Military Resistance 13E2
Iraq Veterans Against The War Calls On National Guard Soldiers To Stand Down In Baltimore:
“We Encourage National Guard Members Across The Country To Begin A Conversation On How They Will Respond When It Becomes Their Turn To Be Mobilized Against Their Own Communities”
National Guard along Pratt Street, April 28, 2015. Photo by Amy Davis, Baltimore Sun.
National Guard troop protects a restaurant in in the affluent Inner Harbor neighborhood. By Amy Davis for the Baltimore Sun.
April 30th, 2015 Iraq Veterans Against The War
MARYLAND – Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a national group of Post 9/11 veterans, call on the Maryland National Guard to stand down from their mobilization to Baltimore.
As 1,000 soldiers currently deploy to put down an uprising of exploited people who have been terrorized by a consistently racist police department, we stand in solidarity with the people of Baltimore and encourage service members and veterans to listen to their fellow community members and to stand on the right side of history.
We know that the death of yet another black person at the hands of police is not unique or new in our country.
We also know that the rage we are seeing in the streets is the direct result of a legacy of police departments and a prison system that dehumanizes and targets black people and people of color and the result of a morally bankrupt economy that continues to profit off of the backs of poor people across the country.
We stand with those people who have lifted up the banner of #BlackLivesMatter to ensure that fundamental change takes place in our country.
The irony of the National Guard deployment to quell protests due to the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of police is not lost on us as we approach the 45th anniversary of both the Jackson State and Kent State shootings, where the National Guard and police were deployed to silence protestors with deadly consequences.
As veterans who have deployed to and served in support of occupations abroad, we see some of the same tactics and military equipment being used by police against the people of Baltimore, just as it was used against the people of Ferguson and Oakland.
The increased militarization of our foreign policy and our domestic policing, coupled with racist violence perpetuated by our government, has to stop.
The people of Baltimore demanding systemic change should be responded to with dialogue not an escalation of force.
We encourage National Guard members across the country, many of whom we have served with, to begin a conversation on how they will respond when it becomes their turn to be mobilized against their own communities.
Asad Ali, 9, of Washington, D.C., high-fives Sgt 1st Class Joe Hatcher of the Maryland National Guard during the rally Saturday at War Memorial Plaza. May 2, 2015 Jerry Jackson, Baltimore Sun
Greek Soldiers’ Resistance Organization, “Free Conscripts Network Spartacus,” Marches With Revolutionary Left May Day Demonstration In Athens
From: ioannis a. [in Greece] via Marxism
Subject: May Day in Athens
Date: May 2, 2015
There were indeed three May Day demonstrations in Athens.
A first initiated by PAME alias KKE: [The Communist Party of Greece] https://youtu.be/izCkcGTaIkU
A second traditionally initiated by General Confederation of Greek Workers (ΓΣΕΕ) the tertiary workers organization. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1-L-LCCnE&feature=youtu.be).
There [in the second march] assisted the majority of the (secondary) unions and META (the SYRIZA's syndicalists).
The participants isolated and depreciated the organisers, the bosses' puppets leadership of ΓΣΕΕ
In that video the ΓΣΕΕ's speaker begun his speech by the words “We have gathered here today...” while a voice is heard asking him “Does anybody listen? Who is listening to you?”
[From the YouTube it’s clear that nobody is paying the slightest attention to the “bosses’ puppets.” See https://youtu.be/XPccKU4XG1E. T]
A third demonstration was initiated by the coordination of grass root unions, an attempt to build an alternative coordination to the ΓΣΕΕ inertia.
There assisted as well ANTARSYA, far left groups, anarchosydicalists, autonomous groups and delegations from the occupied plant VIOME (BIOME), and from the Free Conscripts Network Spartacus.
[At https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyXzR6vZHzw&feature=youtu.be
[Those who have no clue about how many Greeks are moving to revolutionary socialist politics should be prepared to watch an Athens demonstration that takes ten minutes to march past the camera. T]
POLICE WAR REPORTS
Baltimore Police Were Keeping People In Jail Without Any Charges Against Them:
“Police Failed To Produce Paperwork Documenting The Basis For Their Arrest”
Protester in Baltimore is arrested. (photo: Reuters
01 May 15 By Oliver Laughland, Paul Lewis, Jon Swaine and Ben Jacobs; Guardian UK
Around 100 people detained without charge following riots in Baltimore on Monday were released from detention on Wednesday night after a raft of petitions filed with the city’s public defenders led to a backdown by authorities.
