Anarchoblogs

(CNN) — U.S. military officials and geologists have determined that the mineral deposits in Afghanistan are worth nearly $1 trillion, the Pentagon said Monday.

Vast supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold, all with worldwide technological applications, are scattered over the country, according to the Defense Department.

But officials caution that they won’t be easy to extricate and that it will take years to turn this newfound mineral wealth into actual revenue.

“It’s not a quick win,” the U.S. Geological Survey’s Jack Medlin said at a Pentagon briefing Monday.

Pentagon and State Department officials acknowledged that extraction efforts are challenged by remote locations, a weak infrastructure, a dearth of heavy vehicles and equipment, and a strong insurgent presence.

…

First they came for the terrorists, then they came to rip up the earth and claim someone else’s wealth.  The spectre of neo-colonialism raises its ugly head.  Empires trade Iraqi’s for oil and Afghani’s for minerals.  Anyone who suspected that the American government was going to cease and desist from its swaray across the world,has been misguided.  It may come in the form of ‘help’ or ‘assistance’ but Americans are going to be in Afghanistan for decades.

Something fundamental is being buried in the fallout from Israel’s boarding of the protest vessel in the Mediterranean a few days ago.  So far, discussion of the event is being portrayed as either ‘pro-Israeli’ or ‘pro-Hamas’, which has seen two heaving propaganda machines grind into gear.

On the one hand, staunch supports of Israel declare Israel’s actions totally valid given the circumstances.  The state of Israel had every right to intervene based on the notions of sovereignty, right to exist and self defence.  In short, the flotilla was attempting to breach the blockade of Gaza and had failed to meet requests to comply.  The commando’s who board the ship were attack by a number of protesters who had attempted to cause them serious harm, and so were well within their rights.  The world is reacting unfairly; any other country would have behaved the same way.

Alternatively, another argument runs that Israel showed its hand and that hand is pure evil.  Innocents were gunned down on board a foreign ship by callous, unfeeling, faceless men in uniform intent on preserving the stranglehold on Gaza.  Israel should be condemned for their behaviour.

Neither approach is correct and the real message of the situation is being lost among the clamour of voices being put forward by Arab and Israeli nationalist.  According to both sides, history is on their sides.

So what do we know?

Facts:

A flagship of a protest group, manned by hundreds of activists, parliamentarians, legislators, former Nobel Prize laureates and other non-combatants were attempting to run an Israeli blockade.  The action was intended to have the same effect as environmentalists camping out in a tree or people chaining themselves to a door in order to prevent a building from being demolished.  Before leaving Cyprus, the flotilla had been certified as not carrying arms.  There was never any intention for the flotilla to obey the commands of Israeli naval units and head for Ashod — that was clear form the outset.  Of the 6 boats in the fleet, 5 were boarded without violent resistance.  Those boats sailed under flags from multiple nations and carried individuals from a variety of backgrounds.  They were carrying humanitarian aid intended for Palestinians in Gaza and the raid took place in international waters.

The boats themselves were raided, at night time, by elite Israeli commandos in full commando uniform who descended from helicopters.  They were carrying paintball guns.  They were attacked by a group of people aboard the flagship with makeshift weapons.  A commando fired his gun, as did others and as a result a number of demonstrators died, those involved in the melee and those didn’t.  A white flag was raised and the firing continued.

It is certain that Israel was going to suffer bad PR no matter how they responded to the situation, unless they let the flotilla through, however that wasn’t an option as the flotilla threatened Israeli sovereignty.

What we can discern:

For a start, the environment the flotilla was being placed in was one of hostility.  The Israeli military used elite commandos in full commando gear descending from helicopters onto the boat’s deck.  Anyone on the deck at the time would have been scared.  A minority of protesters attacked the Israeli commandos and given the large numbers of people on board, that minority was small.

