Anais Nin

Americans have no respect for any culture other than their own soda-guzzling, pizza-stuffing, xbox-playing excuse for a society. With morons called Chad, Todd, or Brad running around beating up old people and children, it's little wonder that America will be afraid of retributions for the next 100 years. Abuse of international laws speaks volumes about your country's barbarism.

Another article displaying the idiocy of America in creating enemies and radicalising ordinary folk.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1402265_pf.html

New Detainees Strain Iraq's Jails

Sharp Rise Follows Start of Security Plan; Suspects Housed With Convicts

By Joshua Partlow

Washington Post Foreign Service

Tuesday, May 15, 2007; A01

BAGHDAD -- The capture of thousands of new suspects under the three-month-old Baghdad security plan has overwhelmed the Iraqi government's detention system, forcing hundreds of people into overcrowded facilities, according to Iraqi and Western officials.

Nearly 20,000 people were in Iraqi-run prisons, detention camps, police stations and other holding cells as of the end of March, according to a U.N. report issued last month, an increase of more than 3,500 from the end of January. The U.S. military said late last week that it was holding about 19,500 detainees, up more than 3,000 since the U.S. and Iraqi governments began implementing the security plan in mid-February.

Estimates of those inside Iraqi facilities, where reports of beatings and torture are common, vary widely because detainees are dispersed among hundreds of locations run by different ministries. The U.S. military holds detainees at two main centers, Camp Bucca in southern Iraq and Camp Cropper near Baghdad, and officials say they are committed to avoiding the abuses that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Iraq's prisons for convicted criminals are managed by the Justice Ministry, but because of crowding in Iraqi army detention centers, authorities have transferred many untried detainees to live with convicts.

"We made some space for them, but now our space is full," said Deputy Justice Minister Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei. Referring to the military, he added, "This is their problem, not mine."

Yei, in an interview at his Baghdad office, said the Justice Ministry had taken in 1,843 such detainees from the military from the start of the security plan in February through April 21, an influx that now accounts for more than 15 percent of the ministry's prison population.

"The reason why there's more detainees is because there's more forces on the ground, both Iraqi and coalition, out there doing operations. So you've got more people to go out and detain them," said Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson, chief of staff for the top American military field commander in Iraq. "The bottom line is we have more than we can handle collectively."

The Iraqi constitution mandates that documents outlining the preliminary investigation must be submitted to a judge within 24 hours of a suspect's arrest, with a possible extension of another day. But the flood of prisoners has worsened a situation in which many often wait weeks or months before their cases are heard.

To filter through the rapidly growing list of detainees, authorities have dispatched teams of judges, prosecutors and investigators -- known as "tiger teams" -- to determine whether there is enough evidence in a case to hold the suspect, according to a Western official in Baghdad familiar with the prison system. But the teams cannot keep up with the influx.

"We're just storing up a tidal wave of cases, with a judicial system that cannot cope with what they've got," said the official, who is not authorized to speak publicly and was interviewed on condition of anonymity. "They're basically closing their eyes to the problem under the Baghdad security plan."

Human rights officials say Justice Ministry facilities offer the best an Iraqi prisoner can hope for, as they generally meet international standards for space and treatment. But officials are increasingly concerned about the detention camps run by the Iraqi army and the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police force. In particular, several officials raised concerns about a detention center in Kadhimiyah, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood of northern Baghdad. The center, built to hold about 400 people, is said to house more than 1,000, with juveniles mixed into the population, officials said.

Some former inmates at Kadhimiyah have told human rights officials that they were tortured.

"They described routine ill treatment or abuse while they were there," said a U.N. official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "Routine beatings, suspension by limbs for long periods, electric shock treatment to sensitive parts of the body, threats of ill treatment of close relatives. In one case, one of the detainees said that he was forced to sit on a sharp object which caused an injury."

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, denied that detainees are abused at the Kadhimiyah facility.

A government legal committee, created under the security plan to monitor prisons, was denied access to Kadhimiyah when it requested an inspection, said Jasim al-Bahadeli, who heads the committee.

Understanding the scope of the Interior Ministry's detention program is difficult because prisoners are scattered across more than 800 police stations throughout Iraq, and the tracking system is not up to the standards of other ministries, officials said.

"The concern with the [interior Ministry] is it's a black hole and no one knows what's going on inside," said the Western official.

