The Nature of Evil: It's In Us!!

A must-listen talk by the social psychologist Phillip Zimbardo on the nature of evil...



In a nutshell, evil is less within us and more within the structures we live within - normal people who are not sadists, in the wrong circumstances, in a matter of days can become the sadists we see in Abu Graib. It is mindless obedience to hierarchy that kills more people than disobedience to laws. The people at the top of a hierarchy create the system that breeds evil in people who would not otherwise do so. The irony is that Bu$h and Bliar in their war on evil, created a system of evil in the process. (A point John Gray warns us of!)

But there is also message that none of us know what we will do if faced with the same situation - we all have this capacity for evil. Our protection is to ensure that we do not allow the hierarchy systems and/or personality cults that encourage it.

On the plus side heroism is the same - we all have the capacity to do good in such situations...

More Than Guantanamo: Stop All Torture

Worth a look:

The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is already notorious for a range of offenses, including keeping former Black Panthers Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, in solitary for over 36 years. Now a death penalty trial in St. Francisville, Louisiana has exposed widespread and systemic abuse at the prison. Even in the context of eight years of the Bush administration, the behavior documented at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola stands out both for its brutality and for the significant evidence that it was condoned and encouraged from the very top of the chain of command.

In a remarkable hearing that explored torture practices at Angola, twenty-five inmates testified last summer to facing overwhelming violence in the aftermath of an escape attempt at the prison nearly a decade ago. These twenty-five inmates — who were not involved in the escape attempt — testified to being kicked, punched, beaten with batons and with fists, stepped on, left naked in a freezing cell, and threatened that they would be killed. They were threatened by guards that they would be sexually assaulted with batons. They were forced to urinate and defecate on themselves. They were bloodied, had teeth knocked out, were beaten until they lost control of bodily functions, and beaten until they signed statements or confessions presented to them by prison officials. One inmate had a broken jaw, and another was placed in solitary confinement for eight years.

Also see: http://bristolabc.wordpress.com/
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'Hamas Is Not Hizbollah'

Now Israel has hit a UN convoy - which destroys their credibility about being 'surgial' or 'only targeting the terrorists'. So I had been wondering if Hamas wanted the ground war, that perhaps that had a plan to give Israel an asymmetric kicking. So far there has only been a little evidence of this. Now another bit emerges;

Major Roey Rosner, 27, an officer in the Kfir infantry brigade, was killed when his unit was hit with an anti-tank missile while on patrol in the former settlement of Netzarim.

This is of note because Hamas didn't have anti-tank missiles before. Along with the longer range rockets, they clearly have better kit now. However are they going to use it well? Some commentators seem to think the view I have suggested is over-egging the pudding at bit and I they both seem to know much more than me, I would suspect they are right. First up is Robert Fisk;

During the second Palestinian "intifada", I was sitting in the offices of Hizbollah's Al-Manar television station in Beirut, watching news footage of a militiaman's funeral in Gaza. The television showed hordes of Hamas and PLO gunmen firing thousands of rounds of ammunition into the air to honour their latest "martyr"; and I noticed, just next to me, a Lebanese Hizbollah member – who had taken part in many attacks against the Israelis in what had been Israel's occupation zone in southern Lebanon – shaking his head.

What was he thinking, I asked? "Hamas try to stand up to the Israelis," he replied. "But..." And here he cast his eyes to the ceiling. "They waste bullets. They fire all these bullets into the sky. They should use them to shoot at Israelis."

His point, of course, was that Hamas lacked discipline, the kind of iron, ruthless discipline and security that Hizbollah forged in Lebanon and which the Israeli army was at last forced to acknowledge in southern Lebanon in 2006

....

Hizbollah in Lebanon has managed to purge its region of informers. Hamas – like all the other Palestinian outfits – is infected with spies, some working for the Palestinian Authority, others for the Israelis. ... In the 34-day war of 2006, Hizbollah lost about 200 of its men. Hamas lost almost that many in the first day of Israel's air attacks in Gaza – which doesn't say much for Hamas' military precautions.

