Illusions??

 

         The war in Ukraine shattered the illusion that we live in a peaceful world held by most of the population encompassed in the snug and "peaceful" enclave we call Europe. Suddenly there was blood flowing in Europe, shock, horror, how could this be? What most in Europe fail to grasp is that war is ever present in the present economic system of state/corporate capitalism. While we in Europe wallowed in this illusion of a peaceful world, vast swaths of the planet were living with mass deaths and blood flowing like mountain streams. Power struggles of one faction over another, states taking sides and the "peaceful" West supplying support to this state or that state and supplying the devastating weapons to make this living hell possible. The "peaceful" West is the overseer of this perpetual bloodshed, it is one of their cash-cows. Not until we get rid of the insane economic system of capitalism and the destruction of all state apparatus, this bloodshed will continue, and the corporate world will make billions of £'s to feed their greedy over privileged shareholders, all of it stained with the blood of innocents.

The following from Statista:

The World at War in 2022
Armed Conflict
by Martin Armstrong, Feb 14, 2022

         May 8, 2021 marked 76 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe - VE Day. While the conflict which claimed millions of lives on European soil is firmly committed to the annals of history, conflict in the East of the continent is still a harsh reality in the present day. Even before the recently increased risk of a Russian invasion, the Ukrainian crisis, ravaging the Donbass region of the country, had amassed a death toll above the 13 thousand mark.
        As data collection by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows, a substantial portion of the globe is still engulfed in some form of conflict. This infographic shows countries in which there have been reports of armed clashes involving state forces and/or rebel groups in 2022. Even as early as February 4, and using this simplified definition, the presence of war across the world is extensive.
        Unlike the situations in Donbass and Syria, for example, not all conflicts fit the picture we may have in our minds when thinking of war. In Mexico in 2021 for example, ACLED recorded 6 armed clashes involving state forces. Each one though was a battle between different law enforcement entities - providing a snapshot of the ongoing fight against police corruption and the deep-seated influence of organized crime. So far for 2022, no such incidents have been recorded in the country.

You will find more infographics at Statista

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Illusions?

           As is usual in this world of illusions, we in the West are always on the side of good, freedom and democracy. So any conflict the West indulges in must be for the good and those who oppose this are obviously on the side of evil. So in the Ukrainian situation we are expected to take the side of the righteous good West and stand against the evil that is Russia. If only it was that simple. The West lead by the self righteous U$A, has achieved the decimation of more countries than Russia can ever hope to achieve. The Western nation states, like Russia, are power mongers, all vying for control of the world's resources, all attempting to seize the largest market share, and all ready to spill the blood of their respective populations to defend or expand their dominance in the field of resources and market share. They will gladly go to war and shed the blood of millions if they feel their dominance is threatened or they believe they can gain an advantage over the other. They consider that your blood is a price worth paying for their advantage. I don't recall a war ever starting because bus drivers of one country wanted to kill plumbers in an other country, or shop workers from one country wanting to kill teachers from another country. It is always the rich and powerful that call for war when they think that their wealth and power might be threatened, full well aware that they will not be on the killing fields, that's up to the bus drivers, teachers, plumbers and shop workers, who will gain nothing from this insanity.

The following from Act for Freedom Now:

SABOTAGE
          The way in which events in Ukraine are presented can deceive us. They call it a war of democracy and freedom on the one hand, with dictatorship and oppression on the other. It is supposed to be the time to stand as one, on the ‘right’ side of the barricade, in this battle between good and evil. But if we look behind the lines of spectacle, we see propaganda from all sides to enlist our bodies and minds for another round of geopolitical chess. The presented juxtaposition between freedom and oppression is false. Every country is at war in one way or another.
        Through military operations outside its borders. By driving refugees to their borders to their death. By manufacturing weapons systems or technologies for military use and selling them to anyone who buys them. Every State oppresses. By imposing its dominant system on its population and punishing its dissenters in an exemplary manner. We can fight the war. Not by being soldiers, but by being saboteurs. Directly, by attacking the war industry that makes war possible.
More broadly, by breaking the social peace on which every State depends for its continued existence.

 

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Profit War!

         To the corporate world every crisis has a silver lining. The Ukraine affair might be a disaster for the people caught up in the bloodshed, as is usual in war situations, the ordinary people pay in blood and trauma. However, to the corporate world it is seen as a bonus. The corporate/financial world of parasites has been creaking near breaking point since 2008 when the "Market" gambling bubble burst. They have been searching for ways to recapitalise the system and have used austerity on the people as the main source of that recapitalising, but the system was still struggling. Along comes the pandemic, and states throw money at the corporate word, money that the people will be tasked with paying back through lower standard of living. 