Under the security plan, the Iraqi army maintains at least five detention facilities in Baghdad, but these are filled with scores, if not hundreds, more people than they were designed to hold, Bahadeli said.

During a recent visit to a detention center in the town of Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, his committee found 827 prisoners in four wards built for a total of 300 people. A visit to the detention center at Muthana air base in Baghdad revealed 272 people crammed into a facility intended for 75, said Maan Zeki al-Shimmari, another official with the committee.

In cells intended for individuals, "there were six people in every one," he said. "And if they want to use the bathroom, they have to do it inside these rooms using a bottle."

The spokesman for the Defense Ministry, Mohammed al-Askari, was not available for comment despite repeated attempts to reach him.

Ahmed Kadhum Latif, 20, said he was imprisoned a year ago at Muthana air base on suspicion of planting a roadside bomb. His account of his detention could not be independently confirmed, but it echoes the reports of human rights officials.

Soon after he was arrested, Latif said, guards demanded he confess. For a while, he refused. "They hung me in the air by my legs and beat me with a stick," he said in a telephone interview. "They beat me with pipes on my back and my stomach. They said, 'Will you be confessing now or not?' "

Latif said the guards, who were drinking alcohol, used electric shocks to burn his hands and held him for three days without food.

"I finally said, 'Yes, I have planted the explosives.' I didn't do it, but because of the beating, I confessed."

"No detainee goes in that doesn't get beaten," said Shimmari. "They take confessions by force."

Iraqi government officials acknowledge that the prisons are overcrowded and that abuses have taken place, but they tend to characterize mistreatment as an aberration rather than a systemic problem. Iraq's minister of human rights, Wijdan Salim, said the soldiers who serve as guards in Iraqi military prisons are not trained to care for detainees.

"It's not their job," she said. "They don't know how to deal with them."

The State Department chronicled a series of detainee abuses in its human rights report published in March. The report found "many, well-documented instances of torture and other abuses by government agents and by illegal armed groups."

Instances of abuse inside Defense and Interior Ministry facilities reported by local and international human rights groups included "application of electric shocks, fingernail extractions, and other severe beatings. In some cases, police threatened and sexually abused detainees and visiting family members," the report said.

To accommodate the burgeoning prison population and try to prevent such mistreatment, U.S. and Iraqi authorities are building two detention facilities in eastern Baghdad, one at an existing prison complex in Rusafa, capable of accommodating 5,250 people. At a camp in Baladiyat, to hold 850 prisoners, detainees will live in tents built for 30 people each, said Yei, the deputy justice minister.

The new prison space is part of a massive project called the Rusafa Law and Order Complex, a fortified compound near the Interior Ministry building that, when finished, will include a courthouse and dormitories for lawyers and judges, within a guarded perimeter. The goal is to create a second Green Zone-style haven where authorities can push through the growing backlog of criminal cases.

"This represents a small step forward -- and it must be emphasized that this is merely a foothold -- on two fronts: the political will to embrace the rule of law and the capacity to render justice through secure and legitimate proceedings," U.S. Army Col. Mark S. Martins, senior staff judge advocate, said in a statement.

There's no such thing as a pure democracy - but the US is most certainly a democratic republic.

It's a totalitarian state enforcing its values across the world, and in this sense resembles Nazi Germany.

It's very selfish of the American people to cry "Bring our troops home". Your country has really messed things up in the Middle East and the situation over the next five years is up in the air. We can't predict what's going to happen. The world is more dangerous. And your soldiers have gone around killing so many children and old people, that when you withdraw your troops, the vengeful are going to chase you all the way to your homeland. What goes around comes around.

I just saw this film. The Iranians outrage is justified. Hollywood likes to see themselves as espousing Greek values - f#ck off, American fascists!

I also like this piece below:

I agree with your review of the 300 as a historical representation – it is after all Frank Miller’s vision not history . But with no disrespect intended, you are guilty of poor historical research and representation which nears bigotry when equating the Spartans with the Nazis.

Your comparison is insulting to Hellenes, especially those, like my family, who fought and lost people against fascism both internal and external between 1940 and 1974. The left in the modern world tends to look to the Spartans as models not the right. The Russian and the Chinese Revolutions had Spartacus divisions, the Trotskyites in post-war UK and here, formed Spartacus groups.

