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Recent Appearances...

Fifth Column

Virginia man who set police car ablaze during George Floyd riot sentenced to 364 days, avoids deportation

2022-07-21

[FoxNews] The first of six people charged with setting fire to police vehicles in Philadelphia during the 2020 protests after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police has been sentenced.

Ayoub Tabri, 25, was sentenced Monday to 364 days behind bars -- less time than he's already served in custody, and short enough to avoid triggering deportation proceedings for the Moroccan immigrant.

Lawyers for Tabri, of Arlington, Va., said the green card holder has been in the U.S. since he was 6 years old. A longer sentence, which he and the others faced under the original arson charges that carried a minimum sentence of seven years in prison, could have sent him to a country where he knew no one and didn't speak the language, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Former U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain had vowed to pursue the harsher arson charges against the six people arrested. After he left office last year, federal prosecutors worked out plea deals with a handful of those defendants, including Tabri and Lore-Elizabeth Blumenthal. Still, prosecutors argued for a longer sentence in court Monday.

Tabri pleaded guilty in March to one count of obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder, according to court records.

"The judge took into consideration the appropriate factors and imposed a just sentence," Nancy MacEoin, a federal public defender representing Tabri, said Tuesday.

Once released, Tabri will serve three years probation and have to pay about $87,000 in restitution for the Pennsylvania State Police car destroyed after he and others threw lit road flares into the vehicle.

Blumenthal, who pleaded guilty to two counts of obstructing law enforcement during civil disorder related to throwing a piece of burning police barrier at a police car, is scheduled to be sentenced later this month. Police used photos from the protest and social media profiles to find Blumenthal, 35, from Jenkintown, who was wearing a distinctive shirt investigators tracked down on Etsy and had a recognizable tattoo.

Attorney Paul Hetznecker declined to comment on the specifics of Blumenthal's case, but said the shift in prosecution against defendants facing charges from the protests is important.

"This reflects an evolution in the thinking of prosecutors in the justice department

...what a gentle way to describe being unprincipled political hacks...

about these cases and putting them in the appropriate context," Hetznecker said. "These cases occurred at an important flashpoint in our history, and they should be viewed that way."

The case against Blumenthal was widely criticized by civil rights advocates, who worried it was a signal of policies promoting heavier social media and internet surveillance of dissidents.

Did any of those wide civil rights advocates protest the exact same use of social media to hint down the January 6 protesters?

McSwain's initial charges also became a symbol of federal officials' zeal to pursue stiff penalties for those arrested during the nationwide protests.

Another defendant is scheduled for a plea hearing to lesser charges later this month. The three others charged in the police vehicle fires are slated to go to trial later this year.

Update at 5:00 p.m. EDT from information found on links on Mr. Tabri’s Antifa Watch page. From Fox29 on October 29, 2020:

US Attorney William McSwain announced charges against four men stemming from their alleged involvement in police vehicle arsons during civil unrest in Philadelphia over the summer.

Anthony David Smith, Khalif Miller, and Carlos Matchett have each been charged with two counts of arson and one count of obstructing law enforcement, U.S. Attorney William McSwain said on Thursday.

According to McSwain, the three men are accused of using a road flare to torch a Philadelphia police patrol car parked near City Hall on May 30, as ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful demonstrations unfolded in the city following the death of St. George Floyd

...the patron saint of Minneapolis, a sterling example for our children and indeed for us all. St. George was martyed by the Devil's agents in blue while standing on a street corner preaching tolerance and racial justice or something like that...
Smith has been identified by the Workers World Party,

...a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist-Trotskyist political party in the United States founded in 1959 by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party....

as a high school teacher, community leader and organizer with Philly REAL (Racial, Economic and Legal) Justice. They say Smith has been a 'prominent organizer' of the Black Lives Matter Movement since 2015 and has led countless marches in that time.

So prominent he is now appearing in the Rantburg archives for the first time...

"Mr. Smith was not in any way targeted by my office, I knew nothing about Mr. Smith or his affiliations until the investigation was nearly complete," McSwain said. "We do not investigate people at the US Attorney's office, we investigate alleged criminal behavior."

According to McSwain, the three men are accused of using a road flare to torch a Philadelphia police patrol car near City Hall on May 30, as ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful demonstrations unfolded in the city following the death of George Floyd.

Also indicted on Thursday was Ayoub Tabri,

...known to his friends as Spliff, for some reason...

a 24-year-old man from Arlington, Virginia. Tabri is alleged to have thrown a road flare into a Pennsylvania State Police SUV positioned near the on-ramp for I-676, which caused the car to become engulfed in flames. He has been charged with two counts of arson, and one count of obstructing law enforcement.

As a result of Tabri's alleged actions, McSwain said an officer who was standing near the torched vehicle was hit by a thrown road flare and his uniform caught fire. The trooper was also burned on the hand when he reached into the engulfed cruiser to retrieve a rifle to prevent it from being stolen.

If convicted, all four defendants face a mandatory minimum of seven years in prison, and a maximum possible sentence of 65 years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $750,000.

"I want to be clear that we at the U.S. Attorney’s Office support peaceful protest — indeed, it is part of our job to protect First Amendment freedoms," McSwain said. "But violence is not speech. There is no right to riot, loot, rob, destroy or commit arson."

Related: Antifa Philly for REAL Justice

Link

-Great Cultural Revolution

Analyst: System in US 'must be overthrown to achieve justice' for Black people

2021-11-26

[Iran Press TV] The system in the United States "must be tossed to achieve justice for African Americans," African American writer and journalist Abayomi Azikiwe says.
Detroit organizer of the Workers World Party and editor of the Pan-African Newswire

The Workers World Party is a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist-Trotskyist political party in the United States founded in 1959 by a group led by Sam Marcy of the Socialist Workers Party.

