Christianity Kills

Courtesy of Ten Percent, an interesting film that goes to show that Christianity is just as dangerous as Islam (perhaps even more so given how deeply it has penetrated Western culture).

Tesco - You Pay Tax So They Don't Have To

I was going to post on this myself, but RickB at Ten Percent beat me to it. Go read his post on how Tesco are "pulling an Enron".

Stop Blair Becoming EU President

Tipped off by the one and only RickB at Ten Percent:


Petition against the nomination of Tony Blair as "President of the European Union"

Stop the murdering bastard before it's too late.

Osanloo Receives Medical Treatment

Good news courtesy of Ten Percent, Mansour Osanloo has received the medical treatment that was so desperately required. Taken from the ITF's website:

Following major protests last week the ITF is delighted to have learned that on Saturday Mansour Osanloo received the emergency eye treatment that it, Amnesty International and trade unions worldwide demanded. The ITF says that it hopes that this may be a first step towards more humane and just treatment of the prisoners. The campaign for their release continues.

Encouraging news from Iran. However, this is not enough. Osanloo must be released immediately to ensure that he can continue to receive the medical attention he requires and to continue his peaceful activities as a union activist. There is much to be done. You can still take action by visiting Amnesty's website here.

Further Responses From The Burma Dirty List

Adding to Korova's list I have posted at Ten Percent the replies from:-
Andrew Brock Travel
Robbins Timber (same as Korova's response)
Trailblazer Guides
Britannic Teak
Mekong Travel

No big hitters have replied as yet.
[3 of my many elected reps have responded (EU & Welsh Assembly!) all have condemned SLORC's repressive nature. How our government backs up this talk remains to be seen]

Iraq Oil Law

I was going to post on this myself but well, as RickB at Ten Percent already has, I can't be arsed. Go read his account and find out more yourself.

Off Again

I'm off to Budapest for a week, so RickB of Ten Percent and Gonzalo will be holding the fort in my absence.

Dedicated to Ten Percent

The Sun's Paedophile Poll

Just had enough time between lectures to inform you of action I have taken in response to The Sun's paedophile poll. I have written a letter to The Sun complaining that the poll was effectively rigged to produce a very specific result and, ultimately, a very specific headline. I am not holding out much hope of a response, but I have threatened (in a warm, friendly way) to take further action if I am not satisfied with the response (Press Complaints Commission - if it is even worth bothering with!). Once I have a reply from The Sun I will post it here.

Oh, and while I'm here, special thanks to RickB who has been doing a superb job keeping the blog ticking along in my absence. I will hopefully resume normal service on Friday. In the meantime, better get off to the library and do some research (although I guess I might stop off at the SU bar on the way.......).

Ladies and Gentleman, Korova Has (temporarily) Left the Building

In my absence, Rickb of Ten Percent will be holding the fort. He will no doubt regale you with his stories on his love of Dave Cameron and his support for torture and illegal detention. Then again, perhaps not....

I will return next Friday.....

Home Office - Full of Cunts??

Apologies for the repetitive use of the 'c'-word, but it feels necessary in any post which deals with 'Dr' John Reid. Where to begin with this vile, disgusting creature? A man who is fit for no purpose other than torturing various undesirables. Go on, you can imagine him, sleeves rolled up, red faced with rage while he strikes you repeatedly until you tell him everything. Everything.

I guess we could make a start with the news that our beloved totalitarian Home Secretary is branching out our CCTV 'security' system (h/t Ten Percent). After a 'successful' trial (a word that 'Dr' Reid still cannot find in his dictionary), he has decided to roll out his talking CCTV cameras to 20 areas across England. Brilliant idea. Where will it end I wonder? Perhaps they could use some kind of device that would send the National Grid through our bodies every time we disobey one of these talking cameras. Shit, that's probably given the bastard an idea. Who would have thought that, after the end of the Second World War, we would have a government that is so happy to put in place the apparatus that a fascist would dream of. Should this country ever fall victim to the fascists, the country would become a living nightmare. But, hey, you don't need to worry, you haven't done anything wrong. Have you?

Then, as if to prove is 'I'm a hard bastard' credentials, this story emerges:

A British man has lost his High Court fight against extradition to the US for allegedly carrying out the "biggest military computer hack of all time".

Glasgow-born Gary McKinnon, of north London, is accused of gaining access to 97 US military and Nasa computers.

