Anarchopedia:Current events archive

Communpedia and its 'Communpedia news'

Rebel suicide bomber kills top Syrian officials
It has been pretty hard to tell who the bad guys are in Syria, a regime used by the US to torture extrajudicial prisoners, that is now being double-crossed by the US, perhaps to the point of backing the rebels against them. Someone has been massacring civilians, and possibly both sides.

The grey area has grown and darkened now that the rebels have used assassinations, like the Obama administration's drone strikes...only with suicide bombers.^[11] Like Al-Qaeda, the PLO, and almost every group on the US' terrorist list. So does that mean that the rebels supported by state leaders all around the world, in lockstep with the US, are terrorists? Or is suicide bombing now OK? Is this something the US opposes? Is there an outcry of "terrorist actions"? No. How about something like "brutal"? Well, no. In fact, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta used the same blaming the victim technique as was used on Haiti's Aristide, when rebels tried to take over his country; Assad will be held responsible if it does not safeguard its stockpile of chemical weapons.^[12]

Does this utter absence of criticism means that suicide bombing is going to follow torture in the transition from a crime with which the US pot can call its enemies' kettles red, to just another military option? And if it does, then that means that the rest of the 'terrorists' are just irregular military with fewer military options than the US, as Anarchopedia has always contended.

Legislative coup d'état removes President Fernando Lugo of Paraguay
Lugo’s opponents’ had planned the coup, and U.S. officials had known about it, as early as 2009. "Capitalize on any Lugo missteps to break the political deadlock in Congress, impeach Lugo and assure their own political supremacy", reads a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks.^[13]

The announcement of Lugo's impeachment proceedings came just a day before he was given two hours to prepare his legal defense; Lugo declined to address the proceedings. Legislator's statements were long on quotes of constitutional rules and short on rationale. In particular, there were no concrete examples of his 'misconduct'. Lugo has strong support in the populace, but the legislature was filled with the same party as had ruled Paraguay for 61 years. On the 25th of June, 2012, Fernando Lugo said he would create a parallel cabinet, and bring his case before the coming week's summit of the Mercosur trade bloc in Mendoza, Argentina^[14]

"The two things to look out for is, one if military aid to Paraguayan army will continue. The U.S. is a supplier of much material and financial support to the security forces in Paraguay, and two, if it will take advantage of the crisis to go forward with a long sought military base in the region, which the Pentagon, Southcom (WP), has wanted for a while"-Greg Grandin (WP)^[15]

O, Drug War, where is thy Sting?..Really, where did it go, have you seen it around anywhere?
One of Project Gunrunner's (see Operation: IRONY) plans to deprive Mexican drug cartels of weaponry, the ATF's (WP) Operation Fast and Furious, gave them weapons instead. It thereby achieved optimum Oppositeness. Or did it? See CIA drug trafficking

Labor Day protests
International Workers' Day (WP) also known as May Day (also, outside of the US and UK, known as Labor Day) rallies and protests were a mix of the traditional yearly events and a resurgence of Occupy Movement (WP) events
Guardian full day listing of events , and in pictures
SFGate: 15 minutes, 30 people, 30 businesses trashed, no arrests

The Sacred Temple of the All-Seeing Eye, Bluffdale, Utah
During the Cold War, the National Security Agency intercepted the communications of Russia and China and a handful of communist states, while the US busied itself with taking over the world secretly. Now that other countries are fighting back, and the US does its regime changes largely in the open, the NSA has given itself the task of intercepting, decoding, and assessing ALL communications, EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME.

In order to do this, the NSA is building the largest intelligence complex ever; more than five times the size of the US Capitol, in Bluffdale, Utah, in the heart of Mormon country.

The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say), by James Bamford. James Bamford interview on Democracy Now!

Logo of Xe Watch, representing opposition to Blackwater Worldwide. Blackwater became Xe Services in October 2007

Logo of the Central Intelligence Agency; a large bureaucracy with many branches; these divisions do not necessarily reflect an operational separation of CIA activities (WP)

"Seven countries in five years"
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Iran
See:Seven countries in five years
Seven government and countries, all of which have already been the targets of extra-diplomatic actions and military US action in past years, were overtly targeted for invasion and overthrow by the Bush administration in late 2000. This objective has been achieved in two, although resistance to foreign occupation of Iraq and Libya will continue for the foreseeable future.

General Wesley Clark, not the staunchest ally of human rights himself (authorizing the use of depleted uranium rounds and attacks on civilians in Yugoslavia, for example), was nonetheless moved for whatever reason to deplore this policy publicly. However, it was six years before he did so, in an interview with Democracy Now!, a conference at the Commonwealth Club of California, and elsewhere.

