Christian Values

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor has criticised attempts to “eliminate the Christian voice” and argued that many Christian felt embarrassed to display our faith - sure but who can blame us when Bush and Blair have done so much evil in the world in the name of Christianity? And the Catholic Church hasn’t helped matters. When I hear the phrase Christian values I shudder, because what normal follows would make Hitler proud.

like most Catholics, I’m morally opposed to abortion, especially after the first trimester, when it is obviously a human life that is being destroyed, and I make no apologies for that, but women have been having abortions for thousands of years and they’re not going to stop now, and often they have very good reasons for doing so. There is no point introducing unworkable legislation that doesn’t reflect the society we live in. So although I would like to see the cut off point reduced to 12 weeks, I don’t support an outright ban.   

But as a Catholic I don’t feel compelled to share the Church’s current position on sex. There’s no sensible reason for the Church to hold the views it does on masturbation and contraception, they’re not based on scripture, they based on bad science. I’ve yet to find a passage in the Bible that says: Thou shalt not rub your clit or bring yourself of with a vibe. I don’t think any woman should sleep with a man she’s not prepared to have a child with because contraceptives don’t always work, but I’m not married and have no intention of getting married.  I can’t regard people living in long-term committed relationship as evil just because they happen to be the same sex. I also think there a lot of hypocrisy here, the Church has turned a blind eye to lesbian nuns and gay priests for years, how many gay Popes have there been?Pope Boniface VIII said that there is, “no more harm in sex than rubbing your hands together.”

Jesus was put on this earth to atone for the sins of Adam, that he vicariously sacrificed himself for humanity and took Isaac’s place fulfilling the covenant between God and Man, so man wouldn’t need to sacrifice man an the altar, like so-called Christians are doing in Iraq and Afghanistan now, whilst professing their love for Christ. The central theme of Jesus’ ministry was “to know God is to do justice.” 

Pope Boniface VIII said, “the healthy, rich and happy people live in the earthly paradise, the poor and the sick are in earthly hell.” So Christian values: resistance to oppression, injustice, inequality and authoritarianism and tyranny. Jesus was a left wing revolutionary and liberal.

Eleven-Year-Old Rape Victim Was Asking For It

Judge Robert Atherton, let Jon Dixon walk free with a three-year community order, after Dixon pleaded guilty to meeting a child following sexual grooming, sexual assault of a child, and attempted rape of an 11-year-old girl because she “welcomed sex” and “expresses herself in relation to sexual matters with an awareness which would make many twice her age blush.”

The maximum sentence for his crimes is life, but in passing sentence, Judge Atherton, asked “Is it right to put a 20-year-old man with all the sexual awareness he’s demonstrated and occasionally carried out, into custody for a substantial time?”

The answer to that ought to bloody obvious: YES!

The judge gave credit to Dixon for not deliberately seeking out a child on the net - she told him she was 20 at first - but then when she told him she was 12 (she was really 11) he didn’t back off: he continued to exchange graphic sexual text messages with her, asked her to send him pornographic images of herself, and arranged to meet her twice for the purposes of sex. The first time he met her in her school lunch break and fingered her pussy, then two days later, he attempted to screw her up against a wall in a shop alleyway but was prevented by “physical difficulties”, i.e. he couldn’t get an erection.

The fact that this was consensual shouldn’t matter: the statutory rape law are explicitly there because minors under 13 can have sexual urges, but the law regards that consent as meaningless, a girl of that age needs protecting from herself, so she can’t be taken advatange of by sexual predators. Of course this girl was sexually aware - most girls start masturbating around that age - but Dixon is an adult. He knew she was under 13 at the time of the sexual assault and attempted rape, they were both premeditated crimes, which happened on two separate occasions.

The purpose of the law is to keep the vendetta off the street, when a convicted child rapists is allowed to walk free, the law has failed. Jon Dixon shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets. If tomorrow he was castrated by vilgilantes could any one say that wasn’t in the interest of justice? Would a jury convict them?

God Save the Queen

Prince Harry has done he did what no senior British or American politician’s son has done in the last seven years: serve on the frontline, earning his Operational Service Medal for Afghanistan, which his aunt Princess Anne, the Colonel in Chief of his regiment, pinned on his chest, but he is no hero. He’s a murderous imperialist thug. He begged to take part in the genocidal violence in Iraq and was disappointed he wasn’t allowed, but for for 10 weeks, he was allowed to take part in the occupation of Afghanistan and the butchery of Pashtun men, women and children, who wanted nothing more than freedom from foreign occupation.      

Under the Labour government Britain has officially invaded four countries on three continents. None of these invasions were sanctioned by the UN, they were all illegal ‘wars of aggression’ under the Nuremberg defintion. Unofficially Britain has been engaged in secret dirty wars around the globe from Northern Ireland to Iran, sponsoring acts of terrorism - all in the Queen’s name. Blair and Brown are war criminals but so too is the Queen.

On the 6 February 1952 Britain was an imperial power, since that time more countries have been invaded and occupied in her name than any other Head of State.

The historian Mark Curtis estimates that Britain is directly responsibility for deaths of between 4 and 6 million killed in conflicts since the end of WW2. He says this figure is likely to be an underestimate and including indirect responsibility were Britain was assisting other despotic regimes the overall figure is between 8.6 million and 13.5 million. Which doesn’t include the tens of millions oppressed people in her name. This puts Britain morally on par with Nazi Germany.

So what personal responsibility does she bear?

Every war except the Iraq war was carried out under her authority under the Royal Prerogative. She has personally approved every war. She has consistently supported every British military action. This is a woman who claims to be devinely appointed to rule over a 120 Million people.

There’s no bigger terrorist or warmonger in the World.

The Death of New Labour?

The New Labour project is dead but not quite burried, the Labour party has suffered its worst defeat in the local elections for 40 years, losing and incredible 331 seats in the May Day massacre, and now over half of Labour supporters (apparently there are still some left) want Gordon Brown to resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Party - less than a year after Blair was kicked out of out of office.  Brown might not be as despised as much as Tony Blair - it’s hard to feel any passion for the man - but he inspires even less confidence, and Britain has had tired of New Labour.

The vote was less than endorsement of David Cameron’s limped-dicked, chinless wonders, and more than a protest vote: the British public is hardly enthused about the Old Etonian Party but they want change. In the London mayoral election, the closest Britain has to a presidential election, that was defintely the case, the Old Etonians ran their most popular politician, Boris Johnson, against Ken Livingstone, and he only managed to beat him by 1,168,738 to 1,028,966 votes, when it should have been a landslide. Ken has been a great Mayor of London but not recently and Londoners were always going to punish him for the Olympics, the Congestion Charge and standing by the Met Commissioner responsible for the assassination of Jean Charles de Menezes but despite all the odds, Ken managed to secure over a million votes when Labour was being crucified in the local elections. 

The British public might want change but in Britain’s Parliamentary undemocracy, where more legislators sit by birth right or appointment than our elected and where the executive is entirely appointed by a hereditary theocrat, who claims a political mandate from God, they won’t get it through the ballot box. Cameron is a carbon copy of Blair, and has barely any discernible policy differences, let alone ideological ones, with New Labour. So New Labour might be dead as a political party but their ideology (fascism repackaged) is far from dead.

