Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, Police, wikileaks

UPDATE 4: A timely wikileaks release about US knowledge of police brutality in Egypt:

¶2. (C) Torture and police brutality in Egypt are endemic and widespread. The police use brutal methods mostly against common criminals to extract confessions, but also against demonstrators, certain political prisoners and unfortunate bystanders. One human rights lawyer told us there is evidence of torture in Egypt dating back to the times of the Pharaohs. NGO contacts estimate there are literally hundreds of torture incidents every day in Cairo police stations alone. Egyptians are bombarded with consistent news reports of police brutality, ranging from high profile incidents such as accidental but lethal police shootings in Salamut and Aswan this past fall (refs B and C) that sparked riots, to reports of police officers shooting civilians following disputes over traffic tickets. In November 2008 alone, there were two incidents of off-duty police officers shooting and killing civilians over petty disputes. The cases against both officers are currently making their way through the judicial system.

¶3. (C) NGO and academic contacts from across the political spectrum report witnessing police brutality as part of their daily lives. One academic at XXXXXXXXXXXX told us XXXXXXXXXXXX the police proceeded to beat a female suspect into confessing about others involved in the theft and the whereabouts of the stolen valuables. A contact from an international NGO described witnessing police beat the doorman of an upscale Cairo apartment building into disclosing the apartment number of a suspect. Another contact at a human rights NGO told us that her friends do not report thefts from their apartments because they do not want to subject all the doormen in the vicinity to police beatings. She told us that the police’s use of force has pervaded Egyptian culture to the extent that one popular television soap opera recently featured a police detective hero who beats up suspects to collect evidence.

UPDATE 3: A comment posted at We Are All Khalid Said:

An activists just said that many poor people never dreamt they can be equal to a policeman. When they saw others standing up to police, they just joined in instantly.

UPDATE 2: By the way, don't forget to visit The Angry Arab News Service for commentary by As'ad Abukhalil.

UPDATE 1 (3:55PM Pacific time): President Obama makes a brief statement, saying that he has spoken with Mubarak and that Mubarak has pledged greater democracy for Egyptians, but needs to honor that commitment. Is there anyone gullible enough to believe this? No wonder he walked quickly away from the lecturn without making eye contact with the assembled reporters. Meanwhile, back on the planet Earth, Muburak, in his first public apperance since the protests began, gives no quarter. There are suspicions that the US is trying replace Mubarak with the Chief of Staff of the Egyptian military.

UPDATE: For on the ground reports, the We Are All Khalid Said Facebook page is still up. Go here for a striking video of the beginning of the protests today, with the police retreating against an onslaught of protesters. There has been nothing new posted at The Arabist, 3arabaway or Egyptian Chronicles for about 18 hours, but they could come back online at any time.

INITIAL POST: You probably know as much as I do. Aljazeeza has an excellent live blog which is providing news updates including video, as posted above. There is also a live Aljazeera video feed here. Similarly, The Guardian has an informative live blog as well:

6.59pm (UK time): Here's a summary of the day's events so far on a momentous day in Egypt's history:

President Hosni Mubarak has ordered a curfew in three cities (3.30pm), later extended to the entire country, which was supposed to start at 6pm today and last until 7am tomorrow morning but it has been roundly ignored as clashes have continued.

Mubarak has sent in the army to restore order in Cairo, Alexandria and Suez but protesters cheered the army in some areas, calling on them to side with them against the police (3.43 pm). In some areas the army has done so. Soldiers have shaken hands with protesters in Alexandria and in Cairo. Demonstrators have clambered onto tanks in Suez and Cairo. There have also been unconfirmed reports of clashes between the army and police.

There have been unconfirmed reports of many protesters killed today, including a woman in Tahrir square in Cairo, two people in Suez, one named as Hamada Labib, 30, a driver., one person in Alexandria and a 14-year-old in Port Said.

In the country's strongest intervention so far, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the US is deeply concerned about the use of violence by Egyptian police and security forces against protestors. (5.12pm)

Some police are reported to have joined the protesters, who welcomed them to their ranks. (5.05pm)

Police immediately attacked protesters after Friday prayers (11.12am) but protesters remained defiant and fought back, overwhelming police and government buildings right across the country. The ruling NDP's party headquarters in Cairo were set on fire (4.23pm).

According to Reuters, approximately 870 people have been wounded during protests in Cairo, with 450 sent to hospitals for medical attention.

From an an article posted by Time today, Israel Has Faith Muburak Will Prevail:

We believe that Egypt is going to overcome the current wave of demonstrations, but we have to look to the future, says the minister in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel enjoys diplomatic relations and security cooperation with both Egypt and Jordan, the only neighboring states that have signed treaties with the Jewish state. But while it may be more efficient to deal in with a strongman in Cairo — Mubarak has ruled for 30 years — and a king in Amman, democracies make better neighbors, because democracies do not initiate wars," he says.

Having said that, I'm not sure the time is right for the Arab region to go through the democratic process.

The minister, who spoke on condition of not being identified by name or portfolio, cites the Gaza Strip as a signal warning of the risk that comes with asking the people what they want. The seaside territory, home to some 1.5 million Palestinians, elected the militant Islamist group Hamas in a 2006 election that had been urged by George W. Bush, when the president was casting the invasion of Iraq as a mission to bring democracy to the Middle East.

All well and good in the long run, according to the official, but Arab societies demand a longer term democratization process, one accompanied by education reforms that would encourage the election of moderates. You can't make it with elections, especially in the current situation where radical elements, especially Islamist groups, may exploit the situation, he says. It might take a generation or so.

I was aware that the Palestinians had to be imprisoned within the occupied territories in order for Israel to survive as a Zionist state, but it turns out that millions of Egyptians require similarly severe measures of social control as well.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Egypt, Israel, Neoliberalism, wikileaks

As discussed here earlier, time for the Swedish prosecutors to clarify their position:

Lawyers for Julian Assange, the founder of the wikileaks antisecrecy group, said on Tuesday that they would oppose his extradition to Sweden because he might subsequently face illegal rendition to the United States, risking imprisonment at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or even the death penalty.

