"Right..Lenin, Keir Hardie, James Connolly, AJ Cook, and you George on t'banner, I think that'll Scotch the 'Lurch towards Reformism' Rumours"

Thanks to my old pal Dr. Don Watson for sending on this little gem to the "Unrepentant Communist" site.

"Follonsby Lodge of the Durham Miners Association, at Wardley near Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, was one of only three in the British coalfield to feature Lenin on its banner.It was also the only one to include the Irish revolutionary James Connolly, executed after theEaster Rising. The other figures on it are Keir Hardie, 1920's miners' leader AJ Cook, and FollonsbyLodge Secretary George Harvey. A syndicalist before 1917, Harvey was a founder member of the Communist Party who later became a Labour Councillor. In 1935 he led a long and successful strike against victimisation. In 1936 his Lodge gave much practical support to local men taking part in theHunger March to London to protest against joblessness and the treatment of the unemployed. After the second world war when the British coal industry was nationalised, Lenin and Connolly were replaced on the banner by images of Durham Miners Association officials." (picture from W.A. Moyes, 'The BannerBook', Frank Graham, Newcastle-on-Tyne 1974)

Iraq's Mercenaries...Trained in Ireland?

Jean McBride, featured in the photo above, is the mother of unarmed 18 year old Peter McBride who was shot dead by the British Army in September 1992. Reports of trigger happy mercenaries firing on Iraqi civilians is of particular interest to Jean McBride, since one of the largest firms operating in Iraq which has come under particular scrutiny is Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The connection with the McBride families tragedy is that the boss of Aegis is a certain Tim Spicer. This gentleman was in command of the two soldiers, Mark Wright and James Fischer, who fatally shot Peter McBride at a checkpoint in Newlodge after he had been searched. Paul O'Connor of the Derry based Pat Finucane centre has been following the case for more than a decade. "Tim Spicer was the first senior officer to have access to the soldiers at a time when the RUC was denied access, he testified at their trial and said that his men had done no wrong and should not have been charged" O'Connor explains.

Despite Spicer's active support the two soldiers were convicted of murder in 1995. Spicer rejected the verdict (upheld on appeal) and continued to agitate for the release of Wright and Fischer, "after they were convicted he helped organise a campaign involving present and and former army officers, it was run from the HQ of the Scots Guards in London" O'Connor adds. Spicer according to O'Connor "made a number of claims that were totally and utterly untrue, he claimed that Peter McBride probably did have some kind of device. He claimed that local people probably ghosted away the device after he was shot." The campaign to release the soldiers was successful in 1998 when the release of the two soldiers was ordered by the British government. They were allowed to resume service in the army.

Since then Tim Spicer has moved into the world of private security, starting off as the CEO of Sandline. In that capacity he was embroiled in a number of high-profile controversies, including a brief spell in a jail in Papua New Guinea after Spicer was arrested by the Papuan army. Sandline was eventually wound up, and Tim Spicer became involved in setting up Aegis. The new venture did well and attracted a $293 million deal under Paul Bremers Coalition Authority (CPA) charged with providing security for the CPA. Since the contract was awarded Aegis has been the subject of severe criticism. In 2005 an audit carried out by a US government agency found that many Aegis employees lacked the training required to handle the weapons they had been issued with, including AK 47's and M4 assault rifles.This was quickly followed by allegations that its contractors fired on Iraqi Civilians. A video was posted on the internet by a former Aegis employee, which apparently showed automatic fire being directed from the back of an SUVagainst civilian cars. Aegis describes the clip as "a malicious attempt to discredit Aegis" in which "the incidents displayed had been taken entirely out of context". A US army investigation cleared the company, but the Pat Finucane Centre was contacted by the man who posted the video, Rod Stoner, who told them that the inquiry had not interviewed key witnesses -including Stoner himself.

"We asked for a meeting with US officials. In reality this sort of thing happens every day and the government does'nt really give a toss-they said that they would go off and investigate and come back to us," says Paul O'Connor. The Pat Finucane centre is reported to believe that the shooter , a South African, was ghosted out of the country until the investigation was over. "We asked if they had interviewed any Iraqi civilians-they had'nt", adds Paul O'Connor.

O'Connor notes that all private security firms operating in Iraq were granted immunity from prosecution by the CPA.It is of course merely a coincidence that Tim Spicer's name crops up in both of these stories, and I am sure that were any of the Aegis contractors ever accused of accidentally harming anyone, he would be able to draw upon his experience in Ireland to ensure that no one involved would become another victim of a miscarriage of justice. Sadly, there is no such recourse for the family of Peter McBride.