Most fascists and Nazis had Persian and Roman Imperial fantasies. I have no intention of writing a hagiography of Spartans, but they must be analysed in context of the ancient world and their impact in the formation of a secular Hellenic i.e., Western notion of citizen militia and polis/based society.

Freedom, or eleuqeria, is a powerful notion for Hellenes that is why Greeks fought the Nazis in WWII with sustained vigour and success. The Jews of Greece, those not taken by the Nazis were members of the Greek Resistance EAM-ELAS because the Hellenic universalist notion of citizenship and freedom, in Greece Jews were regarded as Greeks first and foremost - unlike in European states, were they formed separate Jewish resistance movements due to anti-Semitism.

The Greek quisling government of 1941 – 1945, as well as the Greek Orthodox Church refused to adhere to the Nazis’ orders to give up Jews and supported over 3000 Jews into marrying with Greeks, and thousands converting into Greek Orthodoxy so as to not be singled out by Nazis, in less than three weeks. (Report No 6 Inter-Allied Information Committee London 1942) This cannot be said of the Vichy Government in France for example – or the horrific anti-Semitism in the Baltic and some Eastern European states in the same period. You can view the Institute for Jewish Policy Research 1997; Jewish Heritage of Greece GNTO 1992; Peter Levi Atlas of Greek Word on File NY 1980 and more on this matter such as the NYC Holocaust Museum and The Virtual Jewish History Tour of Greece by Shira Schoenberg.

As Churchill remarked of the campaign by Greek citizens and partisans against the Nazis in Crete, where over 20,000 Nazis were killed, after the British abandoned the ANZAC divisions, "Greeks do not fight like heroes, heroes fight like Greeks'.

Few historians, can deny the impact the Spartans’ stand against the Persians at Thermopylae, (qermo (thermo) – hot pilae –pillars) had on the formation of modern notions of citizenship. Equating Spartans with Nazis reveals a profound lack of ancient, modern Hellenic historical knowledge as well as the development of fascism in Europe post 1915. This lack of historical knowledge is possibly one of the terrible effects of post-modernists’ lack of deeper inquiry, sadly Michel Foucault was an exceptional Hellenic historian and spoke Ancient Greek fluently. I guess the dictum, Trotsky was better than Trotskyites applies here, as Foucault was far better than contemporary media and cinema studies post-structuralists. Your analysis has no weight when measured against the impact Greeks had on the both the west and the east from 700BCE.

The problem with the 300 is its appalling misrepresentation of the Persians as anthropomorphic monsters rather than as the culturally diverse, theocratic and autocratic empire they were. Movie reviewers in Greece canned the film for the same reasons you have - the implicit demonic representation of Middle Eastern and Asian peoples– but they critiqued from a far more informed perspective.

The Persians were a multicultural and multi-religious empire spaning the Indus Valley, the Bactrian Region, the Byzantium and most of the Middle East. The core reason they did not succeed in securing Greece, regardless of Hellene vassals in their camp from Asia Minor, was the Battle of Thermopylae. There are a number of sources in relation to Persian conflict with Greece, such as Paul Cartledge’s The Spartans and Epic History, which you need to read it seems.

Your suggestion that Persians did not have Africans representing them is wrong. The Persians had Nubian, Egyptian, Greeks, Indians, Middle Eastern, Mongol, Caucasian (i.e. from the Caucasus and Steppes) people their armies as ‘slaves’, vassals and mercenaries. The practice of slavery in the ancient world has little relation to the modern British, US and European slavery based on Eugenic views that African and other non- Anglo/French/Spanish and Germanic peoples were inferior and thus were fodder for the modern colonial enterprise of the new world. In fact it is Eugenics theory advanced in the US in the late 19th Century which informed the Nazis and their racial classification of the world.

The Spartans and Hellenes had no notion of race – their world was divided into citizens and non-citizens, and secondary into Greek and non- Greek speakers. The Greeks were fighting each other most of the time over ideological, political and economic issues. Thus a Greek speaker, for example the ex-slave Aesop, of African descent could, as he did, become a citizen and a Hellene. Barbarians or barbaroi, were simply a non Greek speaker – the term has little relation to its current usage.