Next is the War Nerd;

Hamas ain’t no Hezbollah. Hamas is tougher than the PLO; they proved that in the skirmishes over the last few years about who runs the PA. But that’s not saying much; one of my grandmothers-not both, just one, I’m trying to be fair here-was tougher than the PLO too. And there’s a huge, huge difference between scaring off fat sleazy Arafat gangsters by firing in the air and actually fighting the IDF. Hezbollah has somebody doing serious strategic planning; Hamas has a bunch of hotheads. Hezbollah has been bunkering up, training in anti-armor operations, learning to deal with air strikes for years. Hamas believes in yelling at the attack helicopters.

Still, once the dust settles we'll see. What is interesting is every single comment piece I have read acknowledges that Israel can't stop Hamas. All Hamas have to do to deny the Israeli's a victory is survive. Once this current escalation ends, the rockets won't. In short all this death will have been for nothing.
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Gaza: Links Updates

More links of interest on the current crisis;

Sadly, all the death and carnage Israel has wrought will be for nothing, says Jane's Defence Analyst; "With a military victory for Israel over Hamas not possible, the security situation in southern Israel and Gaza will not improve, even in the longer term." - and the view is echoed by Gary Younge;

"The trouble is that over the last seven years, the war on terror has been thoroughly discredited - not only morally, but militarily and strategically....Meanwhile, Israel has been busy implementing the very tenets of the war on terror that have served the US so badly, primarily that intractable political problems can be solved solely by military means with the aim of not simply bombing your enemies into submission, but eliminating them altogether and then creating resolution on your own terms from the rubble."

You may (or may not) know that Israel has banned the press from Gaza (though reports are coming out thick and fast anyway) but that is not the only media 'management' they are up to. Evidence has emerged that the Israeli government is looking to recruiting volunteers to 'sell' their message on forums and websites. The recruitment email looks like this;

Dear friends,

We hold the military supremacy, yet fail the battle over the international media. We need to buy time for the IDF to succeed, and the least we can do is spare some (additional) minutes on the net. The ministry of foreign affairs is putting great efforts in balancing the media, but we all know it’s a battle of numbers. The more we post, blog, talkback, vote - the more likely we gain positive sentiment.

Of course, governments manipulating the media in war is nothing new - witness our own governments shameful activities over Iraq and Afganistan - however this is the network media version of that struggle.

And finally a real call recorded on the Isreali army's 'shop-a-terrorist' version of Crimestoppers. In short - they got punked:

EI: I have some information for you on members of terrorist groups that are in Gaza.

Israeli officer: Oh I hope so...

EI: You don't know what the terrorists are doing here in Gaza and we want to be saved from them ...

Israeli officer: Yes, I think everyone should do exactly what you're doing because we're all fed up with them. All they do to us is bad things.

EI: Exactly, the people in Gaza feels the same but the world can't hear our voice.

Israeli officer: Oh they will hear sir. You know they've [people of Gaza] started to phone us and ask for help, and ask us what they should do, and we've helped a lot of them. They thanked us for that and we want to help more people.

EI: But you know the terrorist groups are all over the Strip. I mean there's no place in the Strip where there aren't terrorists. They're all over the place.

Israeli officer: You just wait. We'll get to them, you'll see.

EI: But as you know, it's not easy for one to talk from Gaza, to give you information, it's not an easy thing.

Israeli officer: Look, firstly it's not easy, second thing, we've got other ways to reach you, very good ways not on this line and in the end your assistance to us will end up helping you too. Every person who doesn't have to be hurt in Gaza helps us and helps you. We benefit and you benefit. We want to destroy this Hamas leadership who are hiding, afraid for their lives. They are hiding and others are being killed because of them. What are we fighting each other for? Over nothing!

EI: Ok, let's talk ... let me give you some of the information and then we'll talk some more. Do you have a pen?

Israeli officer: Yes. I have a pen and I'm writing.

EI I want to give you names of the biggest terrorist organizations, not just in Gaza, but in all Palestine.

Israeli officer: Ok, let's see

EI: Ok, the first one ...

Israeli officer: You mean to tell me they're all from Hamas?

EI: All of them are people ... you'll see. The first one, his name is Ehud Barak [Israeli minister of defense].

Israeli officer: Ehud Barak? By God there's no one like you ...

EI: Second, Gabi Ashkenazi [Israeli army chief of staff]

Israeli officer: Do you know him?

EI: Of course.

