Who's Pulling Protesters Strings?

I don't think it takes any particular string-pulling. I would venture that 90 percent of the folks showing up were also at one time or another involved in the anti-capitalism protests prior to 9/11. So in the end, these causes attrack lib wingnuts like fresh manure attracts flies, and for the exact same spontaneous reasons.

Commies

We’ve got to find out who’s pulling the strings.

I imagine the NSA knows. And that means Bush does.

Communism used to be an international conspiracy headquartered in Moscow. Who runs it now?

It's probably just a big conspiracy organization company on the web. You write in, tell them what you want to protest, where, how many people, etc. Give them your credit card #, and it happens. Same people that organise freeps.

You can’t put a family reunion or a PTA bake sale together without all kinds of hassle and work.

It probably IS just a big family reumion. The only place where that many people are related is Arkansas. See where I am going with this?

Go to the World Workers Party website link http://www.workers.org/ww/2001/call1004.php and you will see they founded International A.N.S.W.E.R.(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). Phone number of that group is 212 633 6646. Do a "google" search on that phone number and a plethora of radical groups pop out. International Action Center is funded by Peoples Rights Fund, Inc. as well as other front groups.

Also, from "Marching With Stalinists" by Michael Kelly on Wednesday, January 22, 2003; Page A15:

...Last weekend, the left held large antiwar marches in Washington, San Francisco and elsewhere. Major media coverage of these marches was highly respectful. This was "A Stirring in the Nation," in the words of an approving New York Times editorial, "impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers."

There is, increasingly, much that happens in the world that the Times feels its readers should be sheltered from knowing. The marches in Washington and San Francisco were chiefly sponsored, as was last October's antiwar march in Washington, by a group the Times chose to call in its only passing reference "the activist group International Answer."

International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) is a front group for the communist Workers World Party. The Workers World Party is, literally, a Stalinist organization. It rose out of a split within the old Socialist Workers Party over the Soviet Union's 1956 invasion of Hungary -- the breakaway Workers World Party was all for the invasion. International ANSWER today unquestioningly supports any despotic regime that lays any claim to socialism, or simply to anti-Americanism. It supported the butchers of Beijing after the slaughter of Tiananmen Square. It supports Saddam Hussein and his Baathist torture-state. It supports the last official Stalinist state, North Korea, in the mass tarvation of its citizens. It supported Slobodan Milosevic after the massacre at Srebrenica. It supports the mullahs of Iran, and the narco-gangsters of Colombia and the bus-bombers of Hamas.

This is whom the left now marches with. The left marches with the Stalinists. The left marches with those who would maintain in power the leading oppressors of humanity in the world. It marches with, stands with and cheers on people like the speaker at the Washington rally who declared that "the real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America."

There is your answer.

There is your answer.

Now, that is what I call connecting the dots!

Followers of . . .

I have read that Brian Becker of the Workers World Party (also International ANSWER) is lavishly hosted in Baghdad and Pyongyang each time he visits.

WPK secretary meets U.S. party delegation

Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- Kim Jung Rin, secretary of the Central Committee of the Worker's Party of Korea, today met and conversed with the delegation of the Worker's World Party of the United States headed by Brian Becker, member of its secretariat.

At the meeting the head of the delegation said that the Korean people are firmly defending socialism despite the continued isolation and suffocation moves of the imperialists, adding this is attributable to the tested leadership of the WPK led by General Secretary Kim Jong Il.

He noted that his party would continue to wage a vigorous struggle for the pullback of the U.S. forces from South Korea and intensify the movement for solidarity with the WPK.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2000/200002/news02/24.htm

Interesting. I wonder if kristinn knows that.

MEDIA ADVISORY

January 23, 2002
Contacts: Brian Becker, Larry Holmes -- 212-633-6646

Feb 2 Protesters Against World Economic Forum Say: "WE WILL DEFEND OUR RIGHT TO PROTEST"

Announcing First Anti-Globalization Protests Since Sept. 11

PRESS CONFERENCE

Who:

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General and one of the attorneys who have filed a lawsuit in federal court demanding that Guantanamo POWs be accorded the legal protections of the Geneva Conventions
James Creedon, NYC Paramedic who worked at Ground Zero
Larry Holmes, International Action Center
Ismael Guadalupe, Committee for the Rescue & Development of Vieques
Macrina Cardenas, Mexico Solidarity Network
Brian Becker, Co-Director, International Action Center
Nadia Ahmed, Students for International Peace & Justice
Sarah Sloan, Student Organizer for A.N.S.W.E.R.
Debbie Daniels, M.D., Doctors for Global Health
Ray LaForest, DC 1707, New York Labor Against the War
Elijah Crane, Student Organizer for International Action Center
Gail Walker, IFCO/Pastors for Peace
Facilitator: Teresa Gutierrez, International A.N.S.W.E.R.