Ancient slaves represented diverse social strata, races, religions, skills and circumstances. Many slaves led prosperous lives. Some of the greatest Persian generals were ‘slaves’, in fact the Persian Immortals where slaves– not unlike the Janissary elite forces of the Ottomans a thousand years latter. The stoic philosophers, Epictetus and Plutarch were slaves. One could become a slave through war, personal and family debt, employment and birth – but a slave was not classed by colour and a slave could become a citizen, or a city dweller - the process of becoming a slave, a citizen or a dweller was complex and revealed more about social structure, ritual, political landscapes, beliefs and economic systems than racial views. In the revolution by Helots against the Spartans during and after the Peloponnesian Wars many Helots were offered citizenship by Sparta so as to fight the Athenians.

The Persian army was constituted by slaves and mercenaries, many of them Greeks. John Keegan points out that slave armies can not be considered from a contemporary western prism – many slaves had significant financial, political military power but were not simply, in the Greek and later Roman cases ‘citizens’ or in the Persian case, were vassals of Empire. (Keagan:1993)

Any comparison with ancient military slavery in Persia, (similar later to the Mameluke phenomenon) is very intellectually na�ve. Jean – Pierre Vernant suggests that social and class relations in Ancient Greece, China, Persia and Israel were vastly different to what we developed in the modern world post 1300 AD. (Vernant:1990)

The fundamental difference which 300 fails to make is as Keegan, Cartledge, Vernant, Man, et al highlight, the Hellenes were the first citizenship based militias in the Mediterranean. The only genuine comparisons in the ancient world are China and Israel in the same time 500BCE represents the ‘rationalisation’ of society, but from very differing and ideological, economic and political circumstances. (Vernant:1990)

In the contemporary world the closest comparison to Hellene hoplites, or citizen based militias, are the Chinese Reg Guard, the Vietcong, the partisans in South Eastern Europe in WWII –Tito’s Red Army, EAM – ELAS, the anti-British EOKA A in Cyprus and Haganah in Israel, one may add the NLF of Algeria in their battle with France. Again, these militias’ cruelty to enemies and sympathisers was part of a military strategy. To equate Spartans to the genocidal terror of the Nazis defies rationality, reveals a poor reading of history, is bigoted and almost pornographic.

In the case of Thermopylae, the Persian sea and land forces amounted to approximately 150,000 and the defence of the gates of fire was held for three to five days by a group of 6000 Spartans, Thespians, Arcadians and Helots. (Herodotus as all Greeks was prone to enthusiasms in numerical terms) Herein a fundamental problem in your analysis of the Spartans’ relation to the Helot serfs and the Perikoi our out-dwellers, the Helots were Hellenes, but not Spartan citizens. Their condition has more in common with that of Japanese landed serfs under Samurai, or serfs of Britain and France during the Middle Ages.

The 300 Spartans in Thermopylae stayed fast to the end for ideological and strategic reasons as Keegan reveals in A History of Warfare. (Keagan:1993) The Spartans wanted, not unlike the Russian partisan and regular troops during the Siege of Stalingrad, to be seen as the guardians of the Western/Hellenic ideals, as opposed to their emerging enemy, the powerful maritime democracy of Athens.

As soon as the Hellenic front (Athenians, Spartans, Thebans and others) beat the Persians, a year after in Platea, war between Sparta and Athens began. In the case of the Spartans – one can draw comparison to the Soviet Union and in the case of Athens – the democratic west. Keegan and Cartledge suggest one should look at the Battle of Thermopylae akin to the Battle of Stalingrad - a moral victory against ‘tyranny’. (Keegan:1993) Cartledge says it was the most important battle in our development, more important than The Battle of Hastings and akin to the resistance by Greek, Yugoslav and Russian partisans against the Nazis in the WWII (Cartledge:2003). Thermopylae defined what we now consider the west. The rule of law, a citizenship based polis and militias, and individual freedom.

From a military perspective the Spartans were the first to perfect close order battle techniques - the phalanx by hoplites - they were in effect the first marines and citizen militia. Spartans were trained for war from the age of seven through agoge, or upbringing. Agoge became a template for Jesuit and later British education and military training schools such as the School of Rugby, Cambridge, Sandhurst and Oxford (Keagan, Cartledge, Vernant et al). The Spartan boule, senate, remains with us today, as do Spartan tactical military and political approaches.

The Nazis on the other hand saw the Roman Empire as a template, thus the eagle signatures and triumphal symbols – things the Spartans saw as frivolous. The Third Reich, was in the fantasy of these fascists, to be realised after 1st the Aryan (Persian) and 2nd Roman. The cores source of Nazi mythology is to be found in their misfortunate understanding of the Aryan – later Persian Empire. Their vision of Aryan as we all know now had little to do with the multicultural and sophisticated Aryans of the past – i.e. Persians.

