‘We will exterminate you’: Proud Boys and other right-wing Trump diehards confront counter-protesters at Raleigh rally

November 29, 2020
By Jordan Green, Special to Raw Story

Screenshot/ Jordan Greene


A band of COVID deniers, neo-Confederates and pro-Trump diehards, augmented by a 50-strong Proud Boy security detail, marched around the Governor’s Mansion in downtown Raleigh on Saturday, firing up a far-right coalition to carry on the fight as their president faces the reality of leaving office.

The post-Thanksgiving rally was co-organized by Joshua Flores of Stop the Steal NC and Latinos for Freedom, who brought in Reopen NC to help him promote it on Facebook. But the Proud Boys — referenced by Flores as his “private security” in a Facebook Live video two days prior to the event — took the most prominent position in the rally as they spread out along a block of East Jones Street and taunted antifascist counter-protesters.

Flores had promoted the Thanksgiving potluck as a family-friendly event, and urged attendees to not engage with counter-protesters, warning that they would be asked to leave if they failed to honor the request, and adding that “the Proud Boys” would also “have the authority to kick you out.” He also suggested, “Try not to use major cuss words, if you don’t mind.”

The request was almost farcical considering the Proud Boys’ history of inciting conflict through profanity-laced taunts that are often barbed with misogyny and homophobia.

True to form, a Proud Boy named Jeremy Bertino picked up a bullhorn a couple minutes after the official 11:30 a.m. start time and addressed the counter-protesters across the street.

“America will never be a communist nation — never!” Bertino said as fellow Proud Boys lined the sidewalk wearing tactical vests and trademark yellow and black gear. “Your side will lose. We will exterminate you like the rats you are…. Exterminate you!”


Bertino kicked off a chant of, “Fuck antifa.”




Another Proud Boy wore a patch with the letters “S-B-S-B,” a reference to Trump’s infamous election-debate directive: “Proud Boys — stand back and stand by.”

Bertino wore a patch with the letters “R-W-D-S” — short for “right-wing death squads.” Mass killing of political opponents is a theme widely promoted by Proud Boys and other far-right extremists who celebrate Chilean dictator Augosto Pinochet’s grisly practice during the 1970s of disappearing opposition activists by dropping them out of helicopters.

Previewing the in-real-life showdown on Saturday, Bertino posted a photo of North Carolina antifascist Lindsay Ayling on the Parler social media platform, encouraging followers to make a contest out of Photoshopping her image, while making a violent and misogynistic claim that “she has an affinity for alpha males and helicopters” and hash-tagging the post #antifawhore.

Bertino told Raw Story he was merely “trolling” Ayling, but the Proud Boys’ goofball presentation — naming cereals during their initation rite, for example — conveniently provides plausible deniability for any expressed fantasies of violence.

Bertino also denied that his “extermination” remarks were personally directed at the counter-protesters, although his own words say otherwise.

Throughout the four-hour event, unidentified men with bullhorns stood behind the Proud Boys and excoriated the counter-protesters.

“You guys are making lists,” one of the men said. “We’re making lists, too.” He added a reference to “9mm” ammunition that was otherwise inaudible. Another time, the man addressed the counter-protesters, saying, “You are in a very dangerous position. You are in the vast minority.” Bertino told Raw Story he did not hear the comment and could not identify the speaker.

Another unidentified man told the counter-protesters: “Donald Trump has stirred the pot. You think you’ve captured him. But all you’ve done is woken us up. You think this is gonna end? No!” The speaker also called the counter-protesters lazy and accused them of not understanding Christianity.

The right-wing group, which broadly expressed defiance of COVID restrictions and loyalty to Donald Trump, out-numbered counter-protesters almost two to one.

Drawn from Raleigh activists who have been protesting against police brutality since late May, along with antiracists and antifascists who are veterans of efforts to remove Confederate monuments, the counter-protesters responded in kind with taunts toward the Proud Boys. One sign held by a counter-protester read, “Proud Boy Thugs: 21st Century Nazi Brown Shirts.” Another showed a depiction of a Confederate flag, a swastika and the name “Trump,” concluding, “3 generations of losers.”

“For individuals to still be conducting ‘Stop the Steal’ protest/rallies essentially 25 days after Election Day even after Gov. [Roy] Cooper has been declared the winner is in the same vein as the Confederate supporters still showing up places waving Confederate flags,” Kerwin Pittman, a field organizer with Emancipate NC, told Raw Story. “They just can’t accept the fact they lost. They must be called out on their denial and confronted when they attempt to sow seeds of intimidation in any community.”

Pittman was appointed by Cooper, a Democrat, to serve on the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice. Pittman served time in prison on conspiracy to commit murder, and he has been open about his past. All the same, North Carolina neo-Confederates never miss an opportunity to loudly confront him about his record, and on Saturday a detractor from Alamance County jeered Pittman, daring him to say the name of the man murdered in the case.

Around 1 p.m., Tara LaRosa, an MMA fighter, led an advance team of Proud Boys into the street, with Bertino and others acting as marshals as the larger group of right-wing activists marched around the governor’s residence. It’s unclear whether they had a permit for the march.

The marchers chanted “Reopen NC,” “No more masks,” “We are the republic,” and “Silent no more.”

