Thursday 29 August 2013

JUST WHAT I WAS THINKING...

In a recent post I was speculating on whether or not it was actually the u.s. backed "rebels" who could have used chemical weapons on civilians just as easily as it could have been Assad's government. Now, NPR have written an article asking the exact same question.
  Any friend of the u.s. has the potential to be the enemy of the people of the world, especially oppressed people. And any friend of the amerikkkans who has bought weapons from them at one time, could easily have that rabid dog of  a friend turn on them, if they don't do it's bidding. Witness Noriega, Saddam, Osama, the list goes on and on.

Is It Possible The Syrian Rebels (Not Assad) Used Chemical Weapons?

A Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria.
A Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria.
AP
As it lays the groundwork for a potential military strike against Syria, the Obama administration says it is all but certain that President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people last week.
Secretary of State John Kerry made the case Monday. "We know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons," Kerry said. "We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets. We know that the regime has been determined to clear the opposition from those very places where the attacks took place. And with our own eyes, we have all of us become witnesses." On Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney reiterated the point, saying that "anyone who approaches this logically" would conclude that Assad is responsible.
As you might expect, Russia, which has been an unyielding Assad ally and holds veto power on the U.N. Security Council, rejected those conclusions, and the Assad regime blamed the rebels.
So, is it possible the United States and its allies are wrong? Is it possible that it was the rebels, or another group within Syria, that launched the attack near Damascus that reportedly left hundreds dead and thousands more injured?
"I have been asking myself the same question ever since it happened, because it was difficult to find a rationale [for an Assad-led attack]," says Gwyn Winfield, the editorial director of CBRNe World, a magazine that covers biological and chemical weapons for the industry.
"[A rebel attack] is feasible, but not particularly likely," said Winfield.
What Winfield means is that this seems like a lose-lose situation for Assad. A chemical attack by the regime would seem to bolster the opposition, because it could mean an international intervention. As for the rebels, there are huge questions about whether they could have pulled off such an attack.
Back in 2002, research conducted by George Lopez, a professor of peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, cast doubt on the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In this situation, Lopez rejects the notion that it was the Syrian rebels who used chemical weapons.
Lopez and Winfield agree that the rebels may have the motivation to use chemical weapons.
"This anarchic, killing stalemate" could motivate anyone, Winfield says, but such a scenario just doesn't make sense.
For one thing, the alleged chemical attack happened in the Ghouta region of Damascus. It is controlled by the rebels, and civilians in the area sympathize with the rebels.
"The smart thing [for the rebels] would be for you to aim for barracks and maime/kill a significant few hundred soldiers as the best chance for reverberations that played to your advantage," said Lopez. "This was not done."
It seems clear, Lopez says,"that some armed unit foot soldiers were sent in by Assad some time after the attack in limited numbers. That achieved the desired effect of making the case that since Assad soldiers were hit, the weapons came from the 'terrorists;' but these were exemplars, too few to make a strategic difference for the rebels."
In making the case against Assad, the U.S. has said it is his forces who have the capabilities to launch such an attack and that the rebels do not.
An August 20 report by the Congressional Research Service (pdf) says that Syria has had a vast stockpile of chemical weapons since the early 1980s and perhaps as far back as 1973. Not only that, but the military was trained by the Soviets and possesses the delivery methods — scud missiles and batteries of rocket launchers — that could be used to "rapidly achieve lethal doses of non-persistent agents in a concentrated area."
The report goes on to explain that U.S. officials "have unanimously stated that the weapons stockpiles are secure."
Winfield maintains that the Free Syrian Army has the experience and perhaps even the launching systems to perpetrate such an attack. But that would mean that U.S. officials, and Assad himself, were wrong when they said the chemical stockpiles were secure.
"If [the rebels] have overrun an arms dump which had some of the agent, if a defector brought a limited amount with him, then it would explain why some of the signs and symptoms showed less toxicity than we expected," Winfield said. "That is a lot of 'ifs,' though."
Lopez concurs: "Western intelligence has been standing on its head to monitor all intel about those groups hostile to the West and what they have in their weapons access and supply. The amount of gas agents seemingly used was way beyond what a clandestine group could mix and develop without detection. And it is unclear they would have the expertise to mix the agents.
"Is it possible that a rebel group overran a storage facility of the government and captured some shells that were ready to be activated and then did so?" Lopez says. "Yes, but it would have had to have been a very large seizure preceded by a big battle between Assad top teams and rebels. It could not have happened without inside/outside knowledge."
All of that said, note that the U.S. has qualified every statement it has made about the situation. Kerry said it is "undeniable" that chemical weapons had been used in Syria and he set out a case against Assad without directly blaming the regime for the attack.
During his daily press briefing Tuesday, Carney said: "There is also very little doubt, and should be no doubt for anyone who approaches this logically, that the Syrian regime is responsible for the use of chemical weapons on August 21st outside of Damascus."
Jean Pascal Zanders, who worked for the European Union Institute for Security Studies from 2008 to 2013 and concentrated on the non-proliferation of chemical weapons says until the U.N. investigative team presents its report, "we need to keep our minds open that the events of last Wednesday could in whole or partially have alternative explanations."
"In fact, we – the public – know very little beyond the observation of outward symptoms of asphyxiation and possible exposure to neurotoxicants, despite the mass of images and film footage," Zanders added. "For the West's credibility, I think that governments should await the results of the U.N. investigation."

