A Few Emails

I honestly can’t believe it hasn’t happened sooner, but Rupert Murdoch’s bully boys are trying to sue (and effectively close down) Media Lens.  They don’t really have a case to answer, and so I’m not too worried, but really:

the steps we have suggested are pitiful in their timidity. We have always seen media activism as a small, energising contribution intended to inspire much wider, much more profound, political organisation and activism.

What we have done to Iraq is not a video game; it is not a Hollywood invention. We really have destroyed an entire nation and brought misery to millions. About that, this whole country should not be writing a few emails; it should be in uproar.

Victory to the Irish Resistance!

The Raytheon 9 - a group of protestors who, during the 2006 Israeli assault on Lebanon, undertook the “decommissioning” of the Derry office of the Ratheon corporation whose weapons were doing all the killing - have been found not guilty by unanimous jury of three counts of criminal damage.

The prosecution could produce not a shred of evidence to counter our case that we had acted to prevent the commission of war crimes during the Lebanon war by the Israeli armed forces using weapons supplied by Raytheon.

We remain proud of the action we took and only wish that we could have done more to disrupt the ‘kill chain’ that Raytheon controls.

This victory is welcome, for ourselves and our families, but we wish to dedicate it to the Shaloub and Hasheem families of Qana in Lebanon, who lost 28 of their closest relatives on the 30 July 2006 due to a Raytheon ‘bunker buster’ bomb….

We said from the beginning that we came to this court not as the accused but as the accusers…

We’ve been saying it all along: these are illegal attacks, proscribed by international law and, as such, any attempt to thwart them can be defended under UK law.

It is, of course, possible, to take this line of argument too seriously (I myself have had to be taken to task over my international law naivety). The law is not neutral, rather it serves to defend the status quo, and emerging from a society rife with class division and class oppression it’s definitely not our status quo that is up for defending. The Iraq war was illegal because of the lack of UN Security Council organisation, but it would have been no less immoral if the rulers of France, Russia, China and the rest had also thought it was a good idea. Even then there is sufficient nuance for Brown and Blair to have avoided the Hague thus far.

The law is not our law. Nevertheless, as the Raytheon 9 have shown, we can use it. The aggressions of the West - and especially of Israel, whose actions have been condemned by the UN more often than all other countries put together - often reach the point where they even break their own laws, and when their system will not uphold their laws it is possible for us to do so. This can have a real and immediate effect on preventing war crimes, but it also challenges their legitimacy in a big way - and it gets the argument over what is and what isn’t a war crime into the court room far more effectively than any lobbying the ruling class for the trial of Tony Blair or the impeachment of Bush.

What does this mean in practice? The invasion of Iraq was one thing, but the occupation is quite another; appalling, yes, but illegal? Not convincingly. However, the occupation leads to a situation of war between the occupiers and the civilian population, and in this context war crimes are committed - particularly in Fallujah, and more recently (and, I suspect, repeatedly into the foreseeable future) in Sadr City. These we can challenge. And Israel’s treatment of the West Bank and Gaza is in systematic contravention of international law and if we act against this we have the law behind us. As for a potential invasion of Iran - we’ll just have to hope that Russia and China keep this from ever being rubber-stamped.

These are things to bear in mind over the coming months and years; in the coming days there’s already a meaningful act of defiance to be taken. The StWC protest at Bush’s visit to London has been banned - so yis’d all better be there. Sunday at 5pm, Parliament Square.

Clearly Not Welcome

This march has been banned. Come out and call their bluff.

(Why not set one of these images as your profile picture on facebook?  Bit of virtual flyposting, if loads of us do it it really creates an atmosphere of something big happening)

Anti-Bush demonstration banned from Whitehall.

The Stop the War Coalition has been informed by the Metropolitan Police that a proposed march, co-organised with CND and the British Muslim Initiative, to protest George Bush’s visit will not be allowed. The Coalition has organised scores of marches on this route, including during Bush’s last visit in 2003.

It seems that when George W Bush visits this country traditional rights of assembly are to be removed from the people. This would be unacceptable for the visit of any foreign leader, but for George Bush, a man many regard as a war criminal, it is particularly deplorable.

We are calling on those who care for our democratic rights to come to Parliament Square at 5.0 pm on Sunday 15 June. Some of those who signed statements accusing Bush of war crimes will be leading this protest.