Read the full thing: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10114.shtml
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Gaza: Israel Does What Bin Laden Failed to Do - Unite Arab Word

Bin Laden has a vision of a united Arab world. He has failed utterly (thankfully) to achieve his vision over the last 10 years or so of fighting. However Israel has managed a united vision in just days thanks to its bombings as bitter enemies take time out to condemn Israel: Iran and the Taliban, the warring factions in Iraq, Hezbollah and Egypt. The action has also suspended peace talks mediated by Turkey. Not doing much for peace, this bombing.

Other points of note; Helena Cobban writes of how the response to this crisis shows the US has lost it's veto power and Norman Soloman writes of the Biblical 'eye for an eye' of this bombing; '100 eyes for an eye' and the propaganda war goes digital.
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Police Soften Up Public for Clampdown on Environmental Activists

You can see the beginning stages of a campaign by police to soften the public up for a repression of environmental protesters as campaigns around global warming hot up. As it looks possible for the government to push forward/allowing a number of massive carbon-white elephants, from locals schemes like the Bristol Ring Road or Bristol Airport Expansion to national projects like Heathrow or more coal fired power stations. There is a long tradition of non-violent direct action in the country from opposition to slavery, for universal suffrage to stopping apartheid. However the power-that-be don't seem to want to see it this way. This article shows how the cops have been briefing the media;

Police have warned of the growing threat of eco-terrorism after revealing they are investigating a group which has supporters who believe that reducing the Earth's population by four-fifths will help to protect the planet....Officers from a specialist unit dedicated to tackling domestic terrorism are monitoring an eco-movement called Earth First! which has advocates who state that cutting the Earth's population by 80 per cent will ease pressure on other species. Officers are concerned a 'lone maverick' eco-extremist may attempt a terrorist attack aimed at killing large numbers of Britons.

rIIIGHT. A lone maverick would be just that - a lone maverick outside any group. This could and sadly does happen anyway with or without the ideology of environmentalism. Interesting how the article then links the lone maverick to various groups like Earth First! who use non-violent direct action. This is lazy journalism to take the cops story at face value, for there have been a couple of people wounded by a bomb related to Earth First!....but those wounded (Judi Bari & Darryl Cherney) were from the group itself and while initially the cops tried to frame them for the bomb that nearly killed the activists themselves. A court case subsequently decided that the cops never bothered trying to find out who really did it, but were intent on framing the environmentalists and gathing more data about the protest movement. The jury in the case awarded the pair $4.4 million total damages for the illegal police actions;

The jury unanimously found that six of the seven FBI and OPD [Oakland Police Department] defendants framed Judi and Darryl in an effort to crush Earth First! and chill participation in Redwood Summer [protests].

We have seen this type of media operation before; All the major summits have a pre-ceding media campaign where the police express their 'fears' of violent protesters. For example in Genoa the police even uncovered actual weapons! However it turned out they were planted by the cops. The police who battered protesters without provocation turned out to the the real purveyors of violence. Another good example comes from Donson et al's 2004 research;

This paper argues that we are currently witnessing the development of a new type of folk devil...The paper examines the way in which anti-capitalist activists are constructed as a new class of folk devil through the media portrayal of protests and the associated political and expert comment. In this process prominent politicians and senior police officers identify activists as 'violent', 'mindless thugs', views widely reproduced in print and broadcast media. The reasons for, and results of, this construction are varied but it is argued that primary amongst these is the ability to trivialise and dismiss activists through a rejection of their behaviour as simply destructive and dangerous. This then facilitates a silencing of these alternative voices in terms of both wider debates on the pros and cons of citizens rights to protest within neo-liberal capitalist democracy and wider contested issues of social and economic justice.

The Observer article is a big 'un - almost 1000 words to drive the message home. Compare this with less than 100 words written about the arrest of a man accused of carrying a Waffen SS UK Members Handbook and two improvised explosive devices last week. The Observer article have this classic statement;

Reports on the Earth First! Journal website, which tells users how to send encrypted emails, reveals connections to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) which has been linked to a series of violent attacks in the US. ELF was classified as the top domestic terrorism threat in the US by the FBI in March 2001.

I would contest the use of the term 'violence' - and there are a couple of good debates about this issue on Bristol Indymedia (1,2)- no people were hurt by Earth First! only property. So that would be the March 2001, 6 months before radical Islamic terrorists crashed planes into the twin towers and killed thousands and the FBI failed to stop them? Oh the irony: perhaps they were too busy looking in the wrong place?

