back accordingly,” Mr. Obama said.

He said that his proposal to freeze many domestic programs for three years as a down payment involves “hard choices and painful tradeoffs not seen in Washington for many years”. Yet with the debt accumulated from the deficits of the past decade, he acknowledged, “our fiscal situation remains unacceptable”.

So he will ask a yet-to-be-named bipartisan commission to recommend by December a plan to balance the operating budget by fiscal year 2015, not counting the growing payments on the country’s amassed debt. Congressional leaders have committed to hold a vote on whatever plan such a commission produces.

The senior Republicans on the House and Senate Budget committees, Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, each used the same phrase to criticize the Obama budget: "more of the same".

Mr. Ryan called the budget “a very aggressive agenda of more government spending, more taxes, more deficits and more debt — with just a few cosmetic budget maneuvers to give the illusion of restraint”.

Mr. Ryan’s own blueprint for a balanced budget relies heavily on changes in the system of Medicare benefits for future recipients, the kind of proposal that would surely provoke an outcry among Democrats.

The president’s pivot from stimulus spending to deficit reduction in the budget for the coming fiscal year assumes that the economy will have fully recovered from the worst recession in eight decades.

But because the recovery remains fragile and unemployment high, Mr. Obama is first seeking the additional stimulus measures he has outlined in recent days, including a new tax credit for small businesses that hire new employees or raise the pay of existing workers. That sum is less than the $154 billion package the House approved in December, but more than the Senate has been planning for.

A $1.6 trillion deficit for this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, would be about $150 billion greater than the shortfall in 2009, which was the highest since World War II. It would equal almost 11 percent of the gross domestic product. Economists generally consider anything above 3 percent to be unsustainable over the long haul, although many say it is a necessary evil at a time of deep economic distress.

For 2011, Mr. Obama’s budget projects a slightly lower deficit of $1.3 trillion — about the level he inherited when he took office. That would be about 8.3 percent of gross domestic product, budget documents show.

Then, largely due to economic growth, the deficit would drop sharply for 2012, when Mr. Obama will be up for re-election, the budget shows. It would fall below $1 trillion for the first time in three years to an estimated $828 billion, or just over 5 percent of gross domestic product.

But annual deficits through fiscal year 2020 would not drop below 3.6 percent of gross domestic product under the administration’s projections. That confirms that the downturn, which was more severe than the administration and many economists had anticipated, has dashed Mr. Obama’s promise to reduce the deficit to 3 percent of gross domestic product by the end of his term.

And by the end of the decade, projections show the annual deficit ticking upwards again, to 4.2 percent of G.D.P. in 2020, as growing health costs and an increasingly older population force up spending for Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

If a bipartisan commission were to produce, and Congress accept, a plan that would balance all spending by 2015 except for interest on the debt, that still would leave that year’s deficit at 3 percent of gross domestic product — reflecting the ballooning cost of financing growing government debt.

Beyond that near-term goal, Mr. Obama also will ask the commission recommend ways to reduce entitlement spending and raise revenues to put the country on stable fiscal footing for the long term.

Administration officials said they did not know when Mr. Obama would be ready to create and name a commission. It is not clear that Congressional Republican leaders will cooperate. They have opposed the idea, saying Democrats are responsible for the budget problem, though more than half the debt stems from policies enacted when Republicans controlled Congress and the White House.

The commission, as uncertain as it is, is a key part of Mr. Obama’s deficit reduction policy, which Mr. Orszag has described as a three-legged stool.

Another leg is renewed economic growth: The 10-year budget relies heavily on projections of higher tax collections from revived businesses and workers, and less spending for jobless benefits and other safety-net programs. (The White House forecasts economic growth of 3 percent next year and 4.25 percent in the following two years, with stubbornly high unemployment rates and continuing low inflation; that’s not far from the consensus of leading private forecasters)

And the third leg is a mix of proposed spending cuts and tax increases that would save $1.2 trillion over the next decade, the administration estimates.