Azikiwe, an editor at the Pan-African News Wire, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday while commenting on a statement by US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass. Don't say he didn't warn us...
who said the verdict that found the three white men charged in the death of African American Ahmaud Arbery guilty of multiple counts of murder was not enough.

"While the guilty verdicts reflect our justice system doing its job, that alone is not enough. Instead, we must recommit ourselves to building a future of unity and shared strength, where no one fears violence because of the color of their skin," Biden said in a statement.

He said his administration "will continue to do the hard work to ensure that equal justice under law is not just a phrase emblazoned in stone above the Supreme Court
...the political football known as The Highest Court in the Land, home of penumbrae and emanations...
, but a reality for all Americans."

On Wednesday, all three white men charged in the killing of Arbery, an unarmed 25-year-old Black Moslem man, were convicted of murder by a jury in the state of Georgia.

All three defendants were convicted of murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal intent to commit a felony. They face a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Travis McMichael, 35, who fatally shot Arbery, was convicted on all nine charges, including malice, murder and four counts of felony murder.

McMichael's father, Gregory McMichael, 65, was convicted on the remaining charges, including the felony murder counts. McMichael's neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan, was also found guilty of three of the felony murder counts.

Prosecutors have said that they intend to seek life in prison without parole for the three defendants.

Link

Fifth Column

‘Maoist revolutionary forces’ (read: larpers) confront ‘Marcyite revisionists’ (read: almost identical larpers) in Austin. Tough guy flashes concealed pistol.

2019-02-06

OK, get ready for a laugh. These are the ones who want to overthrow our system and institute socialism, and they can't even agree with each other. This is why socialism fails. Far left vs. far, far, far left.
[IncendiaryNewsService] Workers World Party (WWP) and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) attempted to hold a protest at the intersection of East Riverside Drive and South Pleasant Valley in Southeast Austin this past Saturday. But the area is home to revolutionary forces, the enemies of revisionists. Masked militants descended on the revisionist protestors almost immediately.

Both the WWP and PSL are nearly identical "Marcyite" revisionist organizations that trace their origin to the late American former Trotskyite and revisionist Sam Marcy who founded the WWP. Marcy’s revisionist politics defended social-imperialism and all revisionist governments.

A reader leaked information to Incendiary from a WWP chat group in the Signal app.

"Anytime PSL or Eno[ch] are involved, [the militants] are going to come. They smashed the mega[phone], tore up signs and were very intimidating," a Marcyite said in the chat.

The confrontation was of no surprise since the Maoist movement has had longstanding issues with the PSL and WWP, which include PSL harboring a rapist as well as WWP’s Austin branch collaborating with a federal informant and fascists, detailed in previous Incendiary reports.

Masked revolutionaries, who outnumbered the revisionists, gave a list of demands to the lead organizer of the WWP in Austin, "Enoch," the former leader of Central Texas Socialist Rifle Association.
Socialist Rifle Association? I thought rifle associations were racist and fascist?

It’s Texas, darlin’. Even the armadillos go armed.

The demands read: "1. that you make a public acknowledgment and apology for the fact that you [Enoch] worked with a federal informant, 2. we also demand that you have members of PSL leave this protest, 3. we also demand that you put away all WWP propaganda or it will be taken from you."

A Chicano militant could be heard saying, "Will you meet these demands? If you do not meet these demands, we will have to ask you to leave."

"How exactly would you do that?" Enoch said. "Eat my ass, that’s my demand."

Immediately after, a woman militant rushed forward and seized his megaphone by force. Other militants went in and confiscated PSL and WWP propaganda signs and leaflets.
A woman took it from him. Noodle-armed soyboys. Eating too much soy puts estrogen in your body and makes you less masculine.

Materials with WWP or PSL propaganda were confiscated by revolutionary forces
Enoch, visibly shook, stumbled back and turned around to lift his shirt, flashing a previously concealed sidearm in an attempt to menace the Chicano militant. This kind of threat is typical of white men who come into the barrio from Northwest Austin. These types quickly morph from activist do-gooders, degenerating into racist stand-your-ground types the moment their ego is bruised by people of the oppressed nations.

Enoch attempts to menace by flashing a concealed handgun
After refusing to submit to the demands issued by the masked militants, and after the use of force by women and Chicano militants, Enoch went to claim to stand for these groups by saying that he was part of an organization that trains "LGBT people" and, in his stumbling words, "color of people" in "self-defense and arms training."

Enoch talking to police
Moments later Incendiary witnessed Enoch provide a statement to the Austin Police Department who, at that point, had arrived to protect him and the WWP-PSL contingent from the revolutionaries of the barrio.

As the red-masked militants dressed in military fatigues departed in an organized manner, a WWP member from out of town began calling the militants "police" in spite of the fact that their organization’s local leader was at that very moment filing a police report against the militants. WWP and revisionists in general are always ready to use bourgeois law and order against community members and revolutionaries who oppose their traitorous activity.

According to sources on the ground, the action was carried out on the basis of the demands given, against WWP and PSL and where they chose to have the protest. It had nothing to do with the nature of the protest taking place. The militants made it clear they were not there over any disagreement with opposing US intervention in Venezuela, emphasizing their support for the Venezuelan people against US imperialism.

The Southeast side, locally referred to as the 41, has long been a base of Maoist operations, which include tenant organizing, anti-police organizing and confrontations with local fascists.

Since the confrontation, members and supporters of WWP and PSL have been silent on the matter on social media in an attempt to regroup and hide their embarrassing failure to protect their signs and equipment from being confiscated by revolutionaries.