Looking at the larger picture, we begin to run into problems.  For those looking to defend the actions of Israeli soldiers and the state, yes, the commandos were attacked by people on deck.  Yes, logically, men armed with firearms, (even if they are pistols and the commandos were, supposedly, wearing asbestos gloves) are going to fire back if attacked, and they did.  Yet, self defence rests upon shaky ground; not all of those protesters killed by Israeli fire would have been involved in the melee, and exactly, why did the soldiers keep shooting?  If the claim is made that the Israeli commandos had a right to self-defence, then doesn’t that mean after the first bystander was shot that the protesters would have a right to self-defence also?  There is no easy question to this answer as the situation was chaotic, but it is worth considering for those leaping to support of the Israeli state.  Then there is the larger context of the blockade on Gaza and the history associated with the appropriation of land from Palestinians, settlements and settlers, use of white phosphorous (which I personally watched being used over Gaza on live webcam feeds), the demolitions of houses, infrastructure and entire neighbourhoods.  This is not anti-Israel, this is a reflection of the facts.

Likewise, there is no great win either for those who are using this opportunity to hate on Israel.  Those quick to collectively denounce every Israeli as part of the murdering war-machine forget one sobering point; the average Israeli is drafted into the armed forces at a young age.  Refusing to put on a uniform and pick up a gun for the state results in imprisonment and pariah status as someone who ‘hates their country’.  Military training, by design, reprograms people.  It breaks down basic family structures and replaces them their fellow soldiers and creates obedience to the paternal authority of military higher-ups and the political elite.  In short, it makes an individual identify with an abstract, non-existent entity that makes up the state.  It’s a process, that embodies at it’s very core, the most absurd and dehumanising traits.  So then, ask yourself, since this is mandatory for all Israeli’s, how much does this influence their attitudes and behaviours?  How much fear and indoctrination occurs, daily, to indoctrinate young Israeli’s to behave a certain way?

And one more thought on the whole issue; one line of argument has consisted of Israeli’s arguing, ‘no other state would have done differently.’  This is a truth in its purest form.  No other state around the world would have hesitated to do the same; they do as a matter of course and for this they all deserve equal condemnation.

The issue isn’t pro-Isreal or pro-Hamas; it’s whether you give a fuck about people rather than the aspirations of a political elite to power, be they established or aspiring.

I would just like to take this brief opportunity to point out some neglected facts regarding the terrorist plot in NY.

As time goes on, the foiled terrorist attack is being billed as a victory for the authorities and a sobering warning to the people of the West that the threat is not over.

Sure, the fact that there was an attempt is shocking.

Sure, it was lucky that it was stopped in time.

But let’s put things into context;  America has been involved in two open wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade and proxy wars in Somalia and Pakistan.  The ‘Pakistani Taliban’ who are now, reportedly, credited with ordering the attack — except the “Taliban” don’t exist, but are made up of an ethnic minority called the ‘Pashtun’ whose tribal groups are split by the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.  US drone attacks that have been continued and increased under Obama’s presidency has frequently resulted in the deaths of many civilians living around areas where the US military claims “terrorists” and the “Taliban” are operating.  The people who sought to carry out this attack are a bunch of poor, angry villagers and tribesmen living near the Afghani-Pakistan border.  Let’s not forget that and dehumanise who these people are, instead of referring to them as ‘The Pakistani Taliban with connections to Al Qaeda’.

The next question that is being raised is, how can this American citizen, with his life of luxury and extended education do such a thing against a country that gave him so much?  Well, above is your answer.  America’s war on terror that Obama has been continuing, albeit with more moderate rhetoric, acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The whole concept rests on an unknown threat.  The authorities know that it exists somewhere, but do not know when it is going to strike (thank you, Donald Rumsfield).  Therefore the only solution is to prepare to counteract that threat.  Domestic legislation  aimed at increasing security through stripping away civil liberties and marginalising particular nationalities or ethnic minorities in day-to-day tasks, is combined with the external strategy of bombing anyone who you feel may remotely appear to be a terrorist.  The obvious problem is that those people who appear to be terrorists are usually poor villagers, while others view themselves as reacting to some kind of structural or social injustice in their own countries government, usually left over from colonisation.  By bombing them, you generate anger and anger generates “terrorists”.

