Thousands marched in London on 5th August, 2006, to protest against Israel's attacks on Lebanon. Starting at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, the march went via the US Embassy and Downing Street to Parliament Square. The demands of the march were for an unconditional ceasefire, to stop Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and to end Tony Blair's support for Bush's wars. The demonstration follows 30,000 people demonstrating in London two weeks ago and many smaller protests around the country.
In front of the US Embassy: "territorial support group police suddenly flooded the road and formed an arbritary barrier in the middle of the crowd. They then began pushing forward, shoving and occasionally hitting people in a pointless show of thuggery. There were several arrests and then they were suddenly recalled and the march returned to peace."
Outside Downing Street: "Hundreds of empty tiny children's shoes symbolising the outrageous number of child casualties were piled up there which made a very poignant display."
The Rhythms of Resistance samba band staged a die-in opposite Downing Street: "Others gradually joined the sit-down, although stop the war coalition stewards were urging the passing crowd to not join in, and police quickly surrounded the sitting protestors. After some twenty minutes, the samba band moved on, but some activists tried to use pipes to lock on on the ground, and were viciously arrested by police before they managed". 7 Anti war activists were arrested outside Downing St
At Parliament Square there were speaches including one from Bruce Kent, "The other day, I was in Downing Street, handing in a petition against replacing Trident, and I thought how wonderful it had been if I had taken in a warrant from the International Criminal Court, and I was offering it to Mr Blair and a policeman would arrest him. That’s a dream that will come one day. This is a war crime.”
The policing of the demonstration was heavy handed and reflects the slide towards fascism.
Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 Videos: 1 | 2
a line of thugs right across the road
Israel has been targetting civilians, journalists, the UN and ambulances using cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions, bunker busters flown in via Scotland and a catalogue of other illegal weapons. It is well known that the USA is the main source of Israeli weapons. According to UNICEF: "Thirty per cent of those who have died are children and 45 per cent of those who are displaced are children".
The capture of two Israeli soliders, which has been used by Israel to justify the attack on Hizballah, has been shown to be a pretext: "Israel's assaults on the Occupied Territories and Lebanon were planned well in advance with the full knowledge and approval of the US." The Israeli government was given the green light to attack Lebanon by the United States and the other states attending the G8 in Russia. The US-Israeli goal for Lebanon appears to be, as a minimum, regime change or worse, total annihilation, as with the wars in Iraq and Afganistain the role of oil appears to be key. Wider Middle East war was predicted at the end of June and the unfolding events appears to be part of an imperialist carve up of the Middle East.
One response, from a branch of the CNT in France has been to say: "Just as we firmly denounce this military escalation, calling for an immediate cease-fire, and an end to the bombings, and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, we believe, as internationalist workers, that one of our urgent tasks is to support the development of a third camp - the camp of the workers - in the Middle East, at one and the same time against imperialist domination and against Islamist oppression." Sacked Liverpool dockers have called for sanctions against Israel.
Indymedia Beirut has made an Urgent Appeal for Solidarity with Lebanese Civil Society
Comments
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Roll another one, just lioke the other one
05.08.2006 18:14
Cato
...
05.08.2006 19:43
anti-war = pro-biligerent
anti-israel = pro-hizballah
...
Evil beyond comprehension- Israel and Blair agree on the word 'purify'
06.08.2006 03:18
Meanwhile, here's a video about 'purification'
(it's a capture from a canada TV news broadcast- not graphic but about as evil as anything as anything you could have seen or heard about the nazis)
And back to Lebanon. The usually carefully placed media leaks tell us that the US would LOVE to provide Israel with Stealth Bombers, and that Iran will provide the true Lebanese army with SAM systems (anti-aircraft surface-to-air missiles) in a few weeks time.
Now the US are not allowed to give Israel Stealth Bombers under the various treaties preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Why, because Israel could then load up the planes with city destroying nukes, rather than use the current (small payload) nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that their free German built submarines currently threaten the major cities of Europe and muslim nations with.