Incendiary received a video of masked militants burning the confiscated materials which we will make available in the coming days.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Trump fueling racism, bigotry in US: Journalist

2017-08-24

[Iran Press TV] The United States was founded on racism by European settlers and President Donald Trump
...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States...
has fueled the racial violence by white supremacist groups, an African American journalist in bankrupt, increasingly impoverished, reliably Democrat, Detroit
... ruled by Democrats since 1962. A city whose Golden Age included the Purple Gang...
says.

Racism and white supremacy is "coming from the top down, it is coming from people who control the means of production, who control the White House and the Congress," said Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor of Pan-African News Wire.

He is also a Detroit organizer of the Workers World Party, one of the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties -- sort of a multiple threat.

Trump "utilizes and fuels racism and white supremacy, and other forms of bigotry ... [and] is very much in tune with these racists, xenophobic and pro-capitalists sentiments," Azikiwe said in an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

"The United States itself, as a nation state, was founded on racism and genocide," he said.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

CodePink: When in Danger, Call for the Marines!

2008-02-29

which they did!
When in danger, call for the US Marines. Thats what CodePinks Medea Benjamin did

Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin, who can turn the air blue when shouting chants against American Marines called out for the Marines in front of Marine Recruiting offices in Berkeley yesterday.

Eamon Kelley, the young Marine who is featured in Move America Forwards TV commercial that ran on Fox News earlier this week, could hardly believe his own ears when Benjamin called on the Marines for help.

Kelley, who is recovering from back surgery, spent his day in Berkeley, where CodePink continues with Berkeley councils blessing, to keep a virtual blockade at the recruit center, expanding its efforts to harass American troops and to turn back any young Americans looking to enlist.

City Council stubbornly refuses to apologize and continues to subsidize free parking for CodePink to drive soldiers out of town.

While we were at the protest in Berkeley from 12 to 4 p.m., a white Volvo drove by and a man spat upon CodePink, Kelley wrote in an email to MAFs Melanie Morgan. They chased him down the street and got into a verbal altercation. The police were NOWHERE in sight.

Thats not the best part, ready for this?

Medea Benjamin yelled and I quote Marines! She actually yelled for our help because this man had stepped out of his car. I even asked her if she was yelling Police and she told me, I said Marines then put her arm around my friend Allen (the Marine Vet). Ironic?

Benjamin, who turned on her former close friend, San Francisco Bay Area activist Maria Ruzicka, later killed in Iraq in a widely-publicized suicide bombing, over Ruzickas decision to work with the U.S. military to secure compensation for the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan, is on the record for supporting Cuba and Venezuela.

Benjamin has drawn conservative criticism for her support of Hugo Chavez and her attacks on the U.S. embargo of Fidel Castros Cuba. Conservative writer David Horowitzs FrontPageMag has attacked her as a long-time Castro acolyte. (Wikipedia, the free encylopedia).

Many of the causes that Ms. Benjamin espouses are Communist in nature. The Washington peace rally at which she spoke last month, for instance, was organized by the Workers World Party, a Communist organizationIn years past, she staunchly opposed US military and to those fighting against Communist forces in Central AmericaShe favors the creation of a government-sponsored universal health care system funded by taxpayer dollars. She exhorts the US government to lift its trade embargo against Cubaa nation she notably lauds as a place where people have managed to thrive despite the odds against them.

On Dec. 4, 2007 Benjamin was arrested by plainclothes officers, detained by the ISI for eight hours, and deported after protesting the house arrest of lawyers (including Aitzaz Ahsan) in Lahore, Pakistan.

Now the record shows that in spite of the slogans and chants delivered in high-pitched screams, when Medea Benjamin wants to put the enemy on the run, she yells for the same relief called upon by the citizens of many trouble spots in the world: Americas brave Marines.

Yesterday in front of Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, Calif., Medea Benjamin gave new meaning to the old adage: Ah, the things you see when you dont have your camera.

Link

Home Front: WoT

U.S. antiwar protests shrink

2007-10-04

Hat tip Gateway Pundit. Read a little and you'll find an astonishing admission by the AP.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Crowds at antiwar rallies in Washington have dwindled even as U.S. opinion has turned against the war in Iraq, as organizers feud and participants question the effectiveness of the street protests.

Rival antiwar groups, which in years past jointly sponsored massive rallies on the National Mall, have promoted separate protests recently or decided to steer clear of the capital altogether. The thinning crowds stand in contrast to the antiwar protests of the Vietnam era, which grew as the war progressed.

Activists and experts say divisions among peace groups, along with other factors like the lack of a draft, fatigue about the war and the rise of the Internet, have all contributed to the declining turnout.

Not to mention that Americans generally like winners, and we're winning in Iraq.

Sparse turnout -- fewer than 1,000 at a rally on Saturday, according to local media reports -- could undermine the goal of forcing an end to U.S. involvement in Iraq, participants say. "When you have demonstrations in which the turnout is not terribly impressive, that gives politicians the sense that people may oppose the war but nobody's really going to pay a price," said Peter Kuznik, an American University history professor and antiwar protester.

The 2006 elections didn't send a message about getting out of Iraq. The message instead was, get serious about winning or get out. Bush got serious: he moved Gates in, started the surge, and got the right leadership in the region. Americans are responding to that.

Antiwar rallies drew hundreds of thousands of people at the war's start in 2003, although only 23 percent of Americans then said the invasion was a mistake, according to a USA Today/Gallup Poll. That figure is now 58 percent.

Depending on how you ask the question, of course.

Saturday's protest, sponsored by the Troops Out Now Coalition, came two weeks after an antiwar event sponsored by the ANSWER Coalition, which drew roughly 10,000 people. ANSWER also sponsored a rally in March.

The groups' agendas are similar, opposing what they call "imperialist" U.S. policy not only in Iraq but toward countries like Cuba and Iran -- which has alienated some supporters. "There's all of these peripheral issues that you're going to be associated with, whether you want to or not," said Hamilton College history professor Maurice Isserman.

