Posts from — March 2014

After training in Kearney, Nebraska, Clark Gable was stationed in Europe. In May, 1943, he flew this mission to Antwerp, Belgium. Gable flew as photographer/observer on this mission. William R. Calhoun was the pilot and Lt. Col. William A. Hatcher was copilot. …source

“Delta”, a former Israeli army officer commanding a Jewish-led militia force during the “Ukraining revolution.”

His nom de guerre is Delta. He is one of the military leaders of the “Ukrainian revolution” even if, as he himself says, he does not consider himself Ukrainian. Under the helmet he wears a kippa. The story was released by the Jewish press agency JTA (headquartered in New York), after doing an anonymous interview and photographing him in camouflage with a bulletproof vest, his face hidden behind sunglasses and a black scarf. …source

Sami Mira Ahmed Mushaymaa. A travesty of Justice.

An illiterate young man, 25 will be executed unless we take action. What can you do to help him and the other detainees? The Bahrain F.I. will take place on April 6th. Please condemn running this sports event in a country where the human rights are terrible. Pressure needs to be brought on the Khalifa regime to release to over 3500 detainees, a third, children. 

Sami Mira Ahmed Mushaymaa, Abbas Jamil Tahir Alsamee, Ali Mohamed Taher Alsamee and Yousuf Ahmed Mohamed Taher Alsamee were “pronounced guilty” of killing 3 policemen BEFORE their trial started. Only the dead UAE policeman has been identified, not the 2 Bahrain victims. The Prime Minister called for the trial to be “expedited” and death sentences to follow.

The Prosecutor said on 4th March that four men  had admitted to being influenced by “foreign agents”, Iran. Sami was soaked in cold water, chilled with an air conditioner, beaten on his genitals and forced to stand for long periods. Bader Ebrahim Ghaith, his torturer said the C.I.D. would tell the Judge to sentence him to at least 15 years.

The police dumped weapons and incriminating evidence at Sami’s house and photographed the evidence. His family saw him on 23rd March with teeth broken, burn marks and heavily clothed to hide torture marks. His family’s home has been attacked twenty times and they are terrified.

His co-defendant Abbas Alsamee was electrocuted on his genitals and faced the same freezing treatment. He is still at the Criminal Investigation Directorate, three weeks after his arrest. This raises great fears for his safety under constant interrogation.

The twenty five men are mainly from the Alsamee and Mushaymaa families. Are they known troublemakers or easy to pick up when the police want to make quick arrests in night raids after a colleague has been killed? Sami Mushaymaa is a relative of Hasan Mushaima, Secretary General of Haq, The Movement of Liberty and Democracy. Hasan is one of the thirteen Leaders of the Opposition, jailed for life. Sami has been questioned about the Haq leaders but knows nothing.

Sami was targeted by the Intelligence Department in 2010 and had all his teeth smashed. He was arrested as part of a “terrorist cell” in 2010 but released after eight months.

He was picked up at the Pearl Roundabout in 2011 and charged with illegal gathering and making molotov cocktails, never found. He was released again due to lack of evidence. He has recently returned home. Why would he put himself and his family at risk again?

The Mushaima family have battled to get medical treatment for Hasan who suffers from cancer. Every time they raise this issue they are intimidated or a member of the family is arrested. Ahmed Mushaima, Hasan’s son was picked up at the airport returning from Iraq on 28th December 2013. He was jailed for thirty days for congregating and missed important college exams. Ahmed was severely beaten on his previously injured knees and could not sit down when his family visited him. He goes to court on 27th March 2014.

The families of important leaders are continuously harassed and having the same surname is a liability. What can the international legal and political community do about this?

Sami Mira Ahmed Mushaymaa. A travesty of Justice.
26 March, 2014

An illiterate young man, 25 will be executed unless we take action. What can you do to help him and the other detainees? The Bahrain F.I. will take place on April 6th. Please condemn running this sports event in a
country where the human rights are terrible. Pressure needs to be brought on the Khalifa regime to release to over 3500 detainees, a third, children.

Sami Mira Ahmed Mushaymaa, Abbas Jamil Tahir Alsamee, Ali Mohamed Taher Alsamee and Yousuf Ahmed Mohamed Taher Alsamee were “pronounced guilty” of killing 3 policemen BEFORE their trial started. Only the dead UAE
policeman has been identified, not the 2 Bahrain victims. The Prime Minister called for the trial to be “expedited” and death sentences to follow.

The Prosecutor said on 4th March that four men had admitted to being influenced by “foreign agents”, Iran. Sami was soaked in cold water, chilled with an air conditioner, beaten on his genitals and forced to stand for long periods. Bader Ebrahim Ghaith, his torturer said the C.I.D. would tell the Judge to sentence him to at least 15 years.

The police dumped weapons and incriminating evidence at Sami’s house and photographed the evidence. His family saw him on 23rd March with teeth broken, burn marks and heavily clothed to hide torture marks. His family’s home has been attacked twenty times and they are terrified.

His co-defendant Abbas Alsamee was electrocuted on his genitals and faced the same freezing treatment. He is still at the Criminal Investigation Directorate, three weeks after his arrest. This raises great fears for his safety under constant interrogation.

The twenty five men are mainly from the Alsamee and Mushaymaa families. Are they known troublemakers or easy to pick up when the police want to make quick arrests in night raids after a colleague has been killed? Sami Mushaymaa is a relative of Hasan Mushaima, Secretary General of Haq, The Movement of Liberty and Democracy. Hasan is one of the thirteen Leaders of the Opposition, jailed for life. Sami has been questioned about the Haq leaders but knows nothing.

Sami was targeted by the Intelligence Department in 2010 and had all his teeth smashed. He was arrested as part of a “terrorist cell” in 2010 but released after eight months. He was picked up at the Pearl Roundabout in 2011 and charged with illegal gathering and making molotov cocktails, never found. He was released again due to lack of evidence. He has recently returned home. Why would he put himself and his family at risk again?

The Mushaima family have battled to get medical treatment for Hasan who suffers from cancer. Every time they raise this issue they are intimidated or a member of the family is arrested. Ahmed Mushaima, Hasan’s son was picked up at the airport returning from Iraq on 28th December 2013. He was jailed for thirty days for congregating and missed
important college exams. Ahmed was severely beaten on his previously injured knees and could not sit down when his family visited him. He goes to court on 27th March 2014.

The families of important leaders are continuously harassed and having the same surname is a liability. What can the international legal and political community do about this?
—
“when compassion acts beyond reason humanity is redeemed”

Between the Nuremberg Trials and the “Glorious” Egyptian Judiciary
by ESAM AL-AMIN – 25 March, 2014 – Counter Punch

“We are proud of Egypt’s glorious judiciary system.” Field Marshal Abdelfattah Sisi, leader of Egypt’s Military Coup

The Nuremberg Trials (in Nuremberg, Germany)

Charges: Wars of Aggression, War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity.

