perestroika

I generally agree with CrimethInc articles so extensively that I I find it hard to pick at something in them.

This time, however, I find the claim...

Palestinian liberation will only come about as the result of a full-scale political crisis in the United States

...but I don't find the evidence.

Firstly, Israel is not wholly dependent on US weapons, and according to most measures, it has already secured a military victory - at such cost in civilian lives that it's a diplomatic defeat - everyone who can count the casualties and destruction knows that Israeli politicians gave zero fucks, alienated many supporters (they had great international support when Hamas attacked them) and very likely will receive an invitation to the ICC (hopefully along with Hamas leaders, so they can be tried together - reality may differ as both will try to avoid the court).

Also, if the claim were true, and a full-scale political crisis in the US was required for Palestinian liberation, then sadly, assuming a full political crisis incapacitates the government to some degree - there would be considerable risk that Palestinian liberation and Ukrainian independece sit on opposite plates of the scale. Myself, I don't like the concept that one group's liberation and another group's freedom can be contradictory. However, it seems undeniable that the US war machine is currently supplying weapons for two main causes, one of them reasonably ethical (defending Ukraine) and the other not (bombing Gaza into a previous epoch of history).

Regarding what the US government actually does... I don't read every article and post about diplomacy (so I could be missing a lot) but it appears to me that the US government is at the moment actively dissuading Israel from going into Rafah (the remaining comparatively less damaged settlement) - both by talk and refusal to send heavy air-dropped bombs.

This could be due to international pressure (the US has Arab allies and has to present some facade to them), could be due to protests (Biden surely worries about approaching elections). It could even work - but might not, because Israel has other sources of weapons and might empty its stockpiles of some categories to make the final push. :( Still, as a long-time and reliable donor, the US government has much leverage on Israel. Especially as it recently helped mitigate the Iranian missile and drone attack, downing Iranian munitions above Jordan and Iraq and perhaps elsewhere before they reached Israel. Biden can - overly simplified - send a message of "we assisted and protected you, we have your best interest in mind, and it's in your best interest to stop now". Netanyahu might listen or ignore the message.

In the end, however, a word of caution - whatever happens, whatever the US does - if Hamas returns to power, that will not be Palestinian liberation, because the Hamas guys weren't liberating anyone. In fact, they were beating, imprisoning and killing some of their Palestinian political competitors for the old-fashioned goal of staying in power.

I literally cannot find the word "Hamas" in the article at all. It speaks of everyone except those who started the current war. That's a massive oversight - oversight to the point of blinding oneself to a serious setback right around the corner. I'm not happy to see some of my comrades blinding themselves.

If one seeks a path to liberation, it has to include some recipe of not letting Hamas recover and return to power. And somehow getting lunatics out of Israeli government. The US has a role to play, and it may even be a decisive role, but as long as one side has rulers who prefer shooting civilians, and the other side has rulers who prefer to obliterate urban centers with bombardment... local political leadership must change, and no liberation will come unless it changes.

Well, there's a DIY electric car which needs both axles to be re-designed. They didn't pass driving tests in the field. Design is complete but welding cannot start before weather turns nicer.

Also, my house needs a battery shed on wheels - wheels to keep away construction bureaucrats, shed because it's uncomfortable to sleep under the same roof with a very considerable amount of lithium cells. I'd like to keep some distance from them so that if something goes wrong, it's would be just the cells. :) The bottom platform with wheels is complete, walls and roof and everything such - nope, not a trace, not even a good drawing. :)

Would be great if they could do it. But it feels like lower-hanging combinations could be easier to pick. :o

I agree that Hamas is a response to conditions. I do recall that a long while ago, Israel did fund Hamas, in hope of counterbalancing Fatah.

But, just like many other movements, Hamas seems to perpetuate the conditions which created it. Their rule is Gaza hasn't only brought a war with Israel, but also a suppression of democracy and repression of people from competing Palestinian movements (mainly Fatah).

Israeli forces do often act like they're a recruitment branch of Hamas, stirring up anger. I don't doubt it the slightest that Hamas has received many recruits because the IDF again killed someone who randomly got in their way (or again made the calculation that for a junior Hamas official, 15 civilian lives are OK to take).

But, despite knowing the above-mentioned - I don't see a way out of the long-term conflict without both sides changing.