And here's the amazing AP revelation:

Both groups' leaders were associated with the Workers World Party, which advocates a shift toward a Soviet-style planned economy. But a 2004 dispute prompted some members to form the splinter Party for Socialism and Liberation. Members of the splinter group stayed active in the ANSWER Coalition, and the remaining members of the Workers World Party formed the Troops Out Now Coalition, Troops Out Now spokesman Dustin Langley said.

Whoa! You mean the people pushing hardest for defeat in Iraq are communists?

Another antiwar group, United for Peace and Justice, has refused to work with ANSWER since a joint rally in 2005. The event drew well over 100,000 people, media reports said, but the two groups clashed over speaking time and other issues.

UPJ is no prize, either, being funded by the usual Soros-influenced foundations and the like.

United for Peace and Justice, which has tried to focus on ending the Iraq war, drew 100,000 people to a January protest. The group plans 11 regional demonstrations later this month, but none in Washington. "The base that we work with was saying to us, 'We've been to Washington a lot in the last four years, we don't want to go to Washington again,"' national coordinator Leslie Kagan said.

Because Washington is only the national capital.

ANSWER has called for antiwar groups to join forces for a large rally in the spring, but Kagan and Langley said their groups have not decided whether to participate.

Antiwar leaders say recent smaller protests reflect new tactics, not disorganization. Smaller activist groups like Code Pink have been a colorful, disruptive ~~and useless~~ presence at congressional hearings and appearances by Bush administration officials.

And remember, Code Pink was founded by Medea Benjamin, a hard-line communist Stalinist type. She's a nasty piece of work who's managed to 'coordinate' the anarchist plunder (if one can coordinate anarchists) of the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle. She has lots of nice things to say about Cuba but none about her own country.

"There's times when we've had half a million people out in the streets, and there's times when it's important just to be there," Langley said.

But others said it is less likely they'll head to Washington at all. "People are tired, they are frustrated because they didn't expect this to go on so long," said Laura Bonham, a spokeswoman for Progressive Democrats of America, which lobbies lawmakers to support a withdrawal. "It's like, well, we can stay home."

They didn't expect Bush to fix things and get us back on track, either.

Largely absent from the actions are young people, who were the majority of Vietnam-era protesters -- perhaps because they do not risk being drafted into the military or from a sense that they can express their opposition to the war on the Internet, rather than on the streets, Isserman said.

And the young people have more sense than their moonbat elders.

Link

Fifth Column

Rally organizer tied to Marxist party

2006-04-11

One of the key organizers of the immigration protests and rallies nationwide, including yesterday's in Washington, is a group whose leaders are tied to the Workers World Party, a Marxist organization that has expressed support for dictators Kim Jong-il of North Korea and Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, which also has proposed a nationwide boycott on May 1 to protest congressional efforts at immigration reform and border security, is an offshoot of the International Action Coalition, an anti-capitalism group founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

In a press release celebrating a March 25 rally in Los Angeles against immigration-law enforcement that drew an estimated 500,000 people, ANSWER said it helped organize "a major contingent in the march" and provided logistical support. The march was co-chaired by Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of Latino Movement USA, who also is a member of ANSWER's Los Angeles steering committee.
"We are people of dignity, and we demand respect," Mr. Gutierrez said at the rally. "This is the beginning of a movement that is going to call for a national work stoppage." Another ANSWER member who spoke at the rally, Gloria La Riva said: "The racist politicians thought they could step on us with their racist legislation, but they have awakened the immigrant giant, and they will feel our strength when we stop work."

Founded three days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, the organization describes itself as a "coalition of hundreds of organizations and prominent individuals and scores of organizing centers in cities and towns across the country" that have campaigned against "U.S. intervention in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Asia ... and for civil rights and for social and economic justice for working and poor people inside the United States." ANSWER also organized the first national anti-war rally after the September 11 attacks, a demonstration that brought 25,000 people to Washington and 15,000 to San Francisco on Sept. 29, 2001.

Only 18 days later, before the crater stopped smoking

The Workers World Party, a communist organization in the United States founded in 1959, describes itself as a party that has, since its founding, "supported the struggles of all oppressed peoples" and opposes "all forms of racism and religious bigotry." In addition to sponsoring or directing numerous popular-front groups, it was instrumental in founding ANSWER through the International Action Coalition. It's March 25 rally in Los Angeles and its planned "Great American Boycott of 2006" on May 1 are part of a series of large-scale events that the coalition hopes will sway lawmakers to put millions of illegal aliens in the United States on track toward permanent residency and U.S. citizenship.

ANSWER has denounced attempts by Congress to secure the United States' borders and criminalize illegal aliens as "racist," saying all working people should back full amnesty for all of the estimated 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens now in the United States. It has accused the media, government and corporations of "erecting borders against humans and waging war on immigrant America." Calling its proposed boycott a "day without an immigrant," the coalition has labeled members of Congress -- both Republicans and Democrats -- as "hatemongers," saying it will "settle for nothing less than full amnesty and dignity for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the United States."

The street rallies and the proposed boycott are seen as critical in keeping what ANSWER has described as "pressure" on Congress so it will not be allowed to "decide how much equality or how much inequality, or how much repression, should be meted out to the millions of hardworking immigrant families." "Immigrant workers, including the undocumented workers, are the sisters and brothers and allies of all those struggling for justice," the organization said. The boycott, according to the coalition, means no work, no school, no shopping, buying or business as usual.