Most of that, $678 billion, would result from letting the Bush income tax cuts expire as scheduled after this year for households that have more than $250,000 a year in income. For everyone else, Mr. Obama will propose that Congress extend the tax cuts indefinitely.

A proposed tax on big banks to recoup any losses from the financial bailout program would collect $90 billion over a decade, and Mr. Obama would raise $40 billion by ending some tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies.

Another $250 billion would be saved by freezing for three years the overall spending for domestic programs that make up about one-eighth of the federal budget, and by holding spending thereafter to the rate of inflation — a level of austerity that has no modern precedent in Washington.

Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — the so-called entitlement programs that are the largest and fastest-growing part of the budget — would be exempted, along with defense and veterans programs.

The freeze would not affect the domestic programs across the board; Mr. Obama opposed such an approach in the presidential campaign when his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, proposed it. Instead, the budget would cut or eliminate more than 120 mostly minor programs while others — chiefly for education, research and energy programs—will get increases. The savings would be about $20 billion in fiscal year 2011.

For all the talk of fiscal restraint, the budget proposal hews closely to Mr. Obama’s long-standing policy goals, especially in areas like energy research and development, military contracting, education, transportation, homeland security and immigration control.

Among the winners, elementary and secondary education programs would receive $28 billion, a $3 billion increase, and the Pell grants for college would be increased $17 billion.

Civilian research and development programs would receive $61.6 billion, a $3.7 billion increase. States and cities would get more than $100 billion for infrastructure spending, and Mr. Obama is proposing a new $4 billion national infrastructure fund to help underwrite regional projects.

For war spending, Mr. Obama requested an additional $33 billion for this year and $159 billion in 2011 for operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The total for all Defense Department spending would rise to $708. 3 billion in 2011; this year, Congress has already approved $660.4 billion and is being asked for another $33 billion for immediate war costs.

The State Department is seeking big increases next year nonmilitary assistance to Afghanistan, which would get $4 billion, and Pakistan, getting $3.1 billion. And Iraq would get $2.6 billion in 2011. In addition, those three nations would get an immediate $4.5 billion this year if Congress goes along. That means the war zones would consume the biggest slice of international programs, which in total would grow only slightly, to $56.8 billion in 2011.

The budget for the Department of Homeland Security would increase 2 percent to $43.6 billion, including $734 million to buy up to 1,000 advanced imaging machines for screening airline passengers as well as new equipment for detecting explosives in baggage. There would be more money to allow air marshals on more international flights.

While Mr. Obama’s budget for the coming fiscal year would total $3.8 trillion, just $1.4 trillion is domestic and defense spending that he and Congress directly control through annual appropriations. The rest is mostly automatic spending for the entitlement benefit programs and interest on a $12.4 trillion debt.

The administration said its proposed tax cuts for families and businesses would total about $300 billion over the decade. It would extend for a third year Mr. Obama’s “Making Work Pay” tax credit that is intended to offset payroll taxes for 110 million lower- and middle-income workers.

He also proposes to increase the child care tax credit, eliminate small businesses’ capital gains taxes on new investments and extend through this year a provision of last year’s economic stimulus law that allows small businesses to write off in the first year up to $250,000 in equipment investments.

The New York Times

Americans accused of child trafficking could be tried in U.S., Haiti says

Haitian officials say they're talking with U.S. diplomats about whether 10 U.S. citizens arrested should be sent home for prosecution

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The Associated Press

Haitian officials said Monday they are thinking of sending 10 U.S. Baptists to the United States for prosecution after they were arrested trying to take 33 children out of the country without government permission.

Officials said they hoped to quickly resolve the case while also sending a strong message that child trafficking will not be tolerated.

Haiti's communications minister, Marie-Laurence Jocelin Lassegue, said Haitian and U.S. officials were discussing the idea of trying the Baptists in the United States because Haiti's court system was crippled in the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake, which destroyed the justice ministry building and killed many government officials.

Since their arrest Friday near the Dominican border, the church group has been held inside dingy concrete rooms in the same judicial police headquarters building where ministers give disaster response briefings. They have not yet been charged.