Reopen NC leader Ashley Smith and her husband, Adam Smith, addressed the crowd with a bullhorn at the entrance of the Governor’s Mansion as the right-wing activists held the street, with tight security from the Proud Boys. At the direction of one of the co-organizers, the Proud Boys ejected two reporters, from Raw Story and INDY Week.

The right-wing activists staked out an alternate reality, with one woman insisting to reporters: “Donald Trump won the election.”

Jay Thaxton, a North Carolina Proud Boy, blocked a reporter’s camera. He said, “When you guys start writing real news, we won’t have a problem with you.”

A couple wearing shirts promoting QAnon — a conspiracy theory that posits Trump as a hero working beyond the scenes to vanquish an elite global cabal of pedophiles — strolled through the cordon of Proud Boys to join the rally. The man, who declined to give his name, told a reporter: “I pray that God would help you see both sides of the issue, not being right or left. We have a Bill of Rights.”

Earlier in the rally, before the right-wing activists broke out covered dishes for their defiant potluck, Reopen NC leader Ashley Smith addressed them.

“I’m just so thankful to see so many patriots and people who love freedom and love America,” she said. “Yes, we are here once again to stand in the face of tyranny and all that would destroy everything that we hold dear and love. And I’m here again to say, ‘No, you cannot have my America. You cannot have my North Carolina.’

“Right now, we’re going to have some food,” Smith continued. “We’re gonna hug our neighbors and say the Pledge [of Allegiance].”

In anticipation of Thanksgiving, on Nov. 10, Gov. Cooper issued an executive order limiting the number of people at indoor gatherings to no more than 10. On Nov. 23, he followed up with another executive order requiring masks in all public indoor settings.

As justification for the restrictions, the most recent executive order cited record high COVID-19 daily case counts and hospitalizations in North Carolina.

“We are at a critical point, and I am writing to update you on the worsening surge of COVID cases in our community and health system, and to share the actions we are taking,” wrote Cone Health Chief Operating Officer Mary Jo Cagle in a memo to staff on Nov. 20.

Cone Health serves Greensboro, North Carolina’s third largest city. Cagle said that during the previous week, the number of COVID patients in the hospital system leapt by almost 50 percent, from 95 to 142. She warned that the Green Valley facility, Cone’s special COVID hospital, was nearing capacity.

Like the Proud Boys, Adam Smith, the husband of the Reopen leader, has expressed a willingness to resort to violence to uphold his belief system.

In May, he carried a rifle through downtown Raleigh while marching alongside a boogaloo-inspired group that flouted North Carolina’s law against carrying dangerous weapons during a demonstration. The politically varied group included an array of Second Amendment hardliners, including a neo-Nazi, an avowed anarchist and self-described constitutionalists. One of the armed men who participated in the walks, Benjamin Ryan Teeter, is now facing federal charges of attempting to provide material support to Hamas.

In May, Adam Smith posted a Facebook Live video saying that people must be willing to kill, if necessary, to resist emergency orders — or what he described as “tyranny.”

“But are we willing to kill people? Are we willing to lay down our lives?” he asked. “We have to say, ‘Yes.’ We have to say, ‘Yes.’ Is that violence. Is that terrorism? I’m not trying to strike fear in people by saying, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ I’m gonna say, ‘If you bring guns, I’m gonna bring guns. If you’re armed with this, we’re going to be armed with this.’”

On Saturday, Lindsay Ayling, the antifascist activist, said she observed a Proud Boy point her out to Smith. Then, she said, Smith said, “Lindsay, I’m going to kill you.”

Smith responded by text to Raw Story: “Of course I didn’t say that!… That’s ridiculous.”

Ayling insisted that she heard the statement clearly and confirmed with another person that they heard it, too. She posted a video on Twitter showing Smith pointing in her direction and then wiggling his fingers in a motion that suggests pulling a trigger. Smith was standing next to Bertino at the time, and just before making the gesture, Smith yelled, “We are the people. We are the power.”

As Trump’s political and legal options for hanging onto the presidency evaporate, the Raleigh event and other rallies at state capitols are helping to maintain the tenuous alliance of violent nationalists, Christian-right extremists and conspiracy-mongers that are intent on preventing a left turn as Biden takes office. At the moment, much of that energy is focused on a planned pro-Trump rally on Dec. 12, two days before Biden’s election is made official as states cast their electoral votes. The Proud Boys have promoted the event through their Telegram account, and the gathering is expected to be a reprise of the chaotic Millions for MAGA march on Nov. 14, which Proud Boys and other far-right groups treated as a moment of triumph.

Bertino stood at the side of Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio at the Washington Monument that night as Tarrio exulted after a clash with left-wing opponents.

“I mean, we practically cleaned the streets right there where they’re sitting at BLM Plaza,” Tarrio said. “They’re corralled in, and there’s like a hundred of ’em, when usually there’s thousands of ’em. And you know who we have to thank for that?

“All of us,” he continued. “And this right here shows you the power when we the right-wing unite, and we get together. And we don’t bicker about stupid shit.”

Lindsay Ayling

@AylingLindsay

·

Nov 28, 2020

Replying to @AylingLindsay

Several members of neo-Confederate hate group ACTBAC rallied with the Proud Boys today, including Steve Marley and Thomas May (2nd