As looney as it sounds it is a vast left wing conspiracy. All the unemployed communists of the world, since 1989 have been looking for a cause. The environmentalists gave them the cause, the Greens gave them the medium internationally and the Demoncrats nationally.

In short, we are in a cold war again with the same opponents, just a different face.

We fell asleep for a decade while they were building this infrastructure. Our culture and our country are at serious risk.

You mean they're in bed with Clinton/McAuliffe and their lefty ilk? My grandma always said there's no accounting for taste.

REPORT FROM IRAQ: U.S. DROPS BOMBS EVERY DAY

By Brian Becker
Mosul, Iraq

06/09/2002
URL : http://www.lai-aib.org/lai/article_lai.phtml?section=A3ABBD&object_id=15163

Irak

REPORT FROM IRAQ: U.S. DROPS BOMBS EVERY DAY
A trip through Iraq in blistering late-August heat makes it crystal clear that the Bush administration is already waging a "pre-war" war that includes bombings almost on a daily basis.

By Brian Becker Mosul, Iraq
06-09-2002

Designed to degrade Iraq's potential for air defense and to monitor its military response to air assaults, these bombings are taking a toll. People are getting killed and wounded regularly, but you would never know it if your source of information is the Western mass media.

This writer went to Iraq on Aug. 25 as part of a fact- finding anti-war delegation led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. The delegation flew into Iraq's "no- fly zones" in the north and south of the country for five days. In those five days, the U.S. bombed Iraq on five separate occasions.

True to form, the U.S. media said almost nothing about these daily bombings. Each day after we returned from the site of the latest bombing we would check the web sites of the Western media. Nary a peep about the lawless aggression waged from the skies by U.S. warplanes. Instead, the U.S. media focused its coverage on "why Saddam Hussein is such a great threat to world peace."

BOMBS DROP EVERY DAY

On Aug. 25, U.S. planes bombed Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq. Eight people died on the spot and 10 more were wounded. When we arrived in Basra on Aug. 27, we learned that one of the seriously injured had also died from his wounds.

http://www.lai-aib.org/lai/article_lai.phtml?section=A3ABBD&object_id=15163

U.S. War Mongering, Its Legacy of Deceit
The U.S. Conspiracy to Initiate the War Against Iraq

By Brian Becker
Presented in May 1991
http://educate-yourself.org/cn/conspiracytowarwithiraq31jan02.shtml
Jan. 31, 2002

Even before the first day of the Persian Gulf crisis George Bush and the Pentagon wanted to wage war against
Iraq.

What was the character of this war? Iraq neither attacked nor threatened the United States. We believe that this
was a war to redivide and redistribute the fabulous markets and resources of the Middle East, in other words this
was an imperialist war. The Bush administration, on behalf of the giant oil corporations and banks, sought to
strengthen its domination of this strategic region. It did this in league with the former colonial powers of the region,
namely Britain and France, and in opposition to the Iraqi people's claim on their own land and especially their
natural resources.

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/conspiracytowarwithiraq31jan02.shtml

Why U.S. wants Milosevic ousted

By Brian Becker

Demonstrations demanding the ouster of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic were organized in several cities inside Yugoslavia in the second week of July by opposition parties.

Some of these demonstrations received wide coverage in the U.S. media. In the city of Prokuplje, for instance, 3,000 people answered the call of the opposition. The July 9 New York Times carried a large photo of the demonstration. A picture of an even smaller demonstration from the city of Valjevo filled up a half page of the July 12 New York Times.

When 10,000 demonstrators marched on the Pentagon on June 5 to condemn the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia the New York Times didn't carry a large picture of the activity. They didn't write a big article about it either. In fact, they didn't write one word of the demonstration. It was totally ignored.

What accounts for the difference in the coverage between the anti-war demonstrations at home and the anti-Milosevic demonstrations in Yugoslavia? Both demonstrations were opposing their respective governments.

"People always were and always will be foolish victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class or other behind the moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises," wrote V.I. Lenin, the leader of the Russian revolution.

Lenin was succinctly presenting the Marxist starting point for an analysis of all social phenomenon. Whether it's an assessment of a tenant-landlord dispute, a strike of auto workers, a war in a far-off land, or the complexity of international diplomacy, Marxists seek to unearth the class interests that are being served by the contending forces.