The third name for Blackwater, Academi

Blackwater is now Xe is now Academi

Blackwater Worldwide changed its name to Xe, and has most recently (better to not say now, as it could change again any day, it seems) changed it again to Academi. This was more than sufficient to get the Blackwater Watch article and its other two incarnations removed from Wikipedia entirely; see Xe Watch#Deletion from Wikipedia

Archived

Anarchopedia:Current events archive

• Raymond Allen Davis incident : On January 27, 2011, Raymond Allen Davis, a US citizen claiming to be working as a consultant at the U.S. Consulate in Lahore and later said to be a CIA operative ^[16] killed two armed men in the Pakistani city of Lahore.^[17][18][19]
• King hearings
• Social programs cut by 112th USA Congress^[20]
• BTJunkie BitTorrent site shuts down

Citations

^[21]

• No one is certain what the 'p' in "pH", the standard of acidity and alkalinity, stands for. The "H" stands for Hydrogen
• Jasmine Revolution may refer to:
  • The 1987 coup d'état in Tunisia that led to the rise to the presidency of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was later to be deposed in another Jasmine Revolution, below. There is no Wikipedia article on this coup
  • The Sidi Bouzid Revolt (WP) in which President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was forced to flee the country with the loot he had gotten from privatization, dubbed "the Jasmine Revolution" by media early in 2011, which inspired the Arab Spring and the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests
  • The Arab Spring. See Jasmine Revolution
  • The 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests in the People's Republic of China, named a "Jasmine revolution" by some of the organisers
• North Carolina Stop Torture Now! was responsible for media attention to the subject of extraordinary rendition, and yet had its article deleted from Wikipedia
• The US 'Hearts & Minds' campaign in Hīt, Iraq, and presumably other areas, was largely about buying the support of a few individuals
• Hunt Saboteurs were successful in convincing the U.K. government to ban fox hunting. Drag hunting with human-laid scent trails is now in some cases used instead, but partly because it was advocated by their mortal enemies, hunt saboteurs, some hunt clubs are 'cutting off their nose to spite their face' and refusing to implement the alternative
• The Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit (LEIU) is an privately owned but government funded organization used by the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) to amass files on private citizens while evading the United States Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
• "...everyone knows what 'fairness' means..." The average world income is the same as the U.S. "poverty line" See, Egalitarianism "...the world economy is not a zero sum (WP) game..."
• ...The name of Montreal's anarchist bookstore, Librairie l'Insoumise, means "The Insubordinate", a derogatory moniker given to the French anarchist and participant in the Paris Commune, Louise Michel. She was accused of:

1. Trying to overthrow the government
2. Encouraging citizens to arm themselves
3. Possession and use of weapons, and wearing a military uniform
4. Forgery of a document
5. Using a false document
6. Planning to assassinate hostages
7. Illegal arrests, torturing and killing

All before she had even become an anarchist. She was not radicalized until she was sent to prison

• ...Because they are much smaller than previous types of satellites, Microsatellites can be placed in orbits much closer to Earth. Because they are closer, the area from which they can receive signals and to which they can send them is much smaller, in the opposite way to a goalie protecting more of a soccer goal with the same reach, the further out from the goal he is, or the same way as a torch/flashlight shines its light on a smaller area the closer to a a reflective surface it comes. Despite the fact that this requires many microsatellites to be launched at the same time, to cover the same area, it is still cheaper to launch and maintain the 'constellations' of satellites, as their formations are called, and they cover their assigned areas faster

archive

Journalists covering the occupy movement (WP), an on-going protest movement, have been arrested, leading to criticism from press freedom groups that journalists' constitutionally protected rights are being violated._{(rights protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution)}

In 2012, Reporters without Borders (WP) listed the United States as 47th in its Press Freedom Index (WP), dropping a full 27 places in just one year. The watchdog group made explicit mention of US response to the Occupy movement, saying:

The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests."

—Reporters without Borders, Press Freedom Index^[1][2]

Arrests of journalists

September 24 2011, New York City

Journalist John Farley of WNET Metrofocus was arrested while attempting to interview women who had been victims of the pepper-spraying by police. Despite wearing press credentials and identifying himself as press to police, Farrley was arrested. He reported being handcuffed and imprisoned for nine hours. He was initially charged with disorderly conduct but all charges against him were dropped.^[3][4]

October 1 2011, New York City

Three journalists, Natasha Lennard of the New York Times, Kristen Gwynne of Alternet, and documentarian Marisa Holmes were arrested covering the events of October 1.^[5][6]. ^[7][8]

On October 1, 2011, police arrested about 700 marchers on the Brooklyn Bridge.^[9] By October 2, all but 20 of those arrested had been released with citations for disorderly conduct.^[10]

On October 4, a group of protesters who were arrested on the bridge filed a lawsuit against the city, alleging that officers had violated their constitutional rights. ^[11]

November 2 2011, Milwaukee

Kristyna Wentz-Graff of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was arrested while covering an Occupy protest. ^[12][13] The arrest drew criticism from Journal Sentinel editors, the Wisconsin News Photographers Association, the Milwaukee Press Club and the National Press Photographers Association. Ultimately, Wentz-Graff was ultimately not charged with any wrongdoing. ^[14]

November 3 2011, Oakland

Although she was clearly wearing a press pass, Journalist Susie Cagle was arrested in the early hours of November 3 and spent 14 hours at 2 different jails.^[15] She was charged with failure to leave the scene of a riot. Cagle is one of several journalists covering the Occupy movement that have been arrested.^[16] Additionally, Cagle reported having been subject to and witness to mistreatment of protestors during her imprisonment.^[17]

Cagle was again arrested while covering an Occupy Oakland march on January 28, 2012.^[18]

November 13 2011, Chapel Hill

Two journalists were arrested: Katelyn Ferral, of The News & Observer, and Josh Davis, a graduate student in Journalism at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill.^[19]

November 15 2011, New York City

Police arrested about 200 people, including journalists representing the Agence France-Presse,^[20] Associated Press,^[21] Daily News|Daily News,^[22] DNAInfo,^[23] NPR (WP),^[24] Television New Zealand,^[25] The New York Times,^[26] and Vanity Fair|Vanity Fair,^[27] as well as New York City Council member Ydanis Rodríguez.^[28] An NBC reporter's press pass was also confiscated.^{[29][30] [31]}