People with educations tend to be more critical of what is going on and will notice this.  People who feel they belong to the same marginalised and mistreated minority will certainly understand this.  Of course, not all of them take up the rifle to rectify the situation, (disclaimer: I am not attempting to justify this action, either) but inevitably, some will.  They are angry and there will be reprisals against the people who elected that government — the very same people democratic rhetoric has declared the government’s “boss” for so long now.  This presents an ethical dilemma, should people really be surprised when there is a terrorist attack on domestic soil when a nation has declared a “war” on a group, person, thing or idea?  Have people really become so desensitised to war, that they believe their government can engage in all sorts of military action without domestic populations ever having to experience reprisals?

Then there is another neglected fact; for all the fear-mongering and rapid expansion of US security by conservatives, neo-liberals, progressives and every other authoritarian ideology, not one government official noticed anything throughout the process of planning, preparation, production and placement of the bomb.  Who did notice?  Some guy on the street who saw smoke coming from a car — a guy without a badge — in a moment of pure dumb-luck.  So for all the money spent, the queues at the airports, the background checks and re-checks, the pat downs, the dogs, the cameras, the guys with guns and tasers, the bag searches at airports, the increase of police power, the expansion of overseas conflicts, not one of these measures picked up on the terrorist plot.

Why?  We come back to the idea of the threat being unknown and unknowable.  You don’t know where it will happen or when, but the powers that be urge us to prepare, which in turn creates a threat that no amount of preparation is going to prevent and then, game over.

Compare and contrast,

this from the BBC:

Greek riot police have used tear gas to disperse angry protesters in Athens, during a march against government cuts to tackle the country’s crippling debt.

Clashes erupted at the finance ministry and a state TV truck was petrol bombed. A tense stand-off continues, with protesters hurling bottles and rocks.

Thousands of Greeks are taking part in May Day rallies called by trade unions and left-wing parties.

…

Ericos Finalis, who was taking part in the march, described the planned government cutbacks as “the biggest attack on workers for centuries”.

“They want to return us to the 19th Century – this is not going to be a battle but a war that will last for months or even years,” he was quoted by AFP as saying.

Another protester, Marina Yotis, told AFP: “Nobody knows what really is going to happen but people know that there is no other way than to come down into the streets and protest.”

During the protests, a prominent hotel was vandalised in the central Syntagma square.

There were reports of similar scenes in the northern city of Thessaloniki as youths attacked banks and business premises with iron bars.

and this from the BBC’s correspondent who witnessed the demonstrators fire-bomb a state media truck:

With this from LibCom:

Labour May the 1st (May Day) is a day for token trade union parades in greece, but the IMF related austerity measures that have cast their long shadow on the country made sure no one was expecting a peaceful demonstration today.

Four different demos had been called in Athens, reflecting existing class and political differences. One by PAME, the Communist Party controlled trade union umbrella, gathered at Syntagma square and marched to the American embassy. A second, by GSEE, the private sector trade union umbrella controled by the ruling Socialist Party, staged a protest concert in Klafthmonos square. A third, by the Radical Left Coalition and extreme-left groups gathered at Victoria square and marched to the Ministry of Labour. And the forth, by anarchists and autonomous grassroots unions, gathered outside the Archaeological Museum and marched to the Parliament.