All those released had been held in detention for around two days and had no charges filed against them after police failed to produce paperwork documenting the basis for their arrest.
The large scale release came after the Maryland governor Larry Hogan issued an executive order effectively suspending habeas corpus – the right to be freed from an imprisonment that is without lawful basis. The decree gave law enforcement officials 48 hours to hold people before presenting them to district court officials for booking.
Hogan described the move as “necessary to protect the public safety” but critics said it was simply a way of clearing the streets.
Natalie Finegar, the deputy district public defender in Baltimore City, told the Guardian that after 82 habeas corpus petitions were filed to the attorney general’s office a decision was made to release 101 detainees.
Finegar said the decision to hold so many “without any respect for due process” could “further shake the confidence in the criminal justice system for those arrested”.
She said many of those detained had complained of the harsh conditions in jail. Some said they went 18 hours without food before being given inedible bread.
Baltimore police commissioner Anthony Batts conceded that a timeline had elapsed meaning police could no longer hold the group of detainees but stated he intended to revisit allegations against them at some point.
All clients were advised to return straight home and observe the 10pm citywide curfew, Finegar said.
Teen Accused Of Breaking Police Car Window Faces Higher Bail Than Baltimore Cops Accused of Murder
02 May 15 By Adam Howard, MSNBC
Allen Bullock, a Baltimore teen arrested for smashing a police car window with a traffic cone amid the Freddie Gray protests last week, is reportedly being held on a higher bail than the officers charged on Friday in Gray’s death.
Bullock, 18, who voluntarily surrendered to authorities at the urging of his parents, is being held on $500,000 bail, while the six officers accused in the Gray case were held on a range of $250,000 to $350,000, according to the Associated Press.
NBC News has confirmed that all six officers arrested for Gray’s death have since been bailed out. Bail hearings are not open to the public in the state of Maryland.
“It is just so much money,” Bullock’s mom, Bobbi Smallwood, told the British newspaper The Guardian. “Who could afford to pay that?”
After Bullock’s illegal act was captured on camera and broadcast nationwide, he was shamed by relatives, including his stepfather Maurice Hawkins. “By turning himself in, he also let me know he was growing as a man and he recognized what he did was wrong,” Hawkins told The Guardian in the same interview.
Still, Smallwood believes that the fee for Bullock’s release is “ridiculous.”
“I think that that goes to continuing strained police-community relations,” F. Michael Higginbotham, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, told NBC station WBAL of Baltimore.
“We need to take a step back and say, OK, how do we go forward from here? What is the way to improve police-community relations, not exacerbate it?” he said. “I think these high bail amounts will exacerbate it.”
A campaign to help raise funds for Bullock’s family to make bail has begun on Indiegogo.
“Although we can agree that destroying the police cruiser was unnecessary, this bail price is ridiculously high for anyone to pay on their own. The purpose of this fundraiser is to get as close to $500,000 as possible to help this young man,” reads the effort’s page. It has raised just over $2,600 since its launch on Friday.
Attacks By New York City Police Cause “A Significant Amount Of Injuries” To Freddie Gray Marchers:
“They Were Really Violent, Really Rough”
135 Confirmed Arrests By Scum In Blue “Including Media, NLG Lawyers”
The crowd at the Baltimore solidarity action Minneapolis was estimated at between 1,500-2,000. (Photo: Black Lives Matter Minneapolis/Facebook)
April 30, 2015 by Deirdre Fulton, staff writer; Common Dreams [Excerpts]
Widespread protests over police brutality, systemic racism, and the recent death of Baltimore resident Freddie Gray took place across the U.S. on Wednesday night, with demonstrators demanding justice, accountability, and reform.
An estimated 1,500 people marched through downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday night, while in Boston, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the police headquarters chanting: “Being black is not a crime, same story every time,” and “Every night and every day, join the fight for Freddie Gray!”