A lawyer representing them alleged Monday that they were being treated poorly and that one of them, a diabetic, fainted and was hospitalized. Attorney Jorge Puello, in the Dominican Republic, said they weren't being given adequate medical care and food.

While the U.S. Baptists said they were only trying to rescue abandoned children from the disaster zone, investigators were trying to determine how the Americans got the children, and whether any of the traffickers that have plagued the impoverished country were involved.

Aid workers who interviewed the children said some have surviving parents, and that some were desperate to be reunited with their families.

The Baptists' “Haitian Orphan Rescue Mission” was described as an effort to save abandoned, traumatized children. Their plan was to scoop up 100 kids and take them by bus to a 45-room hotel at Cabarete, a beach resort in the Dominican Republic. The 33 kids ranged in age from 2 months to 12 years.

They were stopped at the border for not having proper paperwork and taken back to Port-au-Prince, where the children were taken to a temporary children's home.

Foreigners adopting children from the developing world have grabbed headlines recently – Madonna tried to adopt a girl from Malawi amid criticism from locals, while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have a burgeoning multicultural brood.

But in Haiti, a long tradition of foreign military intervention coupled with the earthquake that destroyed much of the capital and plunged it even deeper into poverty, have made this issue even more emotionally charged. Of 20 Haitian parents interviewed in a tent camp by the AP on Sunday, only one said she would not give up her children to give them a chance at a better life.

“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I've been thinking how I will choose which one I may give”.

“My parents died in the earthquake. My husband has gone. Giving up one of my kids would at least give them a chance,” said Saintanne Petit-Frere, 40, a mother of six. “My only fear is that they would forget me, but that wouldn't affect my decision”.

Haiti's overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the earthquake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold. Sex trafficking has been rampant in Haiti. Prime Minister Max Bellerive's personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.

Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, children could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them.

“For UNICEF, what is important is that for children separated from their parents, we do everything possible to have their families traced and to reunite them,” said Kent Page, a spokesman for the group in Haiti. “They have to be protected from traffickers or people who wish to exploit these children”.

The Idaho church group's spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, conceded that she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents, but told the AP from detention that the group was “just trying to do the right thing” amid the chaos.

The disaster inspired them to move more quickly than they had initially planned to start a shelter for 200 boys and girls in the Dominican Republic, where they hoped to build a school and chapel and work with U.S. adoption agencies to bring in Christian parents.

The children are now being cared for in an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children's Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said workers were searching for their families. “One (9-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.' And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Mr. Willeit said.

The arrested Americans include members of the Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian, Idaho, and the East Side Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. They are part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is America's largest Protestant denomination and has extensive humanitarian programs worldwide.

The Globe and Mail

Alleged Currency Fraud Investigated in Iceland

House searches of companies and four homes were undertaken on Friday by around 30 employees of the economic crime department of the National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, the Central Bank of Iceland, the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority and other institutions due to suspicion of currency fraud.

The investigation concerns alleged violations of currency restrictions and laws on foreign exchange transactions, as prosecutor of economic crimes Helgi Magnús Gunnarsson explained in a press conference along with Gunnar Andersen, director of the FSA, and Ingibjörg Gudbjartsdóttir, director of the Central Bank’s foreign exchange control, mbl.is reports. 

The investigation is directed at the company Aserta AB, which is registered in Sweden and believed to be run by four individuals in Iceland. The violations mostly concern illegal transactions of foreign currency. Swedish authorities are assisting with the investigation.

Gunnarsson said the company has been involved in extensive trade and that its actions are likely to have had a negative impact on the government’s and Central Bank’s efforts to work against the weakening of the Icelandic króna.

The company in Sweden is suspected of having had foreign currency transferred into its accounts and then exchanged the money for Icelandic krónas in an offshore market which were then transferred to accounts in Iceland.

“We are also looking into possible money laundering and tax violations, among other items,” Gunnarsson said.

Iceland Review

The Man Who Launched the Burqa Debate

By Stefan Simons

For months the French have been embroiled in a public debate centered on their national identity and a possible ban on the burqa. Immigration Minister Éric Besson, a former Socialist, is the man behind the aggressive debate, making him one of France's most controversial politicians.

