America vs. The World (1 Viewer)

[ian bastardcore]

So then , what does everyone reckon about americans compelling evidence today ?

mobile laboratorys on trucks ? satellite photos of trucks? a radio call telling someone to hide the nerve gas?

i at least thought that they could forge something better than this ?

also good to see that some of the war planes are gettin out of shannon.strange about the 120 troops with the permission to kill though.does anyone know if there is more protests planned for shannon ?

 

[Bad_Penny_Model]

permission to kill?

 

[ian bastardcore]

yup those 120 irish troops who have sent up to shannon to help the gardai have been told they can shoot anyone who trys to get near the planes as far as i heard.well dodgy.

 

[pete]

Not quite

Troops to be deployed at airport

The Minister for Defence, Michael Smith, has confirmed that 120 armed troops are to be deployed at Shannon Airport to support Gardaí in maintaining security.

However, Mr Smith denied that soldiers would be empowered to shoot at protesters causing damage to property.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Mr Smith said troops were entitled to protect themselves if their lives were at stake, but this did not extend to firing on people attacking property.

He said their task was to ensure that no-one breaks through the security lines to attack US planes.

The move follows the Garda Commissioner's request for Army back-up to protect the airport. The issue is likely to be raised in the Dáil this afternoon.

The US authorities, for their part, are not concealing their annoyance at two recent incidents, during which a US Navy plane was damaged.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2003/0204/shannon.html

 

[niallmc]

What about Richard Haas complaining that people would use violence to promote peace. Imagine! The shock of it all????? Not one reporter questioned him on that> Not one thought to say "well actually Dick, is that not what you plan on doing to IRAQ" I suppose an axe to a plane is a more violent weapon than bombs on buildings!!!

Yeah you know there's an Anti-War march on Feb 15. WHy not e-mail your local politicians and ask their stance on it. See if they're going to the march?

 

[Bad_Penny_Model]

I heard the minister on the radio this monring talking such bullshit about neutrality etc.

he seperated military and political neutrality, i dont get it?

It's like he is hiding something/

 

[silo]

well, they're running out of excuses if that's the sort of stuff they're coming out with. "we're neutral, but, well, only sometimes".

hopefully there'll be a couple more direct actions at shannon, meaning a full militarisation, making it obvious to all that the army is there to prevent, rather than implement the law. the primary role of government is to protect property from the majority, and all that jazz.

 

[Winty]

One of the Iraqis was recorded saying: "By God......"



Apparently.

 

[ElderLemon]

If it's America vs. The World, I'll hjave ten euro on America please....

 

[ElderLemon]

More seriously, as regards the whole police/army thing, I suppose the fact that the five guys overpowered/restrained a garda left the government with little real option. It's not just that the same plane had been damaged twice, but it seemed to highlight a lax attitude towards security - which might attract more unwelcome attention.

I thought the Peace camp generated favourable publicity for the anti-war cause, but the vandalism of the planes (and especially the last incident) won't have helped. The fact of the matter is that there is a general sympathy for the anti-war position in Ireland, but in political terms, it is very "soft" support - in other words, it is liable to change and acts such as vandalising planes won't help.

 

[my sherona]

Ok heres some stuff you mightn't have heard. you know the way the US are constantly pushing for 'free-er' trade, using their whores like the WTO to do their dirty work, and that they maintain that free trade is good for the poor, and protectionism is the road to poverty etc?well they after doing just that by putting up a big dirty tariff against importing steel into the US.i know given the current state of affairs that this seems relatively minor, but stuff like this must show clearly to the mainstream/general public that these evil hypocritical cunts don't give a fuk about anyone, and how can anyone believe a word that comes out of their dollar stained mouths.

 

[the strange guy]

<quote>
but the vandalism of the planes (and especially the last incident) won't have helped
</quote>


It did. The 'vandalism' made one of the airliners carrying troops divert all flights to Frankfurt as a direct consequence. Waving placards and coming up with catchy slogans had no affect whatsoever. If it wasn't for Ciaran and co, we'd all be in the same situation

 

[damien]

yr not gonna find much back-up with pussy-footing dodgy reformist talk like that here, ElderLemon.
got this article on shannon/direct action today, pretty interesting.