Iraq in Eclipse

Heard of the Iraq Freedom Congress (ICF) - sounds a great idea;

The IFC was formed in 2005, bringing together trade unions, women's organizations, neighborhood assemblies and student groups around two demands: an end to the occupation, and a secular state for Iraq.

A secular Iraq - that sounds like a great thing for combating religious extremism, but the U$A has different ideas...

July 4, 2007 saw the Fred Hampton-style execution of the leader of a popular citizen's self-defense force in Baghdad. According to the Iraq Freedom Congress, the group Abdelhussein Saddam was associated with, a unit of US Special Forces troops and Iraqi National Guards raided his home in Baghdad's Alattiba neighborhood at 3:00 AM, throwing grenades in before them—and opening fire without warning at him and his young daughter. The attackers took Saddam, leaving the girl bleeding on the floor. Two days later, his body was found in the morgue at Yarmouk Hospital.

Another stark reality on the War of Terror. Read the full story. And there is more:

The firefighting team [sent to Iraq] had at its helm the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, John Negroponte, ably assisted by retired Colonel James Steele, adviser to Iraqi security forces. In 1984–86 Steele had been commander of the U.S. military advisory group in El Salvador. Between 1981 and 1985 Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to neighboring Honduras. In 1994 the Honduras Commission on Human Rights charged him with extensive human rights violations, reporting the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political workers. A CIA working group set up in 1996 to look into the U.S. role in Honduras has placed on record documents admitting that the operations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by “special intelligence units,” better known as “death squads,” of CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured, and killed thousands of people suspected of supporting leftist guerrillas. Negroponte was ambassador to Iraq for close to a year from June 2004.

Killing in the name of freedom and democracy!
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The Iraqi Resistance on YouTube

There is a good report from Aljazeera on the Iraqi resistance groups who are not al-Qaeda. The report contains lots of very staged footage, but makes some good points about the nature of these groups. Firstly the staged video shows a pretty good degree of media sophistication and secondly the report highlights how these groups recruit people - via the US abuse of detainees; a vicious circle.

Iraq: It's Sadr Time

So the shootings are down - lots of people suspect this is because the Sadrists are (sort of) holding back; but for how long?

"There is just bound to be another war as long as the occupation remains. Our main enemy is America."

The Role of Violence

Its the big thing that polarises political debates, the role of violence in political change. I have seen the debate go on and on. However, which is disturbing is the tendency of mainstream history to airbrush out certain types of violence, as can be seen in the Guardian today. Before we get into this point, lets start with what we mean by violence - Derrick Jensen writes that the difficult thing about violence is that we have but one word for many things. He writes that we have to use the same word for a mother bear defending her cubs from attack as a rapist; both are forms of violence. I agree; there are degrees of physical action are are distinct. So damage to property is not the same thing as damage to living things. Self-defence is not the same thing as starting a fight.

Once we have finished defining it we then need to recognise it. For example, today the Guardian had a bit piece on the Putney Debates:

By summer 1647, the Roundheads were winning the English civil war. At Marston Moor and Naseby, Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army had crushed the Cavaliers and King Charles I himself was now in custody. But among the victorious soldiers there was a gnawing fear that parliament and the army generals (or "grandees") were preparing to sell them out. Some MPs, fearing the religious militancy of the army and keen for a settlement with the king, wanted to cut soldiers' pay, disband regiments, refuse indemnity for war damage and pack them off to Ireland...Their grievances were taken up by Leveller agitators within the army rank and file. The Levellers ("who declared that all degrees of men should be levelled, and an equality should be established", according to critics) put forward a postwar manifesto entitled the Agreement of the People....It urged religious toleration ("The ways of God's worship are not at all entrusted by us to any human power"); a general amnesty and an end to conscription; a system of laws that must be "no respecter of persons but apply equally to everyone: there must be no discrimination on grounds of tenure, estate, charter, degree, birth or place"; regular, two-yearly parliaments and an equal distribution of MPs' seats by number of inhabitants. At its heart was a profound belief in human liberty and a conviction that politicians were as dangerous as princes when it came to undermining personal freedom. It was the people who were sovereign.