They made the assertion in defense documents released after Mr. Assange made a brief appearance in a British high-security court for a largely procedural hearing concerning his resistance to demands for his extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused of sexual misconduct.

Is the Swedish attempt to extradite Assange about investigating rape claims, or assisting the US in seizing him for indefinite detention and prosecution? So far, the Swedes remain curiously silent on the subject. Everyone, including those who believe that Assange may well have raped the alleged victims, should publicly insist that the Swedes agree that this proceeding should not be used for the ulterior purpose of delivering Assange into US custody.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, Feminism, wikileaks

From The Peninsula, a Qatari newspaper:

Top officials in several Arab countries have close links with the CIA, and many officials keep visiting US embassies in their respective countries voluntarily to establish links with this key US intelligence agency, says Julian Assange, founder of the whistle-blowing website, WikiLeaks.

These officials are spies for the US in their countries, Assange told Al Jazeera Arabic channel in an interview yesterday.

The interviewer, Ahmed Mansour, said at the start of the interview which was a continuation of last week’s interface, that Assange had even shown him the files that contained the names of some top Arab officials with alleged links with the CIA.

Assange or Mansour, however, didn’t disclose the names of these officials. The WikiLeaks founder said he feared he could be killed but added that there were 2,000 websites that were ready to publish the remaining files that are in possession of WikiLeaks after he has been done away with.

If I am killed or detained for a long time, there are 2,000 websites ready to publish the remaining files. We have protected these websites through very safe passwords, said Assange.

Currently, his whistle-blowing website is exposing files in a responsible manner, he claimed. But if I am forced we could go to the extreme and expose each and every file that we have access to, thundered the WikiLeaks founder. We must protect our sources at whatever cost. This is our sincere concern.

Some Arab countries even have torture houses where Washington regularly sends suspects for interrogation and torture, he said.

Philip Agee released this sort of information, and lived into his 70s, being fortunate enough to fall in love with a German woman who married him, enabling him to obtain German citizenship. He spent much of his life after the late 1970s in Germany and Cuba. Ecuador has already offered residency to Assange, and other South American countries, such as Venezuela, Bolivia, and Brazil, might do so as well if he requested it. So, there are places where Assange can live outside the reach of the US, or, at least, not any less so than Agee did.

Within this context, it is worth recalling Agee's motivation for releasing confidential information about the activities of the CIA around the world, especially in the Americas:

Agee had left the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mainly in Latin America, where he gradually became disgusted by the agency's collusion with military dictators in the region and decided to blow the whistle on their activities. The Mexico City massacre of student protesters in 1968 also stiffened his resolve. His 1975 book Inside the Company: CIA Diary spilled the beans on his former employers and enraged the US government, not least because it named CIA operatives.

It was a time in the 70s when the worst imaginable horrors were going on in Latin America, he told the Guardian in an interview published a year ago today. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Guatemala, El Salvador - they were military dictatorships with death squads, all with the backing of the CIA and the US government. That was what motivated me to name all the names and work with journalists who were interested in knowing just who the CIA were in their countries.

Of course, it is easy for someone like me to suggest that Assange should publicly release the information that he mentioned in his Al Jazeera interview. But there is no question that the worst imaginable horrors are going on in northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia today, just as they were in the Americas (and Greece as well) when Agee worked for the CIA. For example, consider what is happening now in Tunisia, a police state unknown to most Americans that is considered an important ally in the global war against terrorism. If Assange is speaking truthfully, wikileaks has documents in its possession that will expose US complicity in the abuse, torture and suppression of peoples throughout the Muslim world in places beyond the usual suspects, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed, one should not forget to include Indonesia as one of the possible countries involved, even if, strictly speaking, it is inaccurate to characterize it as Arab.

Hat tip to Marcy Wheeler.

Labels: "War on Terror", Activism, Africa, Alternative Media, American Empire, Central Asia, Indonesia, Muslims, wikileaks

So, I don't know how provocative this might be, and as I mentioned in comments I'm rather disenchanted with the relevance of this idea as I've thought about it harder, but I'm going to go ahead and see what meaning can be perhaps teased out of what I was originally thinking in the process of writing out this post.

No, turn that off. You know, walk away from that. Walk out your front door. Go find your elders. Go find your true elders. Go find your people that lived that life, who knew that life and who know that history. And get your hands down into that deep rich stream of our people’s history. We divided our culture up into a market for youngers, a market for young adults, a market for young marrieds, a market for older people, you know. It’s not that way. And mass media contributed to that by taking the great movements that we’ve been through and trivializing important events. No, our people’s history is like one long river. It flows down from way over there. And everything that those people did and everything they lived flows down to me, and I can reach down and take out what I need, if I have the courage to go out and ask questions. That huge river, you know, it’s like tributaries that flow down into the polluted river and purify it and purify it.

However, immediately before he begins talking about "the long memory" he says:

And no fooling, I think that we’re in the Weimar Republic. And that’s another thing that I would encourage young people to understand, what—that was Germany before the Second World War, the rise of Hitler, the rise of Nazism. Why didn’t people do anything? You know, the big question that young Germans are asking their grandparents: “Why didn’t you do something?” Read about the Weimar, compare the rise of fascism in Germany from the 1920s to what’s happening right here right now.

None of this is necessarily to point to Phillips as a particularly original anarchist thinker, although I would suggest that such an honorific is less important to anarchists who look to traditions of resistance and the maintenance of understandings of how power works as their guides for future action, rather than specific theorists or activist heroes. In fact, I would suggest, that orientation is exactly is what is meant by "the long memory."

The point of "the long memory" that makes it truly anarchist, it seems to me, is that the knowledge of both historical and tactical realities is spread out on as wide a basis as utterly possible. It should not reside in the works of any institutional historian, theorist, or guru, but is instead considered and treated as a public good. The more people have it, the better.

At this point, perhaps the basic trajectory of my argument is already clear, but to make it explicit, I think that even if no-one involved with Wikileaks considers themselves anarchists, their past activities and general strategy should be whole-heartedly supported by anarchists as they can only serve to aid in the production of "the long memory."

