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In all honesty, Padre, this news is almost in the category of "Move along; nothing to see here."

Greece has had its share of anarchists, with a few brief interludes, since the early 1900s. These groups are very small and are motivated by a sort of anti-capitalist desire for, well, anarchy. On occasion they focus on US interests with the usual excuse that we are hegemons, bloody capitalists, anti-Greek, supporters of dictators, etc. Usually their targets are banks; indeed yesterday they firebombed 3 banks in Athens. Its simply what they do. These characters, I'm telling you, are right out of the Black Hand and Sacco and Vanzetti except that they almost never injure, let alone kill anyone (though in the past they have indeed killed people, Americans, British and Greeks.

There is also something in the Greek mentality which drives them to "give the finger" to authority figures, especially their own. On Tuesdays in Athens, if the weather is any good, the students from the university often riot...for no particular reason except its Tuesday and they want to give a collective "Nah!" (that's a bad thing in Greece)to whatever government is running things at the time.

My experience with Athens is limited to sitting on a plane on the tarmac.

My final tour in Europe, we had a chapel tour planned to trace Paul's route in Greece. That's exactly when Kosovo went down, so our commander canceled it based on a State Department memo regarding danger in Greece. (Something to do with Macedonia at the time, IIRC.)

So, I still long to go there.

Did find a Mt Athos website once that's awesome.

"In all honesty, Padre, this news is almost in the category of "Move along; nothing to see here." Greece has had its share of anarchists, with a few brief interludes, since the early 1900s. These groups are very small and are motivated by a sort of anti-capitalist desire for, well, anarchy. On occasion they focus on US interests with the usual excuse that we are hegemons, bloody capitalists, anti-Greek, supporters of dictators, etc. Usually their targets are banks; indeed yesterday they firebombed 3 banks in Athens. Its simply what they do. These characters, I'm telling you, are right out of the Black Hand and Sacco and Vanzetti except that they almost never injure, let alone kill anyone (though in the past they have indeed killed people, Americans, British and Greeks. There is also something in the Greek mentality which drives them to "give the finger" to authority figures, especially their own. On Tuesdays in Athens, if the weather is any good, the students from the university often riot...for no particular reason except its Tuesday and they want to give a collective "Nah!" (that's a bad thing in Greece)to whatever government is running things at the time."

Kolokotronis, I couldn't have said it better myself. And most Greeks ARE NOT "Anti-American haters" and Greek is NOT "terror friendly" as some have claimed in a few posts prior, heck my American friends have visited often and had no problems and Greece gets "crapped" upon by most bleeding heart Western European countries becaus they're pissed off at Greece for the way the government supposedly treats unknown illegals that cross her borders. Case in point: not clearing the mind fields on the boarders with Turkey/Bulgaria. The bleeding hearts of countries like the UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, to name a few, are on Greece's case often because everytime illegals try to cross into Greece they have an arm or leg blown off or worse get killed while the Greek governments stand is "they are unkown, could be terrorists or drug/mule smuggles and they are ILLEGAL, so f' off." That is so typical, getting on Greece's case for their "hash" treatment on unknown illegals in one breath and in the next breath they complain "Greece is terror friendly". Whatever.

Greece Denies Dumping Illegals into the Sea