Link

Fifth Column

Anti-War Movement Casualty of In-Fighting

2006-03-15

(CNSNews.com) - With new polls showing that more than half of Americans believe the war in Iraq is going badly and that Iraq will never become a stable democracy, you might think that anti-war groups in the U.S. would be trumpeting their influence. Instead, the groups appear to be caught in their own brand of civil war, criticizing each other for management styles, sympathizing with Communist dictators and pandering to the media. They have bickered over alleged racism and even over issues like who would get more microphone time and pay for the portable toilets at anti-war rallies.

The feuding appears to have precluded any kind of nationally coordinated anti-war rallies from happening on March 19, the third-year anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Small, local protests are planned by various anti-war groups around the country.

"The souring of the political atmosphere is largely due to ANSWER, which, in our experience, consistently substitutes labels ('racist,' 'anti-unity') and mischaracterization of others' views for substantive political debate or problem solving," reads the open letter issued last Dec. 12, by the group United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ). It marked the opening salvo in a war of words that has been fought on the groups' individual websites and all over the blogosphere. In announcing that it would no longer coordinate activities with International ANSWER, UFPJ criticized ANSWER's links to the Workers World Party (WWP), a group that allegedly had supported atrocities committed by Communist regimes around the world.

Gee, somebody finally noticed

ANSWER also "has a history of seeking to dominate coalitions and many embarrassing ultra-hard line positions," according to UFPJ supporter Bill Weinberg, whose column was published in the November/December issue of the magazine Nonviolent Activist.

International ANSWER's leader - former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark - was also singled out for criticism after providing legal help to some of the world's most notorious ousted leaders. "Ramsey Clark, the visible leader of the International Action Center, is a founder of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, and has also provided legal representation for some accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He has more recently volunteered for Saddam Hussein's legal team," Weinberg noted in his column late last fall.

Chortle

UFPJ's complaints about ANSWER also delved into areas not related to ideology. UFPJ claimed that ANSWER monopolized the microphones during the groups' joint Sept. 24, 2005, anti-war rally in Washington D.C. "ANSWER did not honor the agreed-upon time limits for its sections of the pre-march Rally, going more than an hour over in one section," the open letter from UFPJ's steering committee alleged last Dec. 12. The letter added that "ANSWER did not turn out many volunteers to provide for fundraising, security and media operations for the March and Rally."

In a Jan. 10, 2006 article entitled "The War within the Antiwar Movement," published on CounterPunch.org, anti-war activist Lenni Brenner defended International ANSWER against the attacks. Brenner, who is not a spokesman for International ANSWER, questioned why UFPJ had aligned itself with "demagogues" like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

"Demagogues use prevailing fanaticisms. Jackson & Sharpton meet that dictionary definition. Their party's leaders would swim across oceans of snot, stark naked, chasing after Zionist money."

They're equal oportunity panderers. They'd do the same for any money

"They adapt to it. Black congressional Democratic panderers vote for US weapons to Israel," Brenner explained. "UFPJ's leaders certainly had no idea of Jackson & Sharpton's cons. But, after they read this, they must, as all great philosophers say, s*** or get off the pot."

International ANSWER's steering committee issued its own response in a Dec. 16, open letter, accusing UFPJ of repeatedly attempting to break up the anti-war movement and behaving in a "petty" manner. "The justifications cited in their December 12 split declaration are embarrassingly petty and astonishingly trivial for a U.S.-based antiwar movement, especially given the gravity of the war itself and the monumental human suffering in the Middle East," the Dec. 16 letter from ANSWER's steering committee alleged.

ANSWER also claimed that it was UFPJ that had dominated the stage at the anti-war rally. "UFPJ had the stage first at the joint rally. They went over their time. They advised A.N.S.W.E.R. to take an equal time. UFPJ then retook the stage and began telling the crowd to march, even though A.N.S.W.E.R. still had its second segment left," the letter from ANSWER charged.

ANSWER rejected criticism that it had failed to provide enough volunteers for the Sept. 24, 2005 rally. "UFPJ provided not one volunteer," ANSWER charged while noting that it paid "the full cost for the stage, sound, porta-Johns, back-stage set-up and other expenses for the joint rally." "UFPJ did not pay one cent," the open letter stated.

When contacted on Tuesday, Hany Khalil, the coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, declined to comment on the split between his group and ANSWER. Shawn Garcia, the national organizer for ANSWER said the feud between his group and UFPJ was "a bad thing." "Obviously it's a bad thing. We are not unified and stuff like that and they are breaking up the anti-war movement," Garcia told Cybercast News Service. "They refuse to work with us, and that is what they are putting out there. So we will see what develops in the next couple of months. We said we want to work with them. We think that is the best way to go about things," Garcia said.

A third anti-war group, Mobilization for Global Justice (MGJ), has now also entered the feud. Mobilization for Global Justice has accused UFPJ of "racism," for limiting the speech of Virginia Setshedi, a black South African woman who addressed the Sept. 24, 2005, rally in the nation's capital. Setshedi "was treated by UFPJ in a manner bordering racism," [sic] read an open letter from MGJ dated Dec. 1, 2005. "[Setshedi] is a truly visionary activist and a dynamic speaker, and yet was given only three minutes to speak after a long procession of well-known U.S. speakers who were given five minutes each - and often took longer than that," the letter claimed.

MGJ also accused UFPJ of being obsessed with press attention. "The grassroots has no role in determining the political vision of the coalition; the vision and message are driven by the needs of getting on CNN and the New York Times," the letter stated. MGJ acknowledged that the anti-war movement might be hurt by the growing bitterness among its most prominent groups. "We know that fracturing and factionalism weaken the movement - and that is not what we seek - but it is equally true that conformity, unwillingness to engage in real debate, and a refusal to air real differences when they exist can stifle and eventually kill a movement," MGJ stated.