What are the class interests being served by the U.S./NATO war against Yugoslavia, by the NATO occupation of Kosovo, and now by the concerted efforts of the CIA, the IMF and the major U.S. mass media to support the overthrow of the Milosevic government?

All the information about the recent war from the U.S. media directs the public to think that in the Balkans different nationalities, for a variety of reasons, have entered into a period of prolonged, agonizing conflict with each other. The propaganda from the Western media focuses its attack on the Serbian leadership and on "Serb nationalism."

But Yugoslavia and the Balkans today is not simply a collection of nationalities. Classes have not been abolished in Yugoslavia and in the region of the Balkans. Nor have they been abolished in the United States, Britain, Germany and the other NATO countries.

The Marxist criteria of putting "class interests" at the center of an analysis immediately brings clarity about the war and the current U.S. efforts to promote the counter-revolution against the Milosevic government.

President Bill Clinton said that the U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was in response to the refusal of Yugoslavia to sign the Rambouillet "peace agreement." That agreement stipulated that "The economy of Kosovo shall function in accordance with free-market principles [and] ... there shall be no impediments to the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital to and from Kosovo."

That's technical treaty language. But Bill Clinton put it into popular terms when he explained the U.S. aims with the war: "If we are going to have a strong economic relationship that includes our ability to sell around the world, Europe has got to be the key; that's what this Kosovo thing is all about ... its globalism versus tribalism."

Milosevic and the Yugoslav government had put definite impediments on the free movement of capital in Kosovo and in all the other parts of Yugoslavia as well. It is the unfettered flow of capital and investment that Clinton refers to when he talks about "globalism." Although the socialist publicly-owned sector of the economy has been damaged over time from decentralization and economic sanctions, public ownership still exists in thousands of factories and enterprises in Yugoslavia.

While Clinton has to put Corporate America's agenda in the Balkans in popular terms, New York Times writer Thomas Friedman is able to put Wall Street's brutal class interests in the war in blunter language.

"For globalization to work, America can't be afraid to act like the almighty superpower that it is ... The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist--McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies is called the United States Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps," Freidman wrote in the March 28 New York Times.

While the Milosevic government is not pursuing a revolutionary communist policy, it drew the anger of the United States and other imperialist governments when it acted to slow down and resist the wholesale privatization of industry, banking, and trade as demanded by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

This trend was widely noted in Western media accounts in 1996.

"Milosevic is harking back to the political control promised by that old Communist star on his presidency building ...[he] is revoking some privatization and free-market measures," stated an article in the June 6, 1996, Christian Science Monitor. A month later, the July 18, 1996, New York Times complained about Milosevic's determination to "keep state controls and his refusal to allow privatization."

The Aug. 4, 1996, Washington Post carried a piece against Milosevic that was even more explicit. "Milosevic failed to understand the political message of the fall of the Berlin Wall," the Post quotes Konstantin Obradovic, deputy director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights. He is one of the "democratic opposition" seeking to oust the Yugoslav government.

"While other Communist politicians accepted the Western model, and moved in the direction of the rest of Europe, Milosevic went the other way. That is why we are where we are today."

After the collapse of the USSR and the socialist bloc governments in Eastern Europe, the United States has aggressively moved into the region to create a patchwork of new military and economic arrangements, organizations and treaties to insure U.S. domination over the entire area of southern and eastern Europe.

The expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic puts these countries under a Pentagon-dominated military chain of command. Tens of thousands of U.S. and other NATO troops now occupy the former Yugoslav republics of Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Macedonia, as well as Kosovo and Albania.

The U.S. also dominates the Southeastern Europe Cooperative Initiative (SECI) which is planning for the reorganization of the newly-privatized sectors in energy, oil and petroleum, telecommunications, scientific research and banking.

The SECI is planning for the integration of the region's economic infrastructure into the arteries of U.S.-dominated finance and banking. Nine of the eleven member states of the SECI were formerly part of the socialist bloc countries. Greece and Turkey are the exceptions.

Yugoslavia, under Milosevic, is the only country in the region that has refused to participate in the SECI and its program for the outright imperialist takeover of the region.

This is why the U.S. calls Milosevic "intransigent." This is why the opposition "economists" in Belgrade known as Group 17 have denounced the Milosevic government as "illegitimate."

These darlings of Western bankers have proposed an alternative to the IMF to Yugoslavia's public ownership sector once Milosevic could be removed. Who are they?

"The Group 17 gathers 20 most-distinguished Yugoslav economists employed at the universities, banks, consulting agencies and international financial instutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund," reads the mission statement of the group.

Why are they opposed to Milosevic? Because he has acted as a brake to the full-scale capitalist restoration in Yugoslavia.