Maybe we can do a Monbiot, not only staring down the threat of arrest (again) but see about arresting a genuine threat to society. After the protests that have greeted Bush pretty much every time his set foot in Europe, we can hardly let him down for his last trip, can we? Plus there’s the surprise formal colonisation of Iraq afoot, the 100th British soldier killed in Afghanistan, a possible renewal of the threat to attack Iran, in short, plenty of reasons to go and protest the war on terror…

…in spite of which I, for one, thought I would be too busy and too skint this weekend - but I will sure as hell make the effort now they’ve tried to ban it. It really baffles me that they do things like this, y’know. They talk about the antiwar movement in the past tense, as if it had become completely irrelevant, and then go and prove its relevance once and for all with this kind of stunt. Anyway, we really had better show em what for.

“George Bush has been dictating British foreign policy for many years. Now it appears his security services are determining our rights of protest. This is a disgrace and we will challenge the ban” - Lindsey German, Convenor Stop the War Coalition

“The ban on the Stop The War Coalition march in protest at the visit of President Bush to this country is a totalitarian act. In what is supposed to be a free country the Coalition has every right to express its views peacefully and openly. This ban is outrageous and makes the term ‘democracy’ laughable”. - Harold Pinter

Free Derry 2008

1968 didn’t just happen in France. Inspired by the Black civil rights movement in the Southern US, residents of Derry’s Bogside chased out the unionist police forces and built barricades to keep them - and later the British army - out of Free Derry until 1972. I mention it now because nine Derry protestors are about to go on trial for another radical act of resistance, during Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon. Stop The War reports:

Support the Raytheon 9: Resisting war crimes is not a crime

Nine people in Derry in Northern Ireland have been charged under terrorism laws following an occupation of the local Raytheon plant during which, police claim, £350,000 damage was done to computer equipment.

The US company Raytheon is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world, supplying guidance systems for many of the missiles and bombs used by US and Israeli forces in the Middle East. Raytheon systems guided the Qana bomb to the bunker where it blasted and crushed at least 51 people, including many children, to death.

Three of the arrested men, Colm Bryce, Kieran Gallagher and Eamonn McCann are members of the Derry branch of the Socialist Workers’ Party while another, Sean Heaton is a member of the Socialist Environmental Alliance. The five others, Eamonn O’Donnell, Gary Donnelly, Paddy McDaid, Jimmy Kelly and Micky Gallagher are Republicans, from the IRSP and the 32-Country Sovereignty Committee.

After hours of questioning, all nine were charged with Aggravated Burglary and Unlawful Assembly. These are “scheduled” offences, meaning they would be heard before a Diplock, non-jury court. These charges also meant that the men couldn’t be given bail by the Magistrates’ Court but had to be remanded to prison before a bail application in the High Court.

The only reason for the remand in prison and the severity of the charges is that the protestors live in Northern Ireland. This would not have happened in Britain or the South of Ireland. Despite the New Labour talk of a new NI, political dissent is still treated differently here.

At the bail hearing, the Crown tried to raise Eamonn McCann’s convictions on public order offences going back to the civil rights movement 1968/69/70. However, the judge said that the “vintage” of these charges made them irrelevant.

The arms merchants were brought to Derry in 1999 by SDLP and Ulster Unionist leaders John Hume and David Trimble: the announcement of the plant was made at the pair’s first joint public appearance following their receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. It was part, they said, of “the peace dividend.”

The savage irony was immediately apparent. An argument over Raytheon has continued in Derry since. However, all the local mainstream parties—John Hume’s SDLP, Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley’s DUP—have backed the company’s presence, arguing that the Derry plant isn’t directly involved in arms manufacture and that driving Raytheon out would deter other investors in an area of high unemployment.

Speaking from a window at the plant during the occupation, Eamonn McCann said: “We had to dramatise the argument so as to force the issue into the mainstream.”

Documents and computers were hurled from windows and the computer mainframe and other equipment put out of action.

The idea for the occupation emerged from a packed meeting of the Derry Anti War Coalition on August 2nd addressed by former Abu Ghraib interrogator Joshua Casteel of Iraqi Veterans Against War and Hani Lazim of Iraqi Democrates against the Occupation. Discussion from the floor focused on Raytheon, and the role it gave Derry in the arms trade. The activists knew that, despite the line of the main parties, there is real anger in the town at the idea of software developed in Derry helping to murder people in Lebanon and Gaza.

On August 9th at 8am, protestors arrived at the building Raytheon shares with a call centre. The police were already in position. At about 8.30, an employee about to go into work hesitated for an instant and the anti-war activists rushed the door. Police started grabbing people by the scruff of the necks and literally throwing them back out. The nine now charged are those who made it into Raytheon’s premises.