UFPJ fired back at MGJ in a Feb. 10, 2006 open letter, claiming to have been "surprised" by the allegations regarding the September 2005 rally and blaming International ANSWER for the problem involving speaking time. "When ANSWER ran significantly over their allotted times it had a negative impact on our speakers," UFPJ explained.

UFPJ also found itself the target of the D.C. Anti-War Network (DAWN). Earlier this month, DAWN passed a resolution declaring that it would never pay any money to UFPJ for anti-war activities. The group cited dissatisfaction with UFPJ's management style and suppression of local anti-war voices. "The peace movement is falling apart," declared Raoul Deming, a member of the District of Columbia chapter of Free Republic, a conservative group that supports the Iraq War and frequently clashes with the anti-war activists.

"The major leaders of the anti-war movement are totalitarian, Stalinist or Marxist. They just mistreat the smaller groups that come to support them. They don't listen to them, they don't provide them funding. ANSWER and UFPJ, through their totalitarian management, have aliened a majority of the peace groups," Deming told.

Next: to publicize Teresa Heinz Kerry's support for ANSWER through the TIDES foundation.

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Iraq

Sticking Up for Saddam

2005-12-03

Ramsey Clark admits that his client is guilty.
By Christopher Hitchens
All must agree that Saddam Hussein is entitled to the best legal defense team, and that it is a very special responsibility of the Coalition authorities to provide cast-iron protection to those who undertake the task. (This remains true even if, as is strongly implied in a Nov. 29 article by John Burns in the New York Times, Saddam and his lawyers have been caught hinting at involuntary changes in the composition of the prosecution team.)

But the phrase "best defense" and the name "Ramsey Clark" do not have the same apposition as, say, peaches and cream. Clark used to be Lyndon Johnson's attorney general and in that capacity tried to send Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, and others to jail for their advocacy of resistance to the war in Vietnam. (In a bizarre 2002 interview in the Washington Post, he took the view that he was still right to have attempted this, even though the defendants were all eventually exonerated.)* From bullying prosecutor he mutated into vagrant and floating defense counsel, offering himself to the gÃ©nocideurs of Rwanda and to Slobodan Milosevic, and using up the spare time in apologetics for North Korea. He acts as front-man for the Workers World Party, an especially venomous little Communist sect, which originated in a defense of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.

I was wondering when Clark would pop up in Baghdad, and there he was last Monday, presenting his credentials to the judge in the Saddam Hussein case and being accepted at his face value as a defense spokesman. He lost no time in showing what he is made of.

The first charge being brought against Saddam Hussein is that in 1982, after his motorcade came under fire near the mainly Shiite town of Dujail, he ordered the torture and murder of 148 men and boys. It's a relatively minor item in the catalog, but there it is. The first prosecution witness in the case, Wadah al-Sheikh, has actually testified that he knows of no direct link between Saddam and the killings. The defense team has to hope that it can prove the same, or perhaps suggest that no such massacre occurred. Not so Ramsey Clark. In a recent BBC interview, he offered the excuse that Iraq was then fighting the Shiite nation of Iran:

He (Saddam) had this huge war going on, and you have to act firmly when you have an assassination attempt.

ust go back and read that again. Ramsey Clark believes that A) the massacre and torture did occur and B) that it was ordered by his client and C) that he was justified in ordering it and carrying it out. That is quite sufficiently breathtaking. It is no less breathtaking when one recalls why Saddam "had this huge war going on." He had, after all, ordered a full-scale invasion of the oil-bearing Iranian region of Khuzestan and attempted to redraw the frontiers in Iraq's favor. Most experts accept a figure of about a million and a half as the number of young Iranians and Iraqis who lost their lives in consequence of this aggression (which incidentally enjoyed the approval of that Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter). And Ramsey Clark says that the aggression is an additional reason to justify the massacre at Dujail.

Rather than say what substance I think Ramsey Clark is made of, I shall quote from Jeffrey Blankfort. There are various Web sites devoted to undermining the war effort in Iraq, one or two of which are also devoted to attacks on my own moral turpitude. I can't read them all but I do usually look at the e-mail I get from Blankfort. He is a very serious guy with whom I have had a few exchanges. He is one of the few to have noticed what Ramsey Clark said, and here is his comment:

The problem is âŠ that Clark is one of the most well-known representatives of the anti-war movement and represents the ANSWER coalition and in my mind this is more than the conflict of interest that it unquestionably is. Thus, the message that it sends to the Iraqi people is that the anti-war movement doesn't really care about any Iraqis other than those who have been killed by US and UK forces, that it, in fact, does not condemn Saddam for his long history of human rights violations and for his launching a bloody war against Iran that took well over a million lives.

That is to say the least of it. He adds:

It is long past time for the anti-war movement to drop its double standards. It can begin by saying Ramsey Clark does not speak for us. He certainly does not speak for me.

This is a nice twist on the self-regarding "Not In Our Name" slogan under which the anti-war movement filled the streets to hear speeches from Saddam sympathizers, Fidel and Kim groupies, and Islamic fundamentalists. Not really anti-war at all, but pro-war on the other side. It was more like a single standard if you ask me, but let's put this to the test.

So, how about it, Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore and Tim Robbins and all the rest of you? Do you need any prompting to say what you think? Or is the only crime scene to be found in the Downing Street memo and the identifying of a CIA bureaucrat? We know what Clark is made of: What about you? I meanwhile shall recline, happy in the knowledge that Saddam Hussein has engaged the services of an attorney who proclaims him to be guilty as charged.

Link

Home Front: Culture Wars

Who's Behind The "Anti-War" Protest Canard

2005-09-28

The best piece on the weekend shenanigans in D.C. was by Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate ("Anti-War, My Footâthe Phony Peaceniks Who Protested in Washington"). His point is that antiwar is the wrong word. The organizers are actually pro-war. They just want the other side to win. International ANSWER, one of the two groups supporting the demonstration, is run by the Workers World Party, which backs Kim Jong Il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq. The WWP applauded the Soviet invasion of Hungary and China's massacre in Tiananmen Square. The main reason these people keep comparing Bush to Hitler is that Der Fuhrer is the only well-known fascist not approved of by ANSWER.

