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Story Links: Guns And Moses | Crap Arrest Of The Week | Locked On Target | Safety Catch | They Think Its Oil Over | The Blame In Spain Falls Mainly On The Fascists | ...and finally...

GUNS AND MOSES

Appetite for Destruction in Lebanon’s Paradise City

“We will turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years.” - General Dan Haltz, Israel’s Chief of Staff.

Israel’s military attack against Lebanon is the latest in an endless series of aggressive wars the country has waged against its Arab and Persian neighbours. This time it means missile attacks on Beirut suburbs killing hundreds and the destruction of Lebanon’s ability to function economically. Ports blockaded, the international airport blown up, bombing of water and electricity facilities, bridges, medical supplies and targets picked solely for their proximity to the Syrian border. And of, course the real misery, as with all aggressive wars, is felt by the ordinary people, with hundreds of Lebanese civilians killed and half a million displaced from their homes to avoid Israeli missile strikes.

The invasion of Lebanon followed closely on from Israeli attacks on Gaza, aimed at punishing the Palestinians for electing Hamas to office in what were universally agreed to be free and fair elections. The Palestinian Foreign Office was destroyed and the, by now casual, unleashing of terror against the Palestinian residents. Generations of Palestinians have now grown up knowing nothing but life with these attacks that have left an estimated three quarters of the population in Gaza suffering from severe depression. For Lebanon the attacks couldn’t come at a worst time: the start of the tourist season, essential for a country which had just spent the time since Israel’s occupation and the civil war to get its economy back up and running.

US bankrollers are using Israel as a racist, robocop regime, utilising vast military superiority to impose terror on the peoples of the Middle East in support of US interests. Israel’s attack on Hezbullah is clearly an attempt to weaken Iran’s allies in the region as a precursor to a possible extension of the War on Terror into Iran or Syria. As the Israeli interior minister said recently, the superpowers can deal with Iran and Israel can be relied on to deal with Hezbullah.

As ever, Israel’s aggressive and illegal actions are not only being condoned by the US - they are only made possible because of unflinching White House support. Without US backing, Israel would not be able to carry on its wars. The US gives Israel $2bn a year in military aid, including $210m for jet fuel last week alone, which was to be used “to keep peace and security in the region”. Ensuring that the Israeli army is the fourth most powerful in the world enables it to cause havoc in the region ensuring the physical destruction of any movement that might oppose US control of the region.

As with Iraq, Blair has gone to inordinate lengths to justify Israel’s attacks on the grounds that the military action has only been taken in self defence. When the Lebanese Prime Minister pleaded with the international community to intervene to prevent further bloodshed, France, Russia and others sought a ceasefire. When it became clear that the Bush junta wanted the Israelis to bomb some more, poodle-like Blair sprung into action, blocking a European Union call for an immediate end to the attacks.

As ever it’s Arab families who suffer the most from war in the region, although you wouldn’t know it if you relied on the BBC. While Israeli casualties have been less than 10% of Lebanese casualties the BBC has given inordinate coverage to Israeli civilian deaths, which stand at 16 compared with 294 Lebanese. Maybe this isn’t surprising - Israel is seen as a European nation, ‘one of us’, even allowed in the Eurovision song contest. The anti-Arab racism at the heart of Israeli politics is mirrored in the west, sometimes not too subtly. Last week lovable Maureen Lipman talked on the BBC, unchallenged by her interviewer about how Israelis valued their lives more than Arabs did.

Israel will not tolerate the existence of any military force in the region to balance its own, whether that is the ability to take take hostages, commit attacks over borders or possess nuclear weapons. Its nature is to dominate, and whenever there is a chance of agreement breaking out in the region Israel will always find a reason to start another battle. It is sometimes forgotten that Islamist movements like Hezbullah and Hamas were nurtured by Israel, with US-backing, as a way of preventing the growth of a united secular movement against Israeli occupation. Many an Israeli leader took part in terrorist actions against the British in a call for an independent nation state. The physical destruction of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation was meant to make the region safe for Israel, but oppression always breeds resistance - and the strength of Hezbullah is testimony to the rage felt by those in the region against the daily humiliations they face at the hands of their all too powerful neighbour.

While the US and Israel see any threat to its dominance in the region - from Iraq, Hezbullah, Hamas, Syria, Iran or anywhere else - as something to be crushed mercilessly without concern for international law. This nightmare is only encouraged by the terror they unleash – radical movements of the poor with nothing to lose fighting to win back control over their land and resources.