The Media, Propaganda and Iran

Ever since the Gutenberg press, governments have used the media to indoctrinate, peddle propaganda, terrorise and manipulate the public, and America is no different: there is no freedom of the press. The State might not technically own the media but it might as well had, for all the independence that it shows. In a time of war (and when has America not been at war for the last 66 years?), the American media will do its uppermost to suspend disbelief in the face of US government propaganda, no matter how moronic and blatantly untrue the lies, fabrications and distortions. Even the supposedly liberal press is little more than a glorified stenography service for the Bush administration - the media doesn’t inform the public; it evangelises the Gospel of America to the converted, and hopes they don’t ask to many questions. And when they do, the media reluctantly hints at the truth, and sometimes, just spurts it out and quickly moves on - never mind, that for months or years, they’ve been feeding us the lie.    

We had the lies about Afghanistan, the lies about Iraq and now we have the lies about Iran, or as Time magazine barely manages to put it, 

“for years, U.S. officials have now aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq’s violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason.” 

Time acknowledges that “no concrete evidence has emerged in public that Iran was behind the weapons. U.S. officials have revealed no captured shipments of such devices and offered no other proof,” but still can’t quite bring itself to say that the Americans accusations are nothing more than a cheap attempt to shift the blame for the US military’s abject failure in Iraq and growing casualties. But even so, at least Time magazine, albeit half hearted, makes it clear that the Iraq government doesn’t accept the American accusations. In fact, the Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, made the Iraqi government’s position perfectly clear on Sunday:

“The prime minister has ordered a special panel of representatives of security ministries to document any Iranian intervention in Iraqi affairs. The reason behind forming this committee is to find tangible information and not information based on speculation,”

And when asked about American accusations that weapons captured from some fighters bore 2008 markings suggesting Iranian involvement, Dabbagh said: “We don’t have that kind of evidence… If there is hard evidence we will defend the country,” adding, “We don’t want to be pushed into any conflict with any neighboring countries, especially Iran.” Then in a reference to the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted eight years and cost more than a million lives, said: 

“What happened before is enough. We paid a lot… It happened because the others [America and Britain] pushed Iraq to take an aggressive stance with Iran. We want to organize relations with all neighboring countries to preserve the interests of Iraq.”

  

 

The Sword of Damocles Hanging over Iran

There is not truth in CIA Director Michael Hayden claim that it is the policy of the Iranian government “to facilitate the killing of Americans in Iraq,” - if it was America wouldn’t have enough body bags to send their troops home in - but the fact that he saying it is being read as proof that the Bush regime is attempting to deceive the American public and garner support for an attack on Iran. Iran has already proved beyond all doubt that it doesn’t have a nuclear programme and even the usually highly susceptible American public refuse to be convinced otherwise, so now the Bush administration, desperate for a new casus belli, is blaming Iran for indigenous resistance to the American occupation of Iraq, ignoring the fact that the Iraqi government is so close to Iran, that Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki felt compelled this week to publicly respond to his detractors, saying he was not “Iran’s man in Iraq”.

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If further proof that America is about to attack Iran was needed it came this week, when a second American aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, arrived in the Persian Gulf, US Navy spokesman, Jeff Davis, said the USS Abraham Lincoln would overlap with the departing aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman by “no more than a day or two”, and Lt. Gen. Carter Ham, director of operations at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said “This is not some grand scheme to destroy the Iranian regime and its nuclear program. It is a practical plan on how to respond to an Iranian strike or a provocation,” and although the US military are redrawing plans to attack Iran, the been doing that for years, but former CIA analyst Ray McGovern suspects darker motives, speaking to the Charleston Gazette, he said this week, “I believe George Bush and Dick Cheney plan to take care of Iran before they leave office.”  

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So all the signs are there, but as I said in previous post, I don’t America is about to attack for precisely the same reason that Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers leader Ahmad Khatami doesn’t, he said yesterday, that the reason America hasn’t attacked Iran is because it “has not been possible, not that it did not want to,” adding that “If maniacs in Washington or Tel Aviv seek to take action, the Iranian nation will slap them so hard they will not get off the floor,” which isn’t just rhetoric, it’s been the assessment of the Bush regime and the US military going back to 2003.

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There is a real logical paradox here, if it wasn’t possible to attack Iran, when America believed in Bush, for strategic reasons how is it likely now, when according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey Bush has disapproval ratings 71%  (making the most unpopular American President since polling began in the 30s) and public support for the Iraq war has dipped to just 30%, with 68% opposed? As Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director points out ”Americans are growing more pessimistic about the war. In January, nearly half believed that things were going well for the U.S. in Iraq; now that figure has dropped to 39 percent,” a war with Iran is a war neither the American public or American military want, it would take some doing for the Bush regime to launch a war now.

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The American public probably share Ahmad Khatami criticism that American Presidents are “weak-willed servants of Israel,” because lets face it, the only people clamouring for a war with Iran in America are the Israel lobby because it has finally dawned on the American publicly that they’ve lost in Iraq and the economic costs of the war will last long after Bush and his cronies are dead and buried. Bush telling America it’s worth it because it would embolden their enemies, only convince the intellectually subnormal, America’s enemies are of it’s own making and they are all embolden. That’s not why Bush refuses to pull out of Iraq, American troops are still there for one reason only: to save his blushes - he doesn’t wasn’t to go down in history as the President who lost to the Saracens.

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So what’s the reason for the sabre-rattling?

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My guess, the same reason for the sabre-rattling since 2005: pressure on Iran, the EU, the IAEA and the security council, with a good dose of electioneering as well. It would be naive to think the current wave of American sabre-rattling just happens to coincide with an election. Earlier this year America made up a story about an encounter with the IRGC, claiming that Iran had threatened an American vessel, only later to admit that they didn’t. Now we’ve had a claim that the USS Western Venture, fired on Iranian speed boats. The IRGC gave a blunt response this week, ”If UK or US vessels had fired at Iranian boats, based on previous experiences, they would have faced the harshest reaction by Iranian forces,” and lo and behold, the US Navy Fifth Fleet spokeswoman Cmdr. Lydia Robertson rushed out an announcement that’s gone under the radar this week, that the USS Western Venture, was approached by two small boats of ‘unknown origin’. The incident that never was, isn’t enough for a casus belli but it sits well with McCain campaign.

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Also, the EU is offering Iran a package of incentives to persuade them to shelve nuclear enrichment - no one thinks Iran will agree. America isn’t going to convince the security council to agree to meaningful sanctions and the Iranian have actucally increased their economic might since sanctions began, not only have they signed energy deals and attracted investment from Russia, China and NAM countries, they have also done so with Switzerland and Australia too. And if that wasn’t bad enough for Bush, yesterday it was annouced that a consignment of heat insulation material, destined for the Bushehr nuclear power plant from Russia, that was empounded by Azerbaijan, has now been delivered to Iran. America has virtually no leverage on Iran, the only thing that it can do to stop investment in the country is threaten war, to make pontentional investors nervous but the Swiss deal proves, that they aren’t buying it. The Sword of Damocles has been hanging over Iran for too long.

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The question isn’t whether Bush is treachrous or evil enough to wage war with Iran - obviously he is - it’s whether America is stupid enough to let him? As Bush says, “Fool me once, shame on… shame on you. Fool me… you can’t get fooled again.”