The Star-Tribune reported that in Minneapolis:
“An estimated 1,500 people marched through downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday night, while in Boston, more than 1,000 protesters gathered in front of the police headquarters chanting: “Being black is not a crime, same story every time,” and “Every night and every day, join the fight for Freddie Gray!”
“Black men carrying a black coffin led the march.
“’We have a lot of work to do, and we are not immune to the problems that have plagued major cities in the last few months,’ Nekima Levy-Pounds, a University of St. Thomas law professor and civil rights activist, said while marching down Washington Avenue.
“’Black people in Baltimore have experienced decades of income inequality, extreme poverty, inadequate access to jobs and education and police abuse,’ she said earlier in a written statement.
“The cries for justice of the people of Baltimore and around this country can no longer continue to fall on deaf ears.”
The solidarity rally in New York City began in Union Square and, according to the New York Times, “spilled into the street and disrupted traffic.”
Participants in the New York action said police response to the demonstration was excessive.
“It felt like we are just not allowed to protest anymore, in any way, at all,” New York City writer and political organizer Keegan Stephan, wrote at his blog.
“Except in pens with permits. Maybe.”
Elena L. Cohen, president of the National Lawyers Guild's (NLG) New York City chapter, was also at Wednesday's protest in New York and reports that there were 135 confirmed arrests, including media, NLG lawyers, and others who “did not consider themselves arrestable” from 7:30pm to 1am.
The arrests caused “a significant amount of injuries... They were really violent, really rough,” Cohen told Common Dreams by phone.
The heavy law enforcement presence was likely “an intense overreaction” to protests and so-called “rioting” in Baltimore, she added, noting that there was a “really big change in the feeling” of the hands-on police response compared to other recent actions.
“We, Palestinians Struggling Against Israeli Apartheid, Stand In Solidarity With The Residents Of Baltimore”
1st May 2015 International Solidarity Movement
Occupied Palestine
We, Palestinians struggling against Israeli Apartheid, stand in solidarity with the residents of Baltimore.
We send our condolences to the family of Freddie Gray and all those murdered in police custody.
We add our voices to the demand that the killers be held accountable.
We send our solidarity to the families of the prisoners. Those arrested for demanding justice, for being black, brown or poor. We add our voices to the demand for their immediate and unconditional release.
We stand in solidarity with those whose homes have been foreclosed, with those who live under the constant watch of surveillance cameras and under the constant threat of being stopped, harassed, arrested and assaulted by a militarized police force in their own streets.
Your struggle for justice, equality and freedom is our struggle.
In solidarity,
University Teachers’ Association – Gaza
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
Bader Campaign for the Boycott of Israeli Goods
Herak Youth Center
One Democratic State Group (ODSG)
Youth Against Settlements (YAS)
The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC)
The popular committee of Bil’in against the wall and settlements
The popular committee of Ni’lin
The Jordan Valley Solidarity Campaign (JVS)
Palestine Youth for Peace and Justice (Palyouth)
AFGHANISTAN WAR REPORTS
“The United States Has No Idea How Many Afghan Soldiers And Police Are Currently Serving”
“An Appalling Litany Of Afghan Government Corruption”
“Lax U.S. Oversight Has Resulted In Theft, Waste And Abuse Of Billions Of Dollars In American Aid”
“Once The U.S. Gives Funds To Both The Afghan Army And Police, The Pentagon No Longer Can Track Or Enforce How The Money Is Distributed”
30 April 15 By Jonathan Broder, Newsweek [Excerpts]
After nearly a decade of training, equipping and paying for Afghanistan's security forces, the United States has no idea how many Afghan soldiers and police are currently serving or how effective they are at fighting the Taliban.
That's just one of the grim conclusions from John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR), who at midnight on Wednesday released his latest audit of the $110 billion-and-counting American nation-building effort there.
The reconstruction of Afghanistan has been the largest nation-building project in U.S. history, and Sopko's previous audits have catalogued an appalling litany of Afghan government corruption and lax U.S. oversight, which has resulted in the theft, waste and abuse of billions of dollars in American aid.
“Neither the United States nor its Afghan allies truly know how many Afghan soldiers and police are available for duty or, by extension, the true nature of their operational capabilities,” the 40-page report said.