Tuesday, May 29, 2012 Modesto Anarcho
A Few Words from the Editors...
We live in an exciting time where it can be reasonably believed that the current ruling order can be overthrown and an entirely new world can flourish in it's place. Entire governments have been brought down, insurrections nurtured and pushed to their most subversive ends, and people across the globe anticipate a coming, perhaps winnable, clash between themselves and power. However, it is also a scary time to call yourself an anarchist, with the media and whole governments inflating fears of anarchist "terrorism," bomb-plots, and attacks. In recent months, 10 people have been brought up on conspiracy charges. Each of these cases is similar; an FBI informant finds young idealistic people involved on the periphery of protest movements and pushes them toward radical action, only to later arrest them after they have been pushed. In this special article from a comrade in the bay area, they discuss how strategies classically used against revolutionaries have come to be more broadly applied to other groups of people, as though they too are seen by the state as combatants and potential insurgents.
Eric McDavid |
We should not be surprised at state repression against radicals when such strategies are used by the government against huge segments of the population. Generalized surveillance, mass incarceration, the ubiquitous exploitation of migrant workers terrorized to silence through the constant threat of deportation, and gang injunctions which keep poor communities of color fractured and isolated are all part of a social war waged against the very population itself. With these first forays into the domestication of warfare into the every day fabric of our lives, is it any wonder that the state would target those who already proclaim themselves combatants in just such a war?
And
Now They Are Coming For You
The image of five men circulates through the news media and around the
internet. A few weeks later, a new story, this time the mugshots of
three more men flash on the screen, followed by the pictures of two
other men in the following days.
The ten white men are in serious trouble, something about “terrorism” from the sounds of it, but the situation is very confusing. One thing is clear: informants were involved in all of these cases, and that they developed friendships with these young men in order to entrap them.
In most of the cases it seems the men are charged with nothing more than talking, yet they are facing lengthy prison sentences.
How did we get to this point?
3 of the 5 people arrested after protests in Chicago. |
The ten white men are in serious trouble, something about “terrorism” from the sounds of it, but the situation is very confusing. One thing is clear: informants were involved in all of these cases, and that they developed friendships with these young men in order to entrap them.
People in Ohio involved in FBI entrapment case. |
How did we get to this point?
Background
Late 2002- 20,000 feet above
the ocean a young man lies on the cold metal floor of an airplane, his arms and
legs affixed to metal posts by sturdy canvass straps. His captors speak a language he does not
understand, yet they constantly scream at him, their mouths just inches from
his face. He is afraid.
The airplane lands somewhere
outside of an Eastern European capital.
He is placed in a van and driven away from the makeshift airport. They arrive at what appears to be a small
office building on the outskirts of a city.
This place does not exist on
any map.
Inside the building are not
offices but 6 tiny damp cells. The cells
have no sinks or benches. There is not
even a toilet. He is forced to the
ground and, once again, his arms and legs are strapped down.
A hood is thrown over his
head and he feels water running down his body.
His captors are yelling. He
cannot breathe.
Guantanamo Bay |
In
the past decade, thousands of Muslims have been subjected to the most
disturbing forms of incarceration and interrogation imaginable. Of those incarcerated, most were never
officially charged. Many did not survive
the ordeal.
Extraordinary rendition, the extrajudicial abduction and international transport of a person
for the purpose of interrogation, became commonplace during the “war on
terror”. Countless people who were
never charged with a crime were transported to “black sites”. The US government refuses to acknowledge the
existence of many of these secret prisons.
Like
“indefinite detention” and “enhanced interrogation techniques”, “extraordinary
rendition” is another euphemism used to downplay the campaign of terror waged
by the US against the Muslim world.
Abdulrahman al-Awlaki |
Friday, October 14, 2011 - A 16 year old American boy, along with nine
others, is killed in a targeted CIA drone strike in Yemen. Abdulrahman al-Awlaki
becomes the third American killed in Yemen by United
States drones in just over two weeks.
These
attacks made it clear that the most brutal methods, those aerial bombardments
normally reserved for citizens of far-away lands, would now be used against Americansas well.
The
targeted CIA murder of an American boy would normally cause an outrage.
But
he was Muslim, and we had grown to expect this.
It’s
hard not to feel that we failed to respond appropriately to this decade long
campaign of state repression, and that our failure to act then has helped to
create the situation we are in today.
Drone planes carry out attacks and conduct surveillance. |
It
is now apparent that we ignored their struggle at our own peril.
The Precedent
Tarek Mehanna |
Last
month Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to 17 years in prison for translating
communiqués issued by Muslim combatants.