The coming war is a vast effort for the US and its lapdog Britain as the
hundreds of thousands of men and the tens of thousands of tons of equipment
they require are transported from bases in the US and Britain to the Gulf.
Modern war requires an enormous supply chain to keep all those fuel guzzling
tanks and planes on the move. The modern way of killing using enormous
quantities of bullets, bombs and explosives.

In 'Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War'
General William G. Pagonis revealed that 7 million tons of supplies had to be
shipped to the battlefield then. Winston Churchill said of war: "Victory is
the beautiful, bright-coloured flower. Transport is the stem without which it
never could have blossomed."

There is often a feeling among anti-war activists that there is little we can
do to directly impact on war. The figures above suggest otherwise, for these
supplies move through airports and ports near us, or down road and rail
networks near the places we live. The quantities of supplies needed to fight
this war are enormous, in 1991 for instance the 1450th transportation company
supplied 7.75 million gallons of fuel to the airforce and tanks attacking
Iraq. We are not just talking tanks and infantry here, in WWII the US army
depended on over three times as many men to supply the information and
transport as were actually in combat[ii].

One airport these supplies are flowing through is the commercial airport at
Shannon in the south west of Ireland. Every day and average of 5 or 6 US
military planes land here to refuel as they transport soldiers and supplies to
the Gulf. Some of these planes, like the Hercules C130 are obviously
military, and can even be used to drop bombs. Some others are of a civilian
type but are owned by the military and have a role in providing the essential
support services that allow war to be waged. Most however are commercial
airlines charted by the military to transport troops.

Over the last year Shannon airport has seen many protests by those who oppose
the war. These protests have involved Direct Action, it the attempt to
directly effect the ability to wage war, on a number of occasions. The
numbers involved in these actions have not been huge, perhaps a couple of
hundred in all. But already they are having an impact on the war.

On three occasions individuals or small groups of activists have succeeded in
reaching and damaging military planes. One result of this has been that one
of the commercial airliners ferrying troops, World Airlines, have announced
that they are going to stop using Shannon, and are diverting their next 17
troop transports to Frankfurt airport [iii]. The activists have also
succeeded in grounding a US Navy plane, after it was attacked firstly with an
axe and days later by five more activists from the 'Catholic Worker'
organisation with hammers and axes.

Of course if this sort of action only took place at Shannon then, although it
has already caused headaches for those shipping supplies to the war, it would
not present an insoluble problem. World Airlines have diverted to Frankfurt
for the moment. But if these actions start to happen everywhere there is an
anti-war movement then the war machine is in trouble. And there is mass
opposition to this war in every country in Europe and in the US itself.

Direct Actions are taking place in other countries already. Britain has seen
well over a dozen with a particular focus on the naval port of Portsmouth
where Greenpeace is engaged in a sustained campaign to block the shipment of
war supplies. But as in Ireland it is only a tiny minority of those involved
in the anti-war movements who are involved in such actions.

Shannon demonstrates that direct action gets the goods, that even a tiny
number of people tacking action can cause hiccups in the logistics chain.
What is now needed is that the anti-war movements start to take themselves
seriously. Up to now the political parties that are leading these movement
have rubbished direct actions such as the ones at Shannon as ineffective
'individual action'. Now we have seen that these individual actions have had
more of a direct impact on the war then six hundred times this number
passively marching though our towns.

The slogan 'Stop the War' needs to be taken as more then a passive plea to our
rulers to stop supporting the war effort. It needs to be seen as a call to
action - it is up to us to stop the war. If 300,000 can be mobilised to march
through London then surely 50,000 can be mobilised to shut down Northwood
Military HQ also in the London area. Or 20,000 to march on the bomber and
refuelling bases essential to the war that are scattered around Britain.

Marches have and will continue to have an essential role in building
opposition to the war and bringing new people into the movements. But it is
now clear that we can do more, that we can take action against this war. In
this war our rulers do not need us to fight as soldiers, they would like but
do not require our support for the war. They do however need us to remain
passive, for if we turn our disgust at this war into action against it then
their war machine will grind to a halt.

Joe Black

More information on the protests at Shannon at
http://struggle.ws/wsm/shannon.html and www.indymedia.ie

More information on direct actions around the globe at
http://struggle.ws/stopthewar.html

i See http://www.millersgulfwar.org/utpage.html
ii http://search.eb.com/normandy/articles/logistic_background.html
iii http://www.indymedia.ie/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=27145&start=20

 

[nma]

If this sort of direct action takes place at airports all over the world would'nt the people with the guns (the military) shoot the people with the hammers and axes (the protesters).