This is true firstly in terms of the revelations that have been provided, adding some immediacy to "the long memory." Whereas information of this sort otherwise often takes decades to be revealed, at which point its relevance to current concerns is extremely diluted--think, for example, of the very convincing documentation of CIA interference in the Italian elections of 1948 or of direct White House involvement in the Pinochet coup in Chile, that other September 11th--incidents now well-documented, but not generally considered of current relevance and conveniently dismissed as of the past, in the case of Wikileaks we have very current evidence of (mostly citing Greenwald):

1. The cavalier attitude with which US air gunships are willing to open up on random crowds in urban Iraq.

2. The fact that US forces, as a matter of official policy, ignored torture by Iraqi forces under their tutelage.

3. The US underreporting known civilian deaths resulting from the Iraq and Afghanistan occupations (not that I believe the numbers given in the Pentagon documents given to Wikileaks approach the true scale either).

4. SoS Clinton was directly involved in a plot to spy on top UN officials

5. The Obama administration actively worked to undermine any criminal or bureaucratic investigations into Bush administration involvement in torture and war crimes in Spain, Germany, Britain.

6. Secret air bombardment wars in Yemen and Pakistan.

7. The extreme disparity between the attitudes of the autocratic Arab governments that we support politically, militarily, financially, and diplomatically and the views of the peoples of the region (specifically concerning Iran).

Now, none of these revelations seemed very surprising to cynical old me, but with the activities of Wikileaks, we have an ability to say, "Look, this is how your governments are operating now" and that strikes me as valuable for forming the long memory of the current generation, as opposed to, say, decades-later apologies for supporting the coup in Guatemala in the 1950s, even if it does not seem to making the impression that we might hope in the immediate term.

Finally, the other way that the anarchist perspective should view Wikileaks in terms of "the long memory," I would argue, is as a reminder of the way that the state will react to even minor threats to its prerogatives, in this case, the effective monopoly on important information and speech. The fact that there are calls to utilize the Espionage Act to prosecute Wikileaks should invite scrutiny of the way that the Espionage Act has been used in earlier times, notably for throwing Eugene Debs in prison for "obstructing recruiting" through delivering an anti-war speech and other examples of anti-war suppression.

The "long memory," in other words, should seek to incorporate both the information that Wikileaks has outed as well as the way that the state has reacted to the outing of that information and it should do so with an understanding that these are of a temporal continuum wherein the institutions of the state tends to act and react in similar ways. History, as has been said before, may not repeat itself, but it rhymes.

[much later edit]:

In response to discussion in the comments section, I realized that I had left out a key portion of my original argument as it existed in my head while formulating the idea for the post and I thought I would bring it up here from the comments section (slightly edited for clarity) where it might be clearer to those not necessarily haunting the comments section: "What I should have discussed in the post and was in my original thinking about it--which I now realize was a major omission on my part, partly caused by a very frustrating Windows blue screen of death in the middle of writing it--was that my anarchist perspective leads me to believe that these revelations serve a long-term purpose beyond any simple instrumentalist uses in the here and now, because they provide some (only some!) of the basis for underpinning the long-term memory of how these systems work amongst the broader masses of people (and yes, there's the digital divide and all that, which is of course problematic, but I don't think it undermines my overall point). And, perhaps, that such an understanding of how Wikileaks' contributions would be considered more valuable to the anarchist perspective that seeks the broadest knowledgeable participation in the reconstruction of the world might contrast to what I would perceive to be more instrumentalist perspectives of electoral leftists and even some revolutionary, but more vanguardist, leftists who seem to me to be primarily concerned with the current purposes to which the Wikileaks revelations can be put."

Post script: sorry for the ugly text formatting, I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong with it. Does anyone know what the default font is here?

Labels: Anarchism, wikileaks

A couple of days ago, lenin put up a good post on the subject of Assange and the ongoing investigation of sexual assault charges against him in Sweden. So, perhaps, my effort today is unnecessary. Even so, I think that there are some important things to note that I haven't encountered much, if at all, during the often heated discussion about it.

Clearly, the publication of extensive details of the allegations against Assange by the Guardian has compelled many on the left who have been uncritically rallying to his defense to reconsider their stance, as Michael Moore did the other day. Lost in the furor, though, is the fact, as I have noted several times, that the credibility of the victims is being more severely damaged by the actions of the Swedish prosecutors and the US government. Of course, this has little to do with whether they are truthful or not (and, as noted by lenin, the historical tendency has been to smear or dismiss the accounts of rape victims), but the apparent coordination between the actions of the Swedish prosecutors and the US, which are hard to characterize as coincidental, contributes to a public perception that the allegations are merely a ruse to deliver Assange into the torturous bowels of indefinite solitary confinement already occupied by Bradley Manning.

Hence, if the Swedes want us to take their investigation seriously, they should publicly announce that they will not transfer Assange into US custody if he is extradited to Sweden for futher investigation and possible criminal prosecution. But, as already noted here, the Swedish prosecutor, Marianne Ny, has instead opted to evade the issue, thus intensifying suspicions as to her true motivation. Again, it can't be emphasized too strongly that the credibility of the complainants themselves end up being damaged by such shenanigans. Likewise, people with a strong commitment to the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes should urge the Swedes to make such a commitment as well. Otherwise, there is the very real prospect that the outcome of these proceedings will be the delivery of Assange into US custody by the Swedes, without any further investigation of the allegations against him. If that happens, future rape victims will confront even greater skepticism in cases involving public figures.

And, it may already be too late. Given the release of materials from Ny's file, the likelihood of charges being brought, much less successfully prosecuted, has been significantly reduced because of defenses now available to Assange based upon prosecutorial misconduct and the inability to obtain a fair trial. Furthermore, we can't assume that the materials released to the Guardian are comprehensive, the people who leaked the documents may well have held back exculpatory evidence, evidence tending to exonerate Assange. For prosecutors, if they really want to charge and convict someone, the rule is pretty straightforward. Let the defendant play the media game, and talk as much as he wants, through himself or through surrogates, while you keep your mouth shut and let your evidence in court do the talking instead. Experienced prosecutors have known this for a long time, with an exception for a few well-timed leaks to friendly journalists. But you have to be a professional to carry that off, and Ny seems to lack this skill. Again, the complainants are the ones who suffer from the prosecutor's contribution to the media circus that surrounds the investigation. On the other side of the ledger, the apparent fact that the complainants did not go the police until they got together and talked about their experiences is not very helpful to Assange, his supporters' protestations to the contrary. It is, after all, fairly common for women who have been subjected to sexually assaultive behavior to delay going to law enforcement until they have received encouragement, although the fact that the alleged victims provided it to each other does seem unusual.