This case is just another demonstration of the extreme racism of the
judicial system. But it has become
apparent that the State is no longer content to suppress only ethnic
minorities. Any challenge to the system
will now be met with the most brutal reprisal.
The
prosecutions of animal and earth liberation militants from 2006 to 2009 was as
much an attempt by the State to destroy those movements as it was a chance to
set a precedent in the conviction of white Americans as terrorists. Using the fear of the not-so-distant World
Trade Center attack and the precedent of the convictions of countless Muslims
for doing far less, the State successfully targeted another network of
people. They saw the animal and earth
liberation movements as being marginal enough that they could be used as a
testing ground for a campaign of persecution that is now aimed at all who
disobey.
Somebody Snitchin’
Informants
have been critical in the prosecution of nearly all terror cases. We have been told that their role is to
identify plots and to stop them before they are carried out.
The
role of the informant is to create a situation that justifies his existence. An informant does not infiltrate a terror
cell. He creates one.
Many
of us believed that informants target the key players of a movement in an
attempt to remove influential people, thus striking a crippling blow.
COINTELPRO targeted revolutionary movements and groups in the 1960's-70's. |
In
the 1960s the FBI targeted the leaders of social movements for
“neutralization”. To cut off the head
was to kill the body. We learned from
this and developed bodies that could function without a head. No longer could they destroy us by targeting
a few key people.
But
they also learned. Informants no longer
look for leaders, they look for followers, those bright-eyed young idealists
who will do anything to end this global cycle of suffering.
Our
diffuse structure has been met by a diffuse repression. To target at random, to incarcerate the least
threatening among us, sends a message that is much more terrifying than the old
method.
They
no longer seek to decapitate a movement, but to slash wildly at its body so
that none of its parts are safe.
Today,
there is nowhere to hide.
The Homefront
Occupy Oakland |
The Bay is the epicenter of struggle in this country. We have almost grown used to the experience
of small-scale uprisings. We have
participated in conflicts we never would have thought possible.
Around
the country our allies have taken notice.
It is certain that the same is true of our enemies.
In
Ohio, Minnesota, Washington, Illinois, even in small town Iowa the State’s
secret messengers have reared their heads.
But
here they have remained silent.
The
current wave of struggle in the Bay began three and a half years ago, and
almost immediately evidence of informants was apparent.
At
the height of the Oscar Grant movement we learned that the FBI expressed a
great deal of interest in the anarchist tendency in the Bay. It was uncovered that someone was feeding
information about anarchist participation in the uprising to law
enforcement. It was suspected that this
source was close to or within the anarchist movement.
This
person was never discovered.
Around
this time a strange figure appeared. Claiming
to be a leader of the “Oakland Panthers”, he publicly exalted the dumbest forms
of violent action and considered macho homophobic yelling matches to be an
admirable form of struggle. He
physically attacked people at random. He
was trusted by few. It was revealed that
he was a pimp who had worked as an informant for OPD in the recent past, and it
was speculated that he still working for them. 3 years later he made an appearance at an Occupy Oakland action, trying
to persuade a young anarchist to light something on fire. He was outed and hasn’t been seen since.
It
is apparent that law enforcement has, to some degree, used covert methods
against radical movements in the Bay in recent times. They have reason to fear the fighting force
we have developed. But, with the
exception of a washed up pimp-turned fake Panther, none of the State’s
messengers have been discovered.
Be
safe. There are enemies among us, though
we have yet to identify them.
Learn
from the cases of the ten men, and from all the prosecutions before them. Be cautious about your use of the word
“trust”. Don’t let anyone drag you into
a situation that you are not prepared for.
Organize
your conspiracies carefully. We must
learn to strike harder and more effectively.
The anger we carry with us will one day bring down empires.
Until
now the victims of the most brutal state repression have been the same people
that have always had the boot on their neck. Though at times the police have
clearly targeted people they believed to be white anarchists, the judicial
system continued functioning in the same way it always has. In the past three
and a half years of struggle in the Bay, nearly all of the people who have done
time have been working-class black males.
Media encourages people to call police on rioters and looters after Oscar Grant revolt in Oakland. |
But
this will soon change.
The
controlled management units, the sensory deprivation, the enhanced
interrogation techniques, the indefinite detention, all the tools of the wars against
populations abroad are coming home.
You
watched as they tortured Muslims in Iraq, detained Mexicans in Arizona,
incarcerated blacks in Oakland, and as you watched you thought to yourself this is fucked up.
But
you said nothing as they were thrown to the lions.
And
now they are coming for you.
Further reading:
Inside the FBI Entrapment Strategy - Crimethinc.com
The New State Repression - Ken Lawrence
Repression As State Strategy - A Murder of Crows
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