As long as Israel behaves like it wants to destroy (or drive away) all Palestinians - there will be Palestinian politicians who call for the destruction of Israel and support terrorist tactics, with considerable support among the population, even if their rule is not democratic (the rule of Hamas in Gaza only started democratically). Meanwhile, fear of revenge and terror, fear of appearing weak and another Arab-Israeli war - this ensures that politicians in Israel who promise to deal harshly with Palestinians get votes and frequently attain power.

Since the conflict is now quite old (at least 70 years) and the fighting parties have lost a viable framework for solving it, they need either massive luck or considerable foreign assistance / advise / pressure to find a stable solution.

Re: one state solution: did you mean two state solution? Because I think - but I could be wrong - that Israel must somehow come to the point of understanding that a Palestinian state with a reasonably defined territory (not a patchwork-of-enclaves territory) can be their neighbour, but the current situation is unstable.

Though the projection is about solarpunk, a side note about the situation in Gaza...

...recently, the UN demining agency (I've forgotten their acronym) published an estimate of war damage in Gaza. They assessed that there was "more rubble in Gaza than Ukraine". Since that seemed unbelievable, I consulted various sources, among them a review by the Lund University Center for Middle-Eastern Studies named Monitoring Israel's Destruction of Gaza from Space.

What I found out:

• the UN measures war damage in kilograms of rubble per square meter
• Gaza is tiny and densely populated
• thus despite a hundred times less (approximation) munitions getting fired than in Ukraine, Gaza has massive damage to infrastructure
• the rubble density is currently 300 kg / m2
• the most damaged settlement is Gaza City (75% of buildings damaged or destroyed)
• the least damaged settlement is Rafah (31% of buildings)
• on average, 57% of houses are damaged or destroyed
• war was waged in an un-evacuated city: this typically produces high civilian losses
• the current estimate is 30 000, so Israel's response has caused 30 x more losses than the initial attack by Hamas
• night time satellite photos suggest that electricity is missing in most of the strip
• crop monitoring photos indicate that agriculture has mostly stopped (and irrigation is likely broken)

For me, journalistic photos from Gaza most remind of what happened in Grozny, the capital of Chechnia during the First Chechen War (disproportionate amounts of Russian firepower reduced it to a trash heap).

Since both sides are responsible for war crimes (Hamas at first and now Israel) and the military response has overshot any goal associated with justice, I support any action that makes the conflict stop. Hamas started this war, but Israel has gone far beyond sanity while responding. Later on, I think the leaders of both sides ought be brought before the International Criminal Court and answer charges of war crimes (which could take decades).

How to ensure another war won't happen... much harder without structural change in both societies. Considering the way Israel currently functions and how the Palestinian Authority functioned in Gaza (Hamas militants took it over, things seem better on the West Bank), there's a high chance that someone from either side could ignite a new conflict in future.

My typical backup system:

• a computer that needs backing up in on a network
• the computer hosting backups is on that network
• [optional] the backup host is either powered down, or has brought its network connection down (so it's not visible and not hackable)
• at a predetermined time, the backup host wakes (brings its network connection up)
• it checks if the backup source is present, aborting if not
• it logs in via SFTP (an FTP-like protocol built on top of SSH) with public key authentication and pulls the backups down from the source according to a script (SFTP can do a list of tasks basing on a command script)
• after successful download (but not after a failure to download) it searches for too old backups and erases them ¹
• finally the backup host powers down or leaves the network
• optional final step: occasionally, a disk image of the backup host is taken, the memory card is put in a bottle, the cap is screwed on tight and the bottle is hidden under a stone :)

Regarding data protection: ideally, both computers use disk encryption. Especially the backup host, since it's unattended and could be taken by a burglar (or a cop), and holds the private key that can access the backup source.

¹ erasing old stuff is easy enough in Linux/Bash:

for i in `seq 5 10`;
do
     DATE=$(date --date "$i days ago" +%Y%m%d)
     echo "Deleting backups from $i days ago, that is [$DATE]."
     # do something
done

...generates a sequence of past dates ranging from 5..10 days in the past, attempts to delete something for each. Or alternatively, for those who like fancier, shorter and a bit more risky commands...

find ${BACKUP_DIR}/backup*.tgz -mtime +10 -exec rm {} \;

...finds files in directory $BACKUP_DIR named "backup*.tgz" and if modification time is older than 10 days, passes them as arguments to "rm".