What about Assange's so-called leftist defenders? I say, so-called, because many of them, like Michael Moore, for example, strike me as liberals instead. In any event, we find ourselves subjected to the same Manichean, good versus evil response that so characterized the response of some leftists to the Iranian protests last year. Just as the protests had to be instigated by the CIA and the Mossad, refusing to consider the possibility that Iranians had their own reasons to be angry with the regime, we now find outselves subjected to claims that one of the complainants against Assange is possibly associated with the CIA through her activities in support of Cuban dissidents. Well, anything is possible, and perhaps we will learn more of substance about this, but, for now, it is important to point out that there have been people on the left who have identified with Cuban dissidents, people such as long time Italian leftist, and former PCI member, Rossana Rossanda, for example. Accordingly, the possibility that Anne Ardin, as a Swedish Social Democrat, could support Cuban dissidents and Palestinian self-determination, is not implausible.

As with the situation in Iran, it is long past time for us on the left to walk and chum gum at the same time, as one feminist blog encouraged us to do in relation to the Assange situation. We can move beyond a faux leftism that sees events through the conspiratorial mirror of US and Israeli actions, and instead relate to them in terms of historic left values of secular inclusion, equality and anti-imperialism, which requires an appreciation of the perspective of radical feminism. Accordingly, we can insist that Sweden commit to not delivering Assange into US custody, even as we likewise insist upon the importance of a thorough investigation of the charges against Assange. It is an essential endeavor, because, in this instance, we can see how the empire, and the capital behind it, have successfully put many people who should be allies at odds with one another. The US has effectively driven a wedge between liberal and leftist supporters of Assange and feminists. Now, not all feminists are leftists, of course, but many are, and we should not allow the empire to divide us. Together, we can fight misogyny, sexual violence and imperial oppression, while divided all three will persist, and possibly gain strength.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, Feminism, Iranian Protests, wikileaks

In the next day or so, I hope to publish a post about the recent release of the police report describing the factual allegations against Assange, but, for now, I am in agreement with As'ad Abukhalil, the Angry Arab:

Many angry leftists wrote to me in protest against what I wrote last week regarding accusations against Assange. I merely said that leftists should rally to the support of Assange as a victim of a global, US-orchestrated campaign to punish him for the release of documents--the authenticity of which have not been questioned--but should not necessarily rally to his defense regarding the accusations by the two women. Both things can be true: that the accusations may have some validity while it is also indubitably true that the use of the interpol and the prosecutor's office in Sweden is conducted on behalf of the US for political purposes. As I read the long report in the New York Times this morning about the accusations by the two women--and I believe that those accusations should be investigated--I wondered to myself: since when does the horrible New York Times care about the plight of female victims of sexual assault and molestation? Why does not the pages of New York Times be used to investigate sexual crimes in New York City for example?

I am tempted to expand upon this more now, but I have to make sure that my young son doesn't end up watching Kipper all day.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, Police, Sexism, wikileaks

From The Independent:

US authorities have stepped up their efforts to prosecute Julian Assange by offering Bradley Manning, the American soldier allegedly responsible for leaking hundreds of thousands of government documents, the possibility of a plea bargain if he names the Wiki-Leaks founder as a fellow conspirator.

The development follows claims by Mr Assange's supporters that a grand jury has been secretly empanelled in northern Virginia to consider indicting the wikileaks chief. But the US Justice Department has refused to comment on any grand jury activity.

As Mr Assange arrived last night at the East Anglia mansion after his release from a London prison on bail, he said he considered the threat of US legal action to be extremely serious even though they have yet to be confirmed. He told Sky News: We have heard today from one of my US lawyers that there may be a US indictment for espionage for me coming from a secret grand jury investigation. There are obviously serious attempts to take down the content by taking us down as an organisation and taking me down as an individual.

American officials view persuading Pte Manning to give evidence that Mr Assange encouraged him to disseminate classified Pentagon and State Department files as crucial to any prospect of extraditing him for a successful prosecution. To facilitate that, Pte Manning may be moved from military to civilian custody, they say. Since being charged in July with disseminating a US military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed 17 people in Iraq including two Reuters employees, the soldier has been held at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. But members of his support network insist that he has not co-operated with the authorities since his arrest in May.

Frankly, this smacks of desperation. Manning's credibility would be destroyed if he entered into such an agreement, but the Justice Department may be relying upon a nationalistic jury to look past it. Furthermore, Assange's attorneys would be permitted to cross-examine Manning about his harsh conditions of his confinement as well, casting more doubt upon any incriminating statements, unless the judge sharply circumscribed the ability of Assange's attorneys to question him. Of course, there is no guarantee that, even if Manning provided the desired testimony, it would be sufficient to support a verdict against Assange. In any event, there is no indication to date that Manning is cooperating with prosecutors.

And, we are getting more and more troubling information about precisely what is happening to Manning, and, in addition, his supporters on the outside:

According to David House, a computer researcher from Boston who visits Manning twice a month, he is starting to deteriorate. Over the last few weeks I have noticed a steady decline in his mental and physical wellbeing, he said. His prolonged confinement in a solitary holding cell is unquestionably taking its toll on his intellect; his inability to exercise due to [prison] regulations has affected his physical appearance in a manner that suggests physical weakness.

Manning, House added, was no longer the characteristically brilliant man he had been, despite efforts to keep him intellectually engaged. He also disputed the authorities' claims that Manning was being kept in solitary for his own good.

I initially believed that his time in solitary confinement was a decision made in the interests of his safety, he said. As time passed and his suicide watch was lifted, to no effect, it became clear that his time in solitary – and his lack of a pillow, sheets, the freedom to exercise, or the ability to view televised current events – were enacted as a means of punishment rather than a means of safety.