One of the latest statements of the Group 17 says it all: "A new phase in the process of transition to a market economy throughout Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is beginning." However, "it is extremely well known that this transition in Yugoslavia is practically stopped," the statement complains.

http://www.geocities.com/cpa_blacktown_02/19990718ww.htm

U.S. party delegation sojourns in Pyongyang

Pyongyang, February 24 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the Worker's World Party of the United States headed by Brian Becker, member of its secretariat, yesterday visited the Pyongyang mission of the National Democratic Front of South Korea (NDFSK).

Pak Kwang Gi, chief of the mission, at the meeting, expressed thanks to the Worker's World Party of the United States for having extended support and solidarity to the NDFSK in its struggle for independence, democracy and reunification and informed the delegation of the South Korean people's struggle against the U.S. and fascism and for democracy and national reunification.

The head of the delegation recalled that the party has struggled against the military dictatorship in South Korea and the U.S. forces' occupation of South Korea and evinced its determination to further strengthen support and solidarity to the Korean people's struggle for national reunification.

That day the delegation visited the family of Jong Song Ok, world "queen of marathon."

http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2000/200002/news02/24.htm.

WHY THE APRIL 20 PROTEST CAN BE CALLED "HISTORIC"

By Brian Becker

The writer is a co-director of the International Action Center and a member of the steering committee of the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) coalition.

April 27, 2002--How will the April 20 mobilization in Washington, D.C., be remembered in the history of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movement in the United States? What are the most important lessons to be learned from this mobilization that drew more than 100,000 people in the biggest protest to date against the Bush administration's foreign and domestic political program?

Since there have been many Washington demonstrations over the years organized by both progressive and reactionary organizations, it requires something special to suggest that a particular demonstration has achieved a lasting or historically noteworthy status. Very few mass actions take on decisive importance in the historical process, the exception being revolutions or counter-revolutions--but a mass demonstration assumes special "historical" importance if it signifies the development of something new in society, or at least a sharp turn or breakthrough for a mass movement.

By that definition, the April 20 mobilization will be remembered as a historical moment.

Its historical value resides not only in the singularly important fact that it was the biggest demonstration in solidarity with the resistance movement of the Palestinian people in U.S. history. It also constituted a breakthrough for the U.S. anti-war movement and a repudiation of the shameful, backward political legacy of ignoring the just cause of the Palestinian people.

The fact that the demonstration represented something entirely new was not lost on the dominant big-business media in Washington. "Demonstrators Rally to Palestinian Cause" was the banner headline on the front page of the Washington Post under a three-column color photo of the huge throng. The article cited organizers at the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition rally at the White House who asserted that the event was the biggest pro-Palestinian event in U.S. history.

The Post article also quoted the police estimate of 75,000 people at the various converging demonstrations. Everyone familiar with police crowd estimates knows they are notoriously low for progressive activities.

While many issues were raised at the April 20 events, it was clear to all that the Palestinian resistance to U.S.-supported Israeli occupation was central. Support for the Palestinian struggle in the United States is out of the closet, so to speak.

Its historic legitimacy--which important sectors of the traditional peace and pacifist movement have denied for decades--has been boldly affirmed by a new anti-war movement that has arisen in the United States. This growing momentum for solidarity with the Palestinian people is bound to resonate throughout the entire progressive movement.

BRAVELY RESISTING THE RACIST FUROR

The April 20 mass mobilization had far-reaching consequences in one other way: It represented the courageous reassertion of mass, public political life by the Arab-American, South Asian, and Muslim communities in the United States after Sept. 11, 2001. That tens of thousands of people from these communities came to the White House rally was remarkable given the racist frenzy since Sept. 11.

These communities have been demonized as "terrorists." Thousands have been illegally detained. Tens of thousands have been "visited" by the FBI.

Even mainstream organizations and charities like the Holy Land Foundation have had their offices and assets seized for "aiding terrorists" because they made political statements in support of the Palestinian cause.

TWO COALITIONS: TWO POLITICAL ORIENTATIONS

The April 20 mobilization was primarily the work of two distinct anti-war coalitions: the A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) coalition, and the United We March Coalition. There were many differences in the two coalitions' political program and strategic orientation. The most notable had to do with the struggle of the Palestinian people.

From the beginning, both coalitions had addressed many issues related to the Bush administration's so-called war on terrorism. But A.N.S.W.E.R. had specifically embraced the cause of the Palestinian people and their anti-colonial resistance to Israeli occupation. The United We March coalition stated that they could not come to a consensus within their coalition. So for a long time they had no official position on the conflict.

