Bae Blockade Edinburgh (10 June 2002)
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This page is getting a bit old to be called news, but maybe sometime ...
These texts below have been written by various different people in response to events.
"A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but doesn't have an air force."
-William Blum, Rogue State
Following the atrocities in America, the US has been described as a "beacon of freedom" shining from the free world. Billions see things differently and the Stars and Stripes are routinely burned at demonstrations around the world. Why?
For decades the US and its allies have achieved their economic ambitions through military interventions. The apocalyptic devastation of Vietnam was a direct act of terror, but more often, like Bin Laden, the US trains and funds others to commit acts of terror.
In Nicaragua, the US was ordered by the world court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" but continued to give practical support to those who committed the most barbaric atrocities. They supported the fascist coup in Chile in 1973 and how many people "disappeared" to be tortured to death by US trained soldiers is unknown. In the early 1970s, the US backed Brazilian military practised torture of such an extensive and horrific kind, that to try and recount it here would be futile. One tactic was to use plastic surgery to grotesquely distort women's faces, thus creating walking advertisements of terror. The US supported the military coup of Indonesia's Suharto (500,000 - 1,000,000 deaths) and, along with Britain, has continued to arm the regime through a catalogue of atrocities, including the genocide perpetrated against the East Timorese. They continue to fund Israel and its racist mistreatment of Palestinians and they continue to train Colombian death squads. In 1988, 290 people were killed when a US warship shot down an Iranian civilian aircraft. In 1990 the ship's commander received a merit award for "outstanding service".
The US was helping Saddam Hussein fight his war with Iran, arming the dictator and ignoring his massacre of the Kurdish people. In 1991, they changed their mind and bombed Iraq relentlessly, killing over 100,000, and all was watched pornographically on TV sets throughout the West. Since then sanctions are thought to have killed one million, half of them children. Needless to say, Saddam and his generals are about the only unaffected people in Iraq.
In 1988 the US bombed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and thousands are thought to have died as a consequence. In the 1980s they trained troops in El Salvador that executed or "disappeared" tens of thousands, and in Guatemala, the Philippines, Panama, Oman, Laos, Nigeria... there isn't enough space to list the mass of terror sponsored or directly carried out by the "beacon of freedom".
In numerical terms the US may be the most prolific sponsor of terror the world has ever seen. The only obvious challengers are the British empire, the USSR and Nazi Germany.
"The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
-George Orwell
The tragic loss of life in America has been mourned throughout the western world. Few events in history have generated so many moments of remembrance. Normal activities, from political conferences to sporting events, were postponed or abandoned as a respectful gesture expressing the shock and sadness of everyone who resented the sad waste of thousands of innocent lives. But what about the innocent children of Iraq, Palestine or Sudan? Or the people of Chechnya, East Timor or Colombia? No mourning, scarcely a condemnation. Why no silences for the countless dead of Sierra Leone, one million Rwandans, many Ugandans, Congolese, Tanzanians, Liberians, Somalians, Eritreans, Ethiopians, Angolans or Namibians? Nobody would cancel football matches for a few million dead Africans. The message from the west to the rest of the world is abundantly clear: our lives are worth more than yours.
A further level of hypocrisy has been the talk of punishing states who fund terrorism, when the largest source of funding for terrorism is the USA. In Columbia, for instance, it is widely acknowledged that the right wing paramilitaries responsible for much of the country's worst atrocities are closely linked to the military, yet the US (and the UK), continue to pour money and arms into Columbia for 'the war on drugs'. Other examples of US funded state terror include East Timor, Turkey and Nicaragua. This hypocrisy is further compounded by the US' complete disregard for international law when it applies to them. When the World Court found the US guilty of unlawful use of force against Nicaragua, it was derided as a 'hostile forum', proving it's own illegitimacy by criticising the US, who then escalated the war, passing their aid off as 'humanitarian'. Likewise, the post Gulf War strikes against Iraq have been more or less unilateral undertakings by the US and the UK, with no basis in international law or UN resolutions. Also, witness Bill Clinton's efforts to set up an international war crimes court... from which US citizens would be immune from prosecution. It has been a corner stone of US policy to act in it's own interests i.e.to ensure unimpeded access to economic resources, energy supplies and markets, no matter the consequences or the legality of these actions. 'The rest of the world cannot be counted on to share our views, and the majority often opposes the US on important international questions, and we must reserve the power to ourselves to determine how we will act"- Abraham Sofaer, US State Department legal adviser
In the events following the attack on the World Trade Centre & Pentagon there could be little disputing who has the power to determine the 'retaliation' actions which will undoubtedly effect almost every person around the globe, whether it be directly (being killed, displaced, threatened) or indirectly (economic repercussions etc).