Harsh Spartan upbringing was more about warrior codes, not unlike the Samurai and the Zulu, nothing remotely resembling the Nazis – in fact the IDF and the Swiss Army are possibly the most contemporary institutions resembling the Spartan civilian militias.

The Spartans wavered between philoxenia (love of the stranger) and xenophobia (fear of the stranger) depending on the epoch. In reality they had established links with the Persians, the Medes and the Indians for over 100 years prior to the Spartan/Persian conflict. They honoured and respected Xerxes and much of their xenophobia was targeted mainly towards other Hellenes – their imperial ambitions did not exceed the confines of Laconia and the Peloponnesus – unlike say the Athenians, Alexander the Great and latter, Romans.

Spartans were a stoic, laconic (thus the etymological reference to Laconia) society based primarily on self preservation and complex codification of their warrior ethics and laws. Sadly after their collapse, the enduring fifty year cold and hot war with Athens, in which they finally sided with Persia against Athens, and the ultimate rise of Rome, Sparta became an S&M tourist site for Roman gentry.

The conditions in Laconia were harsh (Keegan, Cartledge, Vernant, Grant et al ) and reflected the rise of a class of independent warrior citizens, similar class distinctions that made Greece, China, Israel, and India sophisticated new rationalising cultures by 500BCE. Laws made sure that handicapped children were abandoned to die or thrown off cliffs – the accuracy of these laws and their impact is debated. It had much to do about sustaining a small state of citizens in a harsh environment as well as the propaganda which the Athenians developed during the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. In this area I suggest a reading of Jean-Pierre Vernant’s Myth and Society in Ancient Greece is a good start.

Spartan women were the freest of ancient Greece, they had political influence, took on male and female partners and unlike any other Ancient Greek women could read and write and take part in gymnastics (gumno - astia = naked exercises). Athenian women scorned them as ‘thighslappers’ because they wore one piece dresses with significant thigh slits and no make up, they were extremely fit and sun worshiped as opposed to their Athenian and other Hellene cohorts who spent most of the time in-doors weaving. Spartan women were encouraged to be independent and healthy in order to ‘breed Spartan men’ . (Cartledge:2003) Unlike the film 300 suggests Spartan men had long-term male partners they would never leave to die in battle while being married to women from the age of about twenty. Rome used Spartan and Helot hoplites because they would never leave their lovers to die alone in the battle field.

As Plutarch writes, when a Spartan went off to fight, the Spartan mother or wife would bid farewell by pointing to his shield and saying, ‘return either carrying it or on it’ – this was because the shield would double over as a stretcher for wounded soldiers and because the shield was essential for hoplites.

The Helots, were oppressed, but they fought against the Persians, as they were after all Hellenes. They also brought down Sparta after the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians implored the Helots to rise against the Spartans in favour of Athenian style liberal democracy. The constant threat of revolution by the Helots was a real danger for the Spartans. Spartacus (i.e. The Spartan in Lt.) almost succeeded in bringing down Rome years later. (My mother comes from the exact state in Peloponnesus where Spartacus was born – Ilia.)

The Spartans, or Lacedemonians had a very specific way of talking and expressing themselves thus laconic and as I point out above the word itself is etymologically linked to Laconia in Greece. Laconic humour and irreverence were essential to Spartans in their battle preparations, as was choral singing ways of combating internal fobia, phobia, and creating phobia in their enemy.

Interestingly, agoge was about reaching a form of Zen, or Nirvana. Thomas McEvilley, professor of Art History at the School of Visual Arts in New York City suggests in his study of comparative philosophies between Greeks and Indians that Indian/Persian philosophy and systems impacted on the Greeks of pre-Socratic time and in return Greek thinking and values had impact on Indian and Persian thinking in post-Socratic times, particularly in terms of singular notions of god, ethics and aesthetics. (McEvilley:2006)

The Spartans, never moved into battle with war cries, as they were seen to be unmanly and could dissipate energy for long term fighting. Rather they moved into battle in the lambda shape, (Greek L - L), in choral unison. The Spartans always respected andrismo or androcentric values in enemies, this is very distinct from machismo, which was seen as unmanly – again the Spartans had a much codified notion of battle, song, dance and poetry and they were after all bisexual and proud of it.