What the piece does not say is why these people were listened to - I would say because they were an army. What I think was missing is the very fact that ordinary people were able to push for such a radical agenda - because they had power, as Ian Bone noted in his book Bash the Rich:

Cromwell and Fairfax are increasingly exasperated by the leveller's demands for equality – not apparently made with any reference to religion, Christ, or god, as was the custom.
“By what right or power do you make these demands?” Inquires Fairfax. After a pause the reply came.
“By the power of the sword, Master Fairfax, by the power of the sword.” Whoops! Jesus Christ! What did he fucking say? Stick that up your warty old nose master Master Cromwell!

War & Resistance

There is an amazing article on TomDispatch.com by The Independent's Middle East correspondent Patrick Cockburn:

The war in Iraq that started in 2003 has now lasted longer than the First World War. Militarily, the conflicts could not be more different. The scale of the fighting in Iraq is far below anything seen in 1914-18, but the political significance of the Iraq war has been enormous. America blithely invaded Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein to show its great political and military strength. Instead it demonstrated its weakness....Much of what has gone wrong has more to do with the U.S. than Iraq. The weaknesses of its government and army have been exposed. Iraq has joined the list of small wars -- as France found in Algeria in the 1950s and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s -- that inflict extraordinary damage on their occupiers.

That is something of Bliar's legacy he can be proud of - helping to give the U$ empire a push downwards. As the various resistance groups in Iraq continue to grow stronger and more dangerous, we can get an insight to how sophisticated they will get by looking at what the 25-odd years of Hizbullah's resistance to Israeli's has evolved;

It's looking at air-power:

One example, apparently under serious consideration by Hizbullah, is how to retaliate against Israel's violations of Lebanese airspace. UNIFIL has recorded more than three dozen violations by Israeli aircraft since the cease-fire came into effect. "We have reported them to the UN Security Council. What more can we do? Shoot them down?" says UNIFIL spokesman Alex Ivanko....But Hizbullah might attempt to do just that. "We were unable to make good use of our anti-aircraft capabilities during the war. This is something we are looking into for the future," says Abu Mehdi. "The resistance is planning a new strategy."

And how to strike at a larger, more powerful army - by out thinking them:

As far as I know, this is the largest and most elaborate bunker discovered so far. Just the effort that went into building it was extraordinary, and yet, it was constructed in complete secrecy....Every piece of equipment, every steel plate, every girder, every door had to be carried by hand up the side of the valley and fitted into place inside the bunker. And there was no clue as to what happened to the hundreds of tons of quarried rock during the excavation work.

Jensen/Zerzan Interview

Interesting Interview with with John Zerzan & Derrick Jensen on Mental Health. Sample;

"RD Lang talked about the dynamics that abusive families [have] so they can maintain themselves. He has the three rules of a dysfunctional family, which are also the three rules of dysfunctional culture. Rule A 1. Is don‘t. Rule A.2 is rule A.1 does not exist, and rule A.3 is never discuss the existence of rules A, A.1, or A.2. The point is that, that is crazy making. That’s true in an abusive family and it’s true on a larger scale. And another thing that’s really important, is that everything within an abusive dynamic is set up to protect the abuser. Once again, that makes craziness."

Bash the Rich

Well I've just finished reading 'Bash the Rich' by Class War co-founder Ian Bone. Bone was touted by the Sunday People as 'the most dangerous man in Britain'. Wow! Nice accolade. Bone has also been a major character in the Bristol political scene. I was going to write a short prece about what he has been up to, but I was beaten to it by the discovery that he has a wikipedia entry!

In 2001 Bone started the Vote Nobody campaign which encouraged residents in Easton, Bristol to turn out for the local election and vote for 'Nobody'...In that same year he started The Bristolian, a scandal-sheet that purported to give "independent news from Bristol that the other papers won't touch". Freely distributed throughout the bars and pubs of Bristol -- and by Bone himself in Bristol's Corn Street -- the newssheet gained a weekly circulation of over 15000. ...The Bristolian gave way to the Bristolian Party, which stood in the local elections in an attempt to mobilise widespread discontent with Bristol City Council's policies...On 1 May 2003 a total of 2560 people voted for the Bristolian Party, which gained an 8% share of the vote within the 12 wards they contested. The Bristolian was runner-up for the Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in 2005....