 

 

The Anarchists in the Present Time

by Errico Malatesta

A section of our movement is eagerly discussing about the practical problems that the revolution will have to solve.

This is good news and a good omen, even if the solutions proposed so far are neither abundant nor satisfactory.

The Pending War With Iran

Once again the American State controlled media is dutifully beating the war drums for the Bush administration - pimping out the same old tired anti-Iranian propaganda, conspiracy theories and downright lies, and giving credence to the half-baked idiocy comming from the miles gloriosus General Petraeus - a sure sign that Bush will order an attack on Iran before November. Or so we’re told, but I’m not so sure. There is no doubt that Bush would love nothing more than to go to war with Iran before he leaves office - Iraq was only ever a stepping stone to Iran - but we’ve been here before, the media predict war, like demented racing tipsters, and then nothing happens.

In fact, the the Bush administration has been ratcheting up the anti-Iranian rhetoric since August 2005, when Iran ended it’s voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment, after nine pointless months of talks with the EU-Troika. Not that Bush is remotely concerened about Iran civil nuclear programme: he’s a Christian fundamentalist psychopath, who hates American secularism and couldn’t care less about the national interest, he’s more interested in pleasing the Zionist lobby, who were campaigning for an attack on Iran before the invasion of Iraq. But despite pressure from the Zionist lobby and the voices in his head, Bush decided against war in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. What’s different now? 

Bush’s reason for wanting to attack Iran haven’t changed but his pretexts have: no sane person believes Iran has a nuclear weapons programme, so now it’s the lie that Iran is supporting the insurgency in Iraq and is destabilising the wider region, which are both complete nonsense. Iran supports the Iraqi government, which is far more pro-Iranian than it is pro-American, and unlike America and Israel, Iran hasn’t started any wars in the region or invaded or occupied any other countries for centuries, it also isn’t guilty of genocide or ethnic-cleansing, and hasn’t tried to colonise the land from the river of Egypt as far as the great river the Euphrates (who said Americans don’t get irony?).

But the American public just aren’t buying his argument, they might not like Iran but they don’t want to go to war with Iran either, they realise it’s counterintuitive because Iran doesn’t pose a clear and present danger to America now but it would if it was attacked. And the more he accuses Iran of meddling in Iraq, the more he convinces the public, Iraq is an unwinnable war, and more importantly, the military have told the Bush administration in terms that even they can understand, a war with Iran is a war America can’t win and can’t afford to fight. Bush couldn’t care less what the American public think (he’s not standing for election again) and doesn’t care for the military much either, but he can’t sell a war with Iran to his own administration, let alone Congress and the American public. I don’t see that changing between now and January.       

 

Neither Democrats, nor Dictators: Anarchists

By Errico Malatesta

Theoretically ‘democracy’ means popular government; government by all for everybody by the efforts of all. In a democracy the people must be able to say what they want, to nominate the executors of their wishes, to monitor their performance and remove them when they see fit.

Naturally this presumes that all the individuals that make up a people are able to form an opinion and express it on all the subjects that interest them. It implies that everyone is politically and economically independent and therefore no-one, to live, would be obliged to submit to the will of others.

Democracy and Anarchy

By Errico Malatesta,

The rampant dictatorial governments in Italy, Spain and Russia, which arouse such envy and longing among the more reactionary and timid parties across the world, are supplying dispossessed ‘democracy’ with a sort of new virginity. Thus we see the creatures of the old regimes, well-accustomed to the wicked art of politics, responsible for repression and massacres of working people, re-emerging – where they do not lack the courage – and presenting themselves as men of progress, seeking to capture the near future in the name of liberation. And, given the situation, they could even succeed.

Clinton’s anti-American Statement

“In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them. That’s a terrible thing to say but those people who run Iran need to understand that, because that perhaps will deter them from doing something that would be reckless, foolish and tragic.” (Hillary Clinton, 22 April 2007)

Hillary Clinton nailed her colours to the mast, she is an Israeli first, American last. There is, according to most American political pundits, very little chance that the Senator for Tel Aviv will be elected President on the United States in 2008 but if McCain wins, she is assumed to have ambitions for 2012. America has seen what a disaster having an Israeli in office has been during the Bush presidency, America is on the verge of economic meltdown; it’s losing (or lets be honest, lost) two wars - one in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan; it’s the most unpopular nation on Earth; and it’s international standing is at an all time low. Add on to that, that its archenemy Iran, is in political ascendancy just as American diplomatic leverage is on the wane, with Iran now having more influence in the Middle East than America does, and of course America has spectacularly failed to convince the world that Iran is a threat or prevent Iran from mastering nuclear fuel production. As Clinton put it ”Iran is feeling quite powerful, they have been empowered by the actions of the last seven years.”

The Senator for Tel Aviv’s statement wasn’t surprising, it’s exactly what you’d expect the George Bush to say, but it was telling because it is clearly not in America’s national interest. Iran doens’t have nuclear weapons and has shown desire to possess them - although Israel, Pakistan, America, Britain and France all have nuclear weapons in range of Iran - but if Iran did ever decided to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, Israel would presumably go out in a blaze of glory and fire all 250 nuclear missiles at Iran. But why would America launch a nuclear strike on Iran?

Sure, America can obliterate Iran, (so can Israel) but the price would be self destruction:  would be oil starved, bankrupt and desperate, Europe would be worse off, and Russia and China would be waiting in the wings. Iranian oil and gas would be contaminated and there would be backlash throughout the Arab world. Simple self-preservation dictates that America should cozy up to Iran - the US has 4% of the world population but consumes 25% of the world’s oil - Iraq has proved it’s easier to buy oil than to steal it.

Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons and wouldn’t be able to launch an attack on Israel before 2016, so the Senator for Tel Aviv’s hypothetical doesn’t even arise, the real question is what American deterrent is there to prevent Israel from nuking Iran?       

    

UN Condemns American and Israeli Imperialism

Much to the annoyance of America and its colony, Israel, the NAM communiqué on Human Rights and Cultural Diversity has been approved at the 179th meeting of the Executive Board members of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation.

As international diplomacy goes, it might only be a bitch slap to America and Israel but at least it reaffirms the “international communities” rejection of Americanism and Zionism as moral evils that are incompatible with the doctrine of universal human rights.

The communiqué includes the following:

“Deploring any attempts or efforts to use economic might as an instrument to impose cultural domination on others,”

“Declaring that any doctrine based on racial, or cultural superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and must be strongly rejected as a ground and manifestation of apartheid and expressing deep concern on the cultural uprooting which is continuously unfolding in the Palestinian occupied territory and the occupied Syrian Golan on the basis of such doctrines by the occupying power,”

“Affirming the need for all States to continue their efforts to enhance dialogue and broaden understanding among civilizations, in an effort to prevent the targeting of different cultures and religions, and contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts and disputes,”

“Denouncing the attempts to identify any culture with terrorism, violence and human rights violations,”

“Affirmed the importance for all peoples and nations to hold, develop and preserve their cultural heritage in a national and international atmosphere of peace, tolerance and mutual respect,”

“Noted that the world today is composed of States with diverse political, social and cultural systems and religions determined by their history, traditions, values and cultural diversity, whose stability can be guaranteed by the universal recognition of their right to freely determine their own approach towards progressive development.”