WHY ANSWER WAS ABLE TO FOCUS ON PALESTINE

After Ariel Sharon launched the murderous reoccupation of the West Bank on March 29, the A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition announced that it was elevating the Palestinian struggle as the central focus of its still multi-issue demonstration.

A.N.S.W.E.R. could quickly respond to the new political/military developments because its national steering committee had spent months before the March 29 invasion discussing how to elevate political support for the Palestinian struggle in the United States. It had organized mass indoor events on Palestine that took place in New York on Feb. 23, and a week later in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with the aim of raising consciousness about the Palestinian struggle.

On April 20, the principal slogan of the A.N.S.W.E.R. demonstration at the White House was "Free Palestine, No New War Against Iraq." The White House rally drew a very large crowd. CNN put the figure at 60,000 in its coverage from the site, and organizers estimated a higher number of people present.

Organizers from the United We March rally estimated that 20,000 to 25,000 participated in their rally at the Washington Monument. While most participants in their rally were sympathetic to the suffering of the Palestinian people and a number of speakers denounced the recent Israeli atrocities in the West Bank and Gaza, the United We March coalition opted for a more general peace or anti-war message, rather than amending their six demands to include a specific call to support the people of Palestine.

ISSUES IN THE UNITED FRONT

The issue of Palestine and its potential prominence--or potential lack of prominence--in the demonstration was one focus of several disputes between the two coalitions as they negotiated over whether to form a united front on April 20. The two coalitions eventually agreed to hold a co-sponsored concluding rally near the Capitol. One of the most contentious issues in the talks had concerned Palestine and Palestinian participation at the concluding rally.

Some of the forces inside the United We March Coalition were enthusiastic in their support for a united-front action that A.N.S.W.E.R. had proposed. This was especially true of the New York City Labor Against War coalition, as well as others. But some members of that coalition, especially representatives of a group called the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, cited political objections to A.N.S.W.E.R.?s united-front proposals.

For instance, both sides agreed that Amy Goodman, the noted broadcast journalist with "Democracy Now!," should be an emcee at the concluding rally. A.N.S.W.E.R. proposed that there be a co-emcee--namely, Randa Jamal, a Palestinian student and activist leader. The A.N.S.W.E.R. proposal was motivated by the premise that a Palestinian co-chair would signify the centrality of the Palestinian struggle at this moment. The National Youth and Student Peace Coalition representative immediately rejected the idea of having a Palestinian co-chair. "That idea will never get through" the youth and student coalition, because the Palestinian issue is just "one issue," asserted the NYSPC representative.

The United We March coalition eventually agreed (on April l4) to A.N.S.W.E.R.?s united-front proposal by including a Palestinian co-chair for the concluding rally.

Both coalitions ended up drafting a unity agreement one week before April 20. The agreement stipulated that both coalitions would converge in a massive street march after their opening rallies.

WHY THE BACKWARDNESS ON PALESTINE?

Why is it that "Palestine" and deep criticism of Israel was almost a taboo in the mainstream peace movement in the United States since 1967?

This same movement supported the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and opposed the war in Vietnam. Yet when Israel launched the 1967 war against the Arab countries and seized the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, only the most radical voices in the U.S. movement demanded that the Vietnam anti-war movement embrace the Palestinian and Arab cause as part and parcel of the anti-colonial movement sweeping the world. The larger peace movement turned a cold shoulder.

And history repeated itself in 1982. Then, this self-imposed taboo allowed the moderate peace organizations and some sectors of the pacifist movement to turn a march for peace and in opposition to nuclear arms-an activity on June 12, 1982,that drew more than a million people in New York--into a near irrelevancy when they refused to address, much less condemn, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that had begun the week before. Twenty thousand Lebanese and Palestinian people eventually died during that invasion, as the Israeli Defense Forces led by Gen. Ariel Sharon drove Yassir Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization from Beirut.

The reason for the historical political backwardness toward the Palestinian cause is frequently misunderstood or misrepresented as the result of the Jewish supporters of Israel who are active in other anti-war struggles but politically tied to Israel and thus unable to support the just cause of the Palestinian people. While this may be a factor it is not the decisive one.

WHAT IS THE DECISIVE FACTOR?

The problem lies in the strategic orientation of some sectors in the progressive movement who are looking to forge a left-center coalition, sometimes called a coalition of "broad forces" and the like. The goal is to reform the Democratic Party, to rebuild its so-called liberal wing in the national leadership.

This orientation flows from the conception that the main goal of the progressive movement is to prevent the triumph of the extreme right wing in the capitalist political establishment, and to defeat their foreign and domestic policies by promoting more "liberal policies." In order to secure the support of the liberal capitalist establishment, or at least to bloc with some of its leading lights, according to this approach, the progressive movement must limit its political program in a way that is acceptable or non-threatening to the liberal wing of the capitalist establishment.