Unfortunately the book only goes up to the mid/late 80s and does not cover his time in Bristol. 'Bash the Rich' is his account of his radicalisation in the 60s up to the end of the miners strike in the 80s. The book draws on Bone's considerable experience of street level politics and while a trawl through history, always sounds current. For example while describing the momentous events of '68 during protests against the Vietnam war, he remarks;

Indeed 35 years later the same Oxbridge crowd – Tariq, Pinter, the redgraves, Ken Loach – have led the anti-Iraq war movement into the same cul-de-sac of mind-numbingly boring rallies in Hyde Park instead of direct action on the streets to bring effective opposition to the war. The new generation of anti-war activists have had themselves saddled with the very same movement leaders so effectively bottled it in Grosvenor Square in 1968.

Many have critisised Bone for a lack of 'theory' to his politics. I think the book, while an easy read and very funny, does offer a pretty sharp political insight. Take this example, from his days in Swansea in the 1970s;

What we discovered with the Swansea Mafia pamphlet [about council corruption] was that it was possible to engage the political attention of the punters by concentrating on local issues but not presenting it in an overtly political way. People told us that the pamphlet wasn't political because it was 'the truth'....now what was needed was something that wouldn't just gain their interest in a passive way but would encourage them to organise and act now for themselves...

Bone also spends the last chapter on a jaunt through history to expalin his personal ideology. This is, I think, the best section of the book. Take this example as Bone describes a pivital moment from the Putney Debates:

Cromwell and Fairfax are increasingly exasperated by the leveller's demands for equality – not apparently made with any reference to religion, Christ, or god, as was the custom.
“By what right or power do you make these demands?” Inquires Fairfax. After a pause the reply came.
“By the power of the sword, Master Fairfax, by the power of the sword.” Whoops! Jesus Christ! What did he fucking say? Stick that up your warty old nose master Master Cromwell!

As you can see, the book is full of swearing. Would you expect otherwise? No! The book is a funny, brutal honest, often self-critical and absorbing account of Bone life from birth to the mid 80s. Once I got going with it, the momentum of his tale takes over and before you know it, it's all over. The book claims not to be a 'dry tome destined to gather dust in leftie bookshops' – an opinion I would concur with. A great read and I hope Bone writes a volume two. And some kids books too!

Rebel Yell

I found this little snippit in the paper the other day:

Rebels and guerrillas attend Santiago summit

A gathering of 300 Latin American revolutionaries has brought together guerrilla fighters from around the continent for a three-day conference in the Chilean capital, Santiago, to coordinate its fight against US military intervention and celebrate "the US defeat" in Iraq. "If the US loses in Iraq, they will not have the same political capabilities ... to intervene in Latin America," said Chilean guerrilla Jorge Galvez. The three-day summit, which began on Friday, hosted members of the Colombian group Farc and groups from Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina.

I have tried to find out a bit more on the summit. I could not find anything else on the issue; I googled, checked the FARC's website, checked Narco News - nothing. Perhaps the summit attendees should head down to Oaxaca to help out?

The Paradox of Iraq

Paradox 4: Sometimes Doing Nothing Is the Best Reaction

This paradox is, in fact, a criticism of another cardinal principle of the occupation: the application of overwhelming force in order to teach insurgents (and prospective insurgents) that opposition of any sort will not be tolerated and, in any case, is hopeless. A typical illustration of this principle in practice was a January 2006 U.S. military report that went in part: "An unmanned U.S. drone detected three men digging a hole in a road in the area. Insurgents regularly bury bombs along roads in the area to target U.S. or Iraqi convoys. The three men were tracked to a building, which U.S. forces then hit with precision-guided munitions." As it turned out, the attack killed 12 members of a family living in that house, severely damaged six neighboring houses, and consolidated local opposition to the American presence.