It is a pity that few directors can bring to life on the screen the liminal qualities of the ancient world particularly the Battle of Thermopylae. It is even sadder that those critics that did not like the film, for good reason, did not exhibit the historical interest in conducting research beyond google to providing informed critiques. Cartledge’s, The Spartans an Epic History is a great book on Spartans if you are interested as is Steven Pressfield’s The Gates of Fire a fine historical novel of the Battle of Thermopylae.

I would like to end with an indication of the Spartan laconic humour: Of all the Spartans and Thespians who fought so valiantly the most signal proof of courage was given by the Spartan Dienekes. It is said that before the battle he was told by a native of Trachis [a nearby town] that, when the Persians shot their arrows, there were so many of them that they hid the sun. Dienekes, however, quite unmoved by the thought of the strength of the Persian army, merely remarked: 'This is pleasant news that the stranger from Trachis brings us: if the Persians hide the sun, we shall have our battle in the shade.' He is said to have left on record other sayings, too, of a similar kind, by which he will be remembered." (Pressfield:1998)

Think the war will actually end now?

God, wouldn't that be fantastic?

That's not a war, it's a slaughter. Americans beating up old ladies and killing children does not a war make.

America - a nation of cowards - why don't you go into Waziristan? Osama Bin Laden is there. Al Qaeda is there. Because then you'll face a rag-tag army that may beat you. There are actually men there. With guns.

America is a paper tiger.

This is a disaster. The Americans have now established a worsening security situation for the rest of the world with their stupidity. It wouldn't be bad if these people filled with vengeance launched attacks against the United States. But they now may lash out at the rest of the world, who have been powerless to protect them from the bully Americans.

The only way this situation can be alleviated is if the rest of the world comes to the aid of Iraq once the Americans leave. The rest of the world needs to build up what the Americans have destroyed.

America. Biggest bully ever.

they usually do not need an excuse..cause they are righteous warriors..killing innocents

Who? America or Al Qaeda?

I think some of our partly-educated forum members are familiar with basic economic lore around the concept of the business cycle.

The good news is that it appears the oft-quoted market maxim, "America sneezes and the rest of the world catches a cold" no longer holds true. The rest of the world is no longer in synch with U.S. Economic Activitiy. China has eclipsed America in this regard, and now the world holds due regard to markets in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

1967 is an interesting year. Not only because the Americans supported the fascists in Greece which eventually lead to the torture of thousands and the subjugation of a democracy (something which America is very good at), but it's important for the Arabs as well.

The Six-Day War. America's support of the jews in stealing Palestinian homes from poor villagers. Back then Arabs were secularists. Now, thanks to the Americans and Israelis, the Arabs have become radicalised - secular to Islamic. The older generation follow Fatah, and the younger (even more radicalised) follow Hamas.

Seriously, when is America going to do anything right?! You can't win a war against rice farmers in Vietnam. You can't win a war against old ladies and children in Iraq. Isn't it about time you call an end to your War of Terror and start taking on armies that can actually defend themselves?

In messages to mark the 40th anniversary since the 1967 military coup in Greece, the country's political leaders stressed that democracy could not be taken for granted. The coup established a military junta that remained in power for seven years until 1974.

In a visit to the former EAT-ESA headquarters on Saturday, where many opponents of the junta were held and tortured during the dictatorship, main opposition PASOK leader George Papandreou said that the threat to democratic institutions came from undermining them and the concentration of power of conservative forces in Europe and in Greece.

Referring to those held by EAT-ESA, he stressed that they were still seen as symbols of high principles and vision.

Papandreou visited the prisoners' cells, including the cell of Alekos Panagoulis, the man who almost succeeded in an attempt to assassinate the dictator Georgios Papadopoulos.

As he left the scene of torture, Papandreou met the head of the Coalition of the Left, of Movements and Ecology party Alekos Alavanos, who had been held at EAT-ESA himself for 2.5 months, and the two party leaders shook hands.

New Democracy party's message

The ruling party's message stressed that the seven years that followed April 21, 1967 were among the grimmest pages of modern Greek history.

"Forty years later, a strong democracy pays homage to those who fought and sacrificed themselves to restore it," the ND announcement said, noting that the progressive view that had humanity, social cohesion and social justice at its core was as timely as ever.

"The challenge is and was clear: to confront accumulated problems and chronic maladies," it added.