You probably never learned this from the Associated Press or your local paper, but ANSWER is frankly anti-American and pro-fascist. Many dupes at the demonstration apparently didn't know this or didn't care. As Hitchens notes, two radical left journalists, men of integrity and honestyâDavid Corn and Marc Cooperâexposed International ANSWER as a front for fascism, Stalinism, and jihadism. A dip into any database could have informed journalists about the groups they were covering, as Hitchens notes, but here's how the innocent Michael Janofsky of the New York Times described the sponsors: "The protests were largely sponsored by the two groups, the ANSWER Coalition, which embodies a wide range of progressive political objectives, and United for Peace and Justice, which has a more narrow, antiwar focus." Either Janofsky is under age 21, with no knowledge at all of radical politics, or he works for a newspaper that is determined to sugarcoat leaders of the antiwar movement.

Probably the latter. I have referred twice to the Times treatment of Leslie Cagan, national coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (Universal Press Syndicate column for March 5, 2003, U.S. News column May 9, 2005). She is a prominent old-time Communist who left the American Communist Party only in 1991 and only because of an ideological split. After the 2003 antiwar rally in Manhattan, the conservative New York Sun described her as "a longtime unapologetic Communist who has remained one of Fidel Castro's most tireless supporters." In the liberal New York Times, however, she was merely "one of the grandes dames of the country's progressive movement." The Times gave her favorable biographic treatment in its "Public Lives" column, where there was no room to mention her Communist roots or radical ideas.

When the mainstream press approves of marches and demonstrations, it can't resist gussying them up to make them seem more wholesome than they really are. The Times used to do that with gay pride marches, excising the nasty and crude contingents and the sex-with-children advocates but focusing on the stable and well-dressed gay neighbors next door. The media has a habit of doing the same thing with antiwar rallies. In February 2003, they offered a mainstream motherhood-and-apple-pie image of the marchers. But if you poked around the Internet, you could pick up images that didn't fit the press themeâhate-Israel cards, hammer-and-sickle flags, pictures of Che Guevara, the usual "Bush is Hitler" signs, and the huge banners of the sponsoring Stalinists at ANSWER. The usual excuse about coverage of the demonstrations is that it doesn't really matter who the sponsors areâthe issue is the war, not the organizers. Blogger Andrew Sullivan said he has many questions himself about the war, but "anyone who attends rallies organized by International ANSWER deserves no quarter and no hearing."

The mainstream press doesn't seem to noticeâor mindâthat America-hating fascists are doing the organizing. But you can bet that if the demonstrations were being run by a tobacco company or the Augusta National Golf Club, the press would be awash in moral dudgeon.

Link

Fifth Column

Krutzed-up judge

2005-01-20

Truncated for length
As the nation's capital prepares itself for the presidential inauguration by going into lockdown mode and placing portable Stinger missile launchers throughout the city, Americans may be stunned to learn that the District of Columbia has been forced by a federal judge to hand over intelligence data on police tactics, training, and strategies from the last inauguration to an organization with documented ties to terrorist groups and Saddam Hussein.

The District of Columbia was forced by court order to turn over this information to the International Action Center (IAC), a group involved in Thursday's protests of the second Bush inaugural through the A.N.S.W.E.R Coalition. The anti-Bush groups expect as many as 100,000 will converge on the nation's capital and they intend to get as close to the presidential motorcade as possible. Some media pundits have expressed surprise that the District has offered protestors "prime real estate" along the parade route along Pennsylvania Avenue. But this is largely because of legal pressure exerted by the protesters and their radical law firms.

Given that videotaping a monument can get one arrested in the post-9/11 world, it is stunning that surveillance tapes and other security data can be handed over by court order to an anti-American pro-terrorist organization. But that is how extreme the federal courts have become.

The portrayal of the U.S. as the foremost human rights violator in the world is a familiar theme of the IAC. Days after 9/11, IAC leaders (along with their current attorney Mara Verheyden-Hilliard) gathered with other activists to announce a demonstration in the capital to protest the "criminal conduct" of the United States. Speakers suggested the U.S. had invited the 9/11 attack.
Then the beauzeaux's lips fell off.
Additional concern is generated by the fact that the IAC is linked to Colombian terrorist groups now said to be involved with Islamic terrorists. Terrorism experts cite the secretive tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where Colombian and Islamic terrorists are said to be coordinating their activities. Other reports suggest the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in Venezuela, where the anti-American regime headed by Hugo Chavez is also said to be aiding and providing sanctuary for Colombian terrorists.

Here Comes the Judge

The court orders were related to a lawsuit filed by the IAC in 2001 [International Action Center, et al., v. United States of America, et al., Case no. 01CV00072] against federal and local agencies that handled security for the 2001 inaugural. The IAC describes itself as a political association that fights racism, war and militarism, and the program of the Bush administration. In fact, it is linked through overlapping personnel to the communist Workers World Party (WWP), a group that came under investigation by the Congress in 1974 and the FBI.

IAC founder and director Ramsey Clark recently made worldwide headlines when he joined Saddam Hussein's defense team. The IAC boasts of having a relationship to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army―both of which are labeled terrorist groups by the State Department. The International Action Center has sent delegations to meet with FARC soldiers and leaders in the Colombian jungle and lauds their military victories, including "spectacular raids" on U.S.-trained battalions. Last November Colombia's defense minister claimed that FARC had targeted President Bush for assassination.

