H-Wars: From Afghanistan to Bristol

The UK is about to take the lead role in trying to stabalise/occupy Afghanistan. We all know the stories of the Taliban/al Qaeda insurgency that seems to be gathering pace there, but not that much has been said on the subject that will impact on most people in relation to Afghanistan – drugs. Smack, Brown, Skag – whatever you call it, 60% of the Afghan economy is based on Heroin. I suspect a significant, though much lower percentage of Bristol’s economy is also based on drugs. We know that the city is the top of the 10 most violent drink-related centers in the UK, alcohol being a drug and we know that St.Pauls is the major gateway for class A drug dealing in the South West. Bliar said that we needed to bomb the shit out for self interest – stopping the H trade. Well plenty of Afgans and occupation soldiers have died. Tones of high explosives and been dropped on one of the poorest countries in the world and…has the Heroin trade stopped in Bristol? No. It seems pretty much the same to me. Same people pushing and taking. What is going to stop the drug war is calling it for what it is – a lost cause. Bristol based Tranform Drug Policy group note, "As Paul Goggins MP (and Home Office minister with the drugs brief) sets out on his 9-stop drug policy tour of the UK, Transform, the UK's leading drug policy reform think tank have drawn attention to the shocking failure of current drug policy, and how the Government doesn't want you to know about it…It demonstrates that enforcement strategies to eliminate or reduce the trade in heroin and cocaine have failed to halt their production, supply or use. In a powerful and detailed critique, the report demonstrates that the war on drugs is actively counterproductive - causing many of the harms that it is intended to reduce."

Now over the other side of the pond a new group have formed, LEAP - Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, easy to spot their members because of their buzz cuts amd extremely large lettering on their brightly colored t-shirts: "Cops Say Legalize Drugs. Ask Me Why." Here’s more on LEAP:

A LEAP panel discussion yielded shocking stories from the drug war front lines. Admissions from LEAP Director and former New Jersey state police lieutenant Jack Cole, a 26-year veteran and narc, surprised even this drug war-savvy crowd. "We lied regularly about the numbers of drugs we were seizing," Cole said, explaining that if his fellow officers were lucky enough to bust someone for one ounce of cocaine, they’d immediately look for a cutting agent to double the amount of the seizure. And if a seizure’s street value stood at $1,500, the cops would bump it up to $20,000. "Who’s to question it," Cole asked.

The war on drugs has failed and is failing us. It’s a war on freedom and an excuse by the state for social control. The war on terror seems to be going the same way. Its all very fucked up.

A Call to Arms
I am seeing more and more information about peak oil arriving in the media. Not is a major sense, and often from an odd angle, but here's Heinberg, author of 'The Party's Over' issuing a call to arms over Peak Oil: Oil is a finite resource - and the decline of world oil production is predicted to occur anytime within the next 30 years. To avoid the worst-case scenario, we must begin today to reduce our dependence on oil. Clear and to the point.

The Coalition has Lost the Battle to win the Hearts and Minds of Iraq
There is only so-long that you can pretend that occupation is freedom and it looks like time is up - "Secret MoD poll: Iraqis Support Attacks on British Troops...65 per cent of Iraqi citizens support attacks and fewer than one per cent think Allied military involvement is helping to improve security in their country." Fantasy time is up. Its Empire in full effect or withdraw the troops.

OAPs & Empire

I saw the news earlier in the week with Dave Prentis of Unison and Digby Jones on the CBI going head-to-head about pensions. Basically Jones was saying that the pubic sector get paid too much and get too good pensions that that the private sector cant compete with the packages on offer. He went on to say that we all needed to tighten our belts to deal with the looming pensions crisis. Now I know there is a problem, but to be lectured by a guy who is filthy rich about 'we all tightening our belts' sticks in the craw. I don’t think he’ll be tightening his belt as I bet his time as a Captain of Industry has netted him a fair wedge. This is also the guy who campaigned against the government putting any controls of fat-cat director pay. He saying its ok for the government to stamp on workers pay in the public sector to stop the low pay of the private sector looking bad – but they can't stop the elite from being paid OTT wages, cause that would be wrong. What an eejit.

Also of note is the full-on revelation of empire. If US soldiers burning and desecrating the bodies for their victims in Afghanistan, the erosion of the right to protest and Bliar telling the Labour party conference that it don’t matter what you think – he’ll do as he wants. There was a chant on protests post-Seattle 1999, 'This is what democracy looks like' – to me it is being replaced with 'This is what dictatoship looks like'.

The Tough Questions
Amidst all the coverage of the events in Basra nobody seems to want to ask the tough questions; what were two SAS guys doing in Arab dress? Why was their mission not known the local cops? Were they carrying bomb-making kit?

J.V. Grady is a former member of US Military Intelligence; "It is quite possible, even probable, that many of the bombings against the Shi’ia and Sunni populations are being carried out by American, British, and even Israeli operatives.

Perhaps the most interesting and sinister field in Intelligence is Covert Action (also referred to as Clandestine Operations, Black Ops, and Black Operations).

The main thing about Covert Action is that it must be deniable. There is a term called 'plausible deniability'. When a government authorizes a covert action operation, the operation must be done in such a way that the government can claim that it knows nothing about it; in other words, the operation must not be attributable to the government that authorized it

The British regularly employed Covert Action operations in Ireland, with the result that it is likely that the IRA often took the blame for violent actions with which they had no involvement, although they were hardly innocent players in the general mayhem....The policy in Iraq is to keep the country destabilized and on the verge of civil war to show that it cannot govern itself and that it therefore requires the continued presence of American and British forces. The man accused of being behind much of the bombing going on there is Al-Zarqawi, a man known to be dead for some time now. Also, because he is (or, rather, was) a Sunni, bombings against the Shi’ia population, if blamed on him and the Sunni insurgents, can keep the pot of civil war simmering, thus giving further justification to keeping American and British forces there.

Most recently, two British Covert Operations specialists were captured in Basra, in Southern Iraq. They were disguised as Arabs and were carrying bomb-making materials. When Iraqi police tried to apprehend them, the two covert action operatives resisted arrest and killed two policemen. They were eventually caught and held in jail. After the British military learned that they had been captured, it sent tanks into Basra to forcibly free the two men. An enraged mob attacked the tanks with petrol bombs, and people around the world saw British soldiers jumping out of a flaming tank and being stoned. The reaction was one of sympathy for the British soldiers. Few stopped to wonder what was behind the anger and the assault. Most were sympathetic towards the 'poor' British soldiers, who were perceived as being unjustly victimized.

So, who is behind many of the bombings against the Shi’ia and Sunni populations? It is quite possible, even probable, that many of them are being carried out by American, British, and even Israeli Covert Action operatives."