“Expressed their solidarity to face the growing attempts to create a new form of colonialism and uniculturalism, which surreptitiously permeate people, destroying the basic values and core principles of their own societies, in as much as industrialized countries seek to impose their values, opinions and lifestyles on developing countries, to the detriment, and even the loss, of cultural identities,”

“Welcomed the decisions of the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council to convene the Durban Review Conference in 2009, Called upon the Durban Review Conference and its Preparatory process to encourage debates on promotion of respect for cultural diversity among all nations, in the context of global fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,”

“Recognized that foreign occupation hinders the enjoyment of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms. Condemned the inhumane measures imposed by the occupying power on the Palestinian people including border closures, severe restrictions on the movement of people, destruction of homes and vital infrastructure, including religious, educational, cultural and historical sites and all the actions designed to change the legal status, geographical nature and demographic composition of the occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan and destroy their cultural heritage, and called upon the international community to take all appropriate measures to bring an end to this tragic and intolerable situation.”

British Commandos were Captured in Iranian Waters

Ministry of Defence documents released under the Freedom of Information Act shows that the British government claim that the 15 British commandos and sailors arrested by Iran in the Arvand river on the 23 March 2007, were detained in Iraqi territorial waters are a bare faced lie. There were in fact, quite legally, arrested in Iranian territorial waters, as I said back in April 2007.  

The documents reveal state that the arrests took place in waters that are certainly not internationally recognised as Iraqi - it actually took place in uncontested Iranian territorial waters. Although there is no official agreement between Iraq and Iran, Iraq hasn’t contested Iranian territorial claims since 1987. The documents also reveal that the Occupation forces unilaterally drew a territorial divide between Iraqi and Iranian waters, annexing what they knew to be undisputed Iranian waters, even tough they had no legal mandate to do so: the UN issued a statement saying that the UNSC resolution 1546 doesn’t give Britain and America the authority to redraw Iraq’s borders or enter Iranian territorial water. And then, they couldn’t even be bothered to tell the Iranians that they annexed their territorial waters. So Iran had no idea that Britain had effectively declared war with Iran on Iraq’s behalf.

And the documents also reveal that the British commandos raised their weapons first, before the Revolutionary Guards’ coastal protection vessels even came alongside. They then radioed for a helicopter gunship to provide air cover, but faced with a superior fighting force, the petrified Royal Navy and Royal Marine Commandos quickly surrendered without firing a round. Not only is that pretty unheroic it’s an act of war or piracy. The Iranians were well within their rights to hang them.       

This is the second time an incident like this has occurred; in 2004, eight British sailors and marines (reputedly SBS) were captured entering Iranian waters. At first the British government furiously denied it, then they admitted it was probably true and promised the Iranians it wouldn’t happen again. But this time, Blair, in full willy waving mode, went running to the UN and the EU and fed them a pack of lies. The UNSC categorically rejected the British claims, and refused to issue a statement condemning Iran or disputing Iran’s territorial waters. 

It’s also now crystal clear that this wasn’t a rountine bordering mission. At the time of the 15 commandos and sailors were arrested, in the entire Persian Gulf, only 66 boardings had been carried out in a period of 4 weeks - this is one of the busiest waterway in the World. Captain Air admitted to SKY NEWS that their mission included intelligence gathering on Iranian naval movements, which is the real reason they ventured into Iranian territorial waters.  

  

Arabs pro-Iran and Anti-America

The American and British media has long parroted Bush administration propaganda, even when being ostensibly critical: the media as a whole, have never really challenged the administration’s excuses for its abject failure in Iraq, they won’t say Petraeus is a cowardly worm, who is blatantly lying when he blames Iran, al-Qaeda or the “special groups” for the continued indigenous Iraqi resistance to American occupation. Just like the media will happily parrot the Bush admin’s line that Arabs consider Iran, and not America, as their number one enemy in the region. They’ve repeated these canards so often that they have become perceived wisdom for those without any.     

A poll of more than 4,000 respondents in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) conducted by Professor Shibley Telhami, for the University of Maryland and Zogby International found 83% of the Arab street had an unfavourable view of the United States and 64% had a very unfavourable view. When asked to name two countries that posed the “biggest threat” to them, a resounding 95% named America and 88% named Israel. And when asked which world leader they disliked most, George W. Bush was on top of the list with 63% with his nearest rival, Ehud Olmert on 39%. But the Arab street is no more optimistic about a post Bush America, when asked which presidential candidate would have the best chance to advance peace in the Middle East, 32% said the policy will be the same regardless of who is elected, nearly double the number, who said Barack Obama, McCain could only muster 4%. 

And contrary to American claims, Arabs don’t support their occupation of Iraq: only 2% of the Arab street believe that Iraqis are better off now than they were before the American invasion in March 2003, and only 6% believe the surge is working. In fact, 61% said Iraqis would be able to bridge their differences if America quickly withdrew its forces, which of course, no America presidential candidate is prepared to do. Things were no better for America foreign policy in Lebanon either, 9% expressed sympathy with the American backed Lebanese government, while 30% backed the Hezbollah led opposition. And when asked which foreign leader they admired the most: the top three were Hezbollah secretary general Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, on 26%; Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on 16%; and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on 10%.   

The loathing the Arab street has for American foreign policy is a stark contrast with their view of Iran, not only do 67% believe Iran has the right to pursue its nuclear programme and that international pressure to freeze it should cease, nearly three quarters of Saudis said that if Iran acquired nuclear weapons, it would have positive effect on the region. Only a meagre 7% percent of Arab respondents named Iran as one of the two greatest threats, as Amir Arfa points out in a response to General Petraeus’ mind-numbingly stupid remark that Iraq had “no desire to be the 51st state of Iran”, Iran didn’t invade and occupy Iraq in 2003, nor did it draft Iraq’s constitution and oil laws, and Iran doesn’t have over 150,000 troops in Iraq and isn’t arming hundreds of thousands tribesmen under the pretext of fighting Al-Qaeda, all against the wishes of the supposedly sovereign Iraqi government.
 
And the plight of Palestine is still a major issue for 86% of the Arab street - nearly sixty years after America endorsed the Jewish colonisation of Palestine and the ethnic-cleansing and genocide of the indigenous Palestinian population, the Palestinians are still denied their own State and the right to return - but in a recent Gallup poll, 71% of Americans said they had a positive view of Israel and 75% said they had an unfavourable view of Palestine. It’s hardly unreasonable for Arabs to consider the America their greatest threat, America is the main cause of instability in the Middle East and has proved time and time again, that it’s a supporter of oppression and genocide of Arabs.   

Blair’s Abject Surrender

Yesterday, the High Court ruled that the SFO suspension of the al-Yamamah bribery inquiry in December 2006 on the advice of the former Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, was unlawful and in unusually harsh language accussed the Blair government, Lord Goldsmith and the SFO, of “abject surrender” to the “blatant threats” of the Saudi regime, adding, “We fear for the reputation of the administration of justice if it can be perverted by a threat.” What they didn’t say is that al-Yamamah has funded terrorism.  