Despite its vocal support of and connections to terrorist groups, the IAC has succeeded in obtaining, by court order, large amounts of security data related to D.C. police operations and the presidential inauguration.

According to court documents, D.C. has already provided "thousands of pages of documents," 38 videotapes and numerous photographs and audiotapes related to D.C. police tactics, training and planning and the 2001 presidential inauguration

The information provided by the D.C. Metro Police Department by court order to the IAC so far includes:

â¢ Lesson plans and handbooks on use of aerosol sprays, force and tactical batons;
â¢ Management of Mass Demonstrations, Civil Disturbance Units training documents;

â¢ Metro Police Department (MPD) instruction on use of firearms and other service weapons;

â¢ Portions of Operations Plan, Parade Manual and Civil Disturbance Unit Response Plan for the 54th Inauguration of the President of the United States;

â¢ All rooftop and street-level surveillance videotapes of the presidential inauguration;

â¢ Redacted logs from the Synchronized Operations Command Center and the Running Resume for the Inauguration Day intelligence teams; and

â¢ The identification of all plainclothes MPD officers who were detailed to intelligence teams for the Inauguration.
S says that the police force will make a number of stupid mistakes.
The plainclothes intelligence officers identified by name were stationed at various locations along and near the presidential parade route in order to monitor the crowds and to report any information heard or observed concerning plans, attempts or actions that might disrupt Inaugural events and/or violate the law and to take law enforcement action, if needed.

Judge ~~GrÃma son of GalmÃ³d~~ Gladys Kessler, who handled the case, issued the orders disclosing the security data. (Kessler was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in July 1994 by former president Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate.)

Link

Fifth Column

Anti-War Crowd Backs Notorious Dictators, Communists

2005-01-19

Insisting that they are "not criminals, they are patriots," an array of Bush-bashing protesters is making last-minute plans for their Inauguration Day demonstrations in Washington. However, the protesters have more in common than an aversion to war. They have a history of sympathizing with America's enemies including North Korea and Cuba, and they look to a former U.S. attorney general for guidance.

Guess who?

"We're coming in a spirit of non-violence," Shahid Buttar, a Washington, D.C., lawyer and political activist, emphasized, at a Jan. 12 news conference at the National Press Club, where various left-wing groups announced plans for "non-violent" protests.

Rule #1: Never trust a lawyer named Shahid.

Nancy Shia, organizer of Critical Mass and a self-described freelance photographer/activist, outlined plans for a Critical Mass bike ride on Inauguration Day. Her group's protest is intended to be "creative, not confrontational," she told reporters. "We intend to cooperate with police." Jim Macdonald, a D.C. Anti-War Network (DAWN) organizer, said the group would be protesting the "war here at home on our civil liberties." The protests would "promote a world of peace and justice," he added. Macdonald's group is planning a march, a rally, and civil disobedience in the form of a 'die-in,' featuring 1,000 black-draped coffins to symbolize the U.S. soldiers who have died in the war in Iraq.

Don't forget the puppets

Can we have about a half million black-draped coffins to symbolize Iraqis that Sammy killed?

Sister Shazza Nzingha, national chairwoman and founder of the National Alliance of Black Panthers, denounced what she called President Bush's "occupation of Iraq, his occupation of Palestine, his occupation of Haiti," and said her group would protest the president's "anti-people policies."

We're occupying Palestine?

I did it last night. Sorry. Thought I'd told you...

Lila Kaye of the Anarchist Resistance, which boasts of "smash[ing] a Secret Service checkpoint," burning an American flag, and "pelt[ing] the motorcade with trash" at the last Bush inauguration in 2001, said her group was also planning a non-violent march. She said people worldwide are suffering from Bush's policies and that Thursday's protest will be an attempt to "stand in solidarity with those people." She added that Bush is responsible for "genocide."

He's the one who wiped out the last of the Gepids, you know...

Sarah Kauffman, field director for Turn Your Back on Bush (TYBOB), discussed the group's plan to protest "without signs, without pins, without placards." TYBOB members will turn their backs on the presidential motorcade to symbolize what they see as Bush turning his back on Iraq, the international community, the economy, the environment and schools. ~~Buttwipe~~ Buttar said there will be "multiple actions all over the city," and "several thousand (people involved) at a minimum, but denied the existence of any kind of "grand organization."

I'd hardly describe it as "grand"...

However, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, and the International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition were named as major players in the protests. While these groups have been recognized for their large, noticeable protests over the years, they have also been accused of anti-American activity, and their leadership includes unapologetic sympathizers of regimes and political entities that are considered enemies of the United States.

Ramsey Clark is the answer
The International ANSWER Coalition is directed by Ramsey Clark, who rose to fame as U.S. attorney general for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, but since then has publicly defended radical regimes around the world and offered legal assistance to some of the world's most notorious and reviled figures. Clark is currently part of the legal defense team for ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He also defended former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosovic in the International Criminal Court when Milosovic was charged with ethnic cleansing, and according to a November 2002 World Net Daily article, represented a Rwandan pastor who had been charged with participating in the genocide of Tutsi civilians.

That's a new one to me.

In 1986, Clark reportedly defended the Palestine Liberation Organization in a lawsuit brought by the family of American Leon Klinghoffer, the tourist who was killed by PLO terrorists in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

According to the Capital Research Center, Clark also founded the International Action Center (IAC), a spin-off of the Workers World Party (WWP), and has served as the official spokesman for the WWP since the early 1990s when he led the group's National Coalition to Stop U.S. Intervention in the Middle East. The Workers World Party, which describes itself as a "revolutionary socialist" political party in the United States, was founded in 1959, the same year Fidel Castro rose to power in Cuba.

Wow! I knew he was a nutjob, but I didn't realize just how far out he was. More at the link.

Link

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