The government was continuing the changes and reforms that would guarantee improved prospects for all Greeks and, above all, the younger generation, it concluded.

PASOK stresses need to protect human rights

In its own message, the main opposition party described the seven-year junta as the darkest period of Greece's recent history, which culminated in the tragic invasion and occupation of Cyprus.

Though 40 years had passed since that time and democracy was more stable than ever, it was still wounded when the interests of the few were promoted at the expense of the many and when individual rights and freedoms were cut back, the party underlined.

"It is wounded when fear and insecurity about the future are the dominant feelings in society. It is wounded when, instead of society imposing its terms and conditions on a globalised market, conservative governments throughout the world allow the market to impose its terms on society."

"But it is wounded chiefly from the efforts of conservative governments to dismantle the welfare state, one of the fundamental supports of modern democracy," the party said.

It stressed that PASOK would not allow one step backward or any concession from the rights that Greek people had gained through struggles and sacrifices.

"Deepening democracy and democratic procedures is the duty of every socialist and democratic political force, as well as the common obligation of all those that serve the principles and values of freedom, equality, justice and respect for the dignity of every human being, which represents the ultimate value," the announcement concluded.

Left-wing parties messages for 1967 coup's anniversary

The Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and the Coalition of Left, of Movements and Ecology (Synaspismos) parties issued messages condemning the seven-year dictatorial rule by the colonels.

"KKE calls on the working class and popular forces, capitalising on their political and class experiences, to formulate criteria and demands for their rights, which will respond to their own needs and those of capital," a KKE statement read.

"KKE calls on working people and youth to create their own anti-imperialistic alliance, aiming at radical changes in power and economy," the statement added.

Synaspismos, on its part, underlined in an announcement that "the main message of the sordid anniversary of April 21 is that the struggle for democracy must be continuous" and that "its institutional shielding against phenomena of decadence, its defence against any attempt to restrict democratic rights and its steadfast broadening with institutions safeguarding the participation of citizens, are elements directly linked to this struggle."

Caption: ANA-MPA file photograph taken during an exhibition or archive material on the junta organised by the Kaisariani municipality. It shows a photograph taken during the Polytechnic uprising in 1973, when tanks were used to break down the gates of the Athens Polytechnic to disperse the protesting students barricaded within.

*sigh* you guys still at it eh? let me know when you finish building a fortified wall around your house. don't forget to mine the front yard. them illegal immigrants are all out to get ya!

nothing new around here folks. move along now.

Daniel

:energetic:

Daniel, it seems nothing will change for the americans. Always afraid of poor people walking across their borders. Always seemingly good at invading defenseless third-world countries. Always good and killing children and poor people.

Full marks for the United States of Err-merica.

Religion adds something to people to live through the meaningless of their existence.

For others, they are able to tolerate nothingness and can live successfully without deluding themselves.

I don't believe in the sky god.

My own view is that religious people are crazy and weak. Christian, Muslim, or Jew - all useless and no one is better than the other. Although I would like to say that christians are certainly the worst when it comes to atrocities. The jews are not much better as they suck the blood from the Palestinian people.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard some american say, "I support the Israelis ... who else makes the desert bloom?!" Stupid uneducated plebs.

This made me cry. Thank you to all the soldiers past present and future. YOU are the reason we enjoy our freedoms.

Other nations may find it distasteful, that you'd glorify the agents of American Aggression.

our great country.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

A declaration that promised so much but delivered very little.

Your Founding Fathers would have been ashamed to have seen what your country has become today. An dangerous aggressor nation, a police state, a political system intent on doing the opposite and overturning the freedoms as set out in your constitution (even your First Amendment!).

Since he was put to death, he obviously killed an individual or individuals.

Flawed reasoning. You failed LOGIC in school, didn't you?

Are you aware of how many innocents have been executed on death row? Barbarism.

The advent of DNA testing has freed many inmates from death row.

Check out the documentary, "Murder on a Sunday morning"

I don't agree with the death penalty at all. For any reason. I think that executing criminals is murder, and I think murder is wrong. Period. There are too many flaws in our criminal "justice" system as it is, but the idea of the govt. murdering innocent people is apalling.

Currently, over 115 people in 25 states have been released from death row because of innocence since 1973. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.ph...=412&scid=6

There are 12 US states that don't have the death penalty, and the murder rate in those states hasn't risen unproportionally. I do believe in Ghandi's quote that "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind...."