Al-Yamamah is Britain’s biggest ever arms deal, since it was agreed in 1985, Britain has supplied 120 Tornado fighter jets to the Saudis at estimated profit of £43 Billion. Although the deal is officially between BAE Systems and the Saudi government, the deal was real negotiated by the British and Saudi governments as a oil for arms deal. BAE Systems would supply Tornados to the Saudis, the Saudi would then transfer oil to Shell and BP, who would pay for the oil by putting money into a the Ministry of Defence account held by the Bank of England, then the MoD paid BAE systems. All of the transactions are covered by the Official Secrets Act. 

The SFO inquiry focused on the accusation that BAE Systems secretly paid Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan (Bush family friend and business partner) and Saudi ambassador to America for over 20 years, more than £1bn in bribes, with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence. At the time, Lord Goldsmith said that the SFO suspended the inquiry because it would cause ”serious damage” to UK-Saudi relations and threatened national security, which couldn’t be further from the truth, Prince Bandar bin Sultan is a terrorist financier, with had directs to Bin Laden, the Taliban and terrorism in Iraq and Lebanon.  

Iraq’s National Security Counselor Fazel al-Shavili disclosed that the Iraqi government has found concrete documents that categorically prove, that Saudi princes pay $30 million a month to the MKO. Last month Al-Bayyinah al-Jadidah reported it was reported that Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan (a Bush family friend) has donated $750,000 to the MKO. According to American military figures, 45 percent of all foreign militants fighting American and Iraqi forces and over 50% held in custody are Saudis.

And Seymour Hersh points out, America and Saudi Arabia have been sponsoring ”Jihadists” groups in Lebanon:

“The key player is the Saudis. What I was writing about was sort of a private agreement that was made between the White House, we’re talking about Richard - Dick - Cheney and Elliott Abrams, one of the key aides in the White House, with Bandar. And the idea was to get support, covert support from the Saudis, to support various hard-line Jihadists, Sunni groups, particularly in Lebanon, who would be seen in case of an actual confrontation with Hezbollah - the Shiite group in the southern Lebanon - would be seen as an asset, as simple as that.”

One of the terrorist groups the Americans and Saudi set up was Fatah al-Islam, under Shakir al-Abssi, an associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who took over the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared in Beirut last year and were eventually driven out by the Lebanese army under the command of General Francois Hajj, who they later assassinated with a car bomb. Also, it’s been alleged that the previously unheard of militant group “An-Nosra wal Jihad fi Bilad al-Sham”, who claimed responsibility for the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on the 14 February 2005, along with 21 others, when explosives detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in Beirut, is actually a front for the Saudi backed “Group 13″.  

This is why the British government ordered the SFO to suspend its investigation into al-Yamamah, the British and American governments have been indirectly funding terrorism in the Middle East through Prince Bandar bin Sultan. It’s very possible that some of the al-Yamamah money found its way to Bin Laden in the 90s.

 

General ass-kissing little chickenshit

Admiral William Fallon, described Gen. David H. Petraeus as an “ass-kissing little chickenshit”, which is probably an overly flattering appraisal. The lying, obfuscating, and frankly cowardly, Petraeus, in his excuse ridden testimony before the Senate, refused to acknowledge his own gross incompetence as a military commander or admit that the Surge had been an unmitigated disaster that failed to achieve a single one of its objectives, and now leaves America in a worse position than it was it was pre-surge. Instead he blamed Iran - a 105 times!  - last year it was al-Qeada, this year it was Iran.  

Despite not having a shred of proof, Petraeus accussed Iran of training, supplying and directing the Iraqi resistance, a claim that has been completed rubbished by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki, Iraqi President Jala Talabani (who asked President Ahmadinejad to call him Uncle Jalal), Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr, and even a House Commons Select Committee.  

Between March and June 2007, six British soldiers: Kingsman Danny Wilson, of the 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Rifleman Aaron Lincoln, of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles; Kingsman Alan Jones, of the 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment; Rifleman Paul Donnachie, of the 2nd Battalion The Rifles; Corporal Jeremy Brookes, of the 4th Battalion The Rifles; and Corporal Rodney Wilson, of the 4th Battalion The Rifles, were killed by a sniper in the Basra area. All six were killed by NATO high-velocity 5.56mm rounds fired from the same rifle. The Shia resistance in Basra, who Petraeus says are being armed by Iran, are using US manufactured arms and ammunition!

So is America supplying and training the insurgents? In a word: yes. While no Iranian has been convicted of selling arms to insurgents, American mercenaries, Blackwater USA, have. Also the Sahwa al- Iraq, the so-called”concerned citizens”, are primarily the Sunni resistance in Fullujah, i.e. The Islamic State of Iraq, previously known as the Mujahideen Shura Council - the same people that Bush was calling al-Qaeda prior to the surge.  

Petraeus referred to the Iranian backed “special groups”, who he says are the main threat to Iraq’s stability, the Iraqi government doesn’t agree: the Iraqi Prime Minister and Iraqi President have applaude Iran for it’s positive role and don’t even accept the special groups exist. In fact, neither does Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al-Sadr, or Ayatollah Sistani - none of the power brokers in Iraq do. There’s a very good reason for that: the special groups don’t exist. Petraeus is a thoroughly dishonest self-serving politician, who is deliberately misleading the American public just like he said al-Qaeda in Iraq was the main threat to Iraqi security last year, when in fact, they ceased to operate in January 2006, he’s blaming the non-existent Iranian “special groups”. The real threat to Iraq’s security is American occupation… especially under the command of Petraeus. Better generals have faced firing squads for less, although in Petraeus’ case, whoever gives the coup de grâce ought to aim for his arse - it’s where he keeps his brains.

  

         

 

 

 

Anarchy

By Errico Malatesta

Anarchy is a word that comes from the Greek, and signifies, strictly speaking, “without government”: the state of a people without any constituted authority.

Before such an organization had begun to be considered possible and desirable by a whole class of thinkers, so as to be taken as the aim of a movement (which has now become one of the most important factors in modern social warfare), the word “anarchy” was used universally in the sense of disorder and confusion, and it is still adopted in that sense by the ignorant and by adversaries interested in distorting the truth.

General Odom: The Surge is Prolonging Instability

I’m sometimes accused of being anti-American when I suggest that the surge has been an unmitigated disaster, as if somehow being left wing, anti war and having a vagina is an automatic refuation of anything I might say about the surge. Well, William E. Odom, isn’t anti American, left wing, or anti war and he doesn’t have a vagina. In fact, he’s a lieutenant general, (retired), in the US Army. This is what he had to say:       

Testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Iraq.

Wednesday 02 April 2008

Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you again. The last occasion was in January 2007, when the topic was the troop surge. Today you are asking if it has worked. Last year I rejected the claim that it was a new strategy. Rather, I said, it is a new tactic used to achieve the same old strategic aim, political stability. And I foresaw no serious prospects for success.

I see no reason to change my judgment now. The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for unity as the president claims.

Last year, General Petraeus wisely declined to promise a military solution to this political problem, saying that he could lower the level of violence, allowing a limited time for the Iraqi leaders to strike a political deal. Violence has been temporarily reduced but today there is credible evidence that the political situation is far more fragmented. And currently we see violence surge in Baghdad and Basra. In fact, it has also remained sporadic and significant inseveral other parts of Iraq over the past year, notwithstanding the notable drop in Baghdad and Anbar Province.