The U.S. political establishment was deeply divided over continued involvement in the Vietnam War and later about U.S. support for apartheid South Africa. Consequently, there were significant expressions of support for the anti-war and anti-apartheid movements from politicians and even in the big-business media.

In the case of the Middle East, this left-center-type orientation has required this sector of the movement to abstain from showing solidarity with the Palestinian people because in the U.S. capitalist class there has been virtually no split over support for Israel. U.S. imperialism supports Israel because it serves as a heavily armed and relatively stable client state in the region where two-thirds of the world's oil is found. Groups looking to limit their political program in the hopes of winning substantial support from the liberal establishment have thus been required to neglect support for the Palestinian people.

The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition shares the tactical objective of uniting with all possible forces against war, racism and repression, but not by liquidating its principled and strategically vital anti-imperialist political orientation.

The April 20 mobilization was historic because it broke through the legacy of inaction and put the issue of solidarity with the Palestinian people on the front burner.

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NATIONAL PEOPLES CAMPAIGN National: 39 West 14th St., #206, New York, NY 10011 212-633-6646 fax:212-633-2889 Philadelphia: 813 South 48th St., Philadelphia, PA 19143 215 724-1618 email: npcny@peoplescampaign.org web page: http://www.peoplescampaign.org/
News Release

Attention: News Editor press contact:

Brian Becker (212) 633-6646

Anti-war forces gear up for Oct. 26
Special to Workers World

With just one month to go before the Oct. 26 march on Washington, organizing is kicking into high gear across the country. As one of the march's initiators, the International ANSWER coalition--Act Now to Stop War and End Racism--is reaching out to anti-war, peace and civil-rights organizations to build the broadest possible demonstration to "Stop the War on Iraq Before It Starts."

Brian Becker

"Despite the Iraqi government's agreement to accept unconditional UN weapons inspections, the Bush administration and the Pentagon are moving full-speed ahead with their plans to invade Iraq in defiance of the whole world," said Brian Becker, a spokesperson for ANSWER.

http://www.workers.org/ww/2002/oct261003.php

International Fact-finding Team Visits DPRK to Accuse U.S. of Its Wartime Atrocities in Korea

The international fact-finding team, headed by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, visited the DPRK between May 15 and 19 to investigate the cases of massacre committed by U.S. troops during the 1950-53 Korean War.

During its five-day visit, “the international group to probe the truth behind GI’s atrocities” inspected scenes of massacres committed by U.S. troops, heard testimonies of survivors and discuss matters concerned with DPRK officials concerned in preparation for “the Korea International War Crimes Tribunal on U.S. Troop Massacres of Civilians during the Korean War” to be held from Jun. 23 to 25 in New York.

The investigation team visited Sinchon County in South Hwanghae Province to conduct an inquiry in “the Sinchon Massacre,” while visiting the Sinchon War Museum, collecting documents and materials on the massacre and hearing testimonies of victims. (The U.S. troops, after occupying Sinchon County, killed 35,383 innocent people in the county or a quarter of the total population of the county from October 17 to December 17, 1950. In the DPRK, the Sinchon massacre is a symbol of the U.S. troops’ wartime massacre.)

Mr. Clark said that as an American citizen he felt guilty about GI’s atrocities during the Korean War. Noting that the U.S. government, afraid of the disclosure of its wartime atrocities to the world, has tried to cover up the truth, he stressed that victims’ testimonies were of great importance as they exposed part of the U.S.’s history of aggression against Korea and would be widely used to let many people know about the sufferings imposed by the U.S. on the Korean people.

The fact-finding team also held talks in Pyongyang with survivors of the Korean War and collected their testimonies about U.S. troops’ mass killings of civilians, indiscriminate bombing by the U.S. Air Force and its use of germ bombs.

The former U.S. attorney general said that facts probed and testimonies made by victims would be made public at the upcoming international war crimes tribunal to be held in New York.

In a press conference held on May 18 in Pyongyang, Ramsey Clark said that he had “the urgent task to let people know about the misfortunes and sufferings the Korean people have undergone since the U.S. forces occupied south Korea in 1945.”

“We will strive to let people of the world have a correct understanding of Korea and war crimes committed by the GIs,” he added.

The investigation team also said, in a press conference in Seoul after wrapping up its five-day visit to north Korea, that it witnessed the severity of the U.S. wartime crimes committed in north Korea during the Korean War and that their crimes were much severer than those committed in south Korea in the scale of damage and degree of cruelty.