While the police cleared the park, credentialed members of the media were kept a block away, preventing them from documenting the event.^[32][33] Police helicopters prevented NBC and CBS news helicopters from filming the clearing of the park.^[34] Many journalists complained of being treated roughly or violently by the police.^[35][36][37]

The Society of Professional Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders and the New York Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns and criticisms regarding the situation.^{[23][38][39][40]} The Organization of American States Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression issued a statement saying that the "disproportionate restrictions on access to the scene of the events, the arrests, and the criminal charges resulting from the performance of professional duties by reporters violate the right to freedom of expression."^[41]

On November 21, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the Associated Press, Dow Jones, NBC Universal and WNBC-TV joined in a letter written by New York Times General Council George Freeman criticizing the New York Police Department's handling of the media during the raid. ^[42]

December 12 2011, New York

Dec 12 saw arrests of a number of journalists. ^[43][44]

January 28 2012, Oakland

On January 28, Oakland Police arrested about 400 individuals in the largest mass arrest in Oakland history.^[45] Among those arrested were at least six journalists.

Among the journalists arrested include Kristin Hanes of ABC News-KGO, Susie Cagle,^[46] Gavin Aronsen of Mother Jones magazine (WP), Vivian Ho of the San Francisco Chronicle, John C. Osborn of East Bay Express, and Yael Chanoff of San Francisco Bay Guardian.^[47]

One of the imprisoned journalist emerged after 20 hours of imprisonment and reported witnessing police brutality and cruel treatment.^[48][49]

January 31 2012, Miami

Carlos Miller, a member of the National Press Photographers Association, was documenting the eviction of Occupy Miami when he was arrested. Upon his release, his camera footage of his arrest appeared to have been deleted, but Miller was able to recover the footage despite the attempted deletion. ^[50] Miller is currently facing a single count of resisting arrest.

Citizen journalism

The Occupy movement has sparked new interest in citizen journalism (WP) due to fears about censorship (WP) and bias in the media.^[51] New media outlets formed during the Occupy movement include the Occupied Wall Street Journal and InsightOut News.

The movement also increased the popularity of livestreaming (streaming media) livestreaming|(WP) as a way of disseminating information from the front lines of chaotic situations. However, these new media (WP) journalists also have complaints about harassment and arrests from the police.^[52]

References

External links

• Josh Sterns - Tracking Journalist Arrests at Occupy Protests Around the Country

Anarchopedia:Former featured articles : Drop weapon, US 'Hearts & Minds' campaign in Hīt, Iraq, Cooperative conglomerate, Barack Obama

This month that year in the Wars for Capitalism:

Main article: September in the Wars for Capitalism

Sitting Bull in 1883

• 8th of September, 1883 — United States of America: Sitting Bull, main chief of the Sioux tribes, delivers a speech insulting and making fools of US authorities to great applause. Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake), whose position was being bypassed by US authorities because he firmly stood against the robbery of the native peoples, spoke at the celebration of the driving of the last spike in the Northern Pacific railroad joining with the transcontinental system. He delivered the speech in his Sioux language, departing from a speech originally prepared with an army translator. Denouncing the US government, settlers and army, the listeners thought he was delivering a speech of welcome and praise. While giving the speech Sitting Bull paused for applause periodically, bowed, smiled and continued insulting and making asses of the audience and US authorities as the translator delivered the original address.^[1]

• 4th of September, 1886, United States of America: Legendary Apache Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, ending the last major US-Indian conflict. Geronimo had led a small band of men, women and children out of forced internment on the San Carlos reservation, successfully evading thousands of US and Mexican troops, regiments of Indian auxiliaries, and an unknown number of civilians, for over 18 months in the Southwest wilderness

• 9th of September, 1898, Puerto Rico: US and Spanish Commissions meet in San Juan to discuss the details of the withdrawal of Spanish troops and the cession of the island to the United States

• 4th September, 1903, United States of America: Cripple Creek, Colorado, where mine owners are trying to bust the labor union, police and deputy sheriffs are relieved of their duties and all citizens are required to register their firearms. Governor Peabody sends in the the militia. In 1904 they seize the local sympathetic newspaper, and round up strikers into "bullpens" or take them to the Kansas border and abandon them. Dozens are arrested without warrants… General Sherman Bell of the Colorado National Guard shouted, "Habeus Corpus, hell! We'll give 'em post mortems."

Industrial Workers of the World icon

• 28th of September, 1917, US: 166 Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World/IWW union activists) indicted for interfering with the war effort in the 'war to end all war'. The first move in an illegal but successful US government campaign to (with no offense intended to those who struggle) cripple the radical union movement. The First World War, that like those that preceded it, was openly a war of conquest. WWI opened so many ordinary people's eyes to the horrors of war, and consequently met with the first organized resistance to war. The resulting anti-war movement grew to great strength, but did not rise to the true threat of Hitler, and the radically less severe threat of the Soviet Great Purge, and not only lost credibility for its lack of a stand against Hitler, but allowed the USSR's politicide to be conflated with the Nazi's genocide.