In a dramatic reversal, the DA’s office now admits that Villalobos failed to disclose the exculpatory statements. /.../ Melissa Lucio was full of red flags, from a coerced interrogation and reliance on junk forensics to lackluster defense lawyering and prosecutorial misconduct. “I’ve been doing capital defense work in Texas for 30 years,” Sandra Babcock, a Cornell Law School professor who is now part of Lucio’s defense team, told The Intercept in 2022. “And this is by far the weakest capital case I’ve ever seen.”

Lucio was prosecuted by embattled District Attorney Villalobos, who used the case to boost his tough-on-crime reputation as part of his reelection campaign.

Apparently, prosecutors are elected in the US. :o

That aside, I cannot imagine a forensic scientist not telling the difference between bruises from a fall, and bruises from beating. Investigators not disclosing evidence to the defense is just plain criminal behaviour.

The only thing the woman should have done, in my opinion, would have been - taking their child to an emergency room for checking up. If there is reason to suspect a concussion, a person should be checked - because sometimes the brain starts swelling and that can lead to death or disability with a small delay - likely what happened in this case. Esecially if a person with a concussion feels a sudden need for sleep, they should tell others to not let themselves fall asleep, and find medical care without delay.

I hope that Lucio manages to rebuild something of her life after this ordeal.

Thank you for the good wishes, and happy May Day as well.

Over here, it's a public holiday but hardly anyone remembers what happened in Chicago...

...and to see people walk with red and/or black flags today, one would have to take a ship 80 km northwards. Still, one guy from the trade union of transport workers got his article published today, and I would not be surprised if smaller meetings happened where people did remember.

From a person who builds robots, three notes:

1. Camera

Raspberry Pi has two CSI (camera serial interface) connectors on board, which is a considerable advantage over having to deal with USB webcams. This matters if your industrial robot must see the work area faster, your competition robot must run circles around opposing robots, or more sadly - if your drone must fly to war. :( On Raspberry Pi, in laboratory conditions (extreme lighting intensity), you can use the camera (with big ifs and buts) at 500+ frames per second, not fast enough to photograph a bullet, but fast enough to see a mouse trap gradually closing. That's impossible over USB and unheard of to most USB camera makers.

2. Optimized libraries

I know that Raspberry Pi has "WiringPi" (a fast C library for low level comms, helping abstract away difficult problems like hardware timing, DMA and interrupts) and Orange Pi recently got "WiringOP" (I haven't tried it, don't know if it works well). I don't know of anything similar on a PC platform, so I believe that on NUC, you'd have to roll your own (a massive pain) or be limited to kilohertz GPIO frequencies instead of megahertz (because you'd be wading through some fairly deep Linux API calls).

3. Antenna socket

Sadly, neither of them has a WiFi antenna socket. But the built-in WiFi cards are generally crappy too, so if you needed a considerable working area, you'd connect an external card with an external antenna anyway. Notably, some models of Orange Pi have an external antenna, and the Raspberry Pi Compute Module has one too.

Damn.

Sadly, when you publish information about folks in the upper right corner - never let your guard down, as they are quite eager to try violence even if they won't prevail. Antifascist activism benefits from staying anonymous.

This type of attacks aren't an isolated occurrence, sadly. I can name a few cases from nearby countries, including one where I live. I will start with the worst:

1. A catastrophe

• Norway: the 2011 mass shooting and explosions by a terrorist named Breivik left 77 people dead. You can read about it from Wikipedia, since it reached headlines and set a precedent in terrorism in these parts of Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Sadly, where the gunman caused most damage - a leftist organization's summer camp for children - had no defense at all. Any competent person with a functioning weapon (not even a firearm - a gunman with an arrow in them is harmless to bystanders) could have prevented great loss of life there.

2. A bad day

• Finland, one year later: no prior instances of terror had occurred, so there didn't seem to be a reason to expect any. However, a new Nazi movement had raised its head. A book by some leftists was being introduced in the library of Jyväskylä. The book was titled "The Far Right in Finland". A Finnish account of the events can be found at the website of Varis, their local network of antifascist activists.