 

 

However the corporate economics was still in a bit of a mess despite all that tax payers money, suddenly we have a war, yippee shouts the corporate bosses, the arms industry moves into top gear with taxpayers money flooding in as the West throws billions of £s of weaponry into Ukraine. The oil and gas markets seize the moment and shoot the price of energy somewhere beyond the moon. Another golden opportunity to recapitaise the system with our money. Energy giant Shell has reported its highest ever quarterly profit, a staggering £7.3 billion in the first three months of this year. Other energy giants, BP and Total have also reported a sharp rise in profits. There is a cash waterfall rushing into the share holders bank accounts while you and I face eating or heating, cutting down on life's necessities, seeing kids go hungry. This is the moment the Bank of England decides to raise the interest rate for the second time in months. This will hit mortgages, payments on loans, credit cards, etc.. In the meeting rooms of the bankers, financial Mafia and corporate robbers, they no doubt will raise a glass to Russia, with the toast, "long may the war last, because of it, we are doing wonderfully, thank you".

 

        Why do we tolerate such an insane, greedy parasite driven system, why do 

we just suffer and watch the shareholders laugh all the way to their new luxury yacht? 

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Insanity Or?

 

         This world we live in, a mixture of a possible paradise and living in an asylum. We have beauty and co-operation struggling to survive midst greed and brutality We have people's dream of that better world for all and the parasite class voraciously devouring the world's resources for personal power and wealth. A world that functions on the basis of economic insanity. However, it is always in a state of flux, which way will it go, victory for the parasite class and destruction of the planet, or the realisation of that better world for all, the choice is ours, but time is not in our favour. 

          This latest rendering from SubMedia shows the insanity of this world and the forces that struggle for that better world for all.

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Choices!

           As the world stumbles and lurches inextricably to a world war situation, what should we the ordinary people of this broken and bleeding world do? We have to find that answer quickly as time is running out, the choices being offered by the system will not bode well for us the ordinary people, or for the planet. We have to think outside this corrupt, unjust and brutal system of capitalism.

A message from Liverpool NWBCW

 

No War but the Class War
LIVERPOOL
          Russia's invasion of Ukraine is bringing the world ever closer to its boiling point. Once again the working class across the world are being asked to take sides in a conflict from which we have nothing to gain and everything to lose. On the one hand Russia, attempting to reclaim what it has lost since the collapse of the USSR. On the other hand NATO, attempting to draw Ukraine further into its sphere of influence. In the background, imperialist line ups are solidifying, with the EU states rallying behind the US, and Russia turning to China. While the war in Ukraine represents an escalation in the drive to generalised war, it is not the only battleground right now. Whether it's Syria, Yemen or Palestine, the capitalist class are pitting workers against each other across the world. All in search for financial revenues, raw materials and cheap labour power.
        Nationalism – that ideological weapon of divide and rule – calls us to kill and die for a cause which is not ours. Alongside military conflict, we are in the midst of a class war with our living and working conditions as the sacrifice on the altar of profitability. Through austerity we were forced to pay for the 2008 financial crash. But the global economy has never quite recovered. Even before the pandemic properly arrived, billions were being pumped into markets every day to keep them afloat and another recession was being predicted. The pandemic was only the spark that lit the flame. Now under the cover of restructuring, we are once again expected to pay for the crisis. Across workplaces we are seeing wages falling behind inflation, sackings, fire and rehire, pension and benefit cuts, and various other assaults on our class.
        Meanwhile at home we face food and fuel price rises, higher rents, more bills and more taxes. All the while the rich grow richer. And the war, as it upsets supply chains even further, will make the situation even worse. Finally, let's not forget the climate crisis. Floods, fires and extreme weather events are gradually making whole swathes of the planet uninhabitable. The ruling class continues to treat the planet like their private backyard with little consideration for the biodiversity and environmental underpinnings of life on earth. And, let's face it, the capitalist conditions which created Covid 19 and allowed it to spread, killing millions, are still in place. The threat of future pandemics looms large. War, poverty, crisis and disease are creating whole generations of people scarred by a system tending towards barbarism: refugees, friends and families of those fallen ill, maimed and killed, the unemployed and the homeless. This is a war on multiple fronts against all workers and the future of humanity. But we can resist. Attempts to defend our living and working conditions can sow the seeds of a wider movement which recognises that capitalism – the current system of production characterised by the existence of private property, wage labour, money and states – is the source of the problem.

Read the full article HERE: 

 

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NATO.