• 4th of September, 1918 — Russia: American troops land at Archangel in North Russia, one year after the Russian Revolution, to "protect U.S. interests." (see also 1918 August 3, 1920 August 8, 1919 April 7). They are ultimately soundly defeated in a little known US invasion with disastrous effects on US Foreign policy in the following decades. Allied invasion and intervention is continuous from 1918-20. The US 27th Regiment was part of the Allied force in Siberia. The US 31st Infantry Regiment (Polar Bears), as well as British, Canadian, Czech, Chinese, Italian, French, and Japanese troops, also participated.^[2]

• 4th of September, 1921, United States of America: Federal troops march up Hewitt Creek in Logan County after gaining a cease fire the the Battle of Blair Mountain yesterday. Efforts to unionize the southern West Virginia coal fields are ended with the arrival of the 10th US Infantry

• 1926, China: United States of America Marines begin fighting in the Yangtze Valley (until Oct. 21, 1927)

• Klaus Barbie, the Nazi "Butcher of Lyon", Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) and later CIA, German intelligence (BND) and Gladio agent: In Sept. 1935, joined the SS (Schutzstaffel); Sicherheitsdienst (SD) special security branch. Involved in the September 1944 massacre in Rehaupal. In Sept. 1991, died.

• 1st of September, 1939: Germany invades Poland, starts World War II. World War II shocks the conscience, but weakens it all the same. It opens US intelligence and military capabilities to worldwide level, and US government eyes to the possibilities of an American empire, while at the same time informing the world public of all the culture and diversity of the world worth saving from their depredations. It is the use of Nazis to catch other Nazis that leads to the weakening of institutional morality in the OSS, which becomes a CIA fully controlled by anti-communist and pro-capitalist agendas, whereupon the Nazi-collaborating Gladio murders and sets murderers free, all to manipulate European politics

• 9th of September, 1942 — United States of America: The only time the American mainland has ever been attacked, if you believe that 9/11 was an inside job. Japan floats incendiary balloons across the Pacific, flying over Oregon, in an attempt to set fire to the forests of Oregon and Washington. The forests failed to ignite. Europe is devastated by the second of two world wars, and has every reason to fear and despise war, but to America, war means only the glorious lies of war propaganda and the erroneous argument that it is good for business (and what enterprise would not be good for profits, with a desperate or browbeaten workforce on low wages and rationed goods? With the end result being bodies, wounded, and the smoke of burning buildings and bombs, there is not much to be said either for its product, the one aspect of production that capitalist economists always fail to mention)

• 3rd of September, 1954, United States of America: Espionage and Sabotage Act authorizes five years imprisonment for trespassing on Government property;^[3] Congress passes a bill to revoke the citizenship of persons convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government

• Guatemalan coup d'état of 1954: CIA Operation PBHISTORY (WP): The National Committee of the Defense against Communism continues to gather names of "communists"; by November they had 72,000, subject to arrest and detention without legal defense or appeal.^[4]

• 5th of September, 1961 — United States of America: President Kennedy orders resumption of nuclear testing, "underground, with no fallout." (see December 9, 10 and 18)

• 1st September, 1965, Dominican Republic: A provisional president installed, following the "Act of Reconciliation." It has lasted 132 days, this war of wood & knife & carbines against American mortars & machine guns. The city smells of powder & sweepings & dead. They have not accepted treason nor consolation and thus are crushed. They fought at night, every night, all the night, ferocious battles house-to-house, hand-to-hand, inch-to-inch, until from the bottom of the sea they raised the sun...and then they hid until the following night. After many such nights of horror & glory, the invading American troops install again a puppet who knows well the song & dance of US business.^{[5] [6] [7]}

• 24th of September, 1968, United States of America: Anti-war protestors destroy 10,000 draft files in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

• 8th of September, 1971 — United States of America: Beginning of the Attica Prison revolt. Interracial uprising in NY lasting four days, with cooperation between prisoners of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, which is finally brutally suppressed by the state, with 41 left dead. The prisoners were unreasonably demanding improvements in their living and working conditions. "A guy who rigs aluminum prices can get himself introduced by Georgie Jessel at $100 dollars a plate but stealing a can of beer can get you iced."— Ishmael Reed, YELLOW BACK RADIO BROKE-DOWN[3][4] An identical prison riot (even assuming, on the sparse evidence, that there was one, internet censorship, and allegations of terrorist attacks against the US are the only excuse for the US ignoring UN outcries and bombing Libya into regime change and backing the assassination of its leader forty years later.

• 1973, Chile: 15th of September: Victor Jara murdered in massacre after American-sponsored overthrow of Salvador Allende. Also killed is at least one American Wobbly; Background materials on the Chilean workers' movement in the 1970s: Recollectionbooks^[8]

• 8th of September, 1976, England: Hull Prison revolt. For four days in September 1976, prisoners take over three of the four wings of Hull prison. Included, Jake Prescott (in prison for his activities with the anarchist Angry Brigade). Their protests include conditions in prison workshops, where furniture is made for prisons in Iran. Thusly, rioting prisoners on the roof shout, "Fuck the Shah of Iran! Fuck the Shah of Iran!"

George Bush Sr. steals again in 1989 more or less what Jimmy Carter returned in 1977

• 7th of September, 1977, Panama: Omar Torrijos and Jimmy Carter sign a treaty returning sovereignty of the Canal Zone to Panamá. General Torrijos says he does not want to enter history. He wants to enter the Canal Zone, stolen by the US at the beginning of the century. When accused of serving Moscow or Havana, Torrijos laughs. Every people, he says, swallows its own aspirin for its own headache. and if it comes down to it, he gets along with the Castristas better than the castrati. Under pressure of world opinion, the US agrees to slowly return the Canal in stages. "Itʼs better this way," says Torrijos, relieved. They've saved him the disagreeable task of blowing up the canal and all its installations.^[9]

• 1979, England: The 'Persons Unknown' trial opens. The state's lack of evidence is evident by their charge; six anarchists were charged with 'conspiracy with persons known & unknown to cause explosions'. The six were found not guilty, and a member of the jury became an anarchist...