Monday 26 August 2013

LOCAL INSPIRATION

On Saturday night I saw local bands Line Traps, (featuring Thieman from Talk's Cheap Record Store in beautiful downtown Victoria), Vancouver's Legion Of Goons, and Class Of 1984.
  Line Traps were great fun, bringing their own brand of high-energy garage pre-punk unlike anyone else in town. It was my first time seeing them (shamefully), and it will not be the last. Legion Of Goons were fucking amazing Suicidal Tendencies/Poison Idea style thrash, and they were louder than fuck! I will also check them out again when they play Victoria next month. Class Of 1984 were on their fucking game that night. Tight, anthemic, melodic, and sometimes thrashy also. Buy their new 7" split with The Excessives on Jono's own Bullitt Records. It's a great record,and totally worth supporting the local stuff, especially on vinyl. 
  So after all that, I'm truly inspired to write again. I'd better warn Joe that I'll have several new songs when he gets back from vacation next week.
Line Traps.

Thursday 22 August 2013

SECOND GUESSING

The western world's media is blaming the Syrian government for what they call "chemical weapons" attacks on civilians, and now certain western powers are calling for the use of force to make the Syrian government bow to international imperialist pressure. Don't get me wrong. I'm not nesessarily on the side of the government, but I have difficulty calling the opposition "rebels" when their main backers are the u.s.a, france, kkkanada, england, etfuckingcetera. If you don't by now, you should have an instant distrust of anything the u.s.a. is pushing as truth at any given moment. Certainly, the Syrian government are not morally above using chemical weapons, but neither are the "rebels" that the u.s. loves so fucking much. In fact, the u.s. backed puppets would have far greater accessibility to that sort of thing, much like Saddam's chemical weapons were stamped "made in the u.s.a." when he used them against the Kurds.
  Things are moving so quickly over there, that it's difficult to keep up on the truth behind it all. Here's an article from June....

U.S. Military Escalation in Syria...Yet More Horrors in Store for the Syrian People

by Larry Everest | June 17, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On June 13, the Obama administration announced it was escalating U.S. military involvement in the war in Syria by openly and directly supplying the Syrian opposition with weapons and military equipment for the first time, and by positioning more U.S. military forces in neighboring Jordan.
The U.S. has been intervening in Syria, in one form or another, since the uprising against Bashir Al Assad's reactionary regime began in March 2011. After initially hesitating, the Obama administration declared that Assad must go, not because he's a butcher, but because the U.S. calculated Assad's fall could strengthen the U.S. position in the Middle East by weakening its main adversaries—Iran and its Shi'ite fundamentalist allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Fueling a Reactionary Slaughter