Once inside, the protestors erected barricades against the police and set about decommissioning the equipment. Many files thrown out the window gave the lie to the claims that the Derry plant had no connection with the arms trade.

Once local radio started to report the occupation, others started to arrive to join the protest. In the course of the day, between 80 and 100 people kept the solidarity picket going. Cars on the main road honked their horns in support.

Local residents brought coffee, sandwiches and cake. Armed police in riot gear stormed the buildinng after eight hours and carried the protestors out in handcuffs.

Almost all were battered and bruised in the process.

At the bail hearing, barrister Joe Brolly pointed out that Raytheon had had a turnover of $21.9 billion last year, and described them as “purveyors of death”.

Bail was granted but the restrictions are draconian. Conditions include an exclusion zone around Raytheon, and also ban the protestors from attending any public meeting or any private meeting of Derry Anti War Coalition or the Irish Anti War Movement. They were told that a “private meeting” means any meeting of three or more people.

A Raytheon 9 Defence Campaign is now being established across Ireland

Trial Update

The trial of Derry Anti War Coalition activists, the Raytheon 9, is set to start on Monday May 19th. It is to be held in Belfast. The trial was moved to Belfast after the Prosecution Service applied to have it moved; it argued that the Derry jury pool is likely to know too much about the campaign against Raytheon, including the non-violent direct action taken on 9th August 2006 and that any jury from Derry may be too sympathetic to the action and/or intimidated by the level of support for the Raytheon 9 because of all the protests held outside the court over the almost two years since the nine were arrested.

The Derry Anti War Coalition is confident that, wherever the trial is heard, there will be large demonstrations in support of the Nine and that any jury who hears the truth about what was happening in Lebanon when the action took place cannot but find that the Nine acted to stop war crimes and, therefore, committed no crime.

Anyone wishing to support the Raytheon 9 can do so in several ways: Send a message of support to resistderry@aol.com e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Organise a fundraiser for the defence fund Spread the word about the role of the arms trade in fuelling war. If there is an arms company in your town, organise a protest at it.

Jet Pilot: “The sheer wanton destructiveness of it… dropping computers from an office window!”

Update: See this short documentary from Derry Stop The War.  RickB is posting updates on the trial as they come on his blog Ten Percent.

May Day Greetings from the West Coast

Ok, I’m not in America, I’m in Manchester recovering from a night needling the political class at the count and several weeks frantic election activity running up to that. We did pretty well, since you ask, but I’ll doubtless tell you more when the (potentially catastrophic) London results are in.

In the meantime, let me share this with you:

ILWU shuts down docks for May Day

Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky report on plans for the West Coast dockworkers’ antiwar action.

OAKLAND, Calif.–Dockworkers voted to shut down West Coast ports on May 1 to protest the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

On May Day 2008, container ships will sit idle at all 29 ports on the West Coast. From San Diego to Seattle, the giant “hammerhead” cranes that lift cargo containers on and off ships will stand motionless.

Every dock in California, Oregon and Washington will grow quiet as 25,000 members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) lay down their tools and walk off the job “to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of troops from the Middle East.”

The ILWU’s longshore caucus voted to use a clause in its contract that allows the union to call “stop work” meetings for union business. The ILWU motion authorizing the shutdown argues, “It is time to take labor’s protest to a more powerful level of struggle by calling on unions and working people in the U.S. and internationally to mobilize for a ‘No Peace No Work Holiday’ May 1, 2008.”

This is the first time in decades that a union in this country has taken industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly significant that the ILWU chose to do so on May Day, the International Workers’ Day, which is typically not honored in the U.S.

The ILWU motion is noteworthy because it also takes the Democrats to task for continuing to fund the war and encompasses a wider condemnation as the U.S. “imperial” interventions in the Middle East.

Jack Heyman, a dockworker in Oakland, Calif., and a union officer, reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that the debate generated by the resolution was spirited and impassioned. Heyman credits the union’s Vietnam veterans with turning the tide of opinion in favor of the antiwar resolution.

In San Francisco, the ILWU has also called for a march and rally on May Day, which includes the following demands: a withdrawal of the troops now, health care for all, funding for schools and housing and a defense of civil liberties and workers’ rights. In an effort to build bridges with immigrant workers, who will also be marching on May Day, the ILWU calls for “no scapegoating of immigrant workers for the economic crisis.”