• 17th of September, 1980, Nicaragua. Anastasio Somoza Debayle (WP) assassinated. With US support, followed up the rule as dictator by his father, (WP), with his own. De facto leader of Nicaragua until his death. The US backed the Somoza family rule as its best connection to US business interests, and its means of assassinating anarchism-influenced freedom fighter Augusto César Sandino (WP)

• 5th of September, 1981 — England: After 20,000 march in a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament protest in London against the deployment of nuclear-armed Cruise Missiles and the MX-20 cruise-missiles-on-rails project, the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp is established outside one of scores of United States Air Force Bases on English soil (Greenham Air Base) as "Women For Life On Earth". Some recall Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and say that Britain is now "Airstrip One". US general Alexander Haig is soon to come on BBC Radio and declare his support for not only 'first strike' but a 'limited nuclear war in Europe' as the best plan he can think of in the event of an imagined Soviet tank invasion. The USSR was involved indirectly in a handful of coups -compare with the US rate of at least one significant military engagement per year- and suppression of rebellions, and intervened in Afghanistan at its government's behest -and some say, was lured there by US intelligence- but never invaded any country

• 1st of September, 1985, US: To avert Senate passage of sanctions against the apartheid (WP) regime in South Africa, after 11 western nations have already imposed sanctions, Ronald Reagan announces a much less effective sanction package

• 1st of September, 1986 -- Charles Liteky & George Mizo begin Fast For Life in Washington D.C against US support of Nicaraguan Contra (WP) anti-socialist death squads / anti-democratic 'regime change' usurpers.

• 1st of September, 1987 -- US: During a nonviolent protest at Concord Naval Weapons Station, a Navy munitions train runs over San Francisco activist S. Brian Willson, at a blockade protesting American arms shipments to the Contras, when the train fails to stop. Willson loses both legs but remains an active & articulate leader in the anti-military movement. He is later sued by civilian members of the train crew for the "humiliation, embarrassment & emotional distress" the incident caused them

GHW in the Oval Office sometime around the time of his address to the US

• 1st of September, 1989 -- US: No Wise Cracks?: the Bush Senior administration decides to purchase some crack cocaine so George Bush can hold the drug in his hands during a national address near the beginning of the 'War on Drugs'. On the first attempt, the drug dealer didn't show up. On the second try, an undercover drug agent's body microphone didn't work. Today, trying for the third time, Big Shrub's team scores the crack, but the operator videotaping the deal misses the action as a homeless person assaults him. Bush's son, Little Shrub, a drug user & 1999 presidential candidate, refuses to talk of his cocaine use — or about all the people doing long prison-time in Texas (where he is state Governor) for the same crime. The WoD is a unique style of Wars for Capitalism operation, in that it contains the same subterfuge and misdirection as a black flag operation, but in reverse. The US government uses the illegality of drugs to attack the Left, which they know is linked to the drug culture, but deals drugs to the inner cities, mistakenly believing that it will weaken the users and correctly deducing (kind of a no brainer, though) that it will make them boatloads of untraceable money to fund their wars and put most of the lefty drug culture in prison. (CIA drug trafficking)^{[10] [11]}

• 20th of September, 1990, Iraq: Saddam Hussein demands US networks broadcast his message, of peace, love, and harmony for all the children of planet Earth

Aristide and wife Mildred in 2004

• In 1991, the US had backs a coup d'état (WP) of democratically-elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide. By 1994, the UN, suspecting US involvement and opposed to the military regime that replaced Aristide, is determined that it should be deposed. The writing is on the wall for the US, and it feints in the opposite direction, involving itself in Aristide's return to Haiti with Operation Uphold Democracy. Later, the back-up plan is revealed, as the US uses its involvement as leverage to extract promises from Aristide to change Haiti's policies to be favorable to the US. Because these reactionary pro-multinational steps backward would have reverted Aristide's reforms, and changed Haitian government to the same form as planned by Aristide's 1990 opponent, the US demands would have entirely nullified the elections, thereby subverting the democracy they claim to support yet again. Aristide is one of the very few world leaders that has ever double-crossed the US and survived; he promised the changes, and then went on with his original plans. A great man who will always be remembered by Anarchopedia as standing up to the greatest and most insidiously evil force in history. Not surprisingly, albeit with obvious implications for its moral code, the US then usurps Haitian democracy a second time by kicking Aristide out again in 2004. It was not the last such meddling, and there will others; see 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections and the recent discovery of Gold in Haiti.