The first signs of unrest appeared when the anarchist-autonomous march numbering around 4,000 people reached Klafthmonos square chanting slogans against GSEE like “Scum, filth, union-bosses” and attacked the concert scene with red and black paint interrupting the performances. Upon reaching the Parliament and attempting to march towards the EU offices, the protesters were confronted by riot police forces and clashes broke out. Protesters attacked the prestigious ruling class hotel “Great Britain” with the clashes spreading across Panepistimiou street where banks and shops came under attack. Reaching Propylea, protesters torched a State TV van, and closed against the ex-president of the Parliament who happened to be on Korai square. The senior PASOK politician took refuge to a cafe while heckled and was rescued by strong police forces. At the same time, the General State Accountancy came under attack by protesters. The march proceeded towards Omonoia square where upon meeting up with the march of the extreme left returning from the Ministry of Labour it came under brutal attack by motorised police forces. In the battle that ensued many protesters were injured and many more detained, while hundreds of protesters took to a barricaded retreat into Exarcheia and the Polytechnic from which more clashes ensued. As a result of the clashes some 10 people are reported arrested (with people gathered outside the National Police Headquarters demanding their liberation), and two men are reported as injured, one with serious cranial wounds. Meanwhile, journalists are accusing the police as not allowing them to film, and one journalist was reported as being detained. The police claims seven of its officers were injured.

At the same time, more limited clashes erupted in the May Day protest march in Salonica with many banks and shops attacked. Protest marches also took place in many smaller cities and towns like Heraclion, Patras, Rethimnon, Corinth and Ioannina.

It’s also worth mentioning here, that the mainstream media in Greece are loathed by Anarchists for failing to report stories that involve them accurately and favouring police and government in their reports.  When 15 year old Alex was murdered, the State media failed to investigate and report what had actually happened, supporting the police involved.  Even when a youtube video was released that disputed police claims at having been attacked by 30 hooded youths throwing molotov cocktails, one mainstream news outlet added sound bites consistent with riots and the sound of exploding molotov cocktails breaking.

While doing some unrelated research, I stumbled upon this article which reported on a protest undertaken by Indigenous People on the steps of Parliament house at the time when the “Gang of 49″ was being painted as the greatest scourge to white, middle class Adelaidean populations.  Of course, there never was a “Gang of 49″ [...]

Continue reading at .urbandissent …

Interested in dishing out a cold, hard dose of internet vigilante justice?  Well here’s your chance.  Copy, paste, post and repeat the following and this photo where ever you can. From more details on what went down, see this post by Db0.  If you can provide information please contact Db0 over at his blog.

Are you looking for janson.erik@hotmail.com?

Was he supposed to send you some money for helping his stranded son from Greenland? If so, I’m sad to say that you’ve been the target of a con praying on people who are nice enough to try and help a stranger in distress. Disgusting I know. This is why I need you to help me track These scum.

At the moment of writing, I’ve been contacted by 2 different people that fell for the same scam. Both of them students who couldn’t afford it. Obviously this bastard doesn’t care who’s life he fucks-up as long as he gathers enough money to move to another country and do the same thing all over again to some other poor guy or gal trying to help.

He’s all over Europe at the moment. He scammed me in Frankfurt on February, then a Belgian 5 days later and now I heard from a Spaniard that was scammed 5  days ago. If this fucker manages to do this once per week, it means there must be at least 4-6 more people, and that is assuming he started this February which is not likely.

These guys are also prepared with fake IDs and everything. The picture on the top, is the ID they sent to the Spanish student who asked for far more evidence than I did, and still fell for it. It’s an obvious fake but while being distracted by a professional conman, it’s easy to take it for real.

Please help us discover the identity of the scammers

These guys prey on some of the most vulnerable members of society. They target explicitly young looking people, students more likely, and Dennis then pretends he is a fellow student down on his luck. By abusing the feelings of camaraderie, they make life difficult for those who are not in the best situation anyway.

What can you do? Post, retweet, email and discuss the info we have. The more widely we spread those photos, the more likely someone who knows him IRL recognises him.

I’ll be posting updates on any new information that comes up. If you want me to provide you with details so you can do some more in-depth investigation, fire me an email.

The following article was posted by BBC world news at 04:34 GMT, Saturday, 20 March 2010

It was the second blast police responded to in as many days

A bomb has exploded outside the home of a Pakistani community leader in the Greek capital Athens – the second blast in the area in less than 24 hours.