Referring to the facts that the U.S. still stations its armed forces in south Korea and creates the condition of the division of Korea, Ramsey Clark pointed out that the U.S. still persistently makes vicious propaganda against the DPRK to cover up the truth about its war crimes.

Stressing that the biggest scar left by the Korean War was the division of Korea, he said that the U.S.’s policy of maintaining the division of Korea should be punished as “a crime against peace” in the New York war crimes tribunal.

Brian Becker, a joint chairman of the International Action Center, said he would make every effort for the withdrawal of the U.S. troops from south Korea and for a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

In September 1999, Associated Press began publishing a series of articles based on an investigation of the massacre that took place in the south Korean village of Rogun-ri in July 1950.

Faced with the increasing demand at home and abroad for a thorough inquiry into the truth about the incident, the U.S. and south Korea formed a joint investigation body to probe the Rogun-ri massacre. But their 15-month-long joint investigation of the massacre produced a joint investigation report which evaded liabilities of the government and the armed forces of the U.S. for their active commitment in the massacre. Lame duck President Clinton supported this U.S. no-fault conclusion, issuing a statement of “regret,” which the survivors denounced as a total whitewash.

The historic people’s war crimes tribunal is scheduled to be convened on Jun. 23 in New York, co-sponsored by the Korea Truth Commission on U.S. Military Massacres of Civilians, the International Action Center, a U.S. national progressive organization, and Veterans for Peace, a veterans’ group in the U.S.

The tribunal will judge cases of massacre committed by the U.S. armed forces from 1945 to 1953 and crimes committed by the USFK against south Korean people after the truce of the Korean War.

Kitandra Shandra, former justice of the Indian Supreme Court, will serve as presiding judge. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former justice of the south Korean Constitutional Court Pyon Jong Su and a north Korean lawyer will form a joint prosecution panel.

Mr. Clark said that one of the main purposes of the New York war crimes tribunal is to expose the U.S. war of aggression against Korea to “raise international public opinion that the U.S. should not interfere in the matters of the Korean nation and prepare a favorable situation for Korea’s reunification” as well as to thoroughly probe the truth behind war crimes.

In the war crimes tribunal, victims in north and south Korea and in foreign countries will make testimonies on war crimes committed by U.S. troops. A joint judging panel will be formed by lawyers from 16 nations which participated in the Korean War as members of the U.S.-led U.N. Forces.

The Korea Truth Commission, a pan-national coalition of civic groups, was organized in June 2000, participated in by civic organizations of north, south and overseas Koreans, after the political parties and organizations of north Korea issued a joint appeal to their south Korean counterparts and overseas Koreans to unfold a more active nationwide struggle to disclose and condemn the U.S. wartime massacre of Korean civilians.

While activities for investigation in the U.S. wartime massacres of civilians had been severely restricted in south Korea for a long time, the DPRK established a national fact-finding committee in July 1950, the month following the breakout of the Korean War, to probe U.S. war crimes. Ever since the cease-fire of the war, the committee has conducted a systematic investigation up to now, widening its scope of activity to crimes committed by the USFK in south Korea.

Jong Gi Ryol, secretary-general of the joint secretariat of the Korea Truth Commission, announced that north and south Korean lawyers would meet in Beijing on Jun. 17 to draw up a joint indictment to be presented to the upcoming Korea international war crimes tribunal. He also informed that Ramsey Clark, lawyer Michael Choe and other lawyers plan to file a suit in a U.S. court against the U.S. government for the war crimes committed by its armed forces during the Korean War.

http://www.korea-np.co.jp/pk/161st_issue/2001052703.htm.

Brian Becker.

Pick your nefarious cause, and there he is, the Workers World Party Secretariat member.

The groups are Communist. In fact there was even a sign-up table by the Communist Party at the march in NYC.

I would guess that Hitlery is behind all of this - because she has lots of acquaintances in the Communist Party. As well as those Hollyweird people who salivate over x42.

Saddam and Kim Jong-il's allies organise 'anti-war' rallies
Gerard Jackson Melbourne: Australia BrookesNews.Com Saturday 15 Feb. 2003

Public luminaries like Brown, Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Peter Watson Laurie Brereton and Green Senator Bob Brown, Democrat Senator Natasha Stott Despoja gave, with the support of leftwing union activists like Ron Hubbard and Martin Kingham, their ardent support to anti-American rallies dressed up as 'anti-war' rallies.

The Archbishop, along with Bob Brown, Laurie Brereton made their alleged feelings known when they addressed the crowds. What they and the other speakers did not reveal is that these rallies were organised by a dedicated Stalinist organisation that supports Kim Jong-il's insane regime and which has also allied itself with Saddam.