In short: three Nazis from the now-banned organization "PVL" named Sebastian Lämsä, Paavo Laitinen ja Sampsa Muhonen attempted to enter using force, bringing along knives and bottles. Some folks from the local anarchist scene confronted them with chairs. One nazi managed to stab a punk in the back. The nazis were forced to escape and police found them all. The punk was rushed to treatment and the event proceeded.

3. A smooth ride

• Estonia, two years later: a presentation about far right organizations in Estonia was being held. Since we already knew that things can turn out badly like in Finland or worse like in Norway, we took some time to prepare. One person (yours sincererely) monitored the yard of the building involved from a remote location with binoculars, had radio contact with the people at the door, and was ready to intervene with a car. People at the door had more pepper than a van full of riot cops, and had a contingency plan to block the door with a good enough obstacle. Helmets were available in case fists, clubs or pepper would find use. Equipment was nearby which could be re-purposed to defend a corridor against a gunman.

Nazis did send threats. Some even convened in an opposite corner of the yard - but physical agression did not occur. Some folks came to the door and were denied entry after asking them questions. They obviously saw an unusual state of readiness and told their fellows not to try. Meanwhile, I had the privilege to observe a local city councilor (whose hobby at the time was railing about the autonomous social center in council) come to the yard, shake hands with the nazis and also try entering. Since he was a known person associated with the far right, he was denied entry. Nothing happened, all I got was photos of the city councilor shaking hands with nazis.

The link in the post title (https://chuffed.org/project/dpk4nvzkr4emIf) returns "page not found" for me. The link in the YouTube video's text block (https://chuffed.org/project/dpk4nvzkr4em) works.

About the guy being tried - my personal opinion is that his goal was not to expose war crimes. He caused the war crimes investigation by a lucky accident. I hope he gets away with a mild sentence. For those who don't watch videos without absolute need:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_McBride_(whistleblower)

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-i-ve-done-makes-sense-to-me-the-complicated-colourful-life-of-david-mcbride-20190621-p5204h.html

Short summary: he was accused of leaking the documents. He pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in the coming May. Interestingly, he leaked the documents because he was dissatisfied with the excessive investigation of soldiers while journalists who examined his materials arrived at the conclusion that soldiers were likely committing war crimes and needed far more investigation. From Wikipedia:

Over two deployments to Afghanistan in 2011 and 2013, he became convinced the war was so dictated by political imperatives in Canberra - especially the desire to avoid civilian casualties - that it became impossible for Australian soldiers to do their jobs.

At the centre of his complaint lies a 2013 Defence directive to Australian soldiers stating they needed a high degree of confidence that anyone they fired upon was "directly participating in hostilities". If not, a soldier could be "exposed to criminal and disciplinary liability, including potentially the war crime of murder", according to the ABC's reports on the documents McBride leaked.

McBride argues this change increased the scrutiny of special forces missions. The hazard of possible murder investigations left the Australians hamstrung. "If you are that worried about Afghan deaths, why not pull us out?" he asks. "If you want us to fight the war, you have to be able to let us do it."

As for the war crimes (journalistic account)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Files_(Australia)

The documents contained at least 10 accounts of possibly unlawful killings of unarmed men and children.[2] Two of the incidents, both occurring in September 2013, are currently under investigation by the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force.[7][2] These incidents involved the death of a man named Bismillah Azadi and his son Sadiqullah in an Australian raid in Uruzgan Province, when Bismillah allegedly pointed a pistol at SAS troopers. Contrary to the soldier's reports, police found Bismillah and Sadiqullah in bed beside each other the next day, apparently killed while asleep.[7] The documents also contained a report of a detainee alone with a soldier being shot after allegedly trying to seize a weapon.[2] Later in 2013 after these incidents, Australian troops allegedly killed an Afghan motorcyclist, and injured his female passenger. This incident allegedly sparked agitation from the Afghan authorities, who threatened to stop working with Australia unless the killing of unarmed civilians ceased.[2]

/.../

The files provided insight into the response of the ADF over, and background of an incident in which an SAS soldier severed the hands of an Afghan insurgent for identification confirmation purposes.[8] /.../ Mutilation of the dead, however, is a violation of the laws of war.

As for the investigation of journalists (not war crimes)...