Number of Victims Declared by the Prosecution at Trial: At least 40 million in Europe alone.

Judges (4): British, American, French, Soviet

Trial Period: November 20, 1945 – October 1, 1946 (316 days)

Number of Court Sessions: 38 full days

Number of People Accused: 23 (Over 200 Nazi leaders were later tried at Nuremberg.)

Number of Accused Convicted: 20

Number of Accused Condemned to Death: 12

The Minya Trials (in el-Minya, Egypt)

Charges: Storming a police station, killing a police officer, rioting, and mass protests in el-Minya (75 miles south of Cairo) in the aftermath of the massacres at Raba’a Al-Adawiyya Mosque and Al-Nahdha Square in Cairo on August 14, 2013, that killed over 1,000 protesters by the army and security officers.

Number of Victims Declared by the Prosecution at Trial: 1 (A police officer.)

Judges (3): Led by presiding judge Said Youssef Sabri. [Sabri is the same judge that acquitted all officials and police officers accused of killing about two-dozen protesters in the Bani Swaif region in Upper Egypt during the 18 revolutionary days after the January 25, 2011 mass protests.]

Trial Period: March 22-24, 2014 (2 days)

Number of Court Sessions: 2 (totaling 100 minutes)
[The first session on Mar. 22 lasted for 45 minutes where the indictment was officially presented. The second session was on Mar. 24, where the accused were sentenced. It lasted less than one hour.]

Number of People Accused: 545

Number of the Accused Identified as Members of the MB: 122

Number of the Accused Not Identified as Members of the MB: 423

Number of Pages of Police Investigations turned over by the Prosecution to the Judge and Defense Teams on the first day of trial on Mar. 22: Over 14,000.

Number of Government Witnesses Heard by the Judges: 1 (A police officer was the only government witness to offer testimony at trial but was not allowed to be cross-examined.)

Number of Defendants Attending the Trial: 128

Number of Defendants Arraigned by the Presiding Judge: 51 (The remaining 77 were at trial with the other defendants in a cage but were not even acknowledged by the presiding judge.)

Number of Defense Lawyers for all defendants allowed to Attend the Trial by the Presiding Judge: Less than three dozen (many others not allowed)

Number of Witnesses Offered by the Defense Teams: Hundreds

Number of Defense Witnesses Allowed by the Presiding Judge to Testify: None

Number of the Accused Condemned to Death: 529 (including all the defendants attending the trial)

Number of the Accused Condemned to Death but Identified by Defense Lawyers as already Dead before the August Protests: At least 3

Number of the Accused Condemned to Death but Identified by Defense Lawyers as Being Outside Egypt during the August Protests: At least 5

Number of the Accused Condemned to Death but Identified by Defense Lawyers as Minors during the August Protests (it’s unconstitutional to sentence a minor to death in Egypt):
At least 2

But what have been the reactions over the death sentences?

(Note the weak reaction and lack of condemnation or outrage by the US and EU.)

Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: The death sentences were “only the first verdict in the trial process…It was reached after careful study of the case.”

Marie Harf, a State Department spokeswoman: “It simply does not seem possible that a fair review of evidence and testimony, consistent with international standards, could be accomplished. [I]t’s an important relationship [with Egypt]…so we don’t want to completely cut off the relationship…”

Catherine Ashton, Foreign Policy Chief of the European Union: “It was with utmost concern that I learnt that the court in Minya in southern Egypt sentenced 529 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death. Notwithstanding the serious nature of the crimes for which they were convicted, capital punishment can never be justified.”

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director at Human Rights Watch: “It’s shocking even amid Egypt’s deep political repression that a court has sentenced 529 people to death without giving them any meaningful opportunity to defend themselves. The Minya court failed to carry out its most fundamental duty to assess the individual guilt of each defendant, violating the most basic fair trial right. These death sentences should be immediately quashed.”

Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Program Director at Amnesty International: “This is the largest single batch of simultaneous death sentences we’ve seen in recent years, not just in Egypt but anywhere in the world. Egypt’s courts are quick to punish Mohamed Morsi’s supporters but ignore gross human rights violations by the security forces. While thousands of Morsi’s supporters languish in jail, there has not been an adequate investigation into the deaths of hundreds of protesters. Just one police officer is facing a prison sentence, for the deaths of 37 detainees.”

Sahraoui was referring to the deliberate killing of 37 anti-coup protesters while in government’s custody last August. They were arrested after the Raba’a massacre and were left in handcuffs and shackles for six hours under 110 heat (43) inside a prison vehicle that could only hold twenty people. When they started to shout in protest, the prisoners were gassed by police officers and their corpses burned. After 11 officers were put on trial earlier this month for this massacre, 10 were either acquitted or received suspended sentences.

Meanwhile another mass trial against those opposing the military coup, including senior MB leaders, will open today in the same Minya court before the same presiding judge, with 683 defendants facing similar charges.

While the military coup regime flexes its muscles and shows contempt for any notion of justice or human rights, the world is looking the other way. For many governments it’s back to business as usual with authoritarian regimes. President Barack Obama is rewarding King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with a state visit this week.

Long gone are the days when Obama declared in 2009 in Cairo that “the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose are not just American ideas, [but] they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.” Given his administration’s timid response to the gross human rights violations in Egypt and its open support for authoritarian regimes such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which have bankrolled Egypt’s military coup, President Obama’s words now ring hollow. …source

Risen: Obama administration is this generation’s ‘greatest enemy of press freedom’
by Andrew Beaujon – 24 March, 2014 – Poynter.org

“It won’t take me long to alienate everyone in the room,” Jeffrey Toobin told an audience in New York Friday. “For better or worse, it has been clear there is no journalistic privilege under the First Amendment.”

The New Yorker staff writer and CNN commentator was appearing on a panel as part of a George Polk Awards conference called Sources and Secrets at the Times Center. A lot has already been written about the conference (links below), so I’m going to pull out a theme that appears again and again in my notes: How much protection do reporters really have with regard to sources, and how much, if any, protection would a federal shield law give them?

New York Times reporter James Risen, who is fighting an order that he testify in the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer accused of leaking information to him, opened the conference earlier by saying the Obama administration is “the greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at least a generation.” The administration wants to “narrow the field of national security reporting,” Risen said, to “create a path for accepted reporting.” Anyone journalist who exceeds those parameters, Risen said, “will be punished.”

The administration’s aggressive prosecutions have created “a de facto Official Secrets Act,” Risen said, and the media has been “too timid” in responding.