House said many people were reluctant to talk about Manning's condition because of government harassment, including surveillance, warrantless computer seizures, and even bribes. This has had such an intimidating effect that many are afraid to speak out on his behalf, House said.

Some friends report being followed extensively. Another computer expert said the army offered him cash to – in his words – infiltrate the wikileaks website. He said: I turned them down. I don't want anything to do with this cloak and dagger stuff.

When the Washington Post tried to investigate the claim, an army criminal investigation division spokesman refused to comment. We've got an ongoing investigation, he said. We don't discuss our techniques and tactics.

On 3 November, House, 23, said he found customs agents waiting for him when he and his girlfriend returned to the US after a short holiday in Mexico. His bags were searched and two men identifying themselves as Homeland Security officials said they were being detained for questioning and would miss their connecting flight. The men seized all his electronic items and he was told to hand over all passwords and encryption keys – which he refused. The items have yet to be returned, said House. He added: If Manning is convicted, it will be because his individual dedication to human ethics far surpasses that of the US government.

Reminicsent of the effort that placed Leonard Peltier behind bars, the US government effort against Manning and Assange is going to be relentless. And, as with Peltier, the prospect of the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence exercising its independence and ordering their release, if the US eventually extradites Assange here, is nil.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, wikileaks

UPDATE: Assange is released on bail in London, as US Attorney General Eric Holder prepares a conspiracy case against him. It looks like the expectation is that Bradley Manning can be abused badly enough in solitary confinement to say whatever is necessary to convict him.

INITIAL POST: As you may have heard, violent clashes erupted on the streets of Rome yesterday after Berlusconi survived a no-confidence vote:

Meanwhile, the electoral opposition to Berlusconi is engaging in the predictable search for police provocateurs as a partial explanation for the eruption of violence in Rome:

Anna Finocchiaro, leader in the Senate of Italy's biggest opposition group, the Democratic party, said: There were evidently people who had been infiltrated [among the rioters] and who put at risk the demonstrators and the police. Who commanded them? Who paid them? What were they meant to cause?

Photographs taken during the disturbances have prompted not only suspicions but bitter memories of the 1970s when rogue members of the police and intelligence services lent themselves to a so-called strategy of tension aimed at raising the level of violence to the point at which it could be used to justify draconian repression or even a coup d'état.

Yesterday, groups of masked and hooded demonstrators rampaged through the capital attacking police, smashing windows, setting fire to vehicles and throwing up barricades. The mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, said first indications were that they had caused damage of about €20m. The disturbances were thought to be the most violent in Rome since 1977.

One of the participants in this week's rioting was photographed hurling a dustbin at members of the revenue guard and wielding a long shovel. But in other shots, he appears to be standing with the guards raising a truncheon in one hand and holding a pair of handcuffs in the other.

I have no trouble believing that there were, in fact, police provocateurs on the streets of Rome yesterday instigating some acts of property destruction, just as there were in London last week. And people in Italy have good cause to be concerned about it because of the 1970s strategy of tension mentioned in the article, a covert program that involved bombings and assassinations carried out by neo-fascists, with the apparent assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency, that were falsely attributed to radical left groups.

But the attacks upon the police, the burning of cars and the smashing of store windows in Rome cannot be entirely attributed to government manipulation. First off, people on the street were already angry, and rightly so. Hence, if provoked, they directed their anger towards whatever symbols of privilege were immediately at hand. Second, it strikes me as implausible to believe that the eruption of conflict was limited to situations exploited by the police. There was an independent agency, and that agency was, again, young people rebelling against the bleak future that the European Union and the European Central Bank have planned for them.

Apparently, the government has confidence that it can benefit from instigating them into more and more acts of property destruction and conflict with the police. But the rebellion is increasingly showing signs of spreading across the entire continent. Greece, then France, then the UK, then Italy and now, Greece, again today. Intensifying social unrest in one place as a means of generating local support for repressive measures may have the unintended consequence of inciting unrest elsewhere on a larger scale.

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Europe, Italy, Neoliberalism, Political Violence, Sub-Proletarianization of Europe, wikileaks, YouTube

Today, the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place as to how the Swedish extradition warrant against Julian Assange will be used to facilitate his delivery into US custody. Yesterday, Marianne Ny, the Swedish prosecutor who wants Assange returned to Sweden for questioning in relation to a sex crime investigation, posted the following opaque statement about Assange's possible extradition to the United States on the prosecution's website:

Due to general agreements in the European Arrest Warrant Act, Sweden cannot extradite a person who has been surrendered to Sweden from another country without certain considerations. Concerning surrender to another country within the European Union, the Act states that the executing country under certain circumstances must approve a further surrender.

On the other hand, if the extradition concerns a country outside the European Union the authorities in the executing country (the country that surrendered the person) must consent such extradition. Sweden cannot, without such consent extradite a person, for example to the U.S.A.

In other words, as reported by Robert Mackey of the New York Times, the United Kingdom, as the country that executed the extradition warrant, must approve any decision by Sweden to allow the US to take custody of Assange. But, why, you may ask, doesn't the US merely request that the UK transfer him to the US now? Well, according to Mackey, it is pretty difficult for the US to extradite anyone from the UK, citing the case of Scottish computer hacker Gary McKinnon, who remains in the UK despite an eight year old indictment and extradition request.

So, in addition to the fact that Ny has not disavowed any intention to have Assange turned over to the US, there is the additional one that it appears much easier to have Assange extradited to the US from Sweden with UK approval than it is to have Assange extradited to the US directly from the UK. Not to worry, you say, the UK would never do it, you say?

Don't be so sure. Today, there was this bombshell in relation to the appeal of the judge's order to release Assange on bail:

The decision to have Julian Assange sent to a London jail and kept there was taken by the British authorities and not by prosecutors in Sweden, as previously thought, the Guardian has learned.

The Crown Prosecution Service will go to the high court tomorrow to seek the reversal of a decision to free the wikileaks founder on bail, made yesterday by a judge at City of Westminster magistrates court.