     NATO is Western imperialism's war machine, dominated and controlled by U$A. Any illusion that it is some sort of defence arrangement, is based on illusion and propaganda. There is nothing defensive in the make up of this mega imperialist military machine, and it is all funded by our tax money to the tune of  $1.2 trillion, 2021, the largest military budget in the world, up 24.9% since 2014. After the U$A, the UK is the biggest contributor to the NATO war budget with a whopping £56+billion, what would that do for social services? Think of $1.2 trillion being paid into world health and welfare budgets. The choice is ours if we would only take the steps to organise and stop this imperialist insanity.

The following is an extract from Struggle la Lucha:

           As the U.S. and its NATO satellites, particularly Germany, Britain and France, flood weapons into Ukraine, NATO is being “transformed” into a fighting force capable of direct wars on Russia and China, says NATO General-Secretary Jens Stoltenberg. NATO formally launched a 40,000-strong rapid response force targeting Russia in February. This was in addition to the 175,000 NATO troops already on Russia’s border. Also to be noted is President Joe Biden’s shift away from the “no first use” of nuclear weapons, with the Pentagon announcing March 29 that the U.S. would consider first use of nuclear weapons.
          In an interview with the Telegraph, Stoltenberg said NATO is in the process of making a “fundamental” shift from engaging in what he called “tripwire deterrence” to “be transformed into a major force capable of” direct warfare. Stoltenberg made clear that China is as much a target as Russia. “We are finalizing the work on the new strategic concept that will be agreed at the NATO summit in June. … And there, I expect China to be an important part.” Stoltenberg adds: “It is also of concern that we see that Russia and China are working more and more closely together.”
         Since 2014, Stoltenberg said, “We have implemented the biggest reinforcement of NATO since the end of the Cold War.” Following the overturn of the Soviet Union, NATO has expanded from 16 countries to 30. NATO expansion technically means that the member-nation’s armed forces are “integrated” into the NATO military command. NATO takes command, with the U.S. dominating. No NATO member-state can act without U.S. approval.
NATO expansion into Eastern Europe
         For the last two decades, NATO has been expanding into Eastern Europe. In 1999, NATO took in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia were incorporated. In 2009, Albania and Croatia. In 2017, Montenegro. In 2020, North Macedonia. Finland and Sweden are reported to be “within weeks” of deciding to join NATO.
          Meanwhile, the U.S. is expanding its proxy war in Ukraine, as Leon Panetta, who was CIA director and then secretary of defense in the Barack Obama administration, so clearly put it. The United States and its NATO military operation is in a proxy war against Russia, with Ukraine as the battlefield. The U.S. role, Panetta said, is to provide more and more weapons faster and faster with Ukraine doing the fighting, bolstered by foreign mercenaries. It’s a matter of military fact that in the Ukrainian proxy war, more military-technical assistance has been dispatched by the U.S. and its NATO satellites, in a larger amount and in a shorter time, than in any previous military conflict in history.
Stop arming Ukraine
           “Russia warns U.S. to stop arming Ukraine,” the Washington Post reported April 14. The Post says: “Russia this week sent a formal diplomatic note to the United States warning that U.S. and NATO shipments of the ‘most sensitive’ weapons systems to Ukraine were ‘adding fuel’ to the conflict there and could bring ‘unpredictable consequences.’” The diplomatic note, titled “On Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime,” was forwarded to the State Department by the Russian Embassy in Washington. In it, Russia accuses NATO of trying to “pressure Ukraine to abandon peace negotiations with Russia in order to continue the bloodshed.” The U.S. has sent more than $2.6 billion worth of arms and other military aid to Ukraine since Russia launched its military action in February. The Pentagon explained, “The United States has now committed more than $3.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration.”
           NATO’s military budget accounts for the majority of military spending worldwide. NATO military spending in 2021 was $1.2 trillion ($1,200,000,000,000), up 24.9% since 2014.
U.S. commands NATO 

          As noted by the Pentagon, NATO is the primary force for U.S. dominance and control in Europe.

Read the full article HERE: 

 

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Misinformation.

 

        We are in the midst of a third world war, not yet the blood and slaughter stage, but never the less, an imperialist war to carve up the planet. We are on the brink of that blood and slaughter world war, as the dominant power on the planet tries to weaken another power block that could be a threat to its hegemony. It is important for that dominant power to win the propaganda war to try to keep its populations on its side should it turn into that blood and slaughter war. So we are fed misinformation, distortions, omissions and down right lies, the truth lies buried somewhere in that pot of sewage. As far as the Ukrainian situation is concerned the more information the better, but we have to wade through all the shit to try to find the truth. 

The following extract from Struggle la Lucha.