Police said there were no injuries, but some damage was done to the entrance of the apartment building and three cars.

On Friday, a bomb damaged the office of a far-right anti-immigration group.

No group has said it carried out the attacks, but there have been numerous bombings attributed to far-left or anarchist groups in recent years.

Recent attacks have targeted banks and government buildings.

Greece has faced severe anti-government protests and rioting since police shot dead a teenager in December 2008.

Completely ignoring the fact that bomb attacks are going on for a moment, let me just take the time to point a few inaccuracies and shady imputations in the above article.

Firstly, I’d like to point out the use of the sanitised description of the Golden Dawn as ‘a far-right anti-immigration group.’  For a start, any one who has read my blog in the past will know that the Golden Dawn is an ultra-nationalist fascist organisation that routinely attacks immigrants, Anarchists, and individuals in general opposition to their platform.  They are notoriously violent and have been known to have murdered people in the street for throwing away their pamphlets.

Second, the following paragraph mentions that so far no group as claimed responsibility for the attacks, but oh so politely mentions that far-left and Anarchist (read: murdering, rapist, baby-snatching, shit crazy Anarchist thugs) have carried out ‘numerous‘ bombings in recent years.  This is a technique that triggers the reader to jump to a conclusion, or, ‘fill in the blanks’; it positively must have been those satanic Anarchists attacking the Pakistani community leaders house.  Never mind that the far greater likelihood is that those who attacked the Pakistani community leader’s house are the un-named Golden Dawn carrying out reprisals.

Thirdly, the use of the phrase ‘police shot dead a teenager’ is ambiguous.  Sure, its background information, but it doesn’t provide the context; two police officers murdered a teenage boy.  Yeah, that’s no reason for those silly Greek peasants to be angry.

UPDATE: Taxikapeli, reporting on LibCom.org writes,

The bomb attacks come after more than a month of a lull by urban guerrilla groups which has launched a winter offensive during December and January. It must be noticed that the small bomb that hit the house of the vice-president of the Pakistani community yesterday is widely considered to be related to the Pakistani secret services (due to the fact that it has been proceeded by the assassination of an embassy official of Pakistan) and not to domestic armed struggle.

Deport him.  See how he appreciates it.

Australia’s answer to Bill O’Reilly has done it again.  Reading his latest column, well you can see what I’m getting at.  Bolt tackles the mammoth subject of asylum seekers and refugees in an argument that amounts to a gross mischaracterisation of… pretty much everything.

In no particular order,

• Howard’s Pacific Solution was the shiz

Bolt insinuates, bluntly, that the Pacific Solution under Howard was the answer to Australia’s refugee problem.  Fewer refugees came to the Australian continent, therefore it must have worked.  Unless of course there was a global downturn in refugees towards the end of Howard’s reign while the Pacific Solution was in place.

• Deterrents will stop people from coming

Imagine for a moment that you’re a father.  Your wife is dead, killed in local unrest.  Your life is ruined, your home burned and the lives of your children and yourself are under threat.  You gotta be a man, stand up, take care of the family.  What are you going to do?  Get yourself on a boat and look for a new future.  That’s what drives you to leave.  Chances are, you’re not going to know how the legal system operates in whatever country you are destined for.  You don’t know your rights, what can or can’t be done.  All you know is that you need to try.  So called ‘push’ factors have a much larger role than any ‘pull’ factors that Liberal Party members, Nationalists, and Conservatives like Andrew Bolt seem to play on.  No matter how brutal you get on these people, they’re still going to give it a shot because it can’t be worse than being gunned down, blown up, raped, set on fire — or any of the other evils you suffer back home.  Which brings me to my next point,

• Queue Jumpers

It is safe to say that anyone who believes there is a ‘queue’ is seriously misinformed.  Simply, there is no queue and often the governments that have persecuted these people have no interest in giving them the passports and other documents they need to travel.  As I have observed before, if you have no documents, you have no soul and virtually don’t exist.