The US administration fully backed by the UK and other governments (Canada,Germany, Australia etc.) are busy deciding what kind of military action to take and if they consider their countries to be 'AT WAR'. Clearly, these are no small decisions to make. Will 'leaders' listen to wishes of the people? Will they act in their (the people's) best interests? And can we trust them to make decisions like this on our behalf?
The way in which both the UK and US governments were appointed in their last elections saw historically low voter turnouts and US court battles over a few hundred votes. As the dominant parties become more and more similar, people are increasingly feeling alienated by their political system, seeing voting as useless and feeling frustration that there really is no way in which they can have their voices heard. In both the US and UK people have been increasingly questioning the effectiveness and validity of our current political systems. There is a growing public concern/ knowledge that 'two party politics' and perhaps party politics on the whole is failing us as 'citizens' and as communities.
Prime Minister Blair and President Bush have spent the last few weeks making impassioned speeches crafted to rouse patriotism and build support for their military action in Afghanistan and possibly other countries.They, along with most media, have ignored the pleas, vigils and demonstrations for peace that have already occurred around the world (see http://pax.protest.net/ for detailed accounts). To 'declare war' on either another state or an uncertain enemy such as 'terrorism' on the behalf of all the people who live within the borders of the country, is a very serious decision - unlikely of course, to go uncriticised. But we should also question the amount of TRUST we have for these few, mostly men, to sort out these problems, to make these decisions, to act in our best interest, and fundamentally, their right to be in such a position in the first place.
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." - Leading Nazi leader, Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death.
As to our views on those who weld power in Afghanistan we look to those who have been their victims The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan say with regards to the Taliban:
'... most treacherous, most criminal, most anti-democracy and anti-women
Islamic fundamentalist parties because after both the Jehadi and the Taliban have committed every possible type of heinous crimes against our people, they would feel no shame in committing such crimes against the American people whom they consider "infidel". In order to gain and maintain their power, these barbaric criminals are ready to turn easily to any criminal force.
But unfortunately we must say that it was the government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. In the similar way, as is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed boy of CIA. But what is more painful is that American politicians have not drawn a lesson from their pro-fundamentalist policies in our country and are still supporting this or that fundamentalist band or leader. In our opinion any kind of support to the fundamentalist Taliban and Jehadies is actually trampling democratic, women's rights and human rights values."
Shortly after these passenger aeroplanes crashed into for the American state highly symbolic buildings full of working people, leading intellectuals, like Noam Chomsky, warned of the consequences. They rightly presumed, that secretly covered by a blown-up media hysteria, truth will suffer, as there won't be - or only marginally- a deeper, profound research on the underlying causes of these human life despising actions, but an immediate "desperation pretending" outcry of politicians to prevent similar possible future events by introducing long-awaited, but up to now defended, increased, oppressive measures . Now politicians feel safe to introduce even more measures to supervise the people who "democratically" elected them and assuming in their words "trust" them . In pretending to the public that these measures would rise the standard of security and safety, democratic and constitutional rights are furthermore abolished and decreasing. The so-called "trust on democratic elected politicians" (expressed by an economical founded competition of two or three images of holy, perfect, self-righteous angels) is now turned against the people as the politicians no longer trust their people in return, but believe in their further control and repression. These leaders expect not only trust, faith and blind obedience from the people in their decision but also to go to war and die for their childish blind hateful lust for prestige and revenge, (they safely sitting in secure palaces).
As the state-communism slowly disappears from the world, there is no longer a pretension of democratic, human and constitutional rights needed in comparison, our "civilisation" is abolished by the politicians step by step anyway.
Measure of state repression introduced (list might not be complete):
- Resistance of people against projects- be them economically or state founded, are now threatened to fall under the new terrorism declaration of the EU, as violence against property (urban violence) will be declared as terrorism, as well as "promoting" this so defined "terrorism" will be a crime. http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9614/1.html http://austria.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3655&group=webcast
- New law is discussed to be introduced about trying to restrict the use of
encryption on the internet as well as hacking, electronic demonstrations and
attacks on information systems are declared to be a new form of terrorism.