What has this intervention by the U.S. and its allies accomplished so far? It's helped fuel and prolong a horrific, reactionary slaughter. Nearly 100,000 Syrians have been killed, one million more driven from the country, and another four million driven from their homes inside Syria. According to human rights agencies, both sides in the conflict—including the forces the U.S. is seeking to cohere and shape into a new regime—have carried out kidnapping, torture, and summary assassinations of their opponents and civilians. Tens of thousands in Syria have died, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
The current situation is a humanitarian crisis on top of already existing humanitarian crises. Tens of thousands of people who fled Iraq during and in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and occupation ended up seeking refuge in Syria. Today they are being forced to flee again, back to Iraq where they face conditions the UN describes as "high rates of unemployment, dismal basic services and ongoing sectarian strife." What little possessions they fled Iraq with have been lost, and they are being pushed back out of Syria traumatized, desperate, broke, and homeless.
And conditions for the half-million Syrian refugees in camps in neighboring Jordan are so bad that many are returning to war-wracked Syria, which a UN report called the "best bad choice." One refugee who lives in the Za'atari camp where 120,000 people try to survive in tents and caravans in the middle of the desert said, "Life is too expensive outside Za'atari, but unbearable in the camp." The UN reports that in this camp, "Riots occur almost daily over perceived injustice in distribution and general frustration over insufficient help." (See "For some, the best bad choice: Returning from refuge to Syria" at irinnews.org.)
And what does this latest U.S. move of giving some "rebels" military assistance have to do with alleviating this humanitarian nightmare? Nothing. So why should anyone expect this, or further imperialist involvement, would do anything other than more of the same—fueling a slaughter?

U.S. Aims and Interests

The U.S. claims they are escalating their aid because the Syrian regime is using chemical weapons. First of all, international agencies with any credibility have found at least as much evidence that the U.S.-backed forces are using chemical weapons. But beyond that, the U.S. is not motivated by, and escalating U.S. intervention is in no way justified by, whatever crimes are being committed by the Syrian regime. The motives of the U.S. have nothing to do with the use of nerve gas, much less the interests of the people of Syria.
Those fighting against Assad are a mixed bag of reactionary Sunni religious fundamentalists, including jihadists, and wannabe U.S. clients. (There are perhaps 1,000 different militias operating in Syria.) Nonetheless, for over a year, the Obama administration has been supplying these pro-U.S. elements with materiel, intelligence, and training, while trying to shape and control their politics. U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have supplied weapons to them.
Voices in the U.S. ruling class have raised concerns about the dangers for U.S. imperialism in being drawn into a quagmire. But the U.S. is driven to escalate its intervention by recent military setbacks for the opposition, as well as perceived need by the U.S. to exercise more control over the political agenda of the opposition. In fact, the U.S. may be cynically arming the Syrian opposition, not in hopes this will turn the tide, but mainly to drag out the fighting and weaken and tie down Iran and Iran's ally, Hezbollah, which have sent fighters and military support to the Assad regime.
And the decision to openly and directly arm the Syrian "rebels" may only be the tip of the iceberg of U.S. military escalation. The Obama administration is reportedly stationing F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missile batteries in neighboring Jordan and may be preparing to impose a "no fly zone" over Syria. With Russia and Iran also increasing their support for the Assad regime, this U.S. action may turn out to be a very ominous turn, along with moves by Iran and its allies, turning the Syrian conflict into a regional conflict, with very dangerous and unpredictable consequences.
U.S. actions in Syria are the latest episode in the horror film we've been watching for the last 12 years. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan, then Iraq, escalated threats against Iran, built up its regional enforcer Israel, intervened in Libya, and escalated drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, while continuing to back brutal tyrants in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Turkey, and across the region. All these are pieces of one overarching campaign to violently maintain U.S. control of the vast swath of the planet from West Africa through the Middle East to Central Asia—a geographic crossroads with over 60 percent of the world's energy reserves—that is a crucial component of the U.S.'s global empire of exploitation. All this to maintain a regional order that has already brought decade after decade of misery, oppression, and death.
The fact that in large part the U.S. is confronting, and is confronted by, reactionary Islamic jihadist forces does not in any way mitigate the nature of what the U.S. is doing. In fact, many of these jihadist forces are direct offshoots of things like the CIA arming Osama bin Laden to fight the Soviets during the Cold War. And every time a U.S. missile blows up a village, from Afghanistan to Yemen, these actions drive people into the arms of such fundamentalist forces.

Opposing U.S. Aggression, Fighting for Another Way

People in the U.S. cannot simply stand back and look on with horror at what's unfolding in Syria and the Middle East. Active, visible political opposition to this U.S. escalation—and all U.S. and Israeli crimes in the region—is called for!
As Revolution wrote recently, "Such visible opposition—even if small at first—can be a very positive and dynamic force on the terrain as events unfold. The more resistance to the U.S. and Israel is informed by the orientation of opposing both reactionary Islamic Jihad and U.S. imperialism—and let's be clear that it's the U.S. that has been responsible for the lion's share of death in the Middle East—the more there is an inspiration and basis for people around the world, including in Syria, to be part of bringing forward another way, beyond the reactionary 'alternatives' fighting it out on the ground in Syria today."