          Jacques Baud is a former Colonel of the General Staff in the Swiss armed forces, and between 1983 and 1990 was a member of the Swiss Strategic Intelligence Service. Baud was involved in discussions with Russian military and intelligence officials at the highest level, just after the fall of the USSR.
         He was trained in the American and British intelligence services. He was the head of doctrine for United Nations peace operations. A United Nations expert for the rule of law and security institutions, he designed and led the first multidimensional United Nations intelligence service in Sudan. He worked for the African Union and was responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms at NATO for 5 years. Within NATO, he followed the Ukrainian crisis of 2014, then participated in programs of assistance to Ukraine. He is the author of several books on intelligence, war and terrorism.

         This report was originally published by CF2R (French center for intelligence research): La Situation Militaire en Ukraine
Part One: On the road to war
         For years, from Mali to Afghanistan, I worked for peace and risked my life for it. It is therefore not a question of justifying the war, but of understanding what led us to it. I note that the “experts” who take turns on the television sets analyze the situation based on dubious information, most often hypotheses turned into facts, and therefore we no longer manage to understand what is happening. That’s how you create panic. The problem is not so much who is right in this conflict, but how our leaders make their decisions.
        Let’s try to examine the roots of the conflict. It starts with those who for the past eight years have been talking to us about “separatists” or “independence” from the Donbass. It’s wrong. The referendums conducted by the two self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in May 2014 were not ” independence ” (независимость) referendums , as some unscrupulous journalists claimed , but ” self-determination ” or ” autonomy (самостоятельность). The term “pro-Russian” suggests that Russia was a party to the conflict, which was not the case, and the term “Russian speakers” would have been more honest. Moreover, these referendums were conducted against the advice of Vladimir Putin. In fact, these republics did not seek to separate from Ukraine, but to have a statute of autonomy guaranteeing them the use of the Russian language as an official language. Because the first legislative act of the new government resulting from the overthrow of President Yanukovych, was the abolition, on February 23, 2014, of the Kivalov-Kolesnichenko law of 2012 which made Russian an official language. A bit as if putschists decided that French and Italian would no longer be official languages ​​in Switzerland.
          This decision causes a storm in the Russian-speaking population. This resulted in fierce repression against the Russian-speaking regions (Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Lugansk and Donetsk) which began in February 2014 and led to a militarization of the situation and a few massacres (in Odessa and Mariupol, for the most important). At the end of summer 2014, only the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk remained.
          At this stage, too rigid and stuck in a doctrinaire approach to the operational art, the Ukrainian staffs suffered the enemy without succeeding in imposing themselves. Examination of the course of the fighting in 2014-2016 in the Donbass shows that the Ukrainian general staff systematically and mechanically applied the same operational plans. However, the war waged by the autonomists was then very close to what we observed in the Sahel: very mobile operations carried out with light means. With a more flexible and less doctrinaire approach, the rebels were able to exploit the inertia of the Ukrainian forces to “trap” them repeatedly.
         In 2014, I am at NATO, responsible for the fight against the proliferation of small arms, and we are trying to detect Russian arms deliveries to the rebels in order to see if Moscow is involved. The information that we receive then comes practically all from the Polish intelligence services and does not “match” with the information from the OSCE: in spite of rather crude allegations, we do not observe any delivery of arms and materials Russian military.
         The rebels are armed thanks to the defections of Russian-speaking Ukrainian units which cross over to the rebel side. As the Ukrainian failures progressed, the entire tank, artillery or anti-aircraft battalions swelled the ranks of the autonomists. This is what drives the Ukrainians to commit to the Minsk Accords. But, just after signing the Minsk 1 Accords, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko launched a vast anti-terrorist operation (ATO/Антитерористична операція) against Donbass. Bis repetita placent : poorly advised by NATO officers, the Ukrainians suffered a crushing defeat at Debaltsevo which forced them to commit to the Minsk 2 Agreements… It is essential to recall here that the Minsk 1 (September 2014) and Minsk 2 (February 2015) Agreements provided for neither the separation nor the independence of the Republics, but their autonomy within the framework of Ukraine. Those who have read the Accords (they are very, very, very few) will find that it is written in full that the status of the republics was to be negotiated between Kiev and the representatives of the republics, for an internal solution in Ukraine .
         This is why since 2014, Russia has systematically demanded their application while refusing to be a party to the negotiations, because it was an internal matter for Ukraine. On the other side, the Westerners – led by France – systematically tried to replace the Minsk Accords with the “Normandy format”, which brought Russians and Ukrainians face to face. However, let us remember, there were never any Russian troops in the Donbass before February 23-24, 2022. Moreover, OSCE observers have never observed the slightest trace of Russian units operating in the Donbass. Thus, the US intelligence map published by the Washington Post on December 3, 2021 does not show Russian troops in Donbass.
In October 2015, Vasyl Hrytsak, director of the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), confessed that only 56 Russian fighters had been observed in the Donbass. It was an even comparable to that of the Swiss going to fight in Bosnia during the weekends, in the 1990s, or the French who are going to fight in Ukraine today.
The Ukrainian army was then in a deplorable state. In October 2018, after four years of war, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor Anatoly Matios said that Ukraine had lost 2,700 men in the Donbass: 891 from disease, 318 from traffic accidents, 177 from other accidents, 175 from poisoning (alcohol, drugs), 172 from careless handling of weapons, 101 from breaches of safety rules, 228 from murder and 615 from suicide.
          In fact, the army is undermined by the corruption of its cadres and no longer enjoys the support of the population. According to a UK Home Office report , when reservists were called up in March-April 2014, 70% did not show up for the first session, 80% for the second, 90% for the third and 95% for the fourth. In October/November 2017, 70% of callers did not show up during the “ Autumn 2017 ” callback campaign. This does not include suicides and desertions(often for the benefit of the autonomists) which reach up to 30% of the workforce in the ATO zone. Young Ukrainians refuse to go and fight in the Donbass and prefer emigration, which also explains, at least partially, the country’s demographic deficit. 