• 1995: Operation Deliberate Force NATO bombing campaign during the Bosnian War arrives too late to prevent some of the most heinous war crimes of the century, and by employing only massive force, perpetrates many of the crimes which it is ostensibly mandated to prevent or correct

• 1st of September, 1996, Germany: 16 activists in Stuttgart arrested at EUROCOM, the U.S. Armed Forces command HQ for Europe, Africa, & the Middle East (& central NATO command), in a protest of NATO expansion into Eastern Europe

• 1st of September, 1997, England: Kurdish and British activists blockade an arms trade (WP) exhibition outside London. 89 arrested

• 5th of September, 2001, Peru: Homicide charges are filed against exiled ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori. [Source: Robert Braunwart]

• 5th of September, 2002 — United States of America: George W. Bush and British PM Tony Blair meet to drum up international support for war on Iraq, Camp David, Md. Most of the world, sans the US media, Congressmen, politicians and a small portion of gullible Americans, reject their concoction of half-truths, distortions and outright lies.^[12][13] [Source: Robert Braunwart]. UN human-rights chief Mary Robinson accuses the United States of America, Russia and China of hiding behind the war on terrorism to trample civil rights. [Source: Robert Braunwart]

• 2004: Luigi Ciavardini, member of the Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari is arrested for a bank robbery. The NAR and Ciavardini specifically is connected, with the Terza Posizione to the Gladio bombing named the Bologna massacre. Before and after the 2004 arrest, Ciavardini was in and out of prison, repeatedly freed by Gladio-corrupted Italian justices of not only the bank robbery charge, not only two cover-up assassinations, but the Bologna massacre itself

• 2007: Saffron Revolution (WP): Myanmar's junta has stated that nationwide monk protests, which took place in August and September, were the results of timely collaborated plots of "a Western power" and antigovernment groups aiming to install a puppet government in the country. The Myanmar junta used to refer to the United States as "a Western power".^[14] This is not as implausible as it sounds; the CIA continues to back the Tibetan Buddhists that were the first group (in 1950) they ever fully backed against another country, see 14th Dalai Lama, section 'CIA backing'

See also

It was also a good year for peace, apparently
The ONLY year, after 1945, in which the US did NOT instigate military conflicts, coups, assassinations, war crimes, and/or create secret organizations, operations, or military doctrines leading to them, according to the admittedly unexhaustive list at List of military interventions by the US :
1977

Anarchopedia:Article in the news archive • • Pretenders to the Ottoman Dynasty • • 2011 Egyptian media censorship • • 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections • • Operation Avenge Assange • • Killing the drug fields: Paraquat poisoning from Operation Intercept to present • • Venesat-1

Drop weapon

A drop weapon is a weapon carried by a soldier for the purpose of creating false evidence (WP), placing it on or near a slain individual to make that person appear to be an enemy combatant or insurgent. Alternatively, a drop weapon or other item is left in the open; any individual who picks it up may be fired upon; a process known as baiting.^[15]

The use of drop weapons has been the cause of some controversy in the Iraq War.^[16][17]

Baiting is a similar procedure, in that the perpetrator leaves items on the ground, but it has far different ramifications. Items are left for people in the area to find and pick up; doing so is considered evidence of insurgency. This is despite there being a multitude of reasons for them to do so,^[18] including simple curiousity and importantly, the desire to AVOID being branded as insurgents because of damning evidence left outside their houses. Rather than falsification of evidence, baiting creates the danger of legal entrapment (WP) for the perpetrator, and thus illegal killing of the victim. According to documents quoted by the Washington Post,^[19] the U.S. military's Asymmetric Warfare Group (WP) encouraged snipers to drop items "such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition"^[15] then kill Iraqis who handled the items.^[15][16]

In one incident United States Army (WP) Sgt. Evan Vela was sentenced to a 10 year prison term for murder after being convicted of murdering an unarmed Iraqi and planting evidence.^[20]

"Baiting is putting an object out there that we know they will use, with the intention of destroying the enemy...Basically, we would put an item out there and watch it. If someone found the item, picked it up and attempted to leave with the item, we would engage the individual as I saw this as a sign they would use the item against U.S. Forces." - Capt. Matthew P. Didier, the leader of an elite sniper scout platoon attached to the 1st Battalion of the 501st Infantry Regiment, in a sworn statement. Josh White and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post Staff Writers, Monday, September 24, 2007 , in the Washington Post^[15]

The Asymmetric Warfare Group is said by Captain Didier to have sent boxes of the kind normally used to hold ammunition filled with "drop items" to his unit, the 1st Battalion 501st Infantry Regiment in order "to disrupt the AIF [Anti-Iraq Forces] attempts at harming coalition forces and give us the upper hand in a fight."^[15][21]

The Independent newspaper quoted a spokesperson for the US military as saying: "We don't discuss specific methods of targeting enemy combatants. The accused are charged with murder and wrongfully placing weapons on the remains of Iraqi nationals. There are no classified programmes that authorise the murder of local nationals and the use of 'drop weapons' to make killings appear legally justified."^[21]

Iraq, 27 April, 2007

Spec. Jorge Sandoval, it was found by a military court, shot an Iraqi man, who was cutting grass with a rusty sickle, on the order of Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley. The two men then placed a spool of wire into the pocket of the dead man.^[15] Hensley and Sandoval were charged with murder, of which they were acquitted and with planting evidence, of which they were found guilty.^[20]

May 11th, 2007

In the village of Jurf as Sakhr along the Euphrates River most of the sniper team chose an area to hide and sleep in. One of the members of the unit, Staff Sgt. Michael Hensley stayed on guard. While on his guard he witnessed an Iraqi man, Genei Nesir Khudair Al-Janabi,^[20] slowing creeping towards the hide area where the other snipers were sleeping. At this point he put in a call to then-first-lieutenant Matthew P. Didier, for permission to make a "close kill". The request was authorized on a "as needed" basis. Hensley again ordered another man, Sgt. Evan Vela, to make the kill, and several minutes later Didier received word from of the kill from Hensley.