More disturbing, Prime Minister Maliki has initiated military action and then dragged in US forces to help his own troops destroy his Shiite competitors. This is a political setback, not a political solution. Such is the result of the surge tactic.

Anarchism and the State

Anarchism is often maligned and misrepresented by those who fear it or don’t understand it. One of the most common (but completely unfounded) assumptions about anarchism is that it seeks to abolish the State. Not true, Anarchism isn’t opposed to the State; it’s opposed to government. That’s what the word anarchy means: “without government”.

A government is nothing more than a coercive organisation that oppresses and exploits to it’s own advantage and never in the interests of the governed. It sets laws and taxes. It maintains a monopoly on violence and punishment. It commits acts of violence and oppression against individuals, under the pretext that an individual can commit a crime against the State. It encourages and discourages free trade, grants or prohibits monopolies, retains or sells public services, and nullifies or upholds private contracts. It makes war or peace. It regulates and sanctions free association, and in every conceivable way, tries to control relations between individuals.

Another common assumption is that anarchism seeks chaos out of order. Again, not true, anarchism seeks to bring about revolution and overthrow the existing order but it doesn’t advocate chaos; it advocates a free State, where no-one is governed or governs. There is no good reason why we should live as prisoners with a government as jailer. As Errico Malatesta put it,

“those who really want ‘government of the people’ in the sense that each can assert his or her own will, ideas and needs, must ensure that no-one, majority or minority, can rule over others; in other words, they must abolish government, it must be made impossible for some to impose themselves on, and sponge off, the vast majority by material force.”

This is the difference between anarchism and democracy. Anarchism is the belief in a free State, where force isn’t in the hands of either the many or the few, but in the hands of us all. Whereas democracy replaces one jailer with many jailers. And whilst an elected jailer might be better than an unelected jailer - a jailers still a jailer, and a prison is still a prison. As Malatesta points out, “Democracy is a lie, it is oppression and is in reality, oligarchy,” and inevitably leads to dictatorship.

The standard tired old excuse of the governing classes is that we need jailers because if they weren’t there the prisoners would all kill each other. They’ve said it so often, that even the governed believe it’s true but its not, the State doesn’t have to be a total institution like a prison. If the prisoners were free to leave, those that wanted to would, and those that didn’t would stay, this is the basis of a free society. When you open the prison gates, a prison stops being a prison. That’s what anarchism does: opens the prison gates.

This doesn’t mean an anarchist state would be without conflict or even rules — every society forms rules for the common good — but it would be a society without government, where arrangements were freely contracted. We don’t need a police force, army, courts or any of the other instruments of oppression in the hands of a government. The defence of the people should be in the hands of the people.

But above all else, anarchism is an ideology of pragmatism, to quote Malatesta again

“do whatever is possible today, while always fighting to make possible what today seems impossible… if today we cannot get rid of every kind of government, this is not a good reason for taking no interest in defending the few acquired liberties and fighting to gain more of those”.

Are Americans Stupid?

I’m sure a good number of people would balk at the suggestion that the average American is stupid but according to a Gallup Poll taken last month, when asked which country is the greatest American enemy: 25% of Americans said Iran, 22% said Iraq, 3% said Afghanistan, and 1% Saudi Arabia, which means that at least a quarter thought that Iran a country that has never attacked (or threatened to attack) America, is more of a threat than two countries America is at war with, and the country that most of the 911 suspects come from - none came from Iran. There is no logical reason for Americans to feel threatened by Iran.       

When asked which countries they had an unfavourable view of 88% said Iran, 77% said Iraq, 75% said Palestine, 73% said Afghanistan and only 25% said Israel. In fact, 71% of Americans had a positive view of Israel. Why should Americans have such a positive view of Israel?

Israel has been the principle reason for every American military action in the Middle East since 1948, is the principle beneficiary of American military and financial aid, has the most powerful political lobby group in America, and has been responsible for the murder of Americans citizens on a number of occasions. It’s also the main cause of instability in the Middle East and was rated as the greatest threat to world peace in an EU poll.

On the basis of successive Gallup polls, when it comes to world affairs, the average American doesn’t make rational judgements and is seemingly incapable of critical reasoning.  In 2001, 8% of Americans polled considered Iran the greatest American enemy, that figure rose to rose 31% in 2006 at the height of Bush’s rhetoric against Iran, then dropped to 26% in 2007 and again by another percentile this year. It’s also very interesting that although 60% of Americans polled realise the Iraq War has been a mistake - there is still 38% who think it is. And 43% who think the surge is working, despite the fact it that it has failed to achieve any of stated objectives and violence in Iraq has now risen to pre-surge levels once again. 

Is the average American stupid? Probably, but no more so than the average European. The problem isn’t stupidity – it’s a mindset that is highly susceptible to government propaganda and the lies, distortions and patent bias of the corporate media.  

Iraq’s Defining Moment

President George W. Bush: 

“I would say this is a defining moment in the history of a free Iraq.”

Bush might finally be proved right about something on Iraq, the assault on Basra has certainly been a “defining moment” for the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki, and it’s also been one for the Occupation forces - they took on Moqtada al-Sadr and lost spectacularly. 

Prime Minister al-Malaki put his reputation on the line by personally overseeing the operation in Saddam’s Basra palace. He vowed victory through force of arms and no negotiations, but even with air support, the combined strength of the Iraqi Security Forces, the Badr, and American Special Forces wasn’t enough - they were defeated by the JAM in Basra, Nasiriyah and Sadr City. The 4,200 British troops based in Basra airport, at a cost of $3.2 billion a year to the British tax payer, didn’t join the fighting - the British government said they would but British Army commanders refused to let them enter Basra. 

In the end, there were negotiations, and it was left to Iran to broker a ceasefire. Nuri al-Malaki was sidelined bu his own party, who sent Ali al Adeeb, a member of Da’wa, and Hadi al Ameri, the head of the Badr, to Qom to meet with Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Qods brigades of Iran’s IRGC. They signed an accord with Sadr to end the violence, which led to Sadr’s statement on Sunday calling for the JAM ”to end all military actions in Basra and in all the provinces” and “to cooperate with the government to achieve security,” but he has a high price: the government have not only failed to disarm or dislodge the JAM, Sadr insisted that they grant a general amnesty to all his supporters and any in jail, if they haven’t been convicted of a crime. Even members of Da’wa are calling on Malaki to resign.  

If last weeks violence shows anything, it’s that the American “surge” had failed. Occupation forces aren’t remotely capable of controlling events on the ground and there is zero prospect that is going to change in the foreseeable future. This could be the defining moment in the war - when Americans politicians and media finally admit that the war in Iraq is lost! - somehow, I doubt it.

The Dalai Lama

You don’t win a Nobel Peace Prize without having blood on your hands and the Dalai Lama is no different, it might suit his followers (the Gelug sect) and the Americans to pretend that the ”God-King” is a wise, benign, pacifist and has some sort of democratic mandate to rule Tibet, but that’s plainly not true.