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Voices.

 

          The media gives a lot of time and space to the affairs in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, but we only hear from those who the Western media moguls want you to hear. It is always good to hear from those people in those countries that our Western media have no intentions of interviewing, simply because they don't fit into the false narrative that they continually pump out. 

Film from Crimethinc:

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Azov.

             While our political ballerinas and one sided media sing hallelujahs in praise of the Ukrainian government and its neo-fascist president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his henchmen thugs are attacking and beating left wing activists and detaining them simply for their political views. This of course never reaches the pages of our "unbiased" media, after all they would love to get away with this level of arbitrary brutality here in the UK. They have a burning desire to close down any radical left thinking that might impinge on their control of the population. It is asking too much to ask reporters to report all the news without bias and not just repeat what their paymasters wish them to write. Ah that'll be the day, it may cost them their job, so it will not happen.

The following extract from Struggle la Lucha:

              

               Around noon on March 3, five persons forced their way into the apartment of 31-year-old hotel clerk Alexander Matyushenko and his partner Maria M. in Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk). As the latter told jW, they were both shouted at, forced to lie on the floor, and not allowed to move. The aggressors reportedly did not disclose identification, but two of them were apparently recognized as members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) thanks to insignia on their clothing. The officials searched the rooms, while another man in a military uniform showing emblems of the fascist Azov Battalion beat up Matyushenko to extort information. “The same person was spitting in my face and cutting my hair with a knife,” Maria M. said. Accordingly, Matyushenko was beaten and maltreated for a total of two hours.
            These accounts are backed up by footage allegedly posted by a thug involved in the assault on the Dnipro city Telegram channel, which has around 335,000 followers. A photo shows Matyushenko lying on the ground bleeding all over his face with a gun pressed to the back of his head. A video shows him being kicked and forced to repeatedly shout the greeting of the fascist banderists, “Slava Ukrajini – Gerojam slava!”
               Matyushenko is an anti-fascist and a member of Livitsya (Left), an alliance founded by activists from various social movements in Dnipro two years ago. The left-wing organization supports strikes and uses both public rallies and publications to protest social cuts, low wages, the curtailment of democracy, and the enforced conformity of the media – which has been used by Ukrainian oligarchs to established a “right-wing consensus” in society, as Matyushenko criticized in a newspaper article in 2020. “The right-wing government and the right-wing opposition are competing in anti-communism and xenophobia.” 

   

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Wars.

 

                                            Image courtesy of Al jazeera:     