• The road outside Parliament was blockaded by around 500 mostly Lebanese demonstrators on Tuesday with the action forcing the main gates to be locked preventing MPs escaping to the building. Outnumbered cops could do little but watch until their pals in riot vans turned up some 20 minutes later.
• Picket of Davis Cup Britain-Israel tennis match at Devonshire Park, Eastbourne. 12pm Sat 22nd and 11:30am Sun 23rd. Palestine Solidarity Campaign – 07845039980
• For more see http://electronicLebanon.net

Crap Arrest Of The Week

For first class delivery...
Last Tuesday Barbara Tucker and Steve Jago left Parliament Square to deliver an open letter to Met Chief Ian B.Liar. Having already been searched once on their journey, they were met by more cops at Scotland Yard. At first they were told they could go ahead with their delivery after a search. After a severe frisking, Steve got nicked anyway for ‘breach of the peace’. Arriving at Belgravia nick the custody sergeant informed the anti-terror police that Steve should have been released around the corner. For more and to read the actual letter (!) see www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2006/07/345451.html

LOCKED ON TARGET

In the early hours of Monday, bomb-busting Brighton protesters erected two roadblocks outside each gate of EDO MBM, in protest against the Israeli attacks. EDO supply weapons components to the Israeli military. Activists locked themselves to barrels filled with concrete in front of the gates. Deliveries were obstructed for the entire day.

Andrew Beckett, press spokesman for the campaign, said "The current Israeli onslaught on Gaza and Lebanon is being conducted with the help of weaponry made in Brighton. Today’s blockade is to show that we will not tolerate EDO MBM’s continued presence in Brighton and Hove, a UN Peace Messenger City. In the last weeks Israel has engaged in an illegal assault on the civilian population of Gaza and has now invaded Lebanon killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. These are war crimes under international and English Law. Israel could not carry out these acts without the support of foreign corporations. EDO MBM is involved in the manufacture, supply and development of lethal weapons for use by the Israeli military. They are ancillary to Israel’s war crimes and Paul Hills, the Managing Director of EDO MBM, should be arrested and prosecuted under the International Criminal Court Act 2001."

On Wednesday the campaign was back again in conjunction with local artists to confront workers and management with an impression of the consequences of their work. As a sound-system blasted out the sounds of air raids, models of dismembered bodies were strewn in front of the gates. One of the artists Ruth Hopkins, who has spent time as a peace activist in the Occupied Territories said “We cannot show the true horror of the consequences of EDO MBM’s lethal weaponry but we hope to galvanise those who work in the factory to consider what happens with the weapons they produce.”

EDOs share price has continued to collapse and they were recently named as Forbes worst performing company. Revolutionary goal-hanger Andrew Beckett said “EDOs poor performance as a company gives us an opportunity to force this company to shut down or convert to civilian production. We will be stepping up the campaign, thanks to the funding we received from EDO themselves and are determined to make their business in Brighton totally unprofitable.”

* For more on the campaign www.smashedo.org.uk

SAFETY CATCH

Knowing winks and handshakes all round down at Scotland Yard this week as their chums down at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) astonishingly decided, er, not to prosecute anybody over the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes (See ScNEWS 508). One year on, the CPS have decided that the the shooting dead of Jean Charles for living near some Muslim ‘suspects’ and heading for the Tube, is nothing more than a Health and Safety offence. Shooting innocent civilians now ranks as a misdemeanour, like an uneven pavement or cockroaches in yer cafe kitchen. Of course the Met are worried about getting a potentially ‘limitless’ fine – although, of course, its the public who will foot the bill and then the Old Bill can get back to harassing the population in the name of preventing terrorism. Case closed. The CPS knows that all the officers involved would stonewall questions, close ranks, claim to be following orders in public interest, honest mistake guv, and burden of proof for murder under British law would fail - so why bother?

As a happy coincidence, it also means no public cross-examination of the officers who falsely identified Jean Charles as would be suicide bomber Hussain Osman, followed him without question even though he displayed no characteristics of being a bomber (like carrying a bomb) or indeed the officers who grabbed Jean around his body forgetting to mention the lack of a bomb, instead holding him up for the cops who pulled the triggers that left Jean with seven bullets in his head and one in his shoulder. Nor will it mean any awkward exposure of Ian Blair’s ‘Shoot to kill’ policy or the great pack of lies he told the public in the aftermath. The Independent Police Complaints Commission has refused to publish its investigation report and the government have so far resisted all pressure for a public inquiry. Not that there’s a cover up of course. We’d advise you to write in protest to Ian Blair – just don’t try and deliver it. (see this week’s crap arrest)

* The Family of Jean Charles de Menezes will mark the anniversary of Jean’s death by holding a remembrance event at Stockwell tube station on Saturday 22nd July followed by a public meeting at Euston in the Afternoon. See www.justice4jean.com/news.html for more.

THEY THINK IT'S OIL OVER

This week Dr Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, a former executive of the National Iranian Oil Company, declared at a finance conference in Sydney, that we have reached Peak Oil (See SchNEWS 499). He claims that by 2020 available supplies will fall by almost one third as wells dry up and new deposits get scarcer and harder to extract. Equally as hard to extract, is an admission from oil companies that Bakhtiari might be right, as they over-egg their claimed amounts of reserves. But while the oil companies may be publicly in denial, last weekend’s G8 Summit in Russia – which was focussing on control of energy supplies - the power struggles are more naked (see SchNEWS 549). A leaked G8 energy communique called for trillions of pounds to be pumped into the search for more oil, gas and coal, as well as wide-scale global expansion of nuclear energy.