Home Secretary John Reid granted the US request to extradite him for trial.

Well done. And what makes this even more concerning:

.....solicitor Jeffrey Anderson said alleged threats by US authorities, including one from New Jersey prosecutors that Mr McKinnon "would fry", would be among issues raised.

That, my friend, is the sound of a feeble Home Secretary licking the boots of the cowboy in the White House. Never mind the human rights abuses, the threats of state sponsored murder, Reid just wants to look like a strong man in the eyes of Bu$h Corp. Aren't there laws against extraditing people on the grounds of torture/death penalty?? Perhaps not, certainly not in the mind of our fuck-wit of a Home Secretary. What's another death on the hands of a government stained by the blood of thousands? After all, they will never have to answer to their crimes.

And we haven't even mentioned his complicity in the detention of Jamil el-Banna, a man who dared to say 'no' to MI5. So, let's get this clear. A country that puts into use CCTV cameras that tell people what to do, a man sent to Guantanamo for refusing to do what he was told to do and another man sent to America to face the possible death penalty for upsetting the government. Mmmm, there's a pattern emerging here.....it couldn't be, could it??? No, don't say the 'f' word.

Still, it's glad to know that some areas of the establishment are prepared to hold this total cretin to account. From the BBC:

Home Office plans to send Darfuri asylum seekers back to Sudan have been blocked by senior judges.

The Court of Appeal in London said the three asylum seekers could not be sent to Sudan's capital Khartoum.

The three appeal judges said oppressive conditions in refugee camps would be "unduly harsh" on the individuals.

Darfur has seen conflict between black and Arab Sudanese people. The Home Office said the men would be safe in Khartoum and will challenge the ruling.

Safe? Of course they will be safe. It's not like there is a humanitarian disaster over there, is it? I mean, no-one has claimed that the country is in the grip of 'genocide', have they? No doubt Reid will bluster and huff and puff, before releasing some press release attacking judges and threatening their independence. After all, we expect nothing less from this bastard Home Secretary.

The Colombian Chainsaw Massacre

Initially established in Panama in 1946, it was kicked out of that country in 1984 under the terms of the Panama Canal Treaty. Former Panamanian President, Jorge Illueca, stated that the School of the Americas was the “biggest base for destabilization in Latin America.” The SOA, frequently dubbed the “School of Assassins,” has left a trail of blood and suffering in every country where its graduates have returned.

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), located at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, is the Defense Department's principal Spanish-language training facility for Latin American military and law-enforcement personnel (though some civilians attend as well). It is the successor to the School of the Americas (SOA), a facility established in 1946 and legally closed in 2001. The WHINSEC is located in the same building, and offers many of the same courses, as the school it replaces-

-he was forcibly taken out of his house by a mixed group of soldiers and paramilitaries, along with three of this brothers and other peasants from the village. They were led to the estate of a drug trafficker which at the time housed the Army's center of operations. They were all dismembered with a chainsaw by Army Major Alirio Antonio Urueña, a graduate of the School of the Americas.-

SOA/WHINSEC trains more Colombian military than any other nationality, when it transmogrified into WHINSEC it was much like the business owner who declares bankruptcy then reopens the next day in the same premises with a new name, but no ones buying, it's SOA.

SOA provided an essential component of Plan Colombia a scam started by Clinton, ostensibly it provided aid to combat drug growing and trading, most of its money went into military and police, it was the war on drugs writ large now mutated into the war on terror. Now it's time to mention that three letter word that makes so many things fall into place- Oil.

''Colombia's petroleum production today rivals Kuwait's on the eve of the Gulf War. The United States imports more oil from Colombia and its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador than from all Persian Gulf countries combined."

Thus we are back to the old great game, any country with resources the Empire needs becomes a client state, they collude with right wing politician's (those damn lefties might want to share the oil profits) and any number of covers are used to hide the money sent to back the states forces of repression to maintain the flow of product. In this case the war on drugs was the initial cover, now the war on terror is a catch all justification for imperial interference.