In court documents Hensley is quoted as saying "I thought that he was trying to alert insurgents," Hensley said. "I felt like I had no choice or we would be further compromised."^[20]

Jorge Sandoval and Evan Vela were charged with murder, and the two men plus Hensley were charged with planting an AK47 on the body of Al-Janabi. Sandoval was acquitted of murder. Sandoval, Vela and Hensley were convicted of planting evidence,^[20] and Evan Vela was convicted of murder.

The defense claimed two somewhat contradictory justifications: one, Vela was sleep-deprived, and did not mean to kill, and two, that he was ordered to by Hensley, and was only carrying out orders.^[20]

Micronation diplomacy

Pretenders and micronations are a fascinating subject, because in their impotence, they lay bare the lack of any real power that states have. All is in the mind of the governors or the governed, or Guns or Butter (WP)

One of the first micronations (WP) to be established, in 1865, was the Kingdom of Redonda, on a Caribbean island; there are hundreds more today.^[22] Many micronations have diplomatic relations with other micronations; inasmuch as no macronation, or undisputed country, will recognize a micronation, their diplomatic relations are usually limited to other micronations.^[23] However, micronations often make pronouncements with respect to nations, or declare policy with respect to nations, some more substantial^[22][23] than the common micronation declaration that they 'give gifts' to nearby or encompassing nations rather than pay taxes.^[22][23][24] According to the declarative theory of statehood of the Montevideo Convention, countries need population, territory, government, and diplomacy to be considered sovereign.^[25][26] Many micronations will not recognise less serious micronations than themselves.^[27] While micronational diplomacy usually consists of friendly contact between micronations,^[23] some micronations, such as the Principality of Seborga and the Madison Kingdom of Talossa,^[28] refuse to recognise any micronation as an unofficial or official policy. The reverse is also true; the Hutt River Principality is visited by officials of the Australian government, despite its unrecognized status.^[23]

In at least three instances, the foundation of a micronation was a protest against the laws or administration of the nearby macronation.^[24][22][29] The Gay and Lesbian Kingdom of the Coral Sea Islands (WP) was founded in response to Australia's ban on gay marriage.^[22][30][31]The Mittagong, New South Wales city council decided to divert construction of a sewer line, after the Principality of Dubeldeka was formed, to the outskirts of its property;^[22] the founders of the micronation claim that the hotel they planned to restore would have been destroyed by the original course of pipelaying.^[22] The Principality of Wy decided being part of a local council that denied them road access was not worth it, and seceded in 2004.^[24] The NSK micronation opposes the very concept of nations,^[32][33] and Cyber Yugoslavia is critical of Yugoslavian nationalism.^[32]

The dissolution of the Soviet Union created areas that were no longer parts of the former USSR (WP) or Russia (WP), nor established states; micronations whose sovereignty and relationship to other countries was unclear, yet whose national borders and ethnic constituency still had precedence in history.^[34]

The largest intermicronational organisation in micronational history is the Organisation of Active Micronations (OAM),^[35] which boasts over 80 member nations.^[36] The League of Small Nations (LSN), modelled after the League of Nations (WP), consists of the Dominion of British West Florida, the Sovereign Barony of Caux, the Grand Duchy of Greifenberg and the Republic of Molossia.^[37] There are also intermicronational organisations that are reputable, while accepting nations and micronations that do not necessarily meet all of the Montevideo Convention requirements for a state, such as the Micronational Professional Registry (MPR)^[38] and the League of Secessionist States (LoSS)^[39] The United Micronations Multi-Oceanic Archipelago (UMMOA) claims recognition from an organization in Italy by the name of International Parliament for Safety and Peace.^[40]

The continent of Australia swells the number of micronations considerably;^[22][23][24] micronations there attend to diplomatic business at micronation conferences,^[22] including the April 2010 PoliNation conference on an island just off the coast of Sydney, Australia.^[31][41]

Ambassadors to other micronations tend to visit, rather than live in them, or conduct diplomacy at a distance.^[23] Ambassadors can be assigned to macronations (most commonly to the macronation that surrounds a micronation), but are never recognised as ambassadors by the macronation. The definition of state visit remains the same for micronations as larger ones. Grand Duke Paul of Greifenberg made a state visit to President Kevin Baugh of Molossia on April 21, 2008, where they talked about micronationalism.^[42] On May 23, 2008, Grand Duke Paul visited Baron John I of the Barony of Caux.^[43] From June 27–30, 2008, Prince Christopher and Princess Erin of Vikesland visited Molossia. During the visit, they engaged in joint military and rocket projects.^[44] All of these state visits were between members of the League of Small Nations.

Micronations typically use definitions of embassies and ambassadors loosely. Lovely,^[45] for example, declares any location its flag is displayed to be an embassy. Some will declare just about any location to be an embassy, including a webpage. Some micronations consist purely as embassies. The citizens of Atlantia, a micronation on the Australian continent, all claim dual citizenship, both Australian and Atlantian.^[22]

Micronational war (WP) is usually done jokingly. For instance, micronations, such as the Conch Republic,^[46] and the Hutt River Province^[47] in 1977,^[22] have declared war on the macronations that surround them.^[23] Macronations generally ignore this. Wars may be declared between micronation; Molossia helped to create another micronation, Mustachistan, and after a territorial dispute went to war with it.^[48] Molossia also declared a never-ending war on East Germany (WP), which it claims still exists, on Ernst Thälmann Island.^[49] Slightly more serious incidents include Sealand, off the coast of England, whose territory is an island that was a military base during World War II base, that once fired warning shots when a British Navy boat came close to shore,^[22] and 'civil wars' in which citizens of a micronation declare war on it, hacking into its website to crash it.^[32]

References

• Micronations John Ryan, George Dunford, Simon Sellars Review. The Australian
• Jody Shapiro will teach you How to Start Your Own Country; Vanessa Farquharson, Oct. 21, 2010, National Post
• How to Start Your Own Country YouTube (WP)
  • How to Start Your Own Country Pt2 YouTube Alternative title: How to Finish Your Own Country?