With Acknowledgements to Hot Press http://www.hotpress.com/archive/4187704.html 25/10/2007

The Murder by Crown Forces of Eddie Carmody of Ballylongford, County Kerry, on November 22nd 1920

Lieutenant Eddie Carmody was born in Moyvane, Co. Kerry and at a very young age moved to Ballylongford to work on a local farm. He was an outstanding Gaelic footballer and an all round athlete. He was a man of great courage, honesty and innate chivalry. He was one of the first local men to join Óglaigh na hÉireann becoming at first the Quarter Master of his local company and then a Lieutenant within the IRA. While on his way to an arms dump outside Ballylongford on the 22nd November 1920, he was ambushed by a patrol of Black and Tans. He was severely wounded after being fired upon several times, but still managed to struggle away a few hundred yards. The Black and Tans following his trail of blood found him after a brief search and dragged him onto the roadway, where he was kicked and beaten with rifle butts. After being stabbed by the soldier’s bayonets in a frenzied attack he was shot several times in the face resulting in his death. His body was then put onto a cart and dragged through the village to the local barrack's, where he was left outside in a turf shed till his father collected his body the following day. Eddie Carmody was unarmed at the time.
Lead Up to Murder
The local events leading up to the murder of IRA Lieutenant Eddie Carmody can be traced back to 1919, when Ballylongford IRA volunteers successfully defended a Feis being held in the village in mid-summer. Posters announcing the date of the Feis were distributed far and wide, and sensing a political aspect to the proceedings, a company of Welsh Fusiliers were sent to Ballylongford from Limerick, and arrived around noon and took over what was known then as the Big Store, They issued a proclamation banning the festivities. It was decided by the IRA to create a diversion, so a few horses and sidecars and ponies and traps were ostentatiously loaded with known IRA volunteers in full view of the British Army company. The convoy then took off, followed by the Welsh Fusiliers who found themselves at Craughdarrig, surrounded and detained by the Volunteers they had been following. The British Army men were detained whilst the Feis proceeded successfully in an alternative venue at McNamara’s at the Building in Tullahinnell. In the evening, after the Feis was more or less too late to stop, the British soldiers were permitted to return, no doubt somewhat chastened by their welcome to Kerry. It was then that a disturbance broke out at the rear of Collin’s public house in Ballylongford between some young men who had drink taken. Brian O’Grady one of the local IRA officers and Lieutenant Eddie Carmody, were called to bring some volunteers to eject the troublemakers from the village. Shortly after that a British officer arrived and asked if everything was under control, and added ‘We don’t want any trouble and anyway we are clearing out in the morning’ which suggested that he was less than concerned that the IRA seemed to be in de facto control of things. Incidentally, and perhaps of interest for those aware of Ballylongford’s strong literary links , the British officer who enquired that all was ‘under control’, was none other than Captain Robert Graves, the English poet who would later become famous for his novel ‘I Claudius’.
This humiliating failure to assert control over the area indicated that Sinn Féin and the IRA were in a strong position in this area. This was followed in late 1919 by an incident where an RIC man was fired on by the IRA in Bridge Street and wounded for insulting a young priest not long ordained. All throughout this period Eddie Carmody was a pivotal figure in the local IRA. In early 1920, Eddie Carmody took part in a successful and peacefully transacted raid on Kilelton house, which secured a small amount of arms for the IRA but also a lot of kudos for the raiders, it being carried out unmasked and in full daylight to prevent a shoot-out occurring. The raid resulted in a number of reprisal burnings by the British army, including Boland’s garage where the IRA party had acquired the vehicle for the raid.
The Tans
It was inevitable that the level of conflict would intensify in January 1920 when the Black and Tans were deployed in the area, no doubt in an attempt to bring ‘to heel’ this rebellious village. The ‘Tans’ as they were known locally were ex-British soldiers and ex-convicts recruited to be a paramilitary quasi-fascist terror force in Ireland, whose primary purpose was to intimidate the local people into submission. Things were hotting up in the area, with IRA activity against the British forces intensifying, with shooting incidents and sabotage of British rule increasing enormously. The reaction was a much higher degree of reprisal and terrorising of the locals by both the RIC and the Tans, things had moved on a lot from the days of the Feis in 1919. This culminated in a situation where the local IRA took prisoner an RIC man and a Black and Tan, who had been captured by the IRA in the avenue leading to the church in Ballylongford. The RIC man and the Tan had been involved in a vain attempt to detain the parishioners after devotions. The two would be detainers, were themselves detained by the IRA. But they were, after some negotiations, released unharmed, after being held overnight in Moyvane. This represented another damaging humiliation for the British forces in the Ballylongford area. It was obvious that a strong response would soon follow. In the aftermath of this action, the local volunteers were ordered by the IRA Kerry HQ to place their arms in a dump temporarily, and out of harms way, since Ballylongford was to be swamped in a search for arms. According to the former IRA officer Brian O’Grady, this meant that the volunteers were not able to resist effectively when the Tans did come looking for revenge.
So it was in reprisal for these earlier actions, that on the morning of the 22nd November 1920 Ballylongford was flooded by a force of Tans and police which arrived in four or five Lorries. There then followed a day of searches and intimidation by the RIC and the Tans throughout the village, interspersed with numerous visits to pubs, where copious quantities of beer and spirits were consumed at the unfortunate landlords (enforced) expense. In the early part of the evening a large number of Tans emerged and started firing their guns and smashing windows in the Tea lane area, and then proceeded to do the same in Bridge Street. A group of unarmed IRA men were dispersed around the village to advise people to avoid where the Tans were congregated. At some point a patrol of Black and Tans proceeded up Tea lane again, and fired on Eddie Carmody. Seeing how things were deteriorating it is thought that Carmody was making his way, in his role as an IRA quartermaster, to retrieve some hand guns from the nearest dump to the village. He never made it to the arms dump; he was spotted and wounded somewhere near the Doctors gate. Shortly afterwards a further fusillade of shots was heard from near the Rusheen Grove, where Carmody had got to despite being wounded. It appears that his pursuers followed him by observing where the trail of blood led them. On capturing him it is reported that he was beaten with rifle butts and then shot in cold blood, his final shooting being marked by much drunken cheering.
Eddie Carmody was laid to rest in Murhur graveyard, and was accorded full Irish Republican Army military honours despite the continuation of repression and terror throughout the area.