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/9614/1.html
- In Bruessel, last Thursday 20th of September, more measures were introduced.
Europol gained more power. In Den Haag a group is founded with representatives
of member state to detect "terrorism".(No definition of "terrorism"
given in this source). The European task force of police chiefs is enabled to
work together with europol now.
This includes also an exchange of data of police across the member states.
Also working together with the USA is going to be intensified. In December the
interior minister are getting together to decide on European standardised sentences.
Sentences under this terrorist law should be at least 2 years and at least 20
years of prison if severe. A European warrant is going to be established. Also
persons on whose this law is used on, have to be handed over to the demanding
EU member state within 90 days after applying.
http://de.news.yahoo.com/010920/12/1zfmb.html
Decoded these decisions :
* create mechanisms for 'operational' co-operation for which there are no legal
powers
* legitimise the ongoing surveillance by 'police and intelligence officers'
(internal security services) of 'persons or groups likely to pose a threat to
public order and security' ,
* create national databases of 'troublemakers' based on suspicion and supposition
without any legal standards or data protection and allow the unregulated exchange
of this data http://www.statewatch.org/news/
Repression in Germany ( the state with the longest tradition):
- by declaring the action of these madmen to be an attack on NATO, Germany as
a member state is now in a state of emergency, where emergency laws restrict
constitutional rights. This means a loss of the importance and power of parliament
and increased power to the government, decisions of NATO, with agreement of
the government replace therefore decisions of the parliament.
Other rights which are affected are the supply of the civilians, the army or
demand driver, the "traffic guarantee law" (Verkehrssicherstellungsgesetz)
entitles access to transport planning and transportation of persons, the "economic
guarantee law" (Wirtschaftssicherstellungsgesetz) entitles access to the
commercial economy, the "food guarantee law" (Ernaehrungssicherstellungsgesetz)
is similar. Evacuations are now possible due to the extension of the "catastrophe
protection law" Katastrophenschutzgesetz.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/aktuell/sz/artikel77395.php
- Germany: Sueddeutsche Zeitung 20.September The Government has decided to spent 3 Million DM, getting raised by rising the taxes on cigarettes and insurances, partly to finance more repressive measures. The money is going to be spent on Verfassungsschutz ( secret police), Bundesgrenzschutz ( Federal Boarder Guards), Katastrophenschutz (organisations for disaster control) and Bundeswehr (army). Also the privilege for religious communities is getting extinguished in the Vereinsrecht (law about organisations).
Interior Minister Otto Schily tried to blame the 'Data Protection Act' as a 'Protection for Perpetrators'.
A report on a forgery discovered five years ago, is now used to introduce new passports, which should have fingerprints on, as well as information on movement structures and a holographic picture of the person. The chancellor, the chief of the conservatives, the Interior Minister linked their speeches about the incidents in the USA and the consequences with a demand to further reduce (nearly abolish) the right for claiming asylum (!).
The conference of Interior Minister in Germany decided to introduce the following measures: See: http://de.indymedia.org/2001/09/7760.html
1. visas are given out more restrictively esp. for visitors from certain countries.
2. development of certain schemes/profiles for the detection of islamic terrorists.
3. intensifying of security measures of various sorts on airports
4. military protection for military facilities as well as NATO facilities.
5. increased examination of asylum seekers about possible involvement
in "extremist and terrorist scene" ( no definition of terrorism and
extremism given in this context)
6. facilitating to examine fingerprints of asylum seekers (obligatory
in Germany) with fingerprints of unsolved crimes
7. trying to adapt security measures in all states of Europe (possibly
trying to dictate their repression mania on other EU member states)
Persons living or seeking German nationality from the following countries are under increased examination by secret police:
Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Pakistan, United Arabic Emirates.
Apart from the introduction of new oppressive laws, this news hysteria is used to proceed with further oppressive measures against initiatives representing resistance against economic and state projects and to keep it in the background of news. Raids against social centres in Spain took place, and in Italy in 20 different cities over 100 raids took place, arrests were made, the arguments for these raids were taken from an anti-terror law. Targets were groups which were active in solidarity actions against prisoner support especially against solitary confinement. The same night 74 immigrants were deported from Genua.