He’s a murderous, racist, charlatan and Western stooge. When he was in power he was a brutal, merciless, theocratic despot, who lived in the 1000-room, 14-story Potala Palace, and his followers were eye-gouging, child-buggering, corrupt, religious fanatics, (see Michael Parenti: Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth). Although, that doesn’t stop the murderous old fraud and his “Free Tibet Movement” from being a cause celeb for liberal imperialists and gerbil lovers, under the pretext of human rights.  

Truth be told, the Dalai Lama and Bin Laden have a lot in common: they’re both religious fanatics, both have followers who murder innocents, both were on the CIA payroll (the Dalai still is), and both have visions of a theocratic empire. The Dalai’s “Greater Tibet” covers the Tibet Autonomous Region, the adjacent Qinghai Province, the southern part of Gansu Province, the western part of Sichuan Province and the northwestern part of Yunnan Province (about a quarter of China), which the Dalai wants to ethnically-cleanse of Han. According to the Dalai’s brother, Tendzin Choegyal:

“We will first seek autonomy, and then run the Chinese out! Just like Marcos was run out of the Philippines, and the British were run out of India! We are thinking of the world, of coming generations. Autonomy or self-rule is the start.”

The Dalai led a CIA funded uprising against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, he supported the illegal bombing of Serbia, illegal occupation of Afghanistan, and was undecided about the illegal Occupation of Iraq, according to the self-declared pacifist, ”it’s too early to say, right or wrong,”  - too early to say whether the genocide of over a million people is right or wrong!!!   

He was also a supporter of Augustine Pinochet but then when you consider the hypocritical old fraud was pocketing $1.7 million a year from the CIA, throughout the 60s, and is now on the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) payroll, which according to  the NEDs first acting president Allen Weinstein, does today what was “done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”.

Tibet has been part of China since the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century but was independent in 1951 when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered Lhasa and - depending on your point of view - liberated or occupied Tibet. The Chinese government claim the term “Tibet Independence” came about only some 20 years after the British invasion of the area in 1904, whether the Tibetans would agree or not is a different matter, but what’s not in debate is that the Tibetan people didn’t join the Dalai’s uprising,  and during the Lhasa riots a very small percentage of the population participated, even though ethnic Tibetans are 92% of the population. So there clearly isn’t much support for the Dalai cult amongst the majority of Tibetans. 

It’s interesting that the Western governments, NGOs, politicians and journalists, who frequently line-up to denounce Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iranian government as terrorists and despots, when they are neither, are only too willing to support the ”God-King” and his religious fanatics.        

A “Positive Moment” in Iraq

President George W. Bush called the fighting in Basra a “positive moment” for al-Malaki government, it’s the moment that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki proved his metal and take control of the South. Although as usual, events in Iraq have conspiried to mercilessly mock Bush. Parliament speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani announced that representatives of Shiite and Sunni parties in parliament, including lawmakers loyal to Sadr, had agreed to attend an emergency session of Parliament, starting at 3 pm, to discuss to the crisis and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s future.

The situation is fast spiralling out of control, al-Malaki’s been forced to extend the deadline for militants to hand over their weapons, which was due to expire tommorrow: He issued the following statement:

“All those who have heavy and intermediate weapons are to deliver them to security sites and they will be rewarded financially. This will start from March 28 to April 8.”

In response, in a statement relayed by al-Sadr’s aide Hazem al-Araji in the holy Shia city of Najaf, Motada al-Sadr called on “everyone to pursue political solutions and peaceful protests and a stop to the shedding of Iraqi blood,” and “not shed Iraqi blood” but the deadline is likely to be ignored.

yesterday Baghdad Operation Command, spokesman Major General Kassem Atta said Iraqi authorities have imposed a three-day total curfew in Baghdad in an attempt to quell armed-resistance, as the fighting continues to rage in the country, even the supposed American safe haven, the Green Zone, has once again been pounded by rockets and mortars.

in Nasiriyah, where at least another four police officers were killed today and despite calling on air support from occuaption forces, a local police official said “The militants are trying to attack police stations,” it was latter admitted that Nasiriyah has fallen to the JAM.

But still, Bush says it’s a “positive moment” for the al-Malaki government.

Election Season in Iraq

Forty people were killed and 200 wounded in clashes today in the oil rich city of Basra in a civil war between the pro-government Badr and the pro opposition Mahdi army (JAM) - it’s an election year and between now and October the al-Malaki government have a lot of campaigning to do - whoever controls the streets of Basra, will win the election sand have control of Iraq’s oil.

Yesterday, Iraqi security forces launched raids on JAM strongholds, codenamed Saulat al-Fursan (Charge of the Knights), which led to heavy fighting wounding 50 people and 218 JAM militiamen being detained. The operation is officially being overseen personally by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki but in reality it’s the Badr, under the command of the leader of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, Moqtada al Sadr’s rival, who are doing the fighting.

The streets of Basra were deserted on today, schools and most shops remained closed, the streets of Basra have become the battlefield in a three way civil war between the Badr, the JAM and the Fadhila. Nuri al-Malaki’s Da’wa are split down the middle. But this Shia civil war isn’t just being fought on the streets of Iraq. Yesterday’s assault on the JAM in Basra led to clashes in other Shia strong holds, like Kut, Hilla and Sadr City, and as a “precautionary measure” the government has imposed curfews on other cities, including Nasiriyah and Samawa, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki issued the following order in Basra today:

“Those who were deceived into carry weapons must deliver themselves and make a written pledge to promise they will not repeat such action within 72 hours. Otherwise, they will face the most severe penalties.”

“We are not going to chase those who hand over their weapons within 72 hours. If they do not surrender their arms, the law will follow its course.”

Yesterday, Moqtada al-Sadr said in a statement read by his representative Hazam al-Aaraji in the holy city of Najaf:

“We demand that religious and political leaders intervene to stop the attacks on poor people. We call on all Iraqis to launch protests across all the provinces.

“If the government does not respect these demands, the second step will be general civil disobedience in Baghdad and the Iraqi provinces.”

But in Baghdad today, at least four Katyusha rockets struck the Green Zone, and the US military announced the 4001 American soldier was killed yesterday by enemy fire in an attack on the JAM in Sadr City. Meanwhile, 5,000 British troops didn’t venture outside the Basra airport, where they are being held hostage to Bush’s foreign policy.  

America is Defeated in Iraq

“All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the past five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since World War I” (Patrick Cockburn)

Over the Easter weekend eight US servicemen were killed, taking the American death toll in Iraq up to exactly 4,000. The war has already cost over $600 billion. By contrast, eight years of American occupation of Vietnam cost $133 billion, even allowing for inflation, the American occupation of Iraq has far exceeded the financial cost of Vietnam. And although American fatalities in Vietnam (58,217 - 60,164) far exceed the American fatalities in Iraq, American casualties in Iraq probably exceed Vietnam. American wounded in Iraq is already estimated to have exceeded the 153,452 wounded in Vietnam and is expected to add an additional $600 billion dollars in care. But the most notable difference is the kill for kill ratio: NVA fatalities are given at 1.1 million - the US military estimate the Iraqi resistance fatalities at 19,429, although the real figure is probably half that.

Five years of occupation in Iraq have already cost America far more in blood and treasure than eight years of occupation in Vietnam, and the cost for Iraq has been up to a million  civillians killed and more than 4.5 million people have been displaced, but according to President Bush, the cost has been worth it because,” this is a fight that America can and must win.”