Temperatures were below freezing and the winter sky was a frosty gray when French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrived at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette military cemetery in northern France last Tuesday. He had come to pay his last respects to another Frenchman, a man named Harouna Diop, a soldier and father of six children. Born in Senegal, Diop was only 40 years old when he died in Afghanistan on Jan. 13, when insurgents blew up his armored military vehicle.

"Harouna Diop was a Frenchman. Harouna Diop was a Muslim," Sarkozy said, facing a field of white crosses. "He died for France".

Sarkozy's eulogy was a rescue attempt, a rhetorical maneuver at the height of a heated debate being conducted in France over national identity. It has divided the country for months, has led to racist gaffes and has contributed to an atmosphere of heightened suspicion against French Muslims.

The debate revolves around the values of the republic, the French nation, the burqa and the question of what this country is proud of and what is important to it -- in short, many of the things that unite, or once united, the French.

The man who triggered this debate is standing next to Sarkozy at the military cemetery: Éric Besson, 51, minister for immigration, integration and national identity. The Nouvel Observateur calls him a "shameless servant of his master," while the weekly magazine Marianne concludes that he is "the most hated man in France." As for the president, he calls Besson "my blade".

Besson is a suave politician. He wears lilac-colored shirts with purple ties, has a habit of pressing the fingertips of both of his hands together while speaking and likes to pose for photographs in his office, between gilded stucco and an antique globe. Besson, who calls himself a patriot, has just written a book, "For the Nation," a literary hymn to his native France, which he says he has "loved and idolized" since his adolescent days. The immigration minister was born in Marrakech, Morocco and only came to France he was 17.

Three months ago, the minister announced the beginning of a constructive debate in the "motherland of human rights." He was convinced that ownership of the concept of the nation had been left to right-wing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen and his Front National (FN) for far too long. There was nothing wrong with launching into this debate, which is currently raging in many European countries, partly as a reaction to the growing number of Muslims living in Europe.

The discussion centers on their rights and obligations, and on their acceptance of Western values. A burqa ban is not just being debated in France, but also in Denmark and Italy, and in December the Swiss voted in a referendum against the construction of minarets.

'Fear of Arab Domination'

But it is difficult to conduct this discussion in an objective way, particularly as it has formed part of an attempt to exclude Muslims in many places. Citizens, politicians and journalists have become embroiled in aggressive and, in some cases, racist discussions over how visible Islam can be allowed to become in the day-to-day life of the republic, and how French the five to six million Muslims living in France are or should be.

On the Web site Besson had set up for the debate over national identity, censors soon found themselves having to delete many xenophobic messages. And at the citizens' forums that the Immigration Ministry organized throughout the country, many citizens expressed what they called their "fear of Arab domination".

At one such forum, the mayor of Marseilles said that he was pleased with the Muslim residents of the city, but not about the fact that they recently walked through the streets carrying the Algerian and not the French flag after a local club had won a football match. Besson later apologized for the mayor's "faux pas".

For months, the Socialist opposition has accused Besson of using the national identity debate to deliberately gloss over the country's real problems: the budget deficit, the mountain of debt, unemployment and the unredeemed promises of Sarkozy, who came into office as the "purchasing power president." According to the opposition, the only purpose of Besson's campaign is to keep these pressing problems off the political agenda before regional elections in March.

Falling Out with the Socialists

These critics are all too familiar with the minister. After all, Besson was once a member of the Parti Socialiste (PS) himself and, as recently as the 2007 presidential campaign, worked as an advisor to the party's candidate Ségolène Royal, writing pamphlets about Sarkozy, in which he derided him as an "American neoconservative with a French passport".

But then he had a falling-out with Royal, turned his back on the party, penned a sharp critique of the Socialists and, before the runoff election, defected and offered his services to Royal's opponent, Sarkozy. He is said to have helped Sarkozy prepare for the major television debate between the two candidates, even playing the part of Royal in role-playing exercises. The Socialists have branded Besson a traitor ever since.