            My heart bleeds for all the ordinary people of Ukraine who have seen loved ones killed, maimed and displaced, their homes, towns and villages destroyed. What I can't understand is this adoration of the present Ukrainian regime by the so called "free world" and the supposedly "defenders of democracy". What they omit or fail to understand is that they are praising a far right fascist regime. The President Zelensky, whose every word they report and worship has more or less banned all political parties except those of the far right and his own. This western worshipped President has presided over the neo-Nazi groups being integrated to the Ukrainian security forces, and our London Daily Mail even mourned the death of Maksym Kagal, a member of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion which was integrated into the Ukrainian security forces, with the aim of "purifying" Ukraine and freeing it of Russian blood. All of this is brushed under the carpet in the media's sublimation to the Western imperialists hatred of Russia. The reason being that Russia is seen as a possible rival to the hegemony of the American imperialists. This in no manner or means condones the Russian invasion into Ukraine, they are part and parcel of this imperialist carving up of the planet and its resources for profit to a few wealthy, privileged and powerful groups. I often wonder if they actually believe the bullshit they vomit over us in the false name of "news".
         It is never the ordinary people of a country that call for a war, it is always the rich, powerful and privileged who decide when and where to have a war, but it is the ordinary people who are sent to do the killing and be killed, while the spoils of war go to that rich, powerful and privileged bunch of parasites who called the shots. So they have no real fear of war, they never enter the battlefield.
       If only the media would report what they see with a true appraisal of the background without eulogising the fascists that their corporate bosses adore, but that then might cost them their job.

Image courtesy of UN News:

 

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NATO.

 

          It is always good to hear some news that our NATO friendly and Western imperialism biased media doesn't mention. So I'll post Loam's comment in full. In posting this it should not be seen as my endorsement of the Russian invasion into Ukraine, more a sample of the American backed Western NATO organisation's continual push east. It seems that when it comes to, arms shipments, most states believe in "No Borders" but for migrants, borders are to be impenetrable.

April 2nd. 2022 4:54 p.m

         Armored vehicles and tanks are currently being reloaded in the Greek trading port of Alexandroupolis in order to transport them to Eastern European NATO countries. Railway employees do not want to support this and are now being pressured by employers.
        The Greek commercial port of Alexandroupoli is an important loading port for both goods and fuel because it is close to the Greek-Turkish borders, connected to the port terminal by sea and has an international airport. It is also connected to the railways and the main European motorways.
         Since the beginning of military events in Ukraine, more than 3,000 US soldiers and hundreds of armored vehicles and tanks have been transferred to the Greek port of Alexandroupoli. From there it continues by train to Romania and other Eastern European NATO member states, according to Greek news site In.gr reported. This is what the article says:
         “American tanks belonging to the NATO forces, unloaded from the huge ferry ‘Liberty Passion’ in the port of Alexandroupoli, were transported by rail through the Evros prefecture to Eastern European countries. The tanks of the NATO troops were transported by rail transported from Alexandroupolis via Bulgaria to Romania.”
         The Greek media site Imerodromos reported on April 1 that the further delivery of armored vehicles from the Greek port of Alexandroupolis to the borders of Ukraine is currently in jeopardy, since some employees of the railway company TrainOSE refused to “actively support arms transports”.
          Now the pressure on the employees of the machine factory in Thessaloniki is said to have increased to move to Alexandroupolis to help out there.
          The Information Portal of the Greek Communist Party (KKE) informed adding that US armored vehicles had been delivered to Alexandroupolis by sea and then transported to Poland. On March 30th, “three full trains in this direction” had already been moved via rail traffic. The Greek railway workers loudly refused media details, to reload the material and “to provide technical support for the transport”. The KKE reported that employers “relyed on the employment contract, which states that employees are to work where the company needs them”. According to the KKE:
         “For about two weeks there has been pressure on the employees of the machine factory in Thessaloniki to go to Alexandroupoli. We condemn the employer’s threats against the TrainOSE workers who refused to take part in the maintenance of the trains and took off the NATO tanks to the port of Alexandroupoli.”
         After the intervention of the local unions, the threats against the railway workers had stopped. A dozen local associations published a resolution promising not to take part in the passage of the “war machine” through the country, according to information from Imerodromos. The resolution states:
        “It’s a mockery when an employer says: ‘You don’t have to care what the trains transport, it’s your job and you have to ride it.'”
         The pamphlet goes on to say: “We will not be complicit if the war machine rolls through our country’s territories. No use of the railways to transport war material abroad.
          The locomotives used for this purpose are to return to their base. No threat to a railway worker who refuses to agree to the transfer of NATO war material from our country.”
         The KKE resolution was supported by a dozen and a half local unions, including “chemical industry workers in northern Greece, private employees of the city of Thessaloniki, construction workers, workers in telecommunications and IT, the food industry, local authorities and municipal companies, hotels and public utilities”.

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Inhumanity.