On 5 June 2019, the Australian Federal Police raided the Sydney based headquarters of the ABC over a period of eight hours,[4] reportedly over the Afghan Files.[14] /.../ Following the raid the ABC began litigation against the AFP, claiming the warrant was too broad and thus not enforceable.[17][18] /.../ In February 2020 the case was dismissed by the federal court,[19] and the AFP began the process of accessing the confiscated files while the ABC rushed to get an injunction.[20][21]

In June 2020, the AFP sent a brief of evidence to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP), the federal public prosecutor, recommending charges be laid against journalist Dan Oakes for breaking the Afghan Files story. As it was such a high profile case, prosecution also required final approval from the then Attorney General of Australia, Christian Porter.[22] In October 2020, the CDPP announced that, despite believing they would succeed in conviction on several charges, they would not be prosecuting Oakes.[23]

(I guess they understood that they would piss off the public with their witch-hunt against journalists. That left the leaker himself.)

As for the investigation of war crimes (military account)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brereton_Report

The report found evidence of the practice of "throwdowns", where Australian troops would carry weapons and equipment not issued by the ADF for the purposes of planting on civilians killed in combat.[14][10]: 29  The weapons were then used in photographic and other evidence to give the illusion that the civilians were legitimate combatants.[10]: 29  The report speculates that throwdowns started for the "less egregious though still dishonest" purpose of avoiding scrutiny when legitimate combatants were later found to not be armed, but later evolved into the concealment of intentional unlawful murders.[10]: 29 

The inquiry found that junior soldiers were often required by their superiors to murder prisoners to get their first kill, a practice known as "blooding".[15][5] Brereton described the practice as such: "Typically, the patrol commander would take a person under control and the junior member [...] would then be directed to kill the person under control".[16][10]: 29  Throwdowns were then placed and a cover story created to conceal the practice.[7] The killing of passive prisoners of war is a war crime.[17][18][19]

The report discusses at length the parties responsible for the criminal acts alleged, concluding that while senior commanders "must bear some responsibility",[10]: 30  "it was at the patrol commander level that the criminal behaviour was conceived, committed, continued, and concealed, and overwhelmingly at that level that responsibility resides."[10]: 33  The patrol commanders were corporals and sergeants, and the inquiry "found no evidence that there was knowledge of, or reckless indifference to, the commission of war crimes"[10]: 31  on the part of commanding officers from the troop/platoon level upward.[10]: 30–31 

...as for the results...

In response to the report, 2 Squadron, Special Air Service Regiment, was disbanded (with a new squadron to be raised at a later date),[25] and the Morrison government established a new Office of the Special Investigator to investigate further criminal conduct and recommend prosecution of individuals involved.[26][27][28] In December 2020, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton appointed a former Judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Mark Weinberg, as the Special Investigator.[29]

/.../

In 2023, the former Australian SAS soldier Oliver Schulz was arrested and charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan civilian. He is the first person to be charged in connection with the report. He is also the first Australian soldier to ever be charged under Australian law with a war crime.[38]

Sad.

For those who don't know, Sudan has seen a number of wars during the past 70 years. The longest period of peace lasted about 10 years. Recently, war was mostly contained to southern parts of the country, with the armed forces and the Janjaweed cooperating against southern rebels (I recall hearing about the Janjaweed and their methods already in 2008).

Now the same factions fight each other. Several foreign countries have tried to mediate some negotiated settlement or at least a ceasefire. But some foreign countries have also supported some of the factions.

1955...1972 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sudanese_Civil_War

1983..2005 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War

2003..2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur

2018... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_revolution

2023... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Sudan_(2023%E2%80%93present)

A recent article about Sudan from a German analyst: https://www.swp-berlin.org/en/publication/mta-spotlight-30-how-not-to-talk-about-the-war-in-sudan

...and my take: when two or more authoritarian factions fight each other, and have comparable eagerness to violate human rights and commit war crimes, and there's not enough anarchists to make a faction or make a difference... an anarchist can either emigrate, go anonymous or go apolitical. The latter is not a guarantee against being targeted - if random non-combatants are targeted, then apolitical people will also be targeted. It might be best to preserve oneself and wait for warrring factions to burn each other out, maintaining a low profile and helping local people without raising any banners.