Paradox 7: If a Tactic Works This Week, It Will Not Work Next Week; If It Works in This Province, It Will Not Work in the Next

The clearest expression of this principle lies in the history of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the anti-occupation weapon of choice among Iraqi resistance fighters. Throughout the war, the occupation military has conducted hundreds of armed patrols each week designed to capture suspected insurgents through house-to-house searches. The insurgency, in turn, has focused on deterring and derailing these patrols, using sniper attacks, rocket propelled grenades, and IEDs. At first, sniper attacks were the favored weapon of the insurgents, but the typical American response -- artillery and air attacks -- proved effective enough to set them looking for other ways to respond. IEDs then gained in popularity, since they could be detonated from a relatively safe distance. When the Americans developed devices to detect the electronic detonators, the insurgents developed a variety of non-electronic trigger devices. When the Americans upgraded their armor to resist the typical IED, the insurgents developed "shaped" charges that could pierce American armor.

And so it goes in all aspects of the war

B52 Trial – Hung Jury!

This was the second trial of the B52 people that has failed to reach verdict. It's not a total victory, but it is great news as it's not a guilty verdict. There is a petition online that you can sign asking to end the legal persecution:

http://www.petitiononline.com/FAIRFORD/petition.html

These results show that when this question is put to ordinary people (the Jury) many of them see the actions of the Fairford people as justifiable – to my mind a correct reading of the situation and akin to the principal set out in the Nuremberg trials. I'm no lawyer but here's what part of the Control Council Law No. 10 says is a war crime;

". . . Atrocities and offenses, including but not limited to murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, or other acts committed against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious groups whether or not in violation of the domestic laws of the country where perpetrated."

Note that end bit - "...whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated." This was there to stop the Nazi's wriggling out by saying they were obeying the law of Germany – laws the conveniently wrote. If we take this idea and flip it round it should also mean that those who move to stop ". . . Atrocities and offenses.. against any civilian population..." which the air campaign, cluster bombs, shock-and-awe and depleted uranium must surly be, then it is the right of people to stop this "...whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated." - in this case Fairford in the West Country, UK.

On the subject of Iraq, I saw Question Time on TV and there were a couple of funny moments. Both involve the neo-labour stooge Vera Baird MP. When answering the question, are the occupation forces part of the problem she said that before the war, "everyone thought that Saddam has WMDs" – to the masses derision of the other panelists and audience. She re-qualified her statement to say that she means that all at the UN thought that Saddam has WMD's, again massed derision. Are these people living in a dream-world? There was loads of voices, such as Scott Ritter, the former Marine intelligence Officer and UNSCOM weapons inspector saying there were no WMD's – the UN's Hans Blix did not deliver a 'yes' verdict with his reports, it was a 'don't think so, but impossible to say for sure'. This seems like a thinly veiled attempt to re-write our collective memories. It will not work. The second funny moment was when she called Tony Bliar a 'democrat' to the massed guffaws of the panel and audience.

Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff; "As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited certainly by those in Iraq at the time. The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in. Whatever consent we may have had in the first place, may have turned to tolerance and has largely turned to intolerance." Even the British army want out. Iraq is a colossal fuck-up and it should be Bliar and his cohorts (including Brown, who, whatever he said in private, supported the war) should be in court for war crimes against the 655,000 dead of Iraq.

A good Iraq quote from Bash.org (it's a snipit of a real chat room conversation);

[Blaxthos] i think we're ultimately responsible for the insurgency
[superdan] I wouldn't rush to cop to that
[Blaxthos] saddam didn't have political instability
[Blaxthos] chop chop a coupla hundred insurgents
[Blaxthos] kinda takes the wind out of sail
[superdan] I'm more likely to put the responsibility on the guy who pulled the trigger or ordered it
[superdan] yup
[Blaxthos] didn't bush command us to attack ?
[superdan] and he can be held responsible by the folks killed by US forces
[Blaxthos] but since we toppled their government (which kept the insurgents in check) aren't we responsible for the insurgency ?
[superdan] no
[turtle_] no way dude we will overpower them with our freedom
[superdan] haha
[Blaxthos] in legalese we call that proximate causation
[superdan] there should've been a better plan in place to prevent it, but that doesn't mean it's his fault
[Blaxthos] so you say it would have spontaneously occured if we hadn't gone to war ?
[superdan] no
[Blaxthos] can't have cake and eat it too
[Blaxthos] see also: scores of retired generals coming forth to say "we told him so"
[turtle_] we had a fantastic plan
[Blaxthos] MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
[turtle_] it went something like "i believe we will be greeted as liberators"
[turtle_] but then they fucked it all up by not doing that