Another target in this war against Washington's bogeyman are the revolutionary forces in Colombia (FARC/ELN). Indeed, statements made back in the fall of 2001 by the US Ambassador to Colombia and various State Department spokespeople compared the guerrilla forces in Colombia to Bin Laden and the Al-Queda network and called for "appropriate" armed intervention. The FARC-ELN have been fighting the oligarchy in Colombia for over thirty years. Along with a few other now-defunct revolutionary groups, they tried armed insurgency for several years and then, in an attempt to bring peace along with justice, lay down their arms and formed political parties. After winning many local elections and several seats in the Colombian legislature, they found themselves being killed off one by one in the early 1990s by the Colombian military and paramilitary forces aligned with the government and the oil/coffee/drug cartels it represents. So, the remaining forces returned to armed struggle. Since that return, the war has intensified, as has US involvement. In 1999 Plan Colombia began--a multi-billion dollar US strategy that includes aerial spraying of coca and poppy crops (along with whatever and whoever happens to be in the surrounding areas), more military aid, increased involvement of the CIA and its fronts, and the presence of US advisors and commandos. Since September 11th, the aid provided by Plan Colombia is being supplemented by additional counterterrorism funds.

This increased US involvement has brought more environmental destruction of the countryside, greater repression of labor and social justice activists including murder by paramilitaries, the displacement of tens of thousands of Colombian citizens because of aerial spraying and fighting between revolutionary forces (FARC/ELN) and the military and paramilitaries aligned with the government, and the deaths of thousands of mostly poor Colombians. Why? Once again, to establish, expand and maintain US markets and domination in the region, and to exploit Colombia's resources and plentiful cheap labor. Indeed, in the opening paragraphs of Plan Colombia, it states that very clearly: "The plan also involves the implementation of measures that would serve to encourage foreign investment and further promote trade expansion. These include the completion of the necessary steps to comply with existing Uruguay Round agreements, especially those dealing with customs valuation, intellectual property protection, and investment measures, as well as implementing business facilitation measures proposed in the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) negotiations." Also, once again, that resource that defines most of the US's wars, comes into the picture: oil. In fact, according to Americas.org,-

And the motor that drives the brutalisation of personnel to implement the strategies is the SOA-

Walk into the marble-floored and track-lit headquarters of Colombia's national antinarcotics police and the generosity of that aid, as well as the incestuous relationship between Washington and Colombia's military machine, are suddenly evident. Outside the door of Commanding Gen. Gustavo Socha's office, mounted on a tripod, is an oversize photo of a grinning George W. Bush celebrating his election. Next to it is a full-color promotional illustration of a US-made Black Hawk attack helicopter. In the general's waiting room, visitors are attended to by a young, uniformed press officer, a polished graduate of the recently renamed School of the Americas, run by the US Army. Also present is an equally young security officer just returned from an intelligence training course at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.

In case there's any doubt about the level of American involvement here, the office adjoining General Socha's is occupied by a craggy, Clint Eastwood clone in civilian clothes, a former US Army colonel. A veteran trainer at the School of the Americas, the ex-colonel now works with the State Department's Narcotics Affairs Section and is deployed as full-time adviser to General Socha.-

So just what can you learn as a student at the SOA? SOA watch has a fine collection of the manuals here.

Some highlights include:-

-counterintelligence agents could use fear, payment of bounties for enemy dead, beatings, false imprisonment, executions and the use of truth serum,
On several occasions it uses the words "neutralization" or "neutralizing," which was commonly used at the time as a euphemism for execution or destruction, a Pentagon official said.
CI (counter intelligence) targets for neutralizing. The CI targets can include personalities, installations, organizations, documents and materials ... the personality targets prove to be valuable sources of intelligence. Some examples of these targets are governmental officials, political leaders, and members of the infrastructure."-

Maybe time to take a break for a nice refreshing Coke:-

After the leader of their union was shot down at their plant gate in late 1996, Edgar Pa?z and his co-workers at the Coca-Cola bottling factory in Carepa, Colombia, tried for more than four years to get their government to take action against the responsible parties. Instead, some of the workers themselves wound up behind bars, while the murderers went free.
The level of violence against Colombian unionists is staggering: In 2000, assassinations took the lives of 153 of the nation's trade-union leaders. In 2001, the figure had reached 143 by the end of November. According to H?ctor Fajardo, general secretary of the United Confederation of Workers (CUT), Colombia's largest union federation, 3,800 trade unionists have been assassinated in Colombia since 1986. In the year 2000, three out of every five trade unionists killed in the world were Colombian, according to a recent report by the United Steelworkers. -