Toobin appeared on a panel that followed, moderated by Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak, who announced that if he weren’t a paragon of journalistic detachment, he’d say “the persecution of James Risen is a scandal.” The attorney Laura Handman noted that the U.S. Department of Justice’s new guidelines for accessing journalists’ records carve out a big space for the government to decide what constitutes “ordinary newsgathering.” …more

One way to support Bahrain;s imprisoned photographers will be through a F1 campaign we just launched with Reporters Without Borders. We’re using a tool called Thunderclap, which helps create a social media flash mob at a predetermined time – in this case, for the starting gun of the race on April 6. We want to make sure the government cannot hide its press and human rights violations behind F1. Thunderclap will help us get thousands of tweets to be posted simultaneously about press freedom right when the race begins. Please sign up on “thunder-clap” to make your voice heard via twitter. https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/10068-bahrain-racing-in-circles

Bahrain racing in circles
By Jason Stern – CPJ – 22 March, 2014

Thursday, the official Bahrain News Agency announced the “final 30-day countdown [to] the Formula One extravaganza” to take place the first week of April. Every year the race acts as a lightning rod for criticism of the Bahraini government, which seeks to use high-profile international events like the F1 to gloss over human rights violations in the country.

So perhaps it’s all too predictable that another journalist was arrested in Bahrain only a few hours before the BNA article went to press. Freelance photojournalist Sayed Baqer Al-Kamil was arrested at a checkpoint west of Manama sometime in the early morning hours, according to news reports and his colleagues. It is not clear why he was arrested, but Al-Kamil has meticulously documented the protest movement in Bahrain.

In another recent case, Bahraini security forces arrested photographer Sayed Ahmed Al-Mosawi and his brother in a house raid the morning of February 10, according to news reports. Al-Mosawi was transferred to the Dry Dock prison after several days of interrogation about his work. The journalist, who has won international recognition for his photographs, told his family in a phone call from prison that he had been tortured through beatings and electrocution, according to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Al-Kamil and Al-Mosawi join at least three other journalists behind bars in Bahrain, the second worst country in the world for journalists imprisoned per capita, according to CPJ research.

The arrests also come as at least four journalists were injured in street violence, with political tensions simmering around the third anniversary of the February 14, 2011, opposition protests.

On March 3, a photographer for the English-language Gulf Daily News was injured in an explosion targeting three policemen in Daih village, the paper reported. Ebrahim Al Sinan, who was standing 10 meters from the blast, sustained a lung injury and shrapnel wounds. The journalist was taken to Bahrain Defence Force Hospital for treatment. Gulf Daily News’s Deputy Editor Robert Smith told CPJ that Al Sinan was released from the hospital on March 4.

The blast came as Al Sinan was covering clashes between riot police and protesters from a funeral procession of a Bahraini inmate who died last month in custody. The government said the inmate, Jaffar Al-Durazi, died from complications of sickle cell anemia, but opposition groups said he was subjected to torture and medical negligence.

It is not clear who carried out the attack on the security forces, with at least two groups claiming responsibility on Facebook, according to Bahrain scholar Marc Owen Jones. Bahrain’s major opposition and human rights groups condemned the attack and urged Bahrainis to end the cycle of violence.

In a photograph of the attack captured by EPA photojournalist Mazen Mahdi, riot police grimace from tear gas as one of their comrades lay wounded in the street. A few days prior, on February 26, Mahdi accused the police of aiming deliberately at journalists after he had been shot in the leg by a teargas canister while covering protests in Daih. He was not seriously injured. …more

Hussain Hubail’s Health: Update.
22 March, 2014

Hussain Hubail, 21, has pains in his chest and severe palpitations, low sugar levels and high blood pressure. Was unconscious for twelve hours on 13 Feb 2014 when rushed to hospital. Rushed to hospital 5 times in last eight months.

Increased frequency of collapses since January 2014. Salmanya Hospital consultant thinks he may have Beams contraction of the heart muscles and could need an angioplasty. He has heart spasms and faints.

Abhi (Professor Prasad) intends to do a full series of tests on him to see whether he needs an operation. If the latter he will be operated on at St George’s Hospital Tooting where Abhi is Head of the Cardiology Unit.

The Government said he could have an operation at the military hospital but there would be months of delay as only two surgeons Although the surgeon is fine, Hussain’s parents see the hospital as part of the military/prison regime that have almost killed their son. His grandfather went to the military hospital for the same operation two years ago and died. There is no heart surgery unit at Salmanya Hospital.

Every time Hubail collapses he is stabilised and then send back within a day to the terrible prison conditions: overcrowding (twelve detainees in cells for five), no beds, no clean water to drink, little water to wash, poor food, cold in winter and no winter clothes allowed. There would be no after care and he will not get the correct medication. Therefore he is unlikely to benefit from having the operation in Bahrain.

He needs daily medication but gets it intermittently, or once a week which is hopeless. This has contributed to his deterioration. I and the Bahraini campaigners feel his only chance of survival is to come to the U.K. where he can be properly treated, operated on, and given the correct after care and medication.

Hubail’s case is urgent and he was back at the hospital clinic this week. Please contact your, MP, Congressperson or Senator and bring influence to bear. This young man has done nothing except take photographs which is his job. He needs your help before he dies in prison.

URGENT ACTION

VERDICT IN HUSSAIN HUBAIL’S TRIAL IMMINENT
14 March, 2014 – Amnesty International

Photographer Hussain Hubail is about to receive his verdict. He is on trial together with eight other men on charges arising from their exercise of their right to freedom of expression. He has been denied adequate medical treatment.

Hussain Hubail’s trial, which began on 28 November 2013, will have its fifth hearing on 16 March: the court will hear final pleas, and is expected to announce its verdict shortly afterwards. Hussain Hubail is on trial together with eight other men, including Mohammad Hassan Sudayf, on charges that include using social media networks to incite hatred of the regime, calling on people to ignore the law and calling for illegal demonstrations.

During one of the hearings, on 27 January, he is understood to have told the court he had been tortured and threatened with rape during his interrogation. He had told his family when they visited him in prison that he had been threatened and beaten while being interrogated at the Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID). Hussain Hubail has a heart condition, and fears he is not receiving adequate medical treatment. He has to wait before he receives the medicine he needs. His family said his health had deteriorated: he suffers from shortness of breath and frequently loses consciousness. He was transferred to hospital on 13 March following severe breathing difficulties, but security officers prevented his family from staying with him as he received treatment.