The ILWU is no stranger to political action. The union was one of the first to oppose the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the first major U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam War. The ILWU expressed hopes that its historical action on the docks would serve as a clarion call to all of labor to put some teeth into the many antiwar resolutions that unions have passed.

The National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 214 in San Francisco has requested its members observe two minutes of silence in all its stations on May Day in solidarity with the ILWU. NACL Branch 630 in Greensboro, N.C., did likewise. The New York Metro Area Postal Workers, a local of the American Postal Workers Union, followed suit.

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 2334 at City University of New York voted to undertake a campus event or teach-in on May Day in solidarity of the ILWU. Support has also come from the Vermont AFL-CIO, the San Francisco Labor Council and SEIU Local 1021.

Of course, the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA), the West Coast employer association of shipowners, stevedore companies and terminal operators, opposes the action.

The coastwide dock shut down in opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also serves as the first volley to this year’s contract negotiations between the ILWU and the port bosses. The contract between the PMA and the ILWU is set to expire July 1. During the last round of negotiations in 2002, George W. Bush invoked the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act during a 12-day PMA lockout of the ILWU.

Have it! According to the token coverage in the mainstream media, they really did shut down the West Coast for a day: LA Times, NY Times, Reuters.

Troops Out (of Manchester) Now!

On the one hand, five years of horrible and unpopular wars have made a lot of people not want to join the military.  On the other hand, ten years of horrible and unpopular economic policies (with the current crisis as the icing on the cake) has made a lot of people quite desperate.  Hence the intensified drive to recruit, especially targeting students, ethnic minorities and working class children.

And hence, after UCL and the NUT, it’s Manchester’s turn to kick them off campus.  Well, we’ll be voting on it at the next general meeting on Wednesday, and hopefully it will pass.  It’s already provoked some hysterical flak from the Manchester Evening News and the BBC (although that’s nothing compared to the rightwing counterattack that UCL students have had to face).

The text of the motion follows below the fold.  We’ll also be voting to commit the union to a fight for a free education - equally important given the fees review this year, and the right’s victory in the elections to the union executive.

Refuse/Resist - Basra and Britain

I will have some words on recent events… but first, here’s Sepultura to set the tone.

Okay.

When our Grandkids are learning about Iraq in school (as if), the past week will almost certainly deserve a mention.  It began with the Vichy-Baghdad regime invading the city of Basra, and other strongholds of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi army and, faster than you can say “you’ve been Hizbollah’ed” it ended with al-Maliki sueing for a truce via Iranian middlemen.  They should have been more careful; it’s become clear that the secret behind the “success” of the surge lay with the Sadrists’ ceasefire.

It may be premature, actually, to talk of the Mahdi army as an Iraqi Hizbollah, and it would be an extravagant flight of fancy to describe them as an Iraqi Viet Minh, but they are becoming the preeminent political force within Iraq - a state of affairs which provoked the recent clashes, and which has been reinforced by them.  al-Sadr’s stand against the occupiers, against their puppets, against their enclosure of Iraq’s resources, has won him much support, and his explicit rejection of violent sectariana and Iranian meddling* has done no harm.  His bloc was on course for a sweeping victory in the elections later this year, and this is almost certainly why le Mareshal al-Maliki moved to crush it, why the US-UK occupiers had little choice but to throw their might behind the assault, and why it is so significant that they failed.

Before I move on, there are a few al Jazeera clips it’s worth watching.  First, excerpts from an interview in which al-Sadr positions himself as the legitimate face of the Iraqi resistance and calls for international support…

… followed by a post-ceasefire report, notable for the testimony of Iraqi government fighters who preferred to hand their weapons over to the Sadrists.  “I didn’t want to be a tool of the occupation any longer”.

Anyway, much of the above probably didn’t get through to most audiences in this country, but one thing did.  For all the time they’ve spent hiding in Basra airport, it’s been easy to forget that there are still any British troops in Iraq - but there are, and the Second Battle of Basra will have brought that home.

The obvious question, then, is what next for the British antiwar movement?

First of all, we’re in better shape than some miserablists list to speculate.  It’s mad to think we’ll get 2 million on the streets again any time soon - we’re in for the Long War now, and need a correspondingly long antiwar - but we continue to draw in large numbers of new activists.  It’s clear though, that we need more than just demos.