This reminds me of Iraq, because in the neo-con dreamworld constitution that Paul Bremer implemented for Bushco where corporations were given free reign, flat tax, zero regulation and no profit caps on exports, the only thing that remained regulated, in fact tighter than under Saddam was- trade unions. Clearly a picture of the true vision that the empire promulgates is emerging here, unregulated capitalist tyranny backed by torture and death, in other words a war of terror to establish it's rule. And Coke? Sugary shit that rots your teeth, the world needs clean water not the polluted waste from coke plants. It takes much more than 1 liter of water to produce 1 liter of bottled coke, so its production is a motor for environmental degradation and creating a scarcity of the one essential for all life. Of course that's no bad thing to a budding entrepreneur, constant demand meets shrinking supply =profit baby! We cannot afford the unregulated brutal capitalism of the empire, but... America is bankrupt and China owns most of the debt, the Americas are electing leftist govts. and Bushco's brutality has caused the scales to fall more quickly from more people's eyes than ever before. Did someone say tipping point?

‘Genocide’ Seems To Be The Hardest Word or Turkey Dammit!

And after that a 'sorry' would be nice, the BBC are very diplomatic and only describe the killing of 1.5 million, yes 1,500,000 people by Turkey as a genocide when you get well down the page. This is really instructive, if a large enough power denies something consistently then even objective outside sources begin to bend to their will and pussy foot around the subject. Thus writers bury the lede; here is the opening of the BBC report:-

A senior Armenian delegation is in eastern Turkey for the reopening of a 1,100-year-old Armenian church restored by the Turkish government.
The move is being seen as a positive gesture by Ankara to help overcome the animosity following the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915.-

You have to go to the bottom of the page for this:-

Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed in a genocide by Ottoman Turks during World War I, either through systematic massacres or through starvation.
More than a dozen countries, various international bodies and many Western historians agree that it was genocide.
Turkey says there was no genocide. It acknowledges that many Armenians died, but says the figure was below one million.-

All very diplomatic and 'balanced' but this is the myth of balance. If I kick you in the face in front of witnesses then the report is simply- I kicked you in the face- but what happens if I am powerful? The report becomes- while the reader claims to have been kicked in the face, Rick denies this and says while he acknowledges some foot /face intersection may have occurred it was purely accidental as can be expected in everyday life. -

Oh and if I'm really up to speed I get to add- the reader was a terror suspect- I only need to use that if I blow your fucking brains all over a tube carriage by emptying several 9mm rounds at point blank range while my friend holds you down (Hello the Met). Balance is not giving all sides equal airing there must be fact checking and challenging obvious falsehoods, it is not allowing a liar to lie to create plausible doubt (Hello Exxon). While establishing objective truth is impossible, if both the victims and those who study the incident agree it is genocide, then it is motherfucking genocide and that is what you headline the story with - Turkey makes moves to rebuild relations after Genocide- perhaps.

Turkey though is very active in covering up this genocide. In the US they bribed the former Republican speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to block a motion that would have recognised the Armenian genocide. They paid him $500,000 (that's 33 cents a life, good value for Turkey!) in $200 dollar amounts so it didn’t have to be itemised and therefore traced in public filings.

The BBC has an impossible job and will never please everyone, but c’mon, call it what it is and tell Turkey to face the facts or fuck off.

Exciting News Revealed

So, here's the news. In an earlier post I had written about my upcoming return to university and the lack of blogging that was likely to result. Consequently, I have been looking for people to make a contribution to ensure that the blog would continue during my period of occasional blogging. It is my pleasure to announce that RickB, from Ten Percent, has joined Mask of Anarchy and will be contributing posts from now on.

RickB has helped me a lot in the past few months, particularly with the development of the David Hicks YouTube video. He has also been doing a lot of work building links up with Iranian blogs in an effort to cut through the propaganda and get to the 'real' Iran (via Iran Blogapalooza). As such, I am really looking forward to this partnership and I am excited about the prospect of having a new contributor on board to share the load. RickB will be contributing his first post in the very near future, so keep reading!

If anyone else would like to contribute posts to Mask of Anarchy, please email me using the link in the sidebar. All applications will be carefully considered!!

Thanks and welcome RickB.