Please write immediately in English, Arabic or your own language:

Calling on the authorities to release Hussain Hubail immediately and unconditionally if he is being held solely for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression;

Urging them to drop charges against the other defendants if they are being targeted solely for peacefully expressing their opinion;

Urging them to ensure that Hussain Hubail receives adequate medical care, including any specialist treatment needed for his heart condition;

Calling on them to order an independent investigation into Hussain Hubail’s allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, and bring those responsible to justice. …more

BRITISH MP CHAIRS ‘FORMULA ONE: IMPLICATIONS IN BAHRAIN’ EVENT AT PORTCULLIS HOUSE
21 March, 2014 – BCHR

Labour MP, Katy Clark, today chaired and hosted the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy event at Portcullis House. The panel included Maryam Al-Khawaja, the acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Daniel Carey, a civil and human rights solicitor, and Nicholas McGeehan from Human Rights Watch.

Katy Clark took the opportunity to introduce a Early Day Motion 1194 which calls on the UK government to oppose the 2014 Formula One race in Bahrain “due to ongoing human rights violations.” The EDM also recalls concerns over the sexual abuse in custody of Rihanna al-Mousawi who was detained at the Bahrain Formula One track in 2013. It also recalls concerns over the extrajudicial killing of protester Salah Abbas during the race in 2012 by security forces. 25 MPs have signed the EDM to date.

http://youtu.be/l_Lw_WiQGj0

Human Rights Violations in Bahrain

Acting President of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, Maryam al-Khawaja, began the discussion by highlighting the ongoing grave human rights violations in the country. She highlighted the dangers of the new Gulf Cooperation Council Security Agreement that “infringes upon the basic rights of all GCC citizens.” Ms. Khawaja furthermore highlighted the stringent environment and reprisals faced by human rights defenders in Bahrain and refuted the speech made by the Bahrain Foreign Minister in Geneva earlier this month noting:

“Bahrain uses terrorism as an explanation to justify the crackdown against individuals in the country, whilst attempting to convince F1 that it is safe to race in the country. Why are they hosting the F1 if there is terrorism in Bahrain? F1 would not go to Bahrain if that was the case.”

OECD Complaint Launched Against Formula One

Daniel Carey, who headed a legal team to file an OECD complaint to stop a 3 million shipment of tear gas canisters to Bahrain, took the opportunity to announce that an OECD complaint has been filed by Americans for Democracy and Human Rights in Bahrain against Formula One Management, sponsors and teams in the UK. The complaint alleges that the defendant organisations have not mitigated the human rights impact caused by their actions in the country. The complaint has been filed with the United Kingdom Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills in London, which is the UK’s National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines.

According to the 2011 OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, organisations have a responsibility to “… avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts and address such impacts when they occur.” Organizations falling under OECD jurisdiction additionally must “seek ways to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their business operations…” and “carry out human rights due diligence…” as appropriate to their involvement with abuses.

Mr. Carey also highlighted ’irresponsible statements’ made by Bernie Ecclestone in the past regarding the staging of the race in Bahrain. …more

BAHRAIN FORMULA ONE GP 2014

Session: 2013-14
Date tabled: 17.03.2014
Primary sponsor: Clark, Katy
Sponsors: Corbyn, Jeremy – Dobson, Frank – Leech, John – McDonnell, John – Huppert, Julian

That this House opposes the staging of the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix due to ongoing human rights violations in that country; notes that Human Rights Watch’s 2014 World Report highlighted that Bahrain’s human rights record regressed in key areas in 2013 drawing particular attention to arbitrary detention, ill-treatment and torture of activists, prosecution and harassment of government critics and a failure to hold those guilty of human rights abuses to account; expresses deep concern that in previous years Bahrain has implemented a severe crackdown before and during the Grand Prix, restricting freedom of movement of persons in the country, detaining and deporting foreign journalists and conducting mass arbitrary detentions in towns close to the Formula 1 circuit; recalls with concern that previous Grand Prix have coincided with the extrajudicial killing of protester Salah Abbas in 2012 and the arbitrary imprisonment and alleged sexual abuse in custody of protester Rihanna al Mousawi in 2013; further expresses disappointment at the continued failure to hold security forces to account for these abuses, as well as the arrest, detention and torture of 27 employees of the Bahrain International Circuit in 2011; and urges the Government to make strong representations to try and prevent the 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix from going ahead. …more

Another Bahraini dies of tear gas inhalation
18 March, 2014 – Islamic Invitation Turkey

Another Bahraini has died due to inhaling tear gas fired by Saudi-backed regime forces as the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty continues its violent suppression of peaceful pro-democracy rallies in the country.

Locals said they had witnessed extensive use of tear gas and poisonous fumes when Bahraini forces sought to disperse protesters during an anti-regime demonstration in the Wadiyan area of the northeastern island of Sitra on Monday, al-Manar television network reported.

The victim, identified as Jawad al-Hawi, died due to asphyxia after inhaling poisonous tear gas fired by regime forces. His funeral is due to be held later on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a Bahraini court handed jail terms of 5 to 15 years to eight anti-regime protesters on charges of possessing weapons and explosive devices in the eastern village of Tubli.

Bahraini uprising started in mid-February 2011. On March 13 that year, forces from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were dispatched to the country at Manama’s request to quell nationwide protests.

Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds injured and jailed by regime forces since the uprising broke out.

Last month, Amnesty International denounced the “relentless repression” of anti-regime protesters in the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom, blaming Bahraini security forces for their repeated use of “excessive force to quash anti-government protests.”

On February 14, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the Bahraini regime to respect its “international human rights obligations” in dealing with peaceful protests in the country. …source

INSIGHT: Bahrain Uprising – Three Years In, Still No Way Out
13 February, 2014 – By Brian Dooley – Middle East Voices

Three years after Bahrain joined the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East, human rights defenders are left wondering when the Obama Administration will put action behind its flamboyant 2011 rhetoric about rights, freedom and the rule of law. Those who took to the streets in the small Gulf kingdom on February 14 that year, today are left wondering if President Obama had Bahrain in mind when he proclaimed “[H]istory is on the move in the Middle East …wherever people long to be free, they will find a friend in the United States,” or when he stated, “…we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable and more just.”

To many people in Bahrain, President Obama’s words are undermined by the United States’ decision to send shipments of arms to the regime that represses them, as well as by the administration’s failure to bring any sanctions against senior Bahraini government officials deemed responsible for the torture of dissidents, including several deaths in custody, over the last three years. And while State Department emissaries have been on hand to monitor a series of trials widely considered unfair, they do little more than sit on the court benches witnessing injustice as it happens. Their silence is as deafening as it is telling.

insight hrf INSIGHT: Bahrain Uprising – Three Years In, Still No Way OutThe Bahraini regime’s pursuit of stability through repression obviously isn’t working, daily adding complexity and human suffering to an already volatile situation. On February 4, 2014, the King of Bahrain issued a new law (yes he can do that) clearing the way for jail terms for “any person who offends publically the Monarch of the Kingdom of Bahrain….” The actual length of the jail terms envisioned by the law is actually unclear as the English version of the law’s announcement specifies two years, the Arabic version – seven. Such flagrant stifling of dissent only adds to a general instability on the Gulf island.