The lie of WMDs in Iraq admitted

The USA retains over 10,000 nuclear warheads, down from a Cold War average of 20,000

Eight years ago, Colin Powell, on behalf of the Bush administration, set the USA, with its nuclear arsenal still at half its Cold War level, on a course for war with Iraq, with a cry of WMDs! OMG! The administration bulldozed their way past Intelligence agencies that decried their evidence as faulty, but Powell's and later Bush's 16 words speeches went on as planned. With the war, the fabrication of the war, and the aftermath of the war, there was much to obscure the fact that one of the reasons for the Bush administration's success in pulling a war out of a hat was that they had the pretext of a real person, albeit unreliable as a source, who was behind the story as they told it. Now, the source of the information, codenamed Curveball, has come clean.^[50]

"Key Bush Admin "Source" Admits to Lying about Iraqi WMD"

Weapons of mass destruction are nuclear, biological, or chemical

An Iraqi defector whose claims were used to help build the case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq has admitted for the first time that he lied. In an interview with The Guardian of London, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi—codenamed "Curveball"—says he fabricated tales of mobile biological weapons laboratories and other secret sites under Saddam Hussein. Janabi says he was hoping to topple Saddam Hussein’s government and was "shocked" when his claims were cited in then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s infamous address to the United Nations eight years ago. Top Bush administration officials insisted on highlighting Janabi’s claims despite widespread doubts amongst U.S. intelligence.^[50] - Headlines for February 16, 2011, Democracy Now!

Satirical graphic made in reaction to the internet blackout in Egypt

This shows a different side to the plausible deniability tactic, and a double standard for the reliability of information: providing just enough information to silence dissenters makes information reliable for allies and supporters, where just enough doubt for allies and supporters makes dissenters' information unreliable.

2011 Egyptian media censorship

The Hacktivism (WP) group Anonymous (WP) displayed the altruistic side of direct action for the uninitiated, with low-tech faxes, to update Egyptians behind the information 'Iron Curtain'^[51] during the January 2011 internet block in Egypt.^[51]

2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections

In 2009, the Fanmi Lavalas party, closest to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forbidden participation in Haiti's November '10 elections by the provisional election council created by the current president, Rene Praval. Under cover of the Egyptian protests, the US, to the orchestrated swell of allegations of voter fraud as a pretext for runoff elections, pressured Haiti to remove Jude Celestin, the candidate least affiliated with right-wing Haitian government, US-backed Haitian governments, Haitian dictators, or all three, after the election was criticized as unfair. The US also pressured Haiti to add Michel Martelly to the ballot, to face Mirlande Manigat in the revised election.^[52]
Election fraud debunked; voter boycott proved
Michelle Martelly won the subsequent runoff election, that was also "marred by problems". The fact that 71% of Haitians stayed away from an election without Lavalas was used to justify the runoff election and give credence to the claims of voter fraud by Celestin. But at the runoff election itself, the turnout was even lower; 25% instead of 29%.^[52] The recent voter turnouts are a slump back to pre-Aristide levels; 60% or more of Haitians voted in all the elections in which Jean-Bertrand Aristide or his Lavalas party were on the ballot.^{[53][54][55][56]}

• Michel Martelly, 'popularly known as' "Sweet Micky" — a moniker sometimes used interchangeably to refer to himself as well as his band — is a Haitian performing and recording artist, composer,^[57] and musical sociopolitical activist, who breaks the expected lefty mold of American and British entertainers with his well-hidden support for the Duvalier regime.^[58] Between the time of the 1991 coup d'état and the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994, he also supported the government of disbanded Haitian military and pro-US forces that deposed Aristide and took power.^[58][59] He ran on a platform of nothing much in particular, being described as a joke candidate by many reports. However, he claimed nepotism and voter fraud by Celestin, as did Mirlande Manigat.

Coalition to Save the Preserves

Coalition to Save the Preserves was a name chosen in 2002 by Mark Sands to cover up his arson of a building that he did not want in his area by portraying it as Propaganda of the deed (or more specifically, 'eco-terrorism').^[60]

The fact that Sands had been perpetrating a hoax, however dangerous a hoax, never seemed to fully sink into the minds of some US. security agency employees, and most likely others decided it would be expedient to ignore this fact, and they have issued numerous lists of terrorists with the CtStP included:

• In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security issued a threat assessment that included the CtStP as one of the threats on US soil that had carried out domestic terrorism.^[61]
• Listing on the Global Terrorism Database by START National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a Center of Excellence of the US Department of Homeland Security based at the University of Maryland^[62]

Understandably, Sands' Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) activity was something of a threat to real direct action (WP) advocates, and Earth First! (WP), with considerably fewer resources than the FBI or the later security agencies, was at the time, at pains to point out that it was not responsible for his activity^[63]

Anarchopedia:Article in the news archive • • Pretenders to the Ottoman Dynasty • • 2011 Egyptian media censorship • • 2011 USA intervention in Haitian elections • • Operation Avenge Assange • • Killing the drug fields: Paraquat poisoning from Operation Intercept to present • • Venesat-1

Citations