     

            It appears from our media that the only violence in the world is taking place in Ukraine. Little or no mention of the fact that the streets of Sudan, have been since October 2021, the scene of state brutality against peaceful protesters. Since the October military coup in Sudan, 93 protestors have been killed, hundreds seriously injured, and more imprisoned by the military security forces, but still the people take to the streets to protest this military take over of their country, and the West, so called defenders of democracy, look the other way.
         I'm not for one minute suggesting that the Ukraine bloodshed is not important, but let's cover the violence across the globe that this insane system of state/corporate/military economics has produced. We are awash with violence from east to west, from north to south, but somehow our Western media seems to focus on one single spot of European violence, ignoring the thousands of lives that are being ended, maimed, destroyed and displaced across the planet on a daily basis. What makes the lives of Ukrainians more important than the lives of Palestinians, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Afghans, Somalians, and the people of Yemen and Sudan to mention a few. Does our compassion and humanity only reach as far as the borders of the European military camp?

This from Enough is Enough:

          Sudan. The Central Committee of Sudan Doctors announced that one protestor was killed, and dozens were injured during the March of the Millions in Khartoum, on Thursday. Eisam Hasab al-Rasoul (23) was shot in the chest by the security forces, leaving the current number of protestors that have been killed at 93, since the October 25 military coup. 

                               Image above by Twitter account @HassanAhmedBerk.

Originally published by Dabanga.

        16 protestors were also reported to have been injured by gunfire, including a critical injury of a gunshot wound to the chest during the Burii demonstrations in eastern Khartoum, on Wednesday. Dozens more injuries occurred the next day, as peaceful protestors were fired upon by coup forces with live bullets, tear gas, and sound bombs, in an effort to disperse demonstrators headed towards the Presidential Palace.
        Protesters chanted slogans denouncing the October 25 military coup, calling on the army to return to their barracks, full civilian rule and retribution for those killed during the protests.
       Other cities in Sudan such as El Obeid, El Gedaref, Wad Madani, and Port Sudan also witnessed excessive violence during demonstrations condemning the coup, on Thursday. In El Gaderef, protestors faced tear gas and excessive beating with sticks and truncheons. Members of Sudan’s General Intelligence Service also arrested five activists in El Gedaref, three of whom were taken from inside the Gedaref Hospital. The five activists arrested in El Gedaref are Dr Muhamed Suleiman, lawyers Mutasim Osman and Hamam al-Rashed, Walid Abdallah and Moshen.

Northern Sudan

        16 activists of the Al-Hafir resistance committee were issued with a fine of SDG50,000 by the Dongola Court in Sudan’s Northern State, for their part in the protests at Sheryan El Shimal (Artery of the North) on the Sudan-Egypt border. The activists who were protesting the recent price hikes in electricity fees, were fined for building barricades in order to prevent lorries heading to and from Egypt to cross.
        Abdo Ali, a member of the Dongola Resistance Committees Coordination, told Radio Dabanga that the amounts set by the court would be paid on the activist’s behalf by his committee.
        He also stated that a group of coup force members wounded 5 protestors by pelting them with stones and beating them with sticks, during a demonstration on Tuesday.
       The committee condemned the attack on the peaceful procession and described those behind the attack as ‘barbaric’.

Khartoum City Resistance Committees Coordination: A new epic today that plunges the coup plotters into the abyss [Sudan]

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info. 

Crisis??

 

          When the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, we had a migrant crisis, millions of Ukrainians fled across the border to neighbouring countries, in most cases accepted and welcomed. It was as if this was the only migrant crisis on the planet. For years Europe has been gripping on about the migrant crisis from Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, and so the list went on. These migrants however were never accepted, never welcomed, thousand languished between authoritarian lines on the land called borders. neither allowed to move one way or the other. Trapped in appalling conditions, in unforgiving weather, men, women and children, herded like cattle to prevent them from entering this country or that country, continually fleeing repression and brutality,  and Europe wringing its hands and shouting "crisis" but no solution just detention centres.
        Along comes the Ukrainian affair, and suddenly the only migrant "crisis" is the flow of terrified people fleeing Ukraine and Europe opens its arms. The other migrant "crisis" has disappeared off the media map, off the agenda, no longer worth mentioning. Sadly however, those thousands of humans lumped together as a migrant "crisis" before this Ukrainian affair are still there, still trapped between those inhumane borders, their real problem of course is that they are the wrong colour, they are not European, therefore not welcome in our European white race military camp.

The following from Crimethinc:

          Nearly four million refugees have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded. But these are hardly the only refugees fleeing war-torn countries today. Starting in 2021, the government of Belarus has cynically used thousands of refugees displaced by wars in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, and elsewhere as a weapon with which to exert pressure on the European Union. EU governments have responded callously, leaving these refugees trapped in limbo between two militarized borders and establishing a restricted zone to ensure that observers could not see them dying. Despite this, anarchists organized in the No Borders Team network have defied the restrictions to provide assistance to the refugees in the name of a world without borders. We spoke with anarchists mobilizing on the border between Poland and Belarus to learn more.