” …no senior [Bahraini] government figure has been held accountable for deaths in custody, and key opposition leaders remain in jail.” – Brian Dooley, Human Rights First

The International Monetary Fund has warned that Bahrain’s “economic outlook depends on progress on the political front, and is subject to oil price risk… [and that] Bahrain’s fiscal break-even point has reached critical levels,” leaving the kingdom “vulnerable to a sustained decline in oil prices.” Future easing of oil sanctions against Iran is likely to drive prices for the commodity down even further, putting additional strain on the kingdom’s economy
reu bahrain dooley2 300 12feb14 INSIGHT: Bahrain Uprising – Three Years In, Still No Way Out

A protester holds a leaflet drawing attention to the case of an imprisoned photographer, at an anti-government rally in Budaiya, west of Bahrain’s capital, Manama, December 13, 2013. The leaflet reads in part: “Silence Kills Democracy.” (Reuters)

Bahrain’s government, meanwhile, insists it is committed to reform, pointing to a revised police code of conduct introduced in March of 2012, and the establishment of an ombudsman’s office. But it is hard to see what impact these reforms are having. Public protests are growing increasingly violent, leaving people dead on both sides. Bahraini authorities say over 2,300 police personnel have been injured and nine killed since the protests began in early 2011. Still today, there are nearly nightly demonstrations that often end in skirmishes between ill-trained police officers armed with tear gas and birdshot, and younger protesters hurling Molotov cocktails. …more

Bahrain Shias protest against government
22 March, 2014 – Al Jazeera

Thousands of Bahrainis, mainly from the Shia majority, demonstrated near Manama on Friday against what they described as sectarian discrimination in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

“No to discrimination,” chanted protesters brandishing Bahrain’s red-and-white flag as they marched along Budaiya main road, which links Shia villages with the capital, witnesses said.

Some protesters later clashed with riot police, who replied with tear gas.

Ali Salman, the chief cleric of the main Shia formation Al-Wefaq, was among leaders of the opposition who participated, according to images the group posted online.

They carried posters of prominent opponents jailed over their roles in the short-lived uprising of February 2011, including the Sunni head of the secular Waed party, Ibrahim Sharif, who is serving a five-year sentence.

“Sectarian discrimination is eating into the body of Bahrain in a systematic way applied by authorities,” opposition groups said in a statement at the end of the demonstration, referring to the Al-Khalifa dynasty.

The protest was held on the occasion of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Bahrain remains deeply divided three years after authorities quashed a Shia-led uprising, with regular protests sparking clashes with police, scores of Shia jailed on “terrorism” charges and reconciliation talks deadlocked. …more

Washington is making hay of its defeat in Ukraine: it is getting the Europeans to cut themselves off economically from Russia and is already imposing on them the expansion of its missile coverage. While the Western media focus on NATO’s narrative of events (the so-called “military annexation” of Crimea), the Alliance is noiselessly deploying its imperial apparatus.

The new Cold War “shield”
by Manlio Dinucci – Voltaire Network – 22 March, 2014

Vice President Joe Biden’s flash visit to Poland and Estonia to ensure that, in the face of “Russia’s shameless incursion” in Ukraine – a country determined to build “a government for the people” (guaranteed by the neo-Nazis [1] brought to power by the “new Gladio” coup [2] ) – the United States reiterates its unwavering commitment to comply with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty on “collective defense.” As Ukraine is now a de facto, but not official, member of NATO, there is always “non-Article 5,” urging members to “execute evolving missions not described under Article 5,” which was promoted by the Italian government of Massimo D’Alema during the NATO war on Yugoslavia in 1999, and later also applied to the wars on Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

To help “NATO emerge from this crisis stronger … than ‘ever’,” the United States repledged its commitment to the “missile defense” of Europe. However, by correlating the “missile defense” to the Ukrainian crisis, Joe Biden gave his game away. Washington had persistently maintained that the U.S. “shield” in Europe is not directed against Russia, but against the threat of Iranian missiles. In Moscow, on the contrary, this was always perceived as an attempt to gain a decisive strategic advantage over Russia: the U.S. could hold it under the threat of a nuclear first strike, relying on the ability of the “shield” to neutralize the retaliation effects [3] The new plan launched by President Obama, compared with the previous one, provides for a larger number of missiles lined up on Russia’s doorstep. Since they are under U.S. control, no one can find out whether they are interceptors or nuclear missiles.

Having rejected the proposal to jointly manage with Russia the Gabala radar station in Azerbaijan, the United States began building in Poland the site that will host 24 Aegis system SM-3 missiles. In addition, the Polish government has pledged to lay out more than 30 billion euros to achieve (with U.S. technologies) their own “shield” aimed to be integrated into the U.S. and NATO structure. And Joe Biden applauded Poland for its willingness to take on “part of the financial burden, something that all allies should do” (Italy is on notice). Another 24 SM-3 missile site, currently under construction at the Deveselu airbase in Romania, will become operational in 2015 and will be manned by 500 U.S. soldiers. These missile facilities comprise a super-powerful radar installed in Turkey and mobile radars that can be quickly deployed to “advanced positions.” …more

Ukraine as Stalking Horse: The Rise of Fascism in the West
Norman Pollack – 21 March, 2014 – The 4th Media

Fascism dribbles off the tongue too easily, yet it is possible to wrap one’s arms around the concept and practice with, allowing for historical variations, some degree of precision. Hitler’s Germany may be the gold standard by which to measure all else, but even there correction can be made for both underlying structural features and ideological themes applied to other and different settings.

By that I mean, e.g., functional equivalents of Nazi societal organization, if you will, foundations or perhaps sub-foundations of the social order and political culture.

If we return to Franz Neumann’s Behemoth, the now-neglected classic on the subject and Robert A. Brady’s Spirit and Structure of German Fascism, also near-forgotten, focused on the ideology of business organization, we can say that the primal factor in fascism’s internal composition is capitalism, not your everyday Smithian variety happily ensconced in Econ. 101 textbooks, but the real thing at an advanced form of development: monopolization, greater cohesion through trade associations, neutralization of labor as a collective-bargaining social force, above all, an hierarchical class system with commanding decisions at the top then filtered down through gradations of rank, integrated with and complemented by the political-structural framework of business-government interpenetration.