The organisation is ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) which is a spin-off from the IAC (International Action Center) of which the anti-American Ramsey Clark is closely involved. (Clark also serves as a legal counsel for Saddam's vicious regime. He also defended PLO leaders against a suit brought by the family of Leon Klinghoffer, the elderly tourist who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists and whose body was thrown overboard from the hijacked Achille Lauro cruise-ship in 1986). The IAC in turn is controlled by the anti-semitic Marxist-Leninist WWP (Workers World Party). In addition, the WWP runs the KTC (Korea Truth Commission), a front organisation for Kim Jong-il. (Great company for an Archbishop to keep, don't you think?)

The WWP supported the 1956 Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolution, the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan and Beijing's, massacre of students in Tiananmen Square. Since the collapse of communism, this group of fanatical Marxist-Leninists have largely devoted themselves to defending North Korea and Saddam's regime. This support is also quite profitable, allowing WWP leaders, who have no apparent source of income, to frequently fly to Pyongyang and Baghdad where they are very well treated indeed.

Brian Becker is not only a key figure in ANSWER and the IAC he is also a member of the secretariat of the WWP. It is basically through Becker that the WWP transmits its orders to ANSWER and the IAC. (In its own way, it is rather comical the way Becker tries to cover up his these links. But there is nothing amusing about his vicious mindset). By now it won't surprise readers to learn that the WWP's solution to the problem of Saddam is for the US to unilaterally disarm while leaving North Korea and Saddam's arsenals intact.

Given these facts why would Archbishop Peter Watson, Laurie Brereton, Stott Despoja and the rest of "the usual suspects" make common cause with a Stalinist group that is collaborating with two of the planet's most monstrous regimes?

I dare say the motives are pretty mixed. After all, Watson is not the first cleric to have supported a totalitarian group that was intent on the destruction of the West. There was the Anglican Bishop William Temple of Manchester in 1920 and who later became Archbishop of York and Canterbury. And what a pain he was, quickly dropping the evangelical way for secular activism. Where did this lead him? To declare that Adolf Hitler had made "a great contribution to the secure establishment of peace"!

Now Archbishop Watson has not gone as far as the ludicrous Temple or the notorious Red Dean of Canterbury. But when you collaborate with Stalinists who are denouncing your country and its allies while collaborating with their enemies you are walking a fine line. As for the politicians and union activists, a hatred of America and a loathing for President Bush and a destation of John Howard is what drives them.

Archbishop Watson's accusation that the war to topple the despotic Saddam is a "war of cold-blooded aggression" is meant to suggest that Bush and his allies are intent on war for the most venal of reasons. There was no attempt by the most reverend Watson stir up the crowd against the pathologically aggressive Saddam or demand that he be brought to justice by whatever means available. Instead, the crowd was addressed by rabblerousing Bush and Howard haters.

These 'anti-rallies' are no different in principle from the Stalinist controlled popular front rallies in the thirties, the Soviet directed 'peace movements' during the Cold War, and the pro-Hanoi 'peace movement' of the sixties that cost millions of Asians their freedom and their lives. Those activists were wrong then and they are wrong now. All they have done is to aid and abet two bloody tyrants, which is precisely what the WWP planned.

The thirties 'peace movement,' along with its silly 'peace pledge', guaranteed a second world war. Learning from history and experience Reagan and Thatcher resisted the post-war 'peace movement' and so ultimately brought down the Soviet Empire. Thank God Bush, Blair and Howard have the courage to follow in the footsteps of Reagan and Thatcher.

What our so-called 'peace' demonstrators have yet to learn is that those who demand "peace at any cost" eventually end up with neither peace nor freedom. Let us hope that this lot do not have to learn this lesson in the same bitter way that the thirties generation was forced to learn it.

http://www.brookesnews.com/031502peacerally.html.

"the last (protest onetimeatbandcamp attended) was this sat. my sign said 'down with the death profiteers'. I don't like the people who make a profit from selling warmaking supplies.

I throw my vote away on Nader. which should make FR happy, according to the logic that I would vote for gore, which I can guarantee you I would never do."

"Who's pulling their strings?" That path just leads to more of the same socialism impaired "willing tools". We already know that schtick.

I say "LET'S KEEP JERKING THEIR CHAINS". Seems like lots more fun, too.

Or would that qualify as cruelty to dumb animals?

What I can't figure out was when Clinton bombed Iraq for the purpose of keeping Monica's testimony off the front pages, none of these same people protested at all. Clinton bombing Iraq for very superficial reasons didn't bother them at all.