The repression gets into grotesque dimension: persons expressing "Schadenfreude" over the attack or disrupting a minute's silence are prosecuted. A television company in Germany (n-TV) tries to prosecute persons who have left offending commentaries in their internet chats. The freedom of speech is further decreased, forcing on people a self-restricted "thought controll", which unfortunately does not keep them from expressing "Schadenfreude" because of knowledge, education and humanity, but because of oppression. In America Clear Channel Communications put ca. 150 songs on a list not allowed to be played on radio because of the attack on the WTC including e.g. Leonard Cohens song "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin". This list has also been distributed further like e.g. to radio stations in Germany. As well as all songs of Rage against the Machine, songs of the peace movement like John Lennons song "Imagine" are on the Index (voluntary in Germany).
Several webpages got shut down by the server, the one of Digital Resistance Network, as well as the page of the autonomous net guerilla = Autonome Netzguerilla, the one of zmag.org, and netstrikeit.
As you can probably see, these "security" and "safety" measures have hardly anything to do with the underlying causes of the attacks. This incident is abused to introduce and establish a control system and to gain even more power for these opportunistic greedy leaders , putting pressure on all and everyone not conforming with the official state-induced opinion.
Further worries are raised because of Bush saying in his speech: "We fully understand that certain NGOs, nongovernmental organizations, serve as fronts, as a funding mechanism for terrorist organizations. We expect there to be activity on those fronts, as well. " http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=12425&group=webcast
The FBI defines Reclaim the Streets, ALF, Carnival against capitalism and other
left groups under terrorism.
http://france.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=5757&group=webcast
In the USA according to a report on indymedia, "echelon" is now extended, the space defence shield is now as good as approved , big providers like AOL install "carnivore", the army industry grows. CIA, FBI, us-army get incredible high budgets.It seems like in future a dangerous surveillance state in Amerika, and unfortunately also in Europe, will be established.
Medias and politicians spread deliberately a feeling of continuos threat because of terrorism. With claiming, everybody could be affected, repressive measures get legitimated.
An impression is tried to manifest by politicians and mass media, that terrorism would be unpredictable and apparantly omnipresent. The danger of terrorism is used as an universal argument not only for state projects like the increased tightening of the immigration laws, the reduction of the data protection, the upgrade of police or even the use of the army in internal state affairs. With these argument also a mental mobilisation is practised.
Anyway, just as I closed my research I got to
http://www.statewatch.org/news/
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/default.html
which offers better and deeper insight into whats happening and what is going to happen in future, because every day, news on increased repression pile up.
The class war is not created by people choosing some options of what to believe in presented before them. It exists because the world lives under capitalism that forces most people to sell their labour to survive. This creates class division.
People can not opt out of Capitalism by individual action, the whole system must be overthrown in it entirety. People who refuse to recognise property and don't pay rent on their own will be force out of their homes. People who refuse to sell their labour would eventually starve. People who take what they need for free will be kidnapped by the state. Capitalist social relations can only be permanently disrupted and replaced by communism (or whatever you want to call a world without wage labour and property), by people collectively taking action as a class. I see no other way out from the status quo which I assume you do not want to continue.
I may prefer the slogan to be something 'increase our class struggle, stop their war' 'stop the bombing, start the fightback' but ' no war but the class war' reads better, and I am happy to use it and welcome others using it. Though I believe we must explain what we mean by class war, the class struggle against capitalism is not a civil war within existing states etc. Some feel it might send a message of "don't try that war, try ours instead". But a slogan does not stand on it own, it will be combined with explaination in text, conversation and practice, which will re-enforce each other.
Often people in peace movement equal a war with hate or say hate causes war. They think by mentioning the class war, we are promoting this hatred so substituting false premises to the arguement. I question, that hate itself causes war, it is certainly stoked up to help war effort but it is material conditions that dictate wars.
The hate is already there, and maybe there is a debate to be had about how constructive as an emotion hate is, but that is a substitute distraction from the real issue for me, which is building class consciousness as a way of overthrowing capitalism, and abolishing classes. Building class consciousness is not about promoting hate in itself but ensuring that those that weld power over us can be confronted. The conflict between the classes can not be resolved peacefully like liberals believe. A confrontation is inevitatable. We must prepare for that. Our strikes and other attempts to reclaim our lives will be put down with violence unless we build mass solidarity. History has shown this.