This paradigm of centralized power embedded in the synthesis of corporatism and the State, the latter, itself the more powerful the better, in order to serve and protect the business system, its dominance over labor, its penetration of foreign markets, its further concentration through preventing internecine competition, is equally characteristic of 1930s Germany (already mostly evident under Weimar) and the US beginning in earnest still earlier but perhaps taking more protracted form.

Diagrammatically, we are, circa 2014, more than superseding that German stage, our “cartels” disguised by other names, our rate of concentration the apogee of capitalist inner logic. From here it is readily apparent the appetitive and combative nature of capitalism, egged on or reinforced by the Statist dimension: America’s version of globalization to a tee.

This underpinning, not the concentration camp or gas chamber, establishes the bedrock on which the fascist edifice rests, makes them possible, embodied in militaristic aggression in Germany, but, for the US, and as Barrington Moore pointed out, in Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, for Japan as well, what is critical to fascism is not only business-government interpenetration (Masao Maruyama years ago termed this, for Japan, the “close-embrace” system), but also the regimentation of the people, glimpses of which appear in the NSA wholesale surveillance of the public, and a prepackaged ideology of permanent-war readiness buttressed by a saturated climate of counterterrorism.

I think you get the picture. America is not all Innocence and Milk-and-Honey, the hegemonic demiurge in full throttle under Obama, now poised for the much anticipated (and, I believe, welcomed) conflict with Russia, having carefully arranged the chess board, the rooks, IMF and NATO, the queen, all-purpose privatization, the pawns, “friends and allies” persuaded to do America’s bidding, finally, the king, not the innocuous piece, nor here, a single individual, but Obama’s collective national-security advisors, taking in CIA, NSA, Pentagon officials, even then, the tip of the iceberg of war-making, war-striving apparatus, Washington up to its neck from every quarter, bipartisan all the way, in sharpening the killer instinct.

Kerry and Biden are the cheerleaders for imperialism and, increasingly, militarism, for they, and Obama, recognize the two are inseparable, to which they seem especially dedicated. Ukraine has found its soul mates. …more

“American geo-strategic planners are fond of the chess game analogy, as articulated foremost by former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. In the wake of the resounding vote for Crimean unification with Russia at the weekend, it may be said that this move by the Crimean electorate declares a «check» on Washington’s machinations in the Ukraine…”

Crimean ‘Check’ on Western Machinations in Ukraine
18 March, 2014 – nsnbc – Finian Cunningham

A reading of reactions from officials in Washington and their allies in Europe indicates that the game was not meant to turn out this way. When the US and the EU started to ramp up destabilization of the Ukraine at the end of November, things seemed to go to plan. A concerted campaign of political interference from Western capitals, massive Western media distortion and the covert sponsoring of violence in the capital, Kiev, created unbearable pressure on the incumbent government of president Viktor Yanukovych.

With Western-backed covert terrorism claiming up to 100 deaths among protesters and police, as well as hundreds injured, and with anarchy descending on government buildings, the elected authorities capitulated on February 22. The unelected regime that came to power in Kiev, led by self-styled prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has quickly moved to implement the regime-change agenda of Washington and its European allies. Financial, trade and military pacts are already being drawn up with Washington, Brussels and NATO.

So far, so good, it seemed, from the Western point of view. The ultimate geopolitical prize from regime change in Ukraine, as set out by Brzezinski and other US planners, is to roll back Russia’s presence in a vital sphere of influence. In this calculus, plucking Ukraine into the Western/NATO orbit would weaken Russia, politically, economically and militarily. This tactic has already succeeded with Western incorporation of the Baltic states, in addition to Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, parts of the Balkans and Georgia on Russia’s southern flank. But Ukraine represents a quantum leap towards corralling Russia. It would allow the ever-closer installation of US missiles on Russia’s borders, making an American first-strike offence a greater enfeebling threat to Moscow. A pro-Western regime in Ukraine would also mean the end of Russia’s naval presence at Sevastopol on the Black Sea, which would in turn undermine Russian energy interests in the Caspian region and with regard to the lucrative European market.

But then came the surprise counter-move. Russia increased its military security on Ukraine’s southern Crimean Peninsula within days of the Western-backed coup d’état in Kiev. This gave a political space for the autonomous republic to assert its pro-Russian loyalty without the threat of intimidation from the Kiev junta and its fascist paramilitaries. Given the limited transport access to the Crimea from the Ukrainian mainland, Russian defenses were able to seal off the peninsula from the intrusion of neo-Nazi shock troops that had ushered in the regime in Kiev and who have since gone on to threaten other cities in the East of Ukraine. Several people have been killed in clashes in the cities of Donetz and Kharkiv where the neo-Nazi Svoboda cadres have attacked pro-Russian rallies. There are also reports of Western-backed mercenary gunmen operating in the Eastern cities, while, ironically, Kiev and its Western sponsors accuse Moscow of deploying agent provocateurs and of overseeing the election in Crimea under armed threat. …more

Western Media is a Propaganda Arm of the State
by Finian Cunningham – Veterans News Now

Western news media have long functioned as a propaganda arm of the state, concealing elite corruption at the heart of government: the collusion between corporate, financial and ruling power and the deeply anti-democratic nature of that power. Despite the formality of recurring elections and parliamentary style appearance, Western states are in the nuts-and-bolts of working power more accurately described as fascist corporate entities with a patina of popular democracy for window-dressing.

Wall Street BailoutLook at the global financial collapse that was triggered in 2008. From the US to Europe, the crisis can be attributed to the criminal practices of major banks and other financial institutions operating casino capitalism – the last refuge of bankrupt capitalism as an organizing social system. Yet far from being pursued with prosecutions, the financial oligarchy has been bailed out time and again by their bought-and-paid political rulers to the tune of trillions of dollars with public money, while the public is clobbered with swingeing austerity and poverty. How can we describe this arrangement as anything but fascism – the inexorable endpoint of capitalism?

In this audacious, gargantuan expropriation of wealth by the financial oligarchy in cahoots with the political class – all across the Western world – where is the critical, campaigning, investigative functions of the supposed «free press» – the much-vaunted «fourth estate» which conceitedly refers to the media acting as a guardian of public interest and democratic rights? It does not exist. The Western media are an integral part of the fascist plutocracy.

The established media have thus acted as a vital propaganda arm of the fascist state by concealing or diverting from what is a huge systematic crime of corporate theft and public immiseration.

Of much more damning importance is the question of war. The wholesale mass murder of people and destruction of countries – without even a modicum of justification on the principle of self-defense – is the supreme crime. This crime of war of aggression was established at the post-1945 Nuremberg Trials of Nazi German leaders.