November 7th 2007- Moscow- 40,000 March to Mark the Russian Revolution

Congratulations to all those who braved the minus 5 degree temperatures to march through Moscow on the evening of November 7th, the march was organised by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF), and the video attached illustrates that for a substantial number of Russian citizens the Socialist Revolution of 1917 is still an event to be commemorated and celebrated.It is good to see that communists from other countries were also in attendance.

Madeleine McCann..The Daily Express....& Robinson Crusoe

As the time since Madeleine McCann's disappearance draws past the 6 month mark, the ever greedy British middle-brow press, represented by titles such as the Daily Express and the Daily Mail, grow ever more desperate to keep the pot boiling and interest maintained in a case that seems to be able to sell their papers as readily as Princess Diana's story in both life and death used to. Its now open season on any person or agency which seems to be genuinely puzzled by the inconsistencies in the team McCann version of what happened on that fateful night in May. The Portuguese police are portrayed as sleazy lazy greasy fat dagoes who spend their time quaffing wine, chewing their toothpicks removing congealed sardines from their dentures, and smoking foul smelling cigarettes scheming to imprison the brave British medics whose only crime was that they went out for a few drinks.....( leaving their toddler in charge of twin babies in an unlocked apartment two hundred yards from their restaurant ) ....{er remove the last bit.. Ed}. Another target of the Express in particular seems to be the denizens of the country of Morocco which seems to possess a morbid fascination for the journos at the Daily Excess. The latest rash of 'sightings' of 'Maddie' , as she has now been tabloidly re-christened, seems to be quite regularly in Morroco. This has the perfect combination of dusky skinned natives, Islam, and some kind of vague association with slavery and sexual skulduggery. Although it must be said that the historic perpetrators of most paedophilia in Morroco have largely been derived from European male paedophile visitors, who historically preyed upon poverty stricken youngsters in Morroco, a practice testified to in numerous literary memoirs over the decades. The latest serving from the Express is a classic of its kind, under the header ' ‘MADELEINE WILL BE USED AS A LITTLE MAID’ Thursday November 1st 2007 By Nick Fagge ( ho ho ) in Morocco and Martin Evans in Portugal... we discover, thanks to 'Nick' and Martin, that " MADELEINE McCann may have been condemned to a life of slavery working as a “little maid” for a rich Arab family in Morocco, child trafficking experts claimed yesterday. But as a child slave, Madeleine could be regularly abused by her host family or by visitors invited to meet the blonde-haired “curiosity”....."Collected by rich families as “curiosities” as well as domestic servants little maids can live with their host families their whole lives, receiving a pittance in wages which is sent directly to their family. And without the protection of family members these young girls are often abused – physically, emotionally and sexually. " Hang on where have we heard this before? There's something familiar in all this talk of 'curiosities' and 'domestic slavery', and no I am not talking about the thousands of Morrocan women working as 'au-pairs' in London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid....No its older than that, as old as 1719 in fact, when 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe was published in England, Robinson Crusoe amongst his many misadventures is captured by Moors and made a personal slave....as described in Defoe's classic prose below,