Tuesday 20 August 2013

SURPRISING

The death of 18 year-old Sammy Yatim  at the hands of the toronto cops comes as no real surprise. What is surprising, is that one of their thugs is actually getting charged with murder. What remains to be seen is whether some form of justice will actually prevail, or if it'll end up being some fucking half-assed sentence that no one else but a fucking cop would get. Of course, there's always a good possibility that he'll go free. After all, there were 22 pig witnesses who did not intervene in any of this as it was happening. Twenty two. Fucking shitheaded assholes.

Toronto police officer charged in Sammy Yatim shooting to turn himself in Tuesday

Click Here
A shooting death that has captured the nation’s attention and sparked debate about police use of force took a dramatic turn Monday, when the Toronto officer involved in Sammy Yatim’s killing was charged with second-degree murder and the victim’s family issued its most critical statement yet.
Constable James Forcillo, a married father of two and a police officer for six years, is just the third officer to be charged with murder in Ontario since the province’s Special Investigations Unit was launched in 1990, and he is the second Toronto officer to face such a charge.
The unit, which investigates civilian deaths and serious injuries involving officers, announced Monday it has “reasonable grounds” to believe Constable Forcillo committed a crime in the killing of Mr. Yatim.
The 18-year-old was alone on a streetcar and wielding a knife when police fired nine shots at him, then tasered him just after midnight July 27.
Mr. Yatim’s family, including his parents and his 16-year-old sister, Sarah, had until Monday emphasized their trust in the Canadian justice system and said they bore “no ill will” toward Toronto police officers generally.
But in a strongly worded statement released hours after the charge was announced, the family members described their hope that the SIU will also review the actions of the 22 witness officers “for their lack of intervention in this tragedy.”
“Over 20 uniformed police officers were present and no one stepped forward to stop the gun shots or offer any mediation,” said the statement, which also announced the family has retained Ed Upenieks, a lawyer from a firm in Brampton, Ont.
The president of the Toronto Police Association, Mike McCormack, expressed disappointment at the charge and said the family’s view is conjecture based on what they have seen online. “That’s their observation from media reports, from YouTube, whatever, the Internet, that’s not really talking about what happened,” Mr. McCormack said, adding that he offers his condolences.
The case has riveted Toronto, which has seen two protest marches and a vigil as citizens publicly debate what constitutes appropriate use of force against the emotionally disturbed. It has prompted three probes – by the SIU, the Ontario Ombudsman and Toronto police, which last week appointed retired judge Dennis O’Connor for a mandated internal review of police practices.
According to witnesses aboard the streetcar, Mr. Yatim brandished a three-inch knife, and then passengers and the driver fled to safety. Cellphone videos and surveillance footage captured what happened next – a verbal exchange with police, three gunshots ringing out before Mr. Yatim drops to the streetcar floor, another six shots, and then the buzzing of an officer’s taser.
The officer who used the taser – a controversial police tool catapulted into the headlines in 2007, when Robert Dziekanski died after being tasered repeatedly at the Vancouver airport – was not investigated by the SIU because it determined only one officer contributed to the death of Mr. Yatim, who died in hospital. Constable Forcillo called out for a taser before opening fire, according to a source.
Toronto Constable David Cavanagh was charged with murder in the 2010 death of a Nigerian-born father during a struggle. However, that case is different because of questions over whether his gun was accidentally fired. The charge was upgraded from manslaughter to second-degree murder but then dismissed, with the Crown subsequently arguing to reinstate the original charge. Unlike that incident, the Yatim shooting was captured on video and widely circulated online.
Toronto Police Services referred all questions on the Forcillo case to the SIU on Monday. The force’s court services division provided no comment about Constable Forcillo, a former court security officer.
The SIU would say nothing beyond what was in its sparsely detailed statement, citing judicial due process as the reason it cannot explain why it chose second-degree murder over manslaughter or what constituted “reasonable grounds.” (Manslaughter is a homicide committed without intention to cause death, while second-degree murder suggests a deliberate, though unplanned, killing.)
And while Alok Mukherjee, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, said the board “recognizes this is a difficult time for all parties involved,” he added that the facts would come to light in court and that he would not comment further.
Constable Forcillo’s lawyer, Peter Brauti, said his client will make an appearance on Tuesday at 9 a.m. after surrendering into SIU custody. A bail hearing, which Mr. Brauti said he hopes will be “as soon as possible,” will be scheduled at Old City Hall at that time.