The American-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, beginning in 2001 and 2003, which together have resulted in more than one million dead and millions more wounded, their livelihoods destroyed, are episodes that clearly conform to the category of «wars of aggression». The official justifications used by American and British leaders to instigate these wars – eradicating global terrorism and weapons of mass destruction – have transpired to be baseless, or at the very least cry out for proper investigation. More than this, there are serious grounds to support a prosecution case that these wars were based on deliberate fabrication and lies. …more

Learn More… School of Chiapas

Iran says no meddling in Bahrain, PG islands Iranian
5 March, 2014 – Press TV

Iran foreign ministry has categorically rejected accusations by the [Persian] Gulf Cooperation Council ([P]GCC) of Tehran interfering in the domestic affairs of Bahrain.

“The accusations leveled against Iran with regards to the internal affairs of Bahrain are completely baseless,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said Wednesday.

The [P]GCC foreign ministers concluded their 130th meeting in Riyadh on Tuesday where they accused Iran of interfering in the internal affairs of Bahrain.

“Iran’s principled policy towards its neighboring countries is based on good neighborliness, mutual respect and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries,” Afkham said.

“Efforts by the cooperation council to blame Bahrain’s internal problems on others are caused by the confusion of the officials of this country about the legitimate demands of Bahrainis and [an attempt to] distract public attention from the realities in … Bahrain,” she added.

The Persian Gulf Island state, which is a US ally and home to its Fifth Fleet, has been in turmoil since pro-democracy protests erupted in mid-February 2011.

According to local sources, scores of people have been killed and hundreds arrested in a brutal regime crackdown, backed by Saudi Arabia.

Afkham also dismissed the council’s claims about the three Iranian islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb and Lesser Tunb. She said that the three islands have been and will remain an inseparable part of Iranian soil.

The islands of Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb, and Abu Musa have historically been part of Iran, proof of which can be found and corroborated by countless historical, legal, and geographical documents in Iran and other parts of the world. However, the United Arab Emirates has repeatedly laid baseless claims to the islands. …source

Ukraine’s Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?

The Spoils of War and Regime Change
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky – Global Research – 14 March, 2014

A Russian Internet news site Iskra (“Spark”) based in Zaporozhye, eastern Ukraine, reported on March 7, that “Ukraine’s gold reserves had been hastily airlifted to the United States from Borispol Airport east of Kiev”.

This alleged airlift and confiscation of Ukraine’s gold reserves by the New York Federal Reserve has not been confirmed by the Western media.

According to Iskra News:

At 2 a.m. this morning [March 7] an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borispol Airport (right) [east of Kiev]. According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing.

Сегодня ночью из Fifteen people in black uniforms, masks, and body armor stepped out, some armed with machine guns. They loaded the plane with more than 40 heavy boxes.

After that a mysterious man arrived and entered the plane.

All loading was done in a hurry.

The plane took off on an emergency basis.

Those who saw this mysterious special operation immediately notified the airport officials, who told the callers not to meddle in other people’s affairs.

Later a returned call from a senior official of the former Ministry of Revenue reported that tonight, on the orders of one of the new leaders of Ukraine, the United States had taken custody of all the gold reserves in Ukraine.” Сегодня ночью из “Борисполя” в США страртовал самолёт с золотым запасом Украины, iskra-news.info. Zaporozhye, Ukraine, March 7, 2014, translated from Russian by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc (GATA), emphasis added)

Following this disclosure, GATA’s Secretary Treasurer Chris Powell requested the New Federal Reserve and the US State Department to indicate whether the NY Fed had “taken custody” of Ukraine’s Gold.

A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply: “Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder. You may want to contact the National Bank of Ukraine to discuss this report.”

GATA’s similar inquiry of last night to the U.S. State Department has not yet prompted any reply.

Last night GATA called this issue to the attention of about 30 mainstream financial journalists and newsletter writers in the admittedly bizarre hope that they might pose the question as well.

1) The first rule of mainstream financial journalism and particularly financial journalism about gold is never to put a specific critical question about the monetary metal to any of the primary participants in the gold market, central banks. That is, nearly all gold market reporting is, by design, irrelevant distraction at best, disinformation at worst.

2) The true location and disposition of national gold reserves are secrets far more sensitive than the location and disposition of nuclear weapons. Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.

While the unconfirmed report regarding Ukraine’s gold reserves has not been the object of coverage by the mainstream financial news, the story was nonetheless picked up by the Shanghai Metals Market at Metal.com. which states, quoting a report from the Ukrainian government, that Ukraine’s gold reserves had been “moved on an aircraft from … Kiev to the United States… in 40 sealed boxes” loaded on an unidentified aircraft. …more

Communique #4: The End of the World

The A.O.A. declares itself officially bored with the End of the World. The canonical version has been used since 1945 to keep us cowering in fear of Mutual Assured Destruction & in snivelling servitude to our super-hero politicians (the only ones capable of handling deadly Green Kryptonite)…

What does it mean that we have invented a way to destroy all life on Earth? Nothing much. We have dreamed this as an escape from the contemplation of our own individual deaths. We have made an emblem to serve as the mirror-image of a discarded immortality. Like demented dictators we swoon at the thought of taking it all down with us into the Abyss.

The unofficial version of the Apocalypse involves a lascivious yearning for the End, & for a post-Holocaust Eden where the Survivalists (or the 144,000 Elect of Revelations) can indulge themselves in orgies of Dualist hysteria, endless final confrontations with a seductive evil…

We have seen the ghost of Rene Guenon, cadaverous & topped with a fez (like Boris Karloff as Ardis Bey in The Mummy) leading a funereal No Wave Industrial-Noise rock band in loud buzzing blackfly-chants for the death of Culture & Cosmos: the elitist fetishism of pathetic nihilists, the Gnostic self-disgust of “post-sexual” intellectoids.

Are these dreary ballads not simply mirror-images of all those lies & platitudes about Progress & the Future, beamed from every loudspeaker, zapped like paranoid brain-waves from every schoolbook & TV in the world of the Consensus? The thanatosis of the Hip Millenarians extrudes itself like pus from the false health of the Consumers’ & Workers’ Paradises.

Anyone who can read history with both hemispheres of the brain knows that a world comes to an end every instant — the waves of time leave washed up behind themselves only dry memories of a closed & petrified past — imperfect memory, itself already dying & autumnal. And every instant also gives birth to a world — despite the cavillings of philosophers & scientists whose bodies have grown numb — a present in which all impossibilities are renewed, where regret & premonition fade to nothing in one presential hologrammatical psychomantric gesture.

The “normative” past or the future heat-death of the universe mean as little to us as last year’s GNP or the withering away of the State. All Ideal pasts, all futures which have not yet come to pass, simply obstruct our consciousness of total vivid presence.

