Sheffield Anti-militarism Newswire Archive

Britain has named 19 of the 24 people arrested yesterday on suspicion of plotting to blow up passenger jets flying to the United States and has frozen their assets. We go to Britain to look why many British Muslims are skeptical of the plot and fear a backlash on their communities.

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In the weeks after Israel launched its attack on Lebanon, a team of New York-based artists, designers, and multimedia producers converged on a warehouse location in Brooklyn to create a Public Service Announcement for Electronic Lebanon. The two minute PSA is intended for wide distribution and public viewing. A laptop version of the PSA, for projection, is also available for download. Activists and others seeking broadcast-quality versions of the PSA are asked to contact EI.

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"Another [9/11] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity to retaliate against some known targets"

One essential feature of "defense" in the case of a second major attack on America, is "offense", according to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff: "Homeland security is one piece of a broader strategy [which] brings the battle to the enemy." (DHS, Transcript of complete March 2005 speech of Secr. Michael Chertoff)

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Following on from Saturday's 100,000+ demonstration, last nights Sheffield StWC
organising meeting laid down a number of plans and activities for the coming
period, which I will set out below in chronological order.
Given what is almost universally seen as a murdeous assault by Israel on Lebanon
and indeed Palestine, and the the continued bloody occupation of Afghanistan
and Iraq, last night we quite rightly decided to step up the action and pile on
the pressure on Bush, Blair, Olmert and their warmongering cohorts to stop the
slaughter and stop it now.

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The Menwith Hill spy base near Harrogate in North Yorkshire is the largest electronic monitoring station in the world. Run by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States, it is one of a global network of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) bases, which monitors the world's communications and relays information to NSA HQ at Fort Meade in Maryland, USA.

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On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes struck the southern Lebanese town of Ghaziyeh, killing at least 14 people. Missiles demolished civilian homes just as some 1,500 mourners were participating in a procession to bury 15 of their relatives and neighbors slain just the day before. The explosions sent the crowd running in panic, dropping shrouded corpses in the street.

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"The world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them…Hitler—as odious as he is to us—has given this idea a good name in the world." Ze’ev Jabotinsky; Ideological founder of the Likud Party "One Palestine Complete" p 407

"The raw logic of Israel’s distorted self-image and racist doctrines is exposed beyond confusion by the now-stark reality: the moonscape rubble of once-lovely Lebanese villages; a million desperate people trying to survive Israeli aerial attacks as they carry children and wheel disabled grandparents down cratered roads; limp bodies of children pulled from the dusty basements of crushed buildings. This is the reality of Israel’s national doctrine, the direct outcome of its racist worldview." Virginia Tilley "The Case for Boycotting Israel" Counterpunch

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‘We are farmers, we can fall back on the land, hide in caves, make our own cheese and eat our lambs. The Israelis in their bunkers, this life upsets them. They will quit.’ — Mohammed Mulimh, 29, a Lebanese farmer

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On Saturday night July 30th 2006, in the Lebanese village of Qana, 64 Lebanese civilians, comprising the members of two extended families were sleeping in an unfinished building. The families were seeking shelter from Israeli air raids in the ground floor of the building. In the early hours of Sunday morning, as the men women and many children slept, an Israeli jet hit the building with two US-made 'bunker buster' bombs. The choice of munitions seems appropriate because, after all, these people were taking refuge in a bunker of sorts. Unfortunately, these were not enemy soldiers but rather innocent civilians, 56 of whom were killed as the building collapsed on them, including 30 children, all under 12 years old. Among the dead was a one day old baby, whose mother was also killed.

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In the last few weeks, an increasing number of horrible, very upsetting photos of the massacres committed by Israel have been coming out of Lebanon.

The alternative media are doing everything possible to break the censorship of images that was enforced by the Corporate and authoritarian State media which only show a sanitized war, disinfected images of material destruction.

The smuggling and widespread dissemination of images from The Realm of The Real that are coming out out of Lebanon and Gaza now make all of us uncomfortable. For those of us who do editing and publishing work, they bring up the awful worry of "is this appropriate?"

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Capitalism hiding behind the veil of democracy, herding people into capitalism hiding behind veil of religious etremism - the black vs white division, the call to war - a battle that deletes any possibility of humane and socialist principles to find a voice and momentum either in the West or Middle East.

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If the Lebanon war were to escalate into a broader conflict involving Syria, Turkish ground troops could be deployed under the terms of the Israeli-Turkish military alliance. It is worth mentioning that prime ministers Recep Erdogan and Ariel Sharon in a 2005 meeting in Tel Aviv decided to set up a "Hotline for the exchange of intelligence" as part of their evolving military alliance. What this suggests is that Turkey is a potential partner in the ongoing war on Lebanon.

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Tony Blair and Condoleeza Rice have recently made statements that suggest a view that is, essentially, genocidal in nature. In so doing, they have stripped away their saccrine masks of democracy and apple pie, exposing themselves for the lizards they are.

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"At best, Blair sounds like a defeated former colonialist visiting the world from his grave. At worst, we just had the opportunity to peep into the mind of a desperate war lord."

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The sharp escalation of the attacks against Lebanon Friday have made it abundantly clear that the objective of this US-Israeli war of aggression is to demolish Lebanon as an independent and sovereign country.

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A sample letter to send to your local MP

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A group of orthodox Jews arrived somewhat late at Thursday's rally for Lebanon In Sheffield and their Rabbi asked to speak. They were warmly welcomed by Palestinian spokesperson Musheir and all present.

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Despite short notice there was a good turn out of protestors in Sheffield on 3rd August 2006 at the Stop the War demo. The protest included a 5min sit down protest on the road in front of the Town Hall which blocked all the traffic.

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London, 1st August 2006

The sheer brutality of the butchery of civilians by Israeli WMD –
bombs and fighter planes provided by the United States – on Lebanon
is firstly a warning to the rest of the world from the United
States: `accept US global domination, or else'; and secondly, it is
the beginning of a serious struggle for all-out control over Middle-
East, Caspian Basin and Central Asian oil and gas. It is not the
puppet Israel but the US itself who sets the tone of this
purposefully brutal war, a war which opens up a qualitative change
in US aggression and inter-imperialist conflict, a period that will
draw the whole world into intensifying horrors and suffering. At the
same time this new period opens a large window for the dramatic re-
appearance of world-wide mass class struggle bringing workers and
youth back into the centre-stage of global politics.

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Hands off Lebanon, Freedom for Palestine

Urgent Protest 5pm, Thursday 3rd August at Sheffield Town Hall

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