The truth is America is on the cusp of its most humiliating defeat. America has already surrendered over half of Iraq to the militias in 2007, which was the bloodiest for American troops since the war began - America isn’t even in control of Baghdad . The surge has been an unmitigated failure, it failed to recolonise lost ground in Iraq or create the conditions for an American withdrawal. There are now 155,000 American troops in Iraq, and the US military has proposed to reduce the tour of duties from 15 months to 12 months, which would slowly decrease the number of troops in Iraq to roughly 140,000, which is higher than the level they were at before the surge. As Ayatollah Husayn al-Mu’ayyad, head of the Iraqi National Trend, points out:

“Since the start of the security plan, I have repeatedly said that this plan is a failure. Security cannot be restored through the imposition of martial law. No one can say there are security successes if the streets are full of policemen and soldiers. This is not a professional way to keep security in any country. Security should be maintained while the army is in its barracks and the police are in their stations. There has to be a security umbrella that covers the whole country. A citizen has to feel that security is based on objective justifications and principles, rather than on dividing the same city into cantons; turning shops into jails; and filling streets with tanks, armored vehicles, and armed men. This is not the way to keep security. On the contrary, this indicates lack of security and lack of security guarantees.”

Last Wednesday Bush claimed that, “Iraq has become the place where Arabs joined with Americans to drive al-Qaeda out,” the mainstream media dutifully failed to point out that al-Qaeda in Iraq ceased to exist in January 2006, and was only ever peripheral to the Sunni insurgency. The Sunni militias America was fighting during 2006 and the first six months of 2007, and called al-Qaeda, even though none of the militias were using this name, are the groups now called the Sahwa al-Iraq (Iraqi awakening). So America hasn’t defeated ”al-Qaeda” - it’s surrendered control of parts of Iraq to “al-Qaeda” -  there are now around 80,000 -90,000 Sunni militants in the Sahwa, who are in de facto control of Anbar province.   

As Patrick Cockburn points out:  

“The event which has done most to shape the present Iraqi political landscape was the savage civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad and central Iraq in 2006-07 when 3,000 civilians a month were being butchered and which was won by the Shiites.”

The al-Maliki government has refused under any circumstances to integrate more than a quarter of the Sunni militants into the Iraqi Security Forces, (only 11% have been integrated into the ISF at present) and the head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, has warned “that arms must be in the hands of the government only,” which threatens the truce between the Americans and the Sunni insurgency, which only ever was a marriage of convenience, several Sahwa Councils have gone on strike, and are likely to take up arms against the Occupiers and Iraqi  Security Forces. 

Worse still, Basra has erupted into a civil war again this week, after the truce between the Mahdi army and the Badr broke. The Mahdi army has called for a general strike and threatened to bring the government down in parliamentary vote of no confidence. According to the Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, a budget expert from Harvard, the real American costs for the occupation of Iraq so far, will be in excess of $3 trillion. Put simply: the costs of the occupation of Iraq in blood and treasure, are on the verge of breaking America.
 

God Damn America!

When Lord Peter Goldsmith, the former Attorney General, suggested in a government commissioned report on “Britishness”, that school children should pledge allegiance to the United Kingdom and the Queen, à la the American Pledge of Allegiance, the proposal was condemned out of hand (some newspapers polls showed 0% in favour) and Goldsmith was ridiculed for suggesting it. In the UK, the idea of school children being forced to pledge allegiance to their Queen and country in a garish display of patriotism is considered grotesque and contemptible.  

But in America, where children do have to pledge allegiance to their national flag in a Naziesque ceremony, Obama has been forced to apologise for his Pastor suggesting that Americans might want to the question their blind patriotism, and instead of saying ”God Bless America”, say “God Damn America”, in recognition of some of the truly horrendous things the American government stands for domestically and internationally. Obama has been forced to apologise for attending a Church that had the audacity to question American jingoism.       

I can understand Americans being proud of their nation, I can understand them being proud of their anti-imperialist revolution, and the principles of resisting tyranny and self determination, but that isn’t what America stands for today. Perhaps the pledge should be:

I pledge of allegiance to the Flag, of the United States of America, and to the Empire, for which it stands, many nations, under a tyrant, divisible, with liberty and justice for the rich and powerful.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright has a point!     

Peaceful Protests Don’t Work

The war in Iraq is more unpopular now that it was in 2003. The British occupation forces have been thoroughly defeated by the Shia militias in the South of Iraq, and in Afghanistan, things are so bad that a Prince of the realm deserted. Gordon Brown’s so unpopular he could get happy slapped at a Quaker convention. The economy is on the skids, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing Britain £3.3 Billion a year. But last weekend’s Stop the War Coalition protest in London attracted thousands, five years ago it attracted over a Million. Peaceful protests don’t work. 

There are no two was about it, the Stop the War Coalition is  a waste of time. These peaceful marches might make the protestors who go on them feel good about themselves but they have achieved nothing. If the purpose was to give the Government a message, they’re not listening. But if the purpose was to effect a change of policy, then the protest was a complete fucking disaster. The Government is more bothered by a thousand football fans chanting about Harry Roberts, than they are about the Stop the War Coalition.

From the Stop the War Coalition website:

In the event of escalation towards an attack we pledge to join a national campaign of action and civil disobedience, including city and town centre sitdowns, work stoppages and college and school walkouts.

We also pledge on the day of any attack to join lunchtime protests and walkouts in workplaces, schools and colleges and mobilise for local protests in towns and cities across the country.

Well that’s got the Government shitting themselves!

This is tokenism and talking up the prospects of an attack on Iran is counterproductive, the issue should be withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan now, not some future war that isn’t likely to happen. It’s time to step it up a gear. The Stop the War Coalition has already proved peaceful marches don’t work, the prospects of pulling off a general strike are unlikely, and let be realistic - one day student protests aren’t going to bring the Government down.

If the anti-war movement is going ot be effective, it’s got to stop pretending that Britain is a democracy.

Child Held for 72 hrs Police Questioning

According to the British media reports you’d be forgiven for thinking that the police have made 9 year old Shannon Matthews, subject to a Police Protection Order under s.46 Children Act 1989, not letting her return home or even have contact with her mother Karen Matthews, just so they could question her for 72 hours.

The BBC have reported Karen Matthews as saying:

“I fully understand that the police need to keep speaking to Shannon to establish exactly what has happened during the time that she has been missing.”

“I appreciate that could take some time and is not something that is going to happen overnight.”

But what they, and other British media, fail to point out is why Shannon was made subject to a Police Protection Order. They are deliberately not correcting the impression that the police have removed her for questioning. This can’t be true. If it was, the police would be guilty of child abduction. There is only one criterion for making a child subject to a Police Protection Order under s.46 Children Act 1989, and that is:

“Where a constable has reasonable cause to believe that a child would otherwise be likely to suffer significant harm”.

Media reporting is obviously hindered by subjudice rules, but there is a big difference between not compromising a criminal investigation and misleading the public. There is no excuse for refusing to point out that Shannon has been made subject to a Police Protection Order because the police have reasonable cause to believe that she would be at risk of significant harm if she was returned to her mother’s care.