However, assuming the SAM story to be true, Israeli planes and helicopters will soon be blown out of the Lebanese skies, after they recommence their holocaust of Lebanon, when Israel arranges for the coming 'ceasefire' to be broken (probably by using their usual method of massive car bomb assasination attempts in Lebanon or Syria).
To carry on bombing Lebanon, safe from the counter-attack of the SAMs, will require high flying US stealth bombers (remember the Kosovo war) or similar, and these, for the reason given above, will have to be flown by the US military.
Now here is where it gets interesting. Israel destroys Lebanon as a proxy war against Syria, but the US will want to fight Syria as a proxy war against Iran. The US involvement will thus lose all interest in Lebanon, but claim that THEY need to bomb target-rich Syria (their excuse will be that they are leveling the playing field back to where Israel can holocaust Lebanon by air with no fear of any Lebanese defense- the only sort of playing field that the depraved Israeli cowards will play on). The US attacks Syria to stop those 'wicked' SAMs getting from Iran to Lebanon (if these SAMs exist, ***I*** would bet there are plenty waiting to be used in Lebanon at this very moment, but nevertheless this is the excuse the US will use).
At this stage, I don't think the US would attack Iran anymore than Israel would attack Syria today. Patience would be the order of the moment. The US would simply ramp up its attacks against Syria (as the True Lebanese army continued to successfully fight the Israeli terrorists) until the US was involved in a full scale Holocaust of Syria.
Blair will then be at the very dawn of his WW3 igniting genocide of Iran.
For those of you that do not understand why the US will become involved under the above scenario, it is because you fail to comprehend the absolute promise the US government has made to protect Israel under ALL circumstances. Israel losing in the air ***IS*** Israel losing full stop, and that triggers US action on behalf of Israel. Sending in the miles high bombers will be an easy option for Bush. Moving to attack targets in Syria rather than Lebanon will be justified all too easily. Stating that the bombing must go on until Syria surrenders under Bush's terms, and escalating the bombing when surrender is not forthcoming, will parallel the pattern of escalation we saw with the First Gulf War and the Kosovo War.
Has Iran been given a promise by Blair that the US will not become directly involved in the Lebanese holocaust? If so, they could not be so stupid as to believe it. In which case Iran is either gambling on an extraordinary response to Israel's loss of air assets, or they want the US to attack Syria in the hope that this will generate enough political 'blowback' to eliminate the US plan to wage war against Iran once and for all. Or maybe Iran thinks that the was is unstoppable, and they would rather have it begin this way for strategic advantage.
Jane's Defence Weekly's careful dissemination of the SAM story on behalf of Blair may simply be black propaganda (this poorly disguised front for the security services is often used for such purposes). However, what would be the point, if not for Blair to lay down a trail that he will request that Bush follows once the SAMs are in action?
If JDW is not just blowing smoke, i'll propose this likely summary of imminent events.
1) mock ceasefire (arranged by whoever, US, France, UN- it'll be just as phoney)
2) Israeli car bomb in Lebanon or Syria
3) True Lebanese army fires rockets in retaliation
4) Israel relaunches air based holocaust of Lebanon, as it intended all along
5) SAMs enter the equation, and Israel's holocaust operation is halted.
6) The US claims the SAMs make Israel vunerable, and start a program of ultra high altitude bombing of Syria (maybe they start with Lebanon, but probably not)
7) US bombing of Syria escalates just as Israeli bombing of Lebanon did earlier.
8) WE ALL AWAIT THE BEGINNING OF WW3 WITH THE EXCUSE THAT MOVES THE WAR INTO IRAN.
Of course, I am doing no more than attempting to make informed predictions based on current circumstances and propaganda actions. Want something more accurate, go ask Blair.
twilight
When are they going to get rid of Blair-igula?
16.08.2006 14:55
From NYC, USA
Independent News which is bias
05.09.2006 13:53
Keep the balance.
sw