As the president's protégé, Besson is constantly making headlines. He is everywhere. Following in the footsteps of Sarkozy who, as interior minister, closed the Sangatte refugee camp on the northern coast in 2002, the current immigration minister had a refugee camp near Calais forcefully cleared last September, in full view of live TV cameras and with the help of aggressive security forces.

Like Sarkozy, Besson is loud and provocative. He rages against the sham marriages with which immigrants acquire French citizenship, he pursues illegal immigrants and he is reporting record numbers of deportations. He was also Sarkozy's ideal pick to run the national identity campaign. A former leftist from North Africa, Besson has even been in a relationship with a 23-year-old Tunisian woman for the past few months. He couldn't be more perfectly cast for the role.

At appearances in Paris, Besson says that he wants to promote "the pride of being French." He is even considering tying the granting of citizenship to a "pact with the republic." More than 350 citizens' forums have been held, and the Web site has already attracted more than 55,000 comments. Besson recently called the effort "an immensely popular success" -- to applause from the almost exclusively white audience at an event where he was speaking.

Banning the Burqa

Besson's identity debate has merged with another controversy: the question of whether Muslim women should be allowed to wear the full veil or niqab (commonly referred to as the burqa) in public. Opponents argue that it contradicts the values of the republic and that the burqa doesn't belong in secular France, which already enacted a law banning Islamic headscarves in schools in 2004.

Last Tuesday, while Sarkozy and Besson were paying their respects to the Muslim soldier, a French parliamentary commission on the wearing of the full veil recommended that it be banned in all public facilities. The recommendation called for barring women wearing the burqa or the niqab access to government offices, hospitals, social service offices, schools and public transportation. It is now up to the parliament to turn the recommendation into law.

On the surface, the commission's task was to determine whether the burqa is compatible with the dignity of women. But the real issue goes to the more fundamental question of how much Islam secular France can tolerate. "I think that we have to ban the burqa," says Besson, "in the interest of women." Sarkozy demanded the same thing in June 2009, when he said: "The burqa is not welcome in the territory of the French republic." His wife Carla sat next to him and nodded. The commission interviewed more than 150 experts, it discussed whether wearing the burqa is a religious requirement, and it even considered the argument that a ban could improve safety on the roads. But that would have meant including motorcycle couriers and members of other professions in a ban on the wearing of "head coverings that limit the field of vision".

André Gerin, the chairman of the commission and the Communist mayor of the Lyon suburb of Vénissieux for 24 years, said that although Muslims clearly have a right to live in France, they "will have to assimilate to our society".

This puts Communist Gerin on the same page as former Socialist Eric Besson. Both men are nostalgic for a France that no longer exists, and many Frenchmen apparently share their nostalgia. It is like an everyday melody, writes Le Monde, "that suggests to the public that France is no longer the way it used to be, since immigrants, particularly Muslims with their families, have settled here".

Mobilizing the Far Right?

Vincent Geisser, a sociologist, says that "the burqa debate, together with the discussion of national identity, contributes to radicalizing the positions of practicing, moderate Muslims." According to Geisser, a legal ban on the burqa could make Muslim women even greater victims than they are today.

It seems that Besson has lost control over the debate, and now even the conservatives fear that the propaganda campaign may be damaging. His promotion to the post of deputy leader of the ruling conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) has also ruffled some feathers. The party's strategists wonder whether borrowing the slogans of the far right will not just serve to mobilize supporters of the Front National during the regional elections.

Sarkozy had already altered his tone at the beginning of the year, when, adopting a statesmanlike tone, he called for national unity and asked his fellow Frenchmen "to debate without tearing us apart, without insulting us and without dividing us." The president is expected to put an end, for the time being, to the debate over the national identity next Thursday. The controversy over the burqa ban has also been postponed until after the elections. For now, the Constitutional Council will examine whether a ban is even constitutionally acceptable. But the question remains whether it will be possible to end the discussion as quickly as it began, and whether relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in France have suffered permanent damage.