It had been widely thought Sweden had made the decision to oppose bail, with the CPS acting merely as its representative. But today the Swedish prosecutor's office told the Guardian it had not got a view at all on bail and that Britain had made the decision to oppose bail.

Lawyers for Assange reacted to the news with shock and said CPS officials had told them this week it was Sweden which had asked them to ensure he was kept in prison.

Karin Rosander, director of communications for Sweden's prosecutor's office, told the Guardian: The decision was made by the British prosecutor. I got it confirmed by the CPS this morning that the decision to appeal the granting of bail was entirely a matter for the CPS. The Swedish prosecutors are not entitled to make decisions within Britain. It is entirely up to the British authorities to handle it.

As a result, she said, Sweden will not be submitting any new evidence or arguments to the high court hearing tomorrow morning. The Swedish authorities are not involved in these proceedings. We have not got a view at all on bail.

If there was any doubt as to whether the UK would object to the US seizing Assange upon extradition to Sweden, this pretty much eliminates it. The Crown Prosecution Office objection to Assange's bail is strong circumstantial evidence that the UK is already working in concert with the US.

If the judge orders extradition (and, as this point, the judge looks like the only thing standing between Assange and US incarceration), the US will request that the Swedes turn Assange over to them in relation to a sealed indictment. The Swedes, after obtaining the approval of the UK, will do so. At some point shortly thereafter, US Attorney Eric Holder will hold a press conference, announcing that a variety of serious federal felony charges have been filed against Assange, and that he is currently in custody at an undisclosed location.

And the conditions of Assange's confinement as a pre-trial detainee, if the ones currently experienced by Bradley Manning are any indication, won't be pleasant:

Since his arrest in May, Manning has been a model detainee, without any episodes of violence or disciplinary problems. He nonetheless was declared from the start to be a Maximum Custody Detainee, the highest and most repressive level of military detention, which then became the basis for the series of inhumane measures imposed on him.

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). For the one hour per day when he is freed from this isolation, he is barred from accessing any news or current events programs. Lt. Villiard protested that the conditions are not like jail movies where someone gets thrown into the hole, but confirmed that he is in solitary confinement, entirely alone in his cell except for the one hour per day he is taken out.

In sum, Manning has been subjected for many months without pause to inhumane, personality-erasing, soul-destroying, insanity-inducing conditions of isolation similar to those perfected at America's Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado: all without so much as having been convicted of anything. And as is true of many prisoners subjected to warped treatment of this sort, the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

Eventually, Assange's attorneys will be allowed to speak with him, probably after being forced to obtain a court order to do so, subject to serious restrictions. It is entirely possible that Assange will be held indefinitely, as Manning is now, without any charges being brought against him. It is even possible that he will be designated as an enemy non-combatant, although it is more probable that he will be treated as such without a formal designation. It is hard to imagine that the US will allow Assange to be publicly tried, given the thorny problems related to classified information and state secrets associated with such an endeavor.

And, the alleged victims of Assange that have complained to the Swedish prosecutors? No one will ever know what transpired between the alleged victims and Assange except them. If Assange committed sex crimes (and, at this point, I have no confidence in what they might be, given the tabloid news coverage of them), very few are going to believe it after they see what the US has done to Assange with the complicity of the Swedes. The alleged victims will discover that they have been pawns in a more deadly serious game.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, United Kingdom, wikileaks

UPDATE 4: Want to contribute to the seizure of Palestinian land and the construction of settlements in the occupied territories through Visa, MasterCard and PayPal? Want to contribute to a Zionist group that places a bounty on Palestinians shot by the IDF through them? No problem.

UPDATE 3: Other sympathizers of wikileaks websites that were recently attacked, fought openly. Admittedly, the Google translation of this Dutch article is difficult to understand, but, apparently, some people deliberately refused to conceal their cyberspace identity when they hacked Internet sites in support of wikileaks. If true, that's a major social development, a profound statement of social rebellion.

UPDATE 2: If the Swedish appeal of his release on bail is denied, Assange's release may still be delayed because of the refusal of Visa and MasterCard to allow his supporters to use their electronic payment systems for his bail. Instead, they must raise the full amount of 200,000 pounds in cash. Both Visa and MasterCard deny it putting any impediment in the way of Assange's supporters to raise those funds through their credit and debit cards. Assange is getting a crash course in regard to what many poor people face when they find themselves caught up in the criminal justice system. At least, he's fortunate enough to actually have supporters capable of paying his substantial bail amount, unlike many poor people, who are invariably incarcerated all the way through trial.

UPDATE 1: The Swedes are, of course, appealing the decision, with the appeal to be heard within 48 hours. One gets the impression, more and more, that they are operating pursuant to instructions provided by US intelligence. After all, the extradition warrant does not allege any criminal charges against Assange, and, even if there were charges pending, there is no reason why the terms of the bail ordered by the judge, wouldn't be considered satisfactory. But, that's not really the problem, is it? Instead, it is essential that Assange remain in custody at all times so that he can be turned over to the US. One also gets the impression that there are no charges set forth in the warrant because they are so flimsy that they would expose the whole pretense. If the alleged victims have good reason to want Assange prosecuted, the Swedish authorities aren't doing them any favors.

INITIAL POST: You might also find this interesting:

We now know that Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and others are instruments of US foreign policy. It's not something we knew before, Assange said in a statement likely to add new impetus to the spate of cyber attacks being perpetrated by Anonymous in support of wikileaks.

Oh, and please don't forget that one of the others is Amazon.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, United Kingdom, wikileaks

UPDATE: wikileaks can be found here

INITIAL POST:

(snip)

In the Spanish constitution the role of the army is described by article 8: to guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Spain, to defend its territorial integrity and the constitutional order. I always thought that if the Spanish army were to be deployed inside the country, it would be for defending the sacrosanct territorial unity - the threat of nationalist secession, in other words. But surprise, surprise, none other than the socialist government invokes this law for the very first time since it was approved, by militarizing the airspace and decreeing a state of alarm. All of this with the invaluable help of the mass media, of course.