          You can donate to support the efforts of No Borders Team here.

         For background on mutual aid efforts in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic, start with this article. To learn about how volunteers act in solidarity with migrants along the border between the United States and Mexico, read this. For perspective from migrants, read this interview with Syrian exiles.

 

          October 23, 2021: Items abandoned by refugees in Poland. They were either in a hurry to escape from the border guards or were unable to pack up camp because they were arrested and taken back to Belarus.

 

 Read the full article HERE:

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info   

Sudan.

          While our media are all a frenzy over the Ukrainian affair, you would tend to think that all is well in the rest of the world. However, that is far from the truth, their are brutal wars and repressions dotted all around the planet, Yemen, Somalia, Palestine, Rojava, to mention a few, and practically no media coverage of the situation in Sudan. The people of Sudan have been continuing to hold mass peaceful protests against the military coup that took place on October 2021. These ongoing peaceful protests have been met with savage and brutal force by the military war lords in charge of Sudan, resulting in many grotesque injures and deaths. Despite the viciousness of the state repression, the people continue to take to the streets and face down the state violence. They deserve our fullest support and solidarity, their fight for freedom is our fight.

The following from Enough is Enough:

           Sudan. March 25. 2022. Mohammed Abdellatif, 28 years old, was killed with a shotgun as he was shot at close range in the chest, abdomen, and neck by the joint security forces in Wad Madani during yesterday’s Marches of the Millions, bringing the total number of martyrs since the October 25 military coup to 90.

Originally published by Dabanga.

           In a preliminary field report on the Khartoum marches yesterday, the Socialist Doctors Association (SDA) said that the number of injuries recorded was 43, including 8 bullet wounds from live ammunition.
        The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) confirmed that the coup authorities in Khartoum are still using deadly violence against the peaceful revolutionaries and that the revolutionary protesters are still adhering to their peaceful protest tactics, ‘which have proven their strength against bullets and the security arsenal’. The total number of injuries in the Khartoum North (Bahri) marchers on Wednesday, March 23, reached 7 cases, including 5 injuries from live bullets, including a wound to the chest. The doctors’ report indicated that there were other cases of injuries that were treated by field aid teams, and they are not included in the list.

Shotgun use

         The joint security forces used heavily used shotguns as part of their repression of the Marches of the Millions in February and March, and a number of revolutionaries were killed whilst hundreds sustained injuries from shotguns. The surgery of such shotgun wounds is complicated by the difficulty of removing the scattered shrapnel that can settle next to some vital organs. A shotgun firearm designed to shoot a cartridge known as a ‘shotshell’, which usually discharges numerous small sub-projectiles, like shrapnel. According to the CCSD, 101 cases of shotgun wound infection were monitored on March 21, 2022, including a serious injury that led to the loss of an eye in the processions of the city of Wad Madani.
         The committee announced its report entitled ‘The New Killer’, issued yesterday, that it had recorded 4 deaths and 327 cases of gunshot wounds with this firearm since the coup of last October 25. The committee also mentioned in its report the presence of some other light injuries with shotguns that are treated by field teams.

All over Sudan

        Three central cities that witnessed Marches of the Millions yesterday Khartoum, Khartoum North (Bahri), and Omdurman. All three witnessed brutal repression by the joint security forces during their march towards the Republican Palace and the march in Omdurman’s streets heading to the parliament buildings.
        The repression led to a number of wounded who were transferred to hospitals whilse others were treated in the field. The joint security forces met the peaceful demonstrators with excessive force, using tear gas, live bullets, and stun grenades in an attempt to prevent the peaceful processions from reaching the Republican Palace. The Omdurman processions managed, under the sound of stun grenades and tear gas, to reach Parliament. The demonstrators chanted throughout the capital, condemning the coup of Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) leader Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Commander Mohamed ‘Hemeti’ Dagalo.
        Marches of the Millions, called for by the Resistance Committees also took place in several cities in the states, including Wad Madani, Port Sudan, Nyala, Atbara, Singa, El Geneina, and El Gedaref. Everywhere, the protesters demanded full civilian rule and the return of the military to their barracks and held the coup authorities responsible for the deterioration of the economic and living conditions in Sudan. A member of the El Gedaref Resistance Committees told Radio Dabanga that the El Gedaref demonstrations moved past the murals for the martyrs, next to the morgue, and met on Marches of the Millions Revolution Street in the city center with chants denouncing the coup and demanding full civil rule. The police confronted the demonstrators and closed the El Gedaref market.

 

Visit ann arky's home home at https://spiritofrevolt.info