Many of the people who find themselves in refugee camps like Kakuma, where violence and hunger is still common.  For some strange reason, people seem to be under the strange belief that life in a refugee camp is safe, happy and temporary.  Something akin to a holiday camping.  People may live half their lives in these refugee camps before they are even offered the chance to settle elsewhere.  Half a life spent behind razor wire, under the threat of being raped or killed if you leave the boundaries, battling hunger and then the possible divisions that exist inside the camp.  Although I do not claim this is universal, given the alternative, it’s understandable why people will do whatever they can to leave.

• They can pay, so they must not be that well off

Bolt makes this observation, and in response I point out that asylum seekers may be able to pay for a people smuggler to take them across the water to Australia, but notice how they don’t bring much of anything with them?  I don’t know what Bolt imagines when he thinks of refugees, but I can guarantee you that they arent’ dipping into their savings in a Swiss bank to get out.

• We should turn the boats back.  They ain’t ‘genuine’.

Well, I hate to say it, but that would be a breach of Australia’s obligations under international law as we are party to conventions that state, strictly, that a country cannot turn back refugees that are seeking assistance.  That’s the whole point of the refugee convention when, you know, a lot of the world wanted to ‘turn back’ Jewish refugees when Hitler was causing a bit of a ruckus in Europe.

That is, and there is a catch, if they land on Australian soil.  So this is why the Australian government has sunk millions of dollars into building, maintaining and expanding a system where the navy intercepts boats and hauls them off to detention at Christmas island; they are offshore.

And it is worth mentioning that this underscores the difference between a ‘asylum seeker’ and a ‘refugee’ in international law; ‘asylum seekers’ are ‘refugees’ that haven’t had the chance to be processed by the UN.  The major reason why they haven’t been processed is, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that there is ‘no queue’ and, that these people had to flee their homes, in other words, they had to get out fast or die.  So much for not being ‘genuine’.

• Housing them at Christmas Island cost big $$$.  We should send them back.

The biggest irony about this argument made by Bolt, is that he cites statistics provides by a refugee advocate service, which are predominately used to explain why the excessive border control is absurd and impossible to defend.  Secondly, the source of the statistic has the effect of, potentially, leading people to believe that Bolt is being fair and balanced, and certainly if Bolt has been snooping around the publications and websites put up by refugee advocates, he most certainly would be familiar with their myth-busting work.

The biggest problem for Bolt, on the other hand, is defending the mega-money that is needed to fund the navy to patrol our waters, protecting Australia from the life-threatening, doom-bringing, vilest of evil, boat travelling asylum seekers.  Not to mention the ancillary costs that will need to be given to advertising, logistics, persuading foreign governments to go along with the plan, feeding/accommodating/deporting all those that arrive by plane (there are far more), the untold cost to Australia’s international reputation.  These all compound every time we decide to get ‘tougher’ on border protection.  Sometimes it seems it would be easier to just let them all in.

Oh, and Bolt’s solution to the whole issue?

So here’s a simple plan to fix everything – a plan first suggested to me by Family First Senator Steve Fielding to stop the boats dead without being at all cruel.

Let’s announce that from today we’ll send every boatload of “asylum seekers” we intercept to some refugee camp in Indonesia, Pakistan or whichever other country we can persuade to take them.

Yes, you’re right. Those countries won’t want our rejects, so let’s make them an offer they can’t refuse.

For every single boat person they take from us, we’ll take two genuine refugees from their camps.

What could be fairer? We’ll be twice as kind, we’ll send the boat people to safety and we’ll reward not those who’ve pushed in but the refugees who have waited the longest in line.

Two refugees for every boat person. Guaranteed to stop the flood like nothing Rudd has ever tried.

Don’t you just love it when Bolt calls them ‘rejects’?  Nothing like a bit of callous disregard for human life to get you hot under the collar.