Some context is needed to understand what happened. The previous day, the government had approved a new adjustment package that included the partial privatisation of the national airport and navigation organisation, Aena. It joined new legislation that eliminated the 426 euros of unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. For the traffic controllers, a decree was issued that annulled all previously earned holidays, sick leave, maternity leave and so on. By doing so, the government violated its own rules, namely the limitations to traffic controllers' working hours, set by a previous decree. Moreover, the choice for publishing the decree on friday the 4th of December was not an innocent one, since the following Monday and Wednesday are bank holidays, and many Spaniards take a long weekend off. Behind it there is a battle of wills between Minister of Public Works José Blanco and the traffic controllers, who had been refused staff increases while waiting for complete privatization. I don't know whether he trusted that the traffic controllers would not dare to leave hundreds of thousands of passengers and their families stranded, or that it was a strategy of provoking a wildfire so that First Deputy Prime Minister Rubalcaba could present himself as the Presidential firefighter.

Whatever the strategy behind it, the result was that the government imposed military discipline to knock down a labour insubordination. The government prefers to force the traffic controllers to go back to work, but it does not discard the use of military personnel to control air traffic. In France - where the traffic controllers went on strike 4 times this year, one because of pension reforms - they have stopped using soldiers as scabs after the plane crash of 5 March 1973, when a DC-9 of Iberia coming from Palma de Mallorca collided in Nantes with a Convai 990 of Spantax coming from Madrid. The investigation showed that the accident was caused by the bad training of the militaries replacing the civilian traffic controllers.

(snip)

Informal discussions have already been held between US and Swedish officials about the possibility of wikileaks founder Julian Assange being delivered into US custody, according to diplomatic sources.

Mr Assange was in a British jail last night awaiting extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted over allegations that he sexually assaulted two women.

The 39-year-old Australian was refused bail at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court yesterday on the grounds there was a risk he would abscond, despite a number of prominent public figures offering substantial sureties.

His arrest earlier in the day was described by the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, as good news. The US Justice Department is considering charging Mr Assange with espionage offences after his website released classified US diplomatic files.

Right-wing politicians in the US are pressing for his prosecution and even execution.

(snip)

The prime minister, David Cameron, condemned the violence as unacceptable. It is shocking and regrettable that the car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall was caught up and attacked in the violence.

Home secretary Theresa May said: I utterly condemn the increasing levels of violence and disorder that some of the protesters have been, and still are, involved in. What we are seeing in London tonight, the wanton vandalism, smashing of windows, has nothing to do with peaceful protest.

The protests followed the vote over tuition fees in the Commons when 21 Liberal Democrat MPs voted against the plans and five abstained, refusing to follow their leader, Nick Clegg, and other Lib Dem ministers in favour of a new upper limit for fees of £9,000 from 2012, the culmination of an agonising few weeks for the junior party in the coalition.

Outside parliament, as news of the vote came through, the demonstration became more heated with fires lit in Parliament Square, rocks thrown at the police, attempts to smash into the Treasury and the supreme court and a surge into the National Gallery's impressionist rooms.

In freezing temperatures, an attempt to burn down the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square was thwarted, and some Christmas shoppers had to flee the trashing of shop windows on Oxford Street. The violence, at the end of the third in a series of demonstrations against the fee rise, was condemned by the National Union of Students.

The police again penned in demonstrators saying they were dealing with a crime scene. At least eight police officers were injured including one seriously.

Increasingly, protest against the authoritarian imposition of austerity is erupting outside established institutions. In Spain, with the unions on the sidelines, air traffic controllers initiated a wildcat strike, which was suppressed by government by use of the military. The strike had overtones of the kind of labor action common to Italy in the 1960s, whereby workers in large industrial concerns walked off the job at critical choke points, thereby shutting down the entire production process, as means of pressuring employers to accede to their demands.

Here, the Spanish air traffic controllers responded to the government's unilateral action to rescind previously earned benefits by refusing to work, thus disrupting the entire network of European air travel. The Socialist government responded promptly and harshly, threatening the striking air traffic controllers with arrest by the military if they did not comply with an emergency order to return. As noted by lenin, this is a significant escalation of state repression to impose austerity, and will, no doubt, be emulated by other countries, including the US, if they face a similar situation.

Meanwhile, Julian Assange, an editor of wikileaks, and the organization's most visible public face, finds himself incarcerated in Britain on an extradition warrant issued by Sweden. His possible crimes? As far as we know, they are using a condom that broke during intercourse, and having intercourse with another sexual partner after she was asleep. But as the Belfast Telegraph so helpfully informs us, the likelihood of Assange ever being tried on these peculiar charges is slight. Regardless of whether you consider his sexual conduct criminal, US efforts to roll up wikileaks and punish Assange will take precedence. Of course, Assange is not associated with resistance to austerity, but he does challenge the oligopoly of information imposed by transnational capitalists, and for that heinous transgression, which facilitates the protests in Spain and Britain as described here, they must make the most frightening example of him to deter others.

Finally, there are the student protests in Britain over fee increases for universities that will render them even more inaccessible to the middle and lower classes. In this instance, there is a critical dynamic that has, so far, limited the capacity of the government to respond as forcefully as the Spanish government did against the air traffic controllers. First, the student protests are hard to suppress, because of their size and the ability of the students to fragment their actions so as to elude the police. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the students have a lot of popular support, and the repression of their protests by force runs the risk of bringing out a lot of other people in support of them, especially those in the trade unions. Hence, the government has attempted to exploit attacks upon property by some protesters to delegitimize the movement as a whole. It remains to be seen whether the attack upon Prince Charles' car, as well as the other actions described in the excerpt from the Guardian article posted here, will have that consequence.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, Europe, Neoliberalism, Police, Spain, Sub-Proletarianization of Europe, United Kingdom, wikileaks

In response to my first post on this subject, t from Pink Scare made the following observation:

Isn't it a bit sectarian to claim that such subversion of power is an anarchist act? If not, then what would it mean to say that something was an anarchist act? I'm not sure the post really explains this. To be sure, wiki leaks seaks to exist outside the governing power of nation states... but that's rather thin gruel. The only good that can possibly come of something like wiki-leaks would be if it inspired the masses of ordinary people to directly confront the capitalist states in their respective national arenas. That is, leaks alone (while certainly troublesome and damaging to the powers that be... which is no doubt a good thing) will not bring radical change. Mass movements are the only vehicle- thinking that a small band of covert hackers could liberate us all seems to me a frightening and elitist prospect.