Force begets force.

Thank you.

Since he was put to death, he obviously killed an individual or individuals.

Flawed reasoning. You failed LOGIC in school, didn't you?

Are you aware of how many innocents have been executed on death row? Barbarism.

The advent of DNA testing has freed many inmates from death row.

Check out the documentary, "Murder on a Sunday morning"

The Iraqis have much better success at killing american aggressors in the Middle East.

For those of you who read, there was a piece in last month's TIME magazine (the U.S. publication) where one hacker has found a way of tweaking his cell phone to escape the jamming equipment of the americans, and thus still explode the IED. Anyone would think that was ingenius, and another victory for freedom against aggression.

what a chopf##k/./...

kids, this is your brain on drugs...

Who? The guy with the blunt or you with your limited vocabulary?

why not? it's not their problem and even if they did, they'd be blamed somehow for what's going on there. best to stay out of it.

A full-scale humanitarian disaster unfolding on their doorstep would become their problem.

They'd be blamed either way -- whether they intervene or not.

let them kill each other off. less threat to israel then.

Ignorant comment.

The plight of the Palestinians is already a humanitarian disaster.

If America had spent a fraction of what it spends on its War of Terror, to help the Palestinians, perhaps the Middle East wouldn't have so many extremists.

Dumber, don't you think that attitudes like yours only gives birth to further extremism?

More like one state, a state of chaos and confusion where only Lebanon loses.

What does Lebanon have to do with Gaza?

That's right. Because you don't understand anything, and don't seek to - after all, the trailer home is warm, yeah - so we'll just call them 'barbarians'.

Ignorant person.

And these people think they are ready to govern themselves?

I don't really care what they think -- what's scary is that most of the rest of the world

(excluding the U.S.) believes that these barbarians deserve a state.

You didn't answer my question about who has the family's brain cells this year.

Does it tell you something that your country is isolated when it comes to the rest of the world thinking that the trampled Palestinians deserve a state?

Hamas and Fatah - differing political groups fighting for their view of nationalism.

Maybe you should look at the beam in your own eye before removing the speck from your brothers.

[...]

Blame lies with the Arab League and Arab governments that took part in or kept silent about this moral scandal. Rather than seeking to help them or provide for their demands, they preoccupy Arab public opinion with conferences and hollow rhetoric on the issue and on refugees.

Many of those governments in the Arab league have been installed by the united states and are allowed to exist. Ergo, by association, the blame should be cast upon the united states and the Zionists in Israel.

And now, thanks to american aggression with arming israel, blocking U.N. resolutions, you have given birth to extremism in the form of Hamas, and now the Palestinians are even further away from statehood. What a disaster.

I love this show.

And

Seriously, though, what can we do?

It's so frustrating to watch all of this happen and feel powerless to do anything about it.

Scary stuff, yeah?

I tell you what you can do. Go down to your local Borders or Barnes and Noble, and by yourself "The Dummies Guide to Building a Career" and recession-proof your life from the changes in the Global Economy.

The Regime Against the Nation

by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted 06/12/2007 ET

Updated 06/12/2007 ET

while Mexico continued to export its poor to the United States.

What is the hidden agenda of the global companies, which evolved out of what were once great American companies?

The Rhetoric of Fear. More ammunition and ratings for the likes of Michael Savage, O'Reilly, Hannity et al.

Mexico may be "exporting their poor", but they are also exporting cheap goods and services, so the effect of high gas prices don't affect your pockets. Be a little thankful! Why should americans be worried about borders disappearing when your country invades sovereign countries like Iraq. What goes around comes around.

Hidden agenda of global companies?! Come on, any fat american kid can tell you its about profit. Moreover, creative destruction actually leads to an improved economy. Better jobs in the services economy for those that reskill and reintegrate themselves into the global economy.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of voters would favor an approach that focuses exclusively on “exclusively on securing the border and reducing illegal immigration.” Support for the enforcement only approach comes from 84% of Republicans, 55% of Democrats, and 69% of those not affiliated with either major party.

Overall, just 21% are opposed to the enforcement-only approach.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_con..._on_enforcement

Interesting what happens when you ask the right questions

Indeed.

How can americans guard their border when they're off in their War of Terror?

"Sending America's Finest Men and Women to defend the Southern Border from Attack. LET'S ROLL!!!"