Well, aside from the Viet Minh, probably the most important factor in ending the Vietnam War, was “low morale” in the army - that’s mass mutinies to you and me.  Similar mutinies ended Russian and German involvement in the First World War too, kicking off revolutions in both countries and bringing the war to an end (forget what they tell you about Britain having “won”), so we’d be mad not to focus on the army.  Hence the increasing importance of the likes of Ben Griffin, and Military Families Against The War.  Hence also the importance of recent Iraq Winter Soldier testimonials (the name, for those like me too young to remember, being a reference to an influential set of confessions from Vietnam veterans).

Of course, Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike Vietnam and the trenches, are occupied by volunteer armies, and these will never feel the same compulsion to revolt as those who are compelled by law to fight, kill and die for their rulers’ mad ambitions.  Fortunately, however, they may not have to; they can cause enough problems simply by not bothering to volunteer.  Recruitment problems can be allayed through the judicial use of robots and mercenaries, not to mention the intensification of the economic draft that will come with the recession and incomes policy, but they are problems nonetheless.  How else to explain, for example, all the faintly pitiful messing about with uniforms and (Heaven help us) the idea of an “Armed Forces Day”?

And how to explain that worksheet, produced by the MoD (or rather, et quelle surprise, by the private company Kids’ Connections on behalf of the MoD), which would have teachers explain how the war and occupation are “helping the Iraqis to rebuild their country after the conflict and years of neglect”.  This is always described as “unprecendented”, when of course it’s not, but it has been enough to make teachers see red.  The NUT conference this week has resolved to oppose military recruitment in schools in England and Wales (teachers in Scotland having apparently thought of it beforehand), and to support teachers who bring antiwar speakers into schools for the sake of balance.

In so doing, the NUT has thrown its weight into one of the hottest arguments in student politics.  Many student unions are discussing “no-platforming” military recruiters from their campuses - I am less optimistic about Manchester than I would have been a month or two ago (hey, we’ll do our best - I remember being outraged when I saw army recruiters at freshers’ week, and I surely wasn’t alone), but UCL have already passed their motion and others will doubtless follow.  What will start at schools and universities will hopefully carry on elsewhere (although we can’t do much against the relentless advertising).  We may not be able to get the troops off the streets of Basra just yet, but we might just get them off the streets of Britain.

* Some qualifications are in order.  Though al-Sadr has repeatedly called for solidarity with Iraq’s Sunni minority, fighters in the then-nascent and undisciplined Mahdi army were implicated in much of the violence circa 2004.  And, while he claims not to approve of Iran’s influence in Iraqi affairs, it doesn’t seem to have stopped his militia from accepting Iranian gun money.

Antiwar Icon: World’s #1

Mrs. On Fire and I went to see Vantage Point this evening.  It is a terrible, terrible film, and I suspect it will be some time before she forgives me for taking her to see that instead of the Tudor sex romp she would have preferred.  But, it did acknowledge that a US president cannot set foot in a European city without being met by massive, furious protests, and it actually portrayed the protestors quite sympathetically.  In particular, it tipped its hat at the mighty anti-war movement by prominently featuring everyone’s favourite poster.

Okay, so they redid it to feature the face of their fictional filmi president, but they still put “Socialist Worker” in big letters at the bottom for that added touch of authenticity.  Again, it’s a terrible, terrible film, but this bit did warm the cockles of my heart.

Anyway, this icon of the decade, this too-familiar face, will soon be obsolete; in November, George Bush will pass the World’s Number One Terrorist torch over to Clinton, Obama or McCain.  Obviously, the posters will still make some sense, but expect to see them phased out all the same.  So, if you wanted to, say, keep one as a souvenir to show your Grandkids, this might be the time to think about it.

World Against War

World against War protest yesterday.  See reports with pics from Jamie and Lenin.  Turnout was a few tens of thousands - a pretty impressive mobilisation, all things considered - of which 6 buses from Greater Manchester.

I will probably provide more detail - and link to reports on the other protests around the world - later, currently quite exhausted.

The Battle For Haditha

I watched the “news” over lunch. Why haven’t the Oscars been cancelled with this whole Hollywood strike business? Daniel Day Lewis is, for my money, one of our greatest actors (and There Will Be Blood is excellent, in an intense and creepy kind of way), but until someone explains otherwise I’ll have to add him to my list of scabs! [update: DDL is definitely not a scab. See comments.] Anyway, there’s one film that you won’t be seeing at any of these glitzy backslapathons, The Battle For Haditha. None of the major distributors having dared go near it, I saw a special screening organised by GM Respect on Friday. You’ll probably have to wait for the DVD now, but if it chances to play at your local indiplex then it’s definitely worth checking out.

Beware, plot spoilers follow.