I replied to t in the comments section associated with my original post, but I thought that it would be a good idea to revisit his remarks. In regard to whether Nihilo Zero's characterization of Assange's subversion of power as an anarchist act is sectarian, I don't see it that way. Nihilo Zero wasn't seeking to distinquish anarchism from other forms of socialism through such a characterization. Instead, he was asserting that Assange's release of confidential information that exposed the true activities of the US government globally undermined state authority. Such an act by an non-governmental organization does arguably challenge state authority in a way that the decision of the Bolsheviks to release the record of the Allies relationship with Czarist Russia, as noted by SGuy in the comments to my original post, did not, because the Bolsheviks did so to legitimize their new state at the expense of the old one.

It is important to note, however, what Assange and wikileaks do not do. They do not incorporate their release of confidential materials into a distinct ideological mosaic. They do not cite the governmental malfeasance revealed in the confidential materials as supportive of a challenge to the legitimacy of the nation state itself. Or, to put it differently, they do not consider the misconduct as an inevitable consequence of the delegation of power by individuals to the state through the politics of representation. Nor do they, in a more Marxist, anti-authoritarian sense, connect the misconduct to the rapaciousness of capital and the privatization of nearly all spheres of social life. All of that is left to the people who are enlightened by the wikileaks disclosures to work out on their own. One of Assange's statements on this subject is nebulous, evocative of the language of cyberspace libertarianism. Hence, their activities are most closely analogized to the individualistic anarchist practice of propaganda of the deed of the late 19th Century, wherein the participants hoped to inspire the masses to act through their extreme acts.

Accordingly, my earlier description of the activities of Assange and wikileaks as being devoid of ideology because they are an example of the dissemination of knowledge for knowledge's sake was incorrect. There is clearly an ideological purpose behind their activities, but it is difficult to understand it as anything more than Internet populism. People are supposed to become informed about what corporations and their governments really do, and take action. But, what, exactly? Now, contemporary anarchists do celebrate spontaneity, but not to this extent. Anarchism in practice is centered in an socially egalitarian ethos resistant to social hierarchy, especially economic ones. It emphasizes the importance of collective efforts to create an ideal society. Yet, one can harmonize the activities of Assange and wikileaks with those of libertarians who want to eliminate any collective restraint on their behavior. While the disclosures of wikileaks are praiseworthy, others must promote an alternative social vision that they consider superior to the one in which we live in the present.

Finally, there is the troubling question as to whether Assange and wikileaks are motivating people to question the legitimacy of the US and other nation states. It is admittedly too soon to tell, but early returns are not encouraging. In the US, there is little indication that people are upset with the government. Expressions of hostility by the US government stand in marked contrast to the disinterest of the general public. Around the world, people may be more engaged, but, even here, elites appear to be most engrossed. It is entirely possible that the most immediate impact of the disclosures is taking place in South America and the Middle East. In the Middle East, as noted by As'ad Abukhalil, the obsequiousness of most Arab leaders in their dealings with the US is embarassing when put in writing by US officials, even if most people there were generally aware of it. Meanwhile, in South America, the extent to which the US was actively trying to undermine leftist regimes there will merely reinforce the belief among many there that they must remain wary of the US, regardless of the President.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, wikileaks

It has now moved to this location, and can also be found here.

Labels: Activism, Alternative Media, American Empire, wikileaks

An excerpt from a thoughtful post by Nihilo Zero:

Most people could probably not name very many anarchists -- historical, contemporary, or even fictional. A few might cite artists like George Orwell or Leo Tolstoy, and fewer still will be aware of prominent historical anarchists like Emma Goldman or Peter Kropotkin. The historical impact of anarchist practice has largely been glossed over in the curriculum of government run, and compulsory, public schools. People generally aren't aware of anarchists fighting for the first labor rights in America or giving the first public talks on birth control. People are unaware that it was the anarchists who brought about the Russian revolution which was subsequently derailed by the Bolsheviks. People are largely unaware of historical anarchist movements in Spain, the Ukraine, and elsewhere. As for contemporaries... most people might only be able to name Noam Chomsky as an anarchist (and that is probably something of a misnomer).

But now... in the headlines of all the world's newspapers, on the lips of all the television pundits, all over the internet, and in the running for Time magazine's Person of the Year, we have Julian Assange. One may argue about whether or not he precisely fits into the definition of what an anarchist is, and some dyed-in-the-wool anarchists will perhaps turn up their noses at the suggestion, but Julian Assange is engaged in anarchist acts and has presented governments around the world with damning attacks against their credibility and legitimacy.

He is one of the founders, and the public face, of wikileaks (which publicly leaks damning internal documents from governments and corporations from around the world). With that tool he has thereby presented one of the biggest contemporary challenges to the continuation of state power. In theory, by the nature and design of the wikileaks project, no national authorities with any degree of power are safe from exposure and subsequent public scrutiny. If that isn't a threat to corporatism and centralized governing power... nothing is. And while that alone isn't enough to make Assange an anarchist, the wikileaks organization is intentionally designed to exist outside, and in spite of, the control of all nation states. Furthermore, in his own words, leaking is basically an anarchist act. His organization, and his personal actions, are overtly in support of anarchist acts! At the very least... his tireless devotion to freedom of speech, and his intense scrutiny of governing bodies, is anarchistic at its core -- because most modern governments and major corporations could arguably not exist if people were fully aware of what the leaders of those institutions were actually doing.

I have been thinking along similar lines, but not with the sophistication of Nihilo Zero, and I recommend that you read his post in its entirety. Certainly, the US and French responses lend credence to his perspective. Furthermore, it is widely believed that Amazon removed wikileaks from its server in response to a demand from Senator Joseph Lieberman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Doing Obama's dirty work, yet again?

Labels: Activism, American Empire, Anarchism, Barack Obama, France, wikileaks