The Metropolitan police initiated an embarrassing climbdown after a police station in Belgravia, west London, published a leaflet asking the public and businesses to report anyone with anarchist sympathies.
The call for information on a political rather than criminal group echoed a similar appeal for information about al-Qaida activity and “could have been better worded”, Scotland Yard admitted.
City of Westminster police’s “counter-terrorist focus desk” had last week called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers, stating next to an anarchist emblem: “Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police.”
The move angered some anarchists who insisted that being an anarchist does not imply criminal behaviour, indeed the biggest problem with the anarchist movement is the predominance of Pacifists..
Capitalists, on the other hand are unanimously criminal and should be reported immediately
The City of Westminster is not a fan of anarchists, it seems, after their counter-terrorism unit sent out a document that includes a warning about the dangers posed by anarchists. Helpfully, the document defines anarchism for us. In fact, it defines anarchism in exactly the same words (and with exactly the same punctuation) as the Wikipedia entry for anarchism. Isn’t that a coincidence? Anyway, the document urges the reader to report any instances of anarchism to the police.
Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission. Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day. Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries. This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now…….
One of its key components is the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists. Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens. It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.”
This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.
Growth Industry From a force of about 37,000 in the early 1990s, Special Operations Command personnel have grown to almost 60,000, about a third of whom are career members of SOCOM;”
A NATO helicopter has crashed in eastern Afghanistan during a battle with the Taliban, killing 30 US and seven Afghan soldiers and one civilian interpreter. More than 20 US navy SEALs from the broader unit that killed Osama bin Laden were among those killed in the crash.
The unit is made up of only a few hundred personnel based in Dam Neck, Virginia. It is known officially as Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or Devgru, and is part of a special operations brotherhood, members of which call themselves “the quiet professionals”. (The Guardian)
So it is more than possible, despite official denials, that the Taliban have killed the killers of Osama Bin Laden.
The troops from SEAL Team Six were flown by a crew of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, according to one current and one former US official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because families are still being notified. ( ElJazeera)
One source said the team was thought to include 22 SEALs, three air force air controllers, seven Afghan army troops, a dog and his handler, and a civilian interpreter, plus the helicopter crew.
The Taliban quickly claimed to have shot down the helicopter during a firefight. They also said eight of their fighters were killed in the fighting.
“They wanted to attack our mujahideen who were in a house, but our mujahideen resisted and destroyed a helicopter with a RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rocket,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
The helicopter was taking off from the roof of the house after the raid when hit by the RPG rocket.
In total US Special Forces are said to be larger than the whole Canadian army, and operate with total impunity. On average they carry out 70 terror raids every day. Mostly in Afganistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, but in many other countries as well.....
The US usually does not comment on covert actions – especially those that go wrong. But the 2008 incident was caught on mobile phone video, so the Americans confirmed it and apologised publicly……..
In October last year sailors from the unit were dispatched to rescue the British aid worker Linda Norgrove, who had been kidnapped by militants in Afghanistan.
Norgrove died during the raid after one of the Seals threw a fragmentation grenade close to where she was sheltering.
Special force soldier enjoying his job
Initial reports suggested she had been killed by an insurgent’s suicide bomb vest. But when the Seal commanding officer reviewed surveillance video recordings he saw an explosion after one of the Seals threw something in Norgrove’s direction. A number of the Seals were disciplined as a result…….
A measure of its commitment to secrecy came when the head of the navy Seals sent the Bin Laden team a congratulatory email reminding them to keep their mouths shut afterwards. “Be extremely careful about operational security,” added Rear Admiral Edward Winters. “The fight is not over.” (BBC report)
On the same day as the deaths of the Special Forces an Imam and his children were killed in a separate raid.
In the Nad Ali district in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, up to eight civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike on Friday, governor Shadi Khan said.
"A group of Taliban attacked a foot patrol of NATO forces," Khan said.
"Subsequently, an air strike targeted the house of an imam of a mosque in the area.
As a result the imam, his wife and seven of their children were killed."
Daud Ahmadi, the Helmand provincial spokesman, said he was "aware that there have been some civilian casualties as a result of a NATO air strike in Nad Ali district" and that an official delegation had been dispatched to investigate.
The last time Tottenham burned, the local Labour Party was quick to takes sides. ‘The police were to blame for what happened,’ announced council leader and later MP Bernie Grant. ‘And what they got was a bloody good hiding’......
At the other extreme, past experience shows that sections of the far left regard riots as good things in and of themselves. ‘FANTASTIC TOTTENHAM – BRUTAL MURDERING MET COPS GET WHAT WAS COMING TO THEM’, proclaims obviously breathless Ian Bone.
‘Have not seen a riot like this with so much hatred, property damage and lasting into daylight since Toxteth 1981 … At last the working class have re-entered the arena. BIGTIME.THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN TORY BRITAIN HAS BEGUN!’