"However, to cut short this melancholy part of our story, our ship being disabled, and three of our men killed, and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield, and were carried all prisoners into Sallee, a port belonging to the Moors.
The usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I apprehended; nor was I carried up the country to the emperor's court, as the rest of our men were, but was kept by the captain of the rover as his proper prize, and made his slave, being young and nimble, and fit for his business. At this surprising change of my circumstances, from a merchant to a miserable slave, I was perfectly overwhelmed; and now I looked back upon my father's prophetic discourse to me, that I should be miserable and have none to relieve me, which I thought was now so effectually brought to pass that I could not be worse; for now the hand of Heaven had overtaken me, and I was undone without redemption; but, alas! this was but a taste of the misery I was to go through, as will appear in the sequel of this story.
As my new patron, or master, had taken me home to his house, so I was in hopes that he would take me with him when he went to sea again, believing that it would some time or other be his fate to be taken by a Spanish or Portugal man-of-war; and that then I should be set at liberty. But this hope of mine was soon taken away; for when he went to sea, he left me on shore to look after his little garden, and do the common drudgery of slaves about his house; and when he came home again from his cruise, he ordered me to lie in the cabin to look after the ship."

It is interesting, depressing, but frankly unsurprising, that the British press is digging into reservoirs of cultural memory, derived from a world view which was probably quite out of date within a century of its publication in 1719. Digging into veins of racism and prejudice which only need the slightest of prompting for it to come oozing out of British middle class opinion. Meanwhile it is widely reported that the Portuguese police are continuing along a definite line of enquiry, a line of enquiry that posits the notion that in common with 70% of all child homicides, no abductor at all was involved, no abductor , neither Morrocan, nor Muslim, in fact no dirty greasy foreigner of any description appears to be in the frame at all. Instead the Portuguese police are annoyingly insistent on investigating issues such as DNA traces, employing almost 100% foolproof UK based 'cadaver dogs' , and questioning the existence of an 'abductor' who quite apart from having no facial features at all was only 'seen' by a close friend of the McCann's and not by one single other of the thousands of holidaymakers thronging the resort of Praia de Luz that evening in May. I suppose eventually they will see sense and search instead for 'Corsairs' in Dhows with turbans, beards, and an unspeakable appetite for the strange and previously unseen and unheard of curiosities spoken of in the hareems of Araby as 'the blond haired ones' .

MOSUL DAM....AMERICA'S IRAQ 'JINX' WORSENS.

The largest dam in Iraq is at risk of an imminent collapse that could unleash a 20m (65ft) wave of water on Mosul, a city of 1.7m people, the US occupation forces in Iraq have warned.
In May, the US told Iraqi authorities to make Mosul Dam a national priority, as a catastrophic failure would result in a "significant loss of life". However, a $27m (£13m) US-funded reconstruction project to help shore up the dam has made little or no progress. Iraq says it is reducing the risk and insists there is no cause for alarm, However, a US watchdog said reconstruction of the dam had been plagued by mismanagement and potential fraud.
In a report published on Tuesday, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said US-funded "short-term solutions" had yet to significantly solve the dam's problems. SIGIR found multiple failures in several of the 21 contracts awarded to repair the dam.
Among the faults were faulty construction and delivery of improper parts, as well as projects which were not completed despite full payments having been made. The dam has been a problem for Iraqi engineers since it was constructed in 1984. It was built on water-soluble gypsum, which caused seepage within months of its completion and led investigators to describe the site as "fundamentally flawed". In September 2006, the US Army Corps of Engineers determined that the dam, 45 miles upstream of Mosul on the River Tigris, presented an unacceptable risk. "In terms of internal erosion potential of the foundation, Mosul Dam is the most dangerous dam in the world," the corps warned, according to the SIGIR report. "If a small problem [at] Mosul Dam occurs, failure is likely."
A catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam would result in flooding along the Tigris River all the way to Baghdad . The corps later told US commanders to move their equipment away from the Tigris flood plain near Mosul because of the dam's instability. The top US military commander in Iraq, Gen David Petraeus, and US ambassador Ryan Crocker then wrote to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki urging him to make fixing the dam a "national priority".
"A catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam would result in flooding along the Tigris River all the way to Baghdad" the letter on 3 May warned.
"Assuming a worst-case scenario, an instantaneous failure of Mosul Dam filled to its maximum operating level could result in a flood wave 20m deep at the city of Mosul, which would result in a significant loss of life and property." If that were to happen some have predicted that as many as 500,000 people could be killed. Iraqi authorities, however, say they are taking steps to reduce the risk and they do not believe there is cause for alarm.