Blog Round-up

Lazy posting time. Several posts that have caught my eye:

• Ten Percent has the transcript of an interview with Terry Hicks by ABC.
• Nether-World looks at the Iranian crisis.
• Obsolete takes a swipe at The Sun's pornographic double standard.
• The Bureau of Counterpropaganda takes a look at the Lancet figures for Iraq.
• Jobsanger takes a looks at the modern-day slavery that is the guest worker program.

As for me, hopefully I will be announcing something exciting tomorrow that will see a few changes to this blog.

Thoggers of the World Unite

Obsolete has very kindly tagged me (as well as four other blogs) as a 'thinking blogger'. While I am very grateful for the compliment, it means I have to tag five other blogs. So, my Thoggers are:

1) Ten Percent
2) Theft is Good
3) Wilson's Blogmanac
4) Maryannaville^TM
5) Reality-Based Educator

Apologies to those I missed out, I only wish I could do ten.

The Haves Have Not A Clue....

So, there I go flicking over to Ten Percent and he only goes and puts a couple of music clips on his blog. This gets me thinking, it's been a long time since I posted any music here. So I thought I would allow a special one off appearence of the greatest rock band on the planet (who I'm finally getting to see in June!). Given the nature of this blog, there was only one choice I could effectively make. Enjoy.

Into Our Arms - A Song For David

Into Our Arms is a beautiful song by Wish Hounds in response to the continued incarceration of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay. It is part of a growing campaign to see David released from Guantanamo and returned to Australia. Despite the lack of action by John Howard and the Australian government, many people care desperately about David's plight and the precedent that has been set by his treatment. If you want to learn more about David's situation, you can view the YouTube video devised by my friend Rick B at Ten Percent. I'll leave it to singer/songwriter Justin Parker to explain the background to the song.

‘Wish Hounds’ is the nom de plume of Melbourne, Australia singer/songwriter Justin Parker.

The new single ‘Into Our Arms’ sounds the frustrations and despair that many fellow Australians feel over the plight of David Matthew Hicks. David, himself an Australian, has been in US custody at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba and held for more than five years without trial since being captured in Afghanistan. On March 02, 2007 David was finally charged, retrospectively, with "material support for terrorism" and referred to trial by a special military commission at Guantanamo Bay.

After suffering a debilitating trauma accident early in 2006, and subsequently thrown into a long and arduous rehabilitation program, Justin was presented the opportunity for lengthy self-reflection. Feelings of resentment, despair, and abandonment were frequently common. Whilst not condoning David Hick’s alleged actions, his treatment by the current Australian Government, with their disregard of national and international law and justice for one of their own citizens, became intensely personal.

The complex and painful mechanics of relearning the guitar was instrumental in the healing of Justin’s injuries. ‘Into Our Arms’ was written, foremost, as a personal outlet; recognition of the many things that we can all take for granted. Hopefully, it finds its way to those blessed with the gift of empathy and aid those who struggle against adversity and who campaign to uphold habeas corpus and the rule of law...

You can listen to the song at Wish Hounds' MySpace page here, visit the homepage here or view the lyrics here.

The David Hicks Story

You may remember a little while back I posted a slide show of the events surrounding David Hicks' incarceration at Guantanamo Bay. After discovering that there didn't appear to be an embed code for Word Press, RickB at Ten Percent offered to work around this issue. To enable everyone to embed the story on their website, and to encourage a wider audience, RickB created a movie on YouTube using the slide show as a foundation. The video clip also borrows from a speech by Michael Mori, Hicks' defence attorney, which is particularly pertinent given the recent stories surrounding Mori. Anyway, the clip is below, please take the time to sit and watch it (it clocks in at under 5 mins). If you want to add it to your blog, please do so, SPREAD THE WORD. Those that are responsible for this disgrace need to be held to account.

After watching visit Fair Go For David or visit my archive of news stories on Hicks to find out more. Below you will find the embed code to enable you to put this straight onto your site.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRUuebdjKik"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hRUuebdjKik" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

An Apology and a Recommendation

Apologies for the superficial posts recently, I have been out of the country and I had to balance the demands of the blog with that of my wife and the in-laws. And then , just when I think I can spend some quality time on my blog, it loses my latest update on David Hicks' situation. Bloody Blogger. Anyway, I know I have blogged already on this, but take some time out to check out Ten Percent's Iran Blogapalooza. It is a fascinating opportunity to learn more about what is really going on in Iran. I have also added his direct link to the archive in my sidebar. Go read.