To those that say 'will another sort of war solve anything?', I say, that the resolution of the class war will go along way to bring about new world I seek. All other wars are to be resisted though the victims of structural oppression should be at forefront of resisting that oppression.
Guilt politics gets us no where.
I saw a banner on an anti (Kosovo) war demo on Mayday 1999 in Edinburgh, that said 'We have blood on our hands', well I didn't have blood on mine and when I asked those that carried how they thought that message might help stop the war, and they said people should examine themselves first and feel guilty about what was done in their name. Guilt politics is disabling. We must raise our confidence as a world-wide class under capital.
And not let events driven by groups hostile to any building of class consciousness succeed in derailing the building of a world human community.
Again with false premises some say: 'we should focus on stopping all terrorism and war rather than assuming that a 'class war' is justifiable.'
So how do we do that?
One chant of the peace movement during the Gulf was 'sanctions not bombs', it was pointed out at the time that sanctions were just slow war, which has been the case.
The mutinying soldiers of the Iraqi army coming back from Kuwait were the greatest threat to the status quo there. That is why they were bombed rather than elite Republican Guard, many though did get back to home area to help with revolt that saw setting up of shuras (workers councils), governments everywhere were happy to see the republican guard put them down in a blood bath. It would be no help asking those unhappy to get back to business as usual to stop hating the police, the bosses, the regime (and the church: one of first acts of one of uprising was a returning tank firing upon the dome of the main mosque in one of southern towns; not that mainstream press reported that which wanted to focus on Islamic element to uprising), but encouraging their struggle and giving solidarity was needed. The best thing of use to improve was to have continued our struggle here with international solidarity in mine.
some stuff on resistance to gulf war:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/gulf.html
See also:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7672/nowar/contents.html
I hope people try to stop viewing any group of people be they Americans, Afghans or Palestinians as all collectively responsible for 'their' governments actions or people who have same label religious or ethnic. That is part of the cause of barbarity that we saw on Tuesday 11th September, and may see in future in response. The ability of a people to control 'their' governments actions is a myth; under the world system of states under capitalism, the mass of people do not control the world and it's national institutions.
But the mass of people, the working class, do produce the wealth of world, and have power collectively to take control. It won't be handed to them on a plate.
I hope this has gone some way to explain the position of those of us who believe in the class struggle as a vehicle for a welcome revolution.
sept01
The class war doesn't mean a military war. The class war happens everyday. It happens in workplaces, communities and all social life, whenever people stand up for themselves against bosses and government. Ultimately, if enough oppressed people come together and overthrow all power structures, we could create a stateless world community without war, terrorism and exploitation. This may seem unlikely, but the alternative of expecting today's global capitalist system to end war, terrorism and exploitation is impossible.
The following is a leaflet written by some people in France and Belgium.
Today then it is necessary to refuse recruitment whereever it comes from.
Should it be done in the name of Democracy and supposed western supremacy or
the community of the Faithfull. Workers have absolutely nothing to gain from
that. We must reject all calls for National Unity and economic patriotism at
the same time as the bosses lay us off with all our might ; at the same time
as governments reinforce their repressive machine (Vigipirate in France, european
warrant for arrest). These devices put in place by governments, from the pluralist
left in France to the extreme right in Italy, are nothing but tools of social
control, threatening and repressing the proletariat as a whole and its immigrant
and/or without papers fraction in particular.
Only the fight for the unity of proletarians, whatever their origins, can stop
anti-proletarian terror, whether it is disguised as a crusade or as a jihad.
Political Islam and Democracy are two banners which aim to recruit workers.
We must reject them without any hesitation.
Some internationalist communists
Bruxelles, Paris 08 octobre 2001.
The Twin Towers: Void & Actuality of the Data Storm
Data Quakes: Baphomet Rising - Shocks of Might
anti war pamphlet:
http://struggle.ws/issues/war/pamOCT01.html
of interest some interviews with bin Laden:
http://www.flinet.com/~politics/jihad/jihad.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/dailynews/terror_980609.html
These texts above will move to seperate pages linked from here sometime hence.
coming sometime: live update news and views board.
that works for example like: Inews
or http://genoaresistence.org
If you were looking for pages concerning other subjects on the j12 website then email us ( web 'at' j12.org ) for help locating them.