 

[ElderLemon]

Damien, you're missing the point. For a start, the only reason the five guys got in was because of the embarrassingly lax security - and - rightly or wrongly - the government has moved to ensure that that will not happen again. The point is that such acts alienate public opinion, which until now has been sympathetic to the anti-war cause. This is a democracy, and the rule of thumb in democracies is that governments can't afford to fly in the face of sustained public opposition. Acts of vandalism on this scale have about much effect as a flea biting an elephant's bum, and only serve to damage the integrity of an otherwise worthy cause.

As for "pussy-footing dodgy reformist talk" you're also wide of the mark, as I'm not an anti-war activist. I'm keeping my mind open on the whole thing, but as of at the moment I'm distinctly sceptical about the necessity for a war. The revelations about Downing Street's cockup on the news this evening has also served to heighten my feelings of scepticism.

 

[Corm]

Elderlemso, that's what I used to think until I got sick of wasting my time -yeah, sure, a couple of civil servants in Leitrim who wouldn't describe themselves as political in any way might have doubts about bombing Iraq, and be mildly concerned about US warplanes in Shannon, and may recoil in horror at direct actions which involve grounding warplanes, but in the end of the day, no matter whether there's hundreds of people thinking like that or tens of thousands of people thinking like that, it makes no difference -do you think Bertie & co. will change their tune as regards their pro-US policy? No fucking way they will. And then the next big media shock story/distraction will come along and it's all forgotten. However, with these kind of actions and the army, etc around the airport now, things are stepped up a bit. People will have to take more notice. It's in the papers, on the news, etc. It's actually gaining concrete results, the US are pissed off at Ireland, and the army are guarding the airport. Things are escalating up to the point where everyone WON'T be able to sit on the fence anymore, and will realise that yes, direct action can, does and will work to change things.

It's far to late in the day to keep hoping, hoping, hoping that the politicians will start giving a shit -they've proved over & over again that they don't and they won't. The world is going straight down the fucking tubes and all the political canvassing and banner waving in the world won't stop that. Direct action is not the only way, but it's an integral and essential part of the resistance.

 

[W.]

exactly what corm said, using fickle public opinion isn't exactly the best method of getting something done especially in the face of an almost omnipresent nemesis (capitalism+america+war) Nothing will ever really change if all we're going to do is play by their rules and have little PR battles.

 

[ElderLemon]

Yeah, but the whole point I'm making is that if public opinion (fickle or otherwise) is against you, the government will be under no pressure to change its policies...

In my experience, Direct Action (generally speaking) alienates public opinion - yes taking an axe to a plane (and "comforting and reassuring" a guard) is probably going to cause a logistical blip, but it's not going to cause the Pentagon to start backpedalling. The Peace camp at Shannon probably won general sympathy from the public, and gave the anti-war cause
good publicity. The attack on the plane had a negative effect on public opinion and has given anti-anti-war (is that grammatically correct?) elements in the media (ie The Sunday Indo) a big stick to beat the anti-war movement with.

Now, I speak with the burden of years upon my shoulders but in fairness my background is in student and party politics, not in, for want of a better word, street politics. But at the end of a day, the aim is pretty much the same : Get public opinion on your side.

In relation to Corm's point, yes, the CWM got the anti-war cause into the papers, but for the wrong reasons; the Peace Camp was already attracting considerable publicity beforehand.

That said, if I was ten years younger and my testosterone levels were what they were, I'd probably be all on for a bit of "Direct Action" fisticuffs. But I'd probably just talk about it and then wimp out...

 

[rape the drummer]

ok direct action supports mostly bad attention when its 5 ppl branching off being violent however many ppl getting together and doing something shows public opinion is heavily against war-go to the punks against war thread and you'll see my idea

 

[Corm]

Originally posted by ElderLemon
That said, if I was ten years younger and my testosterone levels were what they were, I'd probably be all on for a bit of "Direct Action" fisticuffs. But I'd probably just talk about it and then wimp out...

Blah blah blah -that kind of shit just makes you part of the fucking machine. I'm sorry, but that's exactly how they want you to think -youthful idiots take part in Direct Action ("oh, that's just smashing things up") while more mature, realistic people turn to party politics.

What's the fucking point in the end of it all anyway?