You just can’t beat a bit of good old fashioned property damage, can you? The insurance industry will of course reimburse the chain retailers for the looted plasma televisions. Let’s hope the burnt out small shopkeepers were similarly well covered.
The Guardian has reported that protesters have also attacked and set fire to several shops, and that rioters are armed with makeshift missiles in the center of Tottenham.
“At one point, rioters broke through police ranks and attempted to storm Tottenham’s police station, pelting officers with bricks and bottles.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the trouble began when ‘missiles’ were thrown at parked patrol cars at 8.30pm. He said one was pushed, blazing, into the middle of Tottenham High Street. Neither of the two officers who had been driving the cars were injured.
As the violence spread, a double decker bus was set upon. Witnesses said the vehicle exploded in flames after attackers threw home made bombs through its windows. Nearby shops were also set ablaze.
Hundreds of residents gathered to watch the unrest and there several were reports of attacks on bystanders. At one point rioters were seen beating up a man attempting to take film footage of the scene.”
Jammers from all over the nation (and a few Canadians!) have sent word that they will be there.
Meanwhile various activist organizers have realized the potential of this event, rolled up their sleeves and gotten to work.
While some techies have teamed up to build an indie open source website for organizing carpools to the event (occupywallst.org), others are thinking through the logistics of feeding everyone and defending the first days of the occupation. Through it all, a deluge of solidarity messages have been pouring in from Spain, Egypt and elsewhere.
The Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), Solidaridad Obrera (SO) and Coordinadora Sindical de Clase (CSC) trade unions met in Madrid to evaluate a response to the unprecedented attack on the workers suffering as a result of cuts and the loss of political rights imposed on them by the government and the European institutions at the behest of the bosses and the markets, and against which we must respond with a coordinated campaign based on class unity and action. ……..
The situation demands that we respond proportionally with a force that is equal to that of the measures imposed on the workers. We thus believe it is essential not only to continue with the labour struggles we are carrying on at the moment, but also to move ahead, break once and for all with the model of institutionalized trade-unionism and create a precendent in which it is the class-struggle trade unions who set the pace through offensive action to achieve our goals. ……
HACIA LA HUELGA GENERAL
Las organizaciones sindicales Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), Solidaridad Obrera (SO) y Coordinadora Sindical de Clase (CSC) nos reunimos en Madrid para valorar las respuestas que, ante el ataque sin precedentes que trabajadores y trabajadoras estamos sufriendo por la política de recortes y pérdida de derechos impulsada por el gobierno y las instituciones europeas, a instancias de la patronal y los mercados, debemos oponer en un proceso de lucha coordinada desde la unidad de acción y de clase. ……. La situación nos exige una respuesta proporcionalmente igual de contundente que las medidas que estamos sufriendo los trabajadores y trabajadoras y por ello consideramos necesario no sólo continuar con las luchas sindicales que llevamos a cabo, sino dar un paso que rompa definitivamente con este modelo de sindicalismo institucionalizado y generar un precedente en el cual seamos los sindicatos de clase quienes empecemos a marcar los tiempos desde la acción ofensiva para conseguir nuestros objetivos……
Ban the EDL march. The current chant right now of the Left. They are insane….Some people are getting into the old rhetoric “We are proud of Tower Hamlets, a vibrant multiracial area, which has along and proud history of resistance to racism & fascism. From Cable Street in the 1930s, to Brick Lane in the 1970s and to Millwall in the1990s, the people of Tower Hamlets have come together to see off racism and fascism before. We will now stand united against the racist and extremist EDL.” Reads a letter from Hope not Hate in which they repeatedly ask for a ban….
Banning their march’s only further legitimises their arguments. A tiny tiny tiny minority of orthodox Islamic followers do need to be criticised and protested. If their march’s are banned their narrative of victimisation, that all Muslims are a problem and that the Left are willing to allow this country to fall into this minority hands becomes more acceptable, despite lacking any proof. If their marches are banned it makes them seem right, their numbers will grow, this is unacceptable. They must be stopped. And they must be stopped by the only language they know. On the streets.
The only thing that is certain is that a ban on the EDL march in Tower Hamlets will be a nightmare.
Without the EDL on the 3rd Sept to protest, our community will be attacked by another invading army, the police as seen before on June 20th last year. The groups that turn out to oppose the absent EDL will have the shit kicked out of them by the police. Kids will be rounded up beaten, arrested and months later sent to jail………
If the EDL are not beaten on our streets they will never go away, if they are not smashed to atoms – physically and ideologically – then they will continue to grow and infect. If the EDL are banned and go underground without being definitively defeated on the streets we will never be able to operate without a fear of them. They will become the bogeyman to radical politics……..
We don’t need to campaign for them to ban political groups. Today the EDL, tomorrow us.
The call for information on a political rather than criminal group echoed a similar appeal for information about al-Qaida activity and “could have been better worded”, Scotland Yard admitted.
The Free 