Even putting the small problem that nuclear waste is radioactive for thousands of years to one side, nuclear energy is not sustainable because to be ‘viable’ the ore needs to be of a high grade – and according to the Foundation For The Economics of Sustainability, there’s not enough of the stuff to go round. Anything lower grade and the process starts to consume more energy than it produces. If the world was to go nuclear, there would be enough to power the whole world for six years – and then we’d have ‘peak uranium’. For more see www.feasta.org/energy.htm

We are about to be hit by a range of crises confronting our way of life – headed by the closely related double-whammy of climate chaos and peak oil, plus other resources entering depletion including water and food. While climate chaos is caused by the fuel we’ve already burnt, peak oil is the point where we are basically running out of it, which means price rises and violent battles to control supplies. But with the damage having already been done years ago with climate change, and the geopolitics and global economics of oil seemingly too mind-boggling to tackle, what can be done, apart from running off to live in a Mad Max-tinged agrarian commune?

These are the questions which will be raised – and action plans made - at the ten-day ‘Camp For Climate Action’, to be held near the site of the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK, the coal-powered Drax Power Station at Megawatt Valley near Leeds on Aug 26-Sept 4th. (www.climatecamp.org.uk) The Drax chimneys spew out 20.8 million tonnes of CO2 a year, more than a quarter of the total emitted by British motorists.

Last weekend, while there was a range of protests in Russia with several hundred arrests and a heavily policed range of actions (see http://int.ru.indymedia.org), it was also an International Day of Action against Climate Change, with a range of demos taking place around the world including critical mass bike rides and reclaim-the-streets style parties. In London, Rising Tide targeted the offices of Tulchan Communications, the PR firm for Drax. Security kept them out of the building but they held banners and leafleted workers in the same building. For a round-up from the day see http://risingtide.org.uk/node/142

* This Monday, a tower on the coal pile at Didcot Power Station in Oxfordshire was scaled and occupied by a group called Reclaim Power, unfurling a banner saying ‘climate crime’, and bringing attention to the Camp, as well as other days of action against climate change taking place during the summer (for more see www.reclaimpower.org.uk). Reclaim Power say “Coal produces more greenhouse gases than any other form of electricity generation. The future isn’t in fossil fuels or nuclear. The future is in reducing our energy consumption and sustainable alternative energy. Otherwise we leave a legacy of destruction to our children.” Didcot - owned by German transnational RWE, who also own Npower – churns out around 5 million tonnes of CO2 annually.

* On July 10th, activists from Earth First and Rising Tide blockaded a power plant in Carbo, Virginia. American Electric Power’s Clinch River coal plant emits millions of pounds of pollutants annually. For more see www.katuahearthfirst.org

* For the nuts and bolts on Peak Oil see www.energybulletin.net or look at this poster at www.oilposter.org

THE BLAME IN SPAIN FALLS MAINLY ON THE FASCISTS

This week saw the 70th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War when, back on 18th July 1936, General Francisco Franco and his band of less than merry fascist men took part in successful military uprisings in Morocco and Seville. The Spanish Right, along with their pals in the Catholic church, were particularly aggrieved at Republican promises to redistribute land and break the power of religion by separating church and state (such as introducing radical concepts like the right to get a divorce). Less than a week later the Anti Fascist militias committee was established in Barcelona and it immediately sent 3,000 anarchists to retake the city of Zaragossa. Within weeks, more than 100,000 people joined the fight with 25,000 anarchists besieging fascist-held Madrid for more than three years. The ensuing fall out between various factions and the influence of Stalinist-backed communists lost the war to 40 years of fascist dictatorship.

Despite 500,000 deaths, over half of all Spanish people say they have never talked about the war at home and more than a third were not taught about what took place in 1936 at school. The Spanish government is introducing law ‘For the Recovery of the Historical Memory’ in an effort to tackle this amnesia and help victims address some of the crimes committed under Franco’s rule, with repression of anarchists still ongoing. Since last November, for example, there have number of actions in Barcelona against a police force which recently tortured three anarchist arrestees.

Miners made up more than a third of the volunteers who went to Spain in solidarity to fight the fascists and a plaque marking the International Brigade struggle was unveiled at Big Pit, Blaenavon in Wales last Sunday. Over in Madrid, there was more of a plaque trashing. 167 streets were renamed after various military coup leaders following Franco’s victory and one of these, named after the big man himself, was promptly ‘retired’ and renamed ‘Street of Memory’ by antifascists to mark the start of the anniversary.

Check www.nodo50.org/antifa/ for more info on autonomous actions and events to mark the start of the civil war.

...and finally...

It’s not just the anarchist movement that’s plagued with rebel clowns. ‘Sparky’ of Jolly’s Circus lived up to his name this week and ended up briefly performing behind bars after a bit of aggro with animal rights protesters in Yorkshire. During a demo about a captive bear, the big-shoed thug blew his big top and started throwing punches instead of custard pies. Presumably some keystone cops arrived in a peddle-powered squad car and arrested him after a slapstick scuffle. Police denied they caused Sparky’s big bulbous red nose during the interrogation or wiped the smile off his face. Sparky remained silent during the interview and would only mime his innocence. The clown was in tears as he ended up with an eighty quid on-the-spot fine.

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