Certain sects believe that the world (or “a” world) has already come to an end. For Jehovah’s Witnesses it happened in 1914 (yes folks, we are living in the Book of Revelations now). For certain oriental occultists, it occurred during the Major Conjunction of the Planets in 1962. Joachim of Fiore proclaimed the Third Age, that of the Holy Spirit, which replaced those of Father & Son. Hassan II of Alamut proclaimed the Great Resurrection, the immanentization of the eschaton, paradise on earth. Profane time came to an end somewhere in the late Middle Ages. Since then we’ve been living angelic time — only most of us don’t know it.

Or to take an even more Radical Monist stance: Time never started at all. Chaos never died. The Empire was never founded. We are not now & never have been slaves to the past or hostages to the future.

We suggest that the End of the World be declared a fait accompli; the exact date is unimportant. The ranters in 1650 knew that the Millenium comes now into each soul that wakes to itself, to its own centrality & divinity. “Rejoice, fellow creature,” was their greeting. “All is ours!”

I want no part of any other End of the World. A boy smiles at me in the street. A black crow sits in a pink magnolia tree, cawing as orgone accumulates & discharges in a split second over the city…summer begins. I may be your lover…but I spit on your Millenium. …source

Waiting for the Revolution

How is it that “the world turned upside-down” always manages to Right itself? Why does reaction always follow revolution, like seasons in Hell?

Uprising, or the Latin form insurrection, are words used by historians to label failed revolutions — movements which do not match the expected curve, the consensus-approved trajectory: revolution, reaction, betrayal, the founding of a stronger and even more oppressive State — the turning of the wheel, the return of history again and again to its highest form: jackboot on the face of humanity forever.

By failing to follow this curve, the up-rising suggests the possibility of a movement outside and beyond the Hegelian spiral of that “progress” which is secretly nothing more than a vicious circle. Surgo — rise up, surge. Insurgo — rise up, raise oneself up. A bootstrap operation. A goodbye to that wretched parody of the karmic round, historical revolutionary futility. The slogan “Revolution!” has mutated from tocsin to toxin, a malign pseudo-Gnostic fate-trap, a nightmare where no matter how we struggle we never escape that evil Aeon, that incubus the State, one State after another, every “heaven” ruled by yet one more evil angel.

If History IS “Time,” as it claims to be, then the uprising is a moment that springs up and out of Time, violates the “law” of History. If the State IS History, as it claims to be, then the insurrection is the forbidden moment, an unforgivable denial of the dialectic — shimmying up the pole and out of the smokehole, a shaman’s maneuver carried out at an “impossible angle” to the universe. History says the Revolution attains “permanence,” or at least duration, while the uprising is “temporary.” In this sense an uprising is like a “peak experience” as opposed to the standard of “ordinary” consciousness and experience. Like festivals, uprisings cannot happen every day — otherwise they would not be “nonordinary.” But such moments of intensity give shape and meaning to the entirety of a life. The shaman returns — you can’t stay up on the roof forever — but things have changed, shifts and integrations have occurred — a difference is made.

You will argue that this is a counsel of despair. What of the anarchist dream, the Stateless state, the Commune, the autonomous zone with duration, a free society, a free culture? Are we to abandon that hope in return for some existentialist acte gratuit? The point is not to change consciousness but to change the world.

I accept this as a fair criticism. I’d make two rejoinders nevertheless; first, revolution has never yet resulted in achieving this dream. The vision comes to life in the moment of uprising — but as soon as “the Revolution” triumphs and the State returns, the dream and the ideal are already betrayed. I have not given up hope or even expectation of change — but I distrust the word Revolution. Second, even if we replace the revolutionary approach with a concept of insurrection blossoming spontaneously into anarchist culture, our own particular historical situation is not propitious for such a vast undertaking. Absolutely nothing but a futile martyrdom could possibly result now from a head-on collision with the terminal State, the megacorporate information State, the empire of Spectacle and Simulation. Its guns are all pointed at us, while our meager weaponry finds nothing to aim at but a hysteresis, a rigid vacuity, a Spook capable of smothering every spark in an ectoplasm of information, a society of capitulation ruled by the image of the Cop and the absorbant eye of the TV screen.

In short, we’re not touting the TAZ as an exclusive end in itself, replacing all other forms of organization, tactics, and goals. We recommend it because it can provide the quality of enhancement associated with the uprising without necessarily leading to violence and martyrdom. The TAZ is like an uprising which does not engage directly with the State, a guerilla operation which liberates an area (of land, of time, of imagination) and then dissolves itself to re-form elsewhere/elsewhen, before the State can crush it. Because the State is concerned primarily with Simulation rather than substance, the TAZ can “occupy” these areas clandestinely and carry on its festal purposes for quite a while in relative peace. Perhaps certain small TAZs have lasted whole lifetimes because they went unnoticed, like hillbilly enclaves — because they never intersected with the Spectacle, never appeared outside that real life which is invisible to the agents of Simulation.

Babylon takes its abstractions for realities; precisely within this margin of error the TAZ can come into existence. Getting the TAZ started may involve tactics of violence and defense, but its greatest strength lies in its invisibility — the State cannot recognize it because History has no definition of it. As soon as the TAZ is named (represented, mediated), it must vanish, it will vanish, leaving behind it an empty husk, only to spring up again somewhere else, once again invisible because undefinable in terms of the Spectacle. The TAZ is thus a perfect tactic for an era in which the State is omnipresent and all-powerful and yet simultaneously riddled with cracks and vacancies. And because the TAZ is a microcosm of that “anarchist dream” of a free culture, I can think of no better tactic by which to work toward that goal while at the same time experiencing some of its benefits here and now.

In sum, realism demands not only that we give up waiting for “the Revolution” but also that we give up wanting it. “Uprising,” yes — as often as possible and even at the risk of violence. The spasming of the Simulated State will be “spectacular,” but in most cases the best and most radical tactic will be to refuse to engage in spectacular violence, to withdraw from the area of simulation, to disappear.

The TAZ is an encampment of guerilla ontologists: strike and run away. Keep moving the entire tribe, even if it’s only data in the Web. The TAZ must be capable of defense; but both the “strike” and the “defense” should, if possible, evade the violence of the State, which is no longer a meaningful violence. The strike is made at structures of control, essentially at ideas; the defense is “invisibility,” a martial art, and “invulnerability” — an “occult” art within the martial arts. The “nomadic war machine” conquers without being noticed and moves on before the map can be adjusted. As to the future — Only the autonomous can plan autonomy, organize for it, create it. It’s a bootstrap operation. The first step is somewhat akin to satori — the realization that the TAZ begins with a simple act of realization.

…source