"Our country cannot allow us to stigmatize French citizens of the Muslim faith," Sarkozy said at the grave of Harouna Diop. "Today, Islam is the religion of many Frenchmen." Éric Besson, the man behind the national identity campaign, is reported to have nodded slightly in response to the president's comments.

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Spiegel Internacional

PBS film chronicles untold story of African-American service

By Army Public Affairs

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, Jan. 29, 2010) -- To commemorate Black History Month and honor African Americans who served, "For Love of Liberty: The Story of America's Black Patriots" will air during February on Public Broadcasting System stations across the country.

The two-part documentary, produced with the Army's cooperation, tells the untold story of African Americans' service in the military throughout the nation's history to win and protect freedoms they themselves often didn't enjoy.

Hosted by Halle Berry, narrated by Avery Brooks, and introduced by retired Gen. Colin Powell, the four-hour documentary begins at the dawn of U.S. history to tell the story of African Americans who risked their lives to win and protect American freedom while striving to acquire it themselves.

In addition to film footage and photos, For Love of Liberty uses letters, diaries, speeches, journalistic accounts, historical text, and military records to document the accomplishments of African Americans who served in the military since the republic's earliest days. Their personal stories give a moving account of service and sacrifice, from the Revolutionary War - whose first casualty was a black man, Crispus Attucks - to today's war against global terrorism.

"It is a wonderful story...of a group of Americans who never lost their love of this country, never lost their faith in it or what the founding fathers had promised them," said former Secretary of State Colin Powell. "And that's why this story is simply called, For Love of Liberty."

Praised by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, For Love of Liberty is much more than a collection of historical facts and figures. It shares the compelling personal stories of men and women who make up the fabric of an inspiring narrative. Their first-hand accounts are told by a Who's Who of prominent entertainers and public figures.

Those who lent their voices include: Morgan Freeman, Mel Gibson, Susan Sarandon, Louis Gossett Jr., Ossie Davis, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Jeffrey Wright, Sam Elliot, and Delroy Lindo. Sound bytes are included from Walter Cronkite, Isaac Hayes, John Goodman, Jesse L. Martin, Peter Coyote, Ice-T, James Garner, Robert Townsend, Alan Rickman, and Roscoe Lee Browne.

Other participants include Ruby Dee, John Amos, Eriq La Salle, Angela Bassett, Chris Cooper, Alfre Woodard, Cliff Robertson, and Blair Underwood, plus Charles Dutton, Kris Kristofferson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Donald Sutherland, and Isaiah Washington.

The words they deliver convey an epic saga of perseverance and triumph, which the film brings to life through rare photographs, archival materials, re-enactments, personal memorabilia, historical paintings, and posters. Also included is original footage of hundreds of monuments, battlefields, memorials, and other historic sites in more than 20 states and in Europe.

"Our goal is to raise public consciousness about this extraordinary and little-known aspect of our nation's history, and I'm deeply indebted to all those who've supported our commitment to get this story told," said Frank Martin, the film's director. "Throughout the film we look at why, despite rampant injustice, heroic black men and women fought so valiantly for freedoms they themselves did not enjoy. The theme that echoes across the centuries - the price of liberty - is one that is relevant to all Americans." 

Acclaimed actor Louis Gossett Jr., one of the film's executive producers, said: "For Love of Liberty has the power to forever change perceptions about the vital role African Americans have played during the entire course of U.S. military history. I'm honored to be part of this important and ground-breaking film, and thankful to all my fellow actors who have helped to bring this story to life."

In addition to giving overdue recognition and honor to an unheralded aspect of America's past, For Love of Liberty also includes African Americans who are shaping the future. 

Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward, the first and current commander of U.S. Africa Command, will appear in an Army Recruiting Command video that will include a half-hour segment of the For Love of Liberty film. Ward's interview segment was recorded by Soldiers Radio and Television staff in the SRTV studio. 

Ward said young men and women will see how becoming a Soldier builds skills that enable success throughout life.

"The life skills, the discipline, character and responsibility you achieve while being a Soldier is transferable and will serve you in good stead in whatever field you choose," Ward said.

U.S. Army