However, despite these reassuring noises, the SIGIR review found that a Turkish company, which was paid $635,000 for a contract awarded 19 months ago to build storage silos for cement, had done so little and such poor-quality work that its project may have to be restarted. One company contracted to design grout-mixing plants instead submitted plans for unusable concrete-mixing plants. High-tech equipment meant to help grouting is gathering dust because it won’t work, according to investigators.
Embassy and Army Corps officials noted that it has been difficult to conduct oversight of the project because it is in a dangerous area. They said that contracts with the worst businesses have been terminated and that steps have been taken to ensure better management of the project in the future.“Our focus is on whether the project that the Corps undertook got carried out and the answer to that question is no,” said Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the special inspector general. “The expenditures of the money have yielded no benefit yet.”

The more one hears about the United States occupation of Iraq, one is increasingly drawn towards the conclusion that the US occupation has been marked by an extraordinary amount of wasted resources and incompetence. True this dam has been fundamentally flawed since its construction, but the complete inability of the US occupation forces and the largely irrelevant Iraqi 'government' to cope with these huge problems is demonstrating that whatever this occupation was about, it seems to have utterly failed to bring about efficient and transparent governance. Instead it appears that the billions of dollars being spent by the US administration in this foolhardy adventure, seems destined to be siphoned off by every huckster, mountebank, and con man with the temerity to tender for reconstruction related projects in Iraq, of course this trend was set in the earliest of the days after the invasion of Iraq, when corporations with particularly close ties to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush dynasty seemed to be particularly succesful in getting their noses into the trough.

The revelations about the real state of the Mosul dam contrasts sharply with the anodyne optimism of this relatively recent report about the self same project published by the US Department of Defence 'DefendAmerica'website

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/sep2005/a090905ms3.html.

If the discrepancies between this report and reality about the Mosul dam project is reflected in every aspect of the USA's reporting of its occupation of Iraq, then its little wonder that the US adminstration are simply desperate to find a way of getting out of Iraq without it looking like a retreat. Oh and lets not forget that this is the country that is intent on poking its nose into Iran next, have'nt they done enough damage?

California Refugee...New Orleans Refugee..Spot the Difference.

Surely the difference in the quality of response from President George W Bush to the plight of citizens made homeless in California, as opposed to New Orleans two years ago (see photo above) is purely down to 'learning from experience'.....yeah, sure it is George. The descriptions of the aid operation in Southern California, and Bush's fervent promises of his prayers, and more practically, his directing of immediate and urgent aid, suggest that the welfare of the well heeled, mainly white residents of Malibu and San Diego, may be closer to Dubya's heart than the poor inner city, mainly black, residents of New Orleans after Hurricane Katriona. The description of the aid operation in Southern California ( see photographs below) does seem remarkably different to the chaotic shambles which occurred in New Orleans. According to 10News, and illustrated well in this photograph belowfrom the Qualcomm stadium in San Diego, for example these two guys look more like they are going to a football game, as opposed to commencing a lengthy period of homelessness and misery.
"The evacuation operation was going smoothly Tuesday afternoon, and National Guard troops sent to maintain order were described as polite and helpful.AT&T provided Internet access to the evacuees and charged their cell phones for free. Volunteers offered massage therapy, yoga, kosher food and art projects for kids."There was a call for artists last night," said Brian Patterson, who manages community programs at the San Diego Museum of Art. "And I thought, 'this is what I do, anyway,' so I came down here," he said.Evacuees also had access to information on insurance and got medical help. They were given snacks and drinks and necessities such as baby wipes, tooth brushes, toothpaste and hand sanitizers."
Wow!....Yoga and Kosher food. It took the Bush Administration five days to get a fresh bottle of water into New Orleans, but in San Diego they have Yoga classes and their taking account of religious dietary restrictions. The Associated Press also noticed the difference, "Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes. The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium.Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires. "The people are happy. They have everything here," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared."

Its good to see that the response in Southern California has been SO much better, and credit must be given to the emergency services and Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, otherwise known as 'The Terminator', in that regard. The super-rich of the Californian hills will not be camped out in the Qualcomm Stadium in any case , and thats for certain. However the speed and urgency displayed by George Bush in this case, does rather suggest that he may have a stronger 'psychic' connection with the residents of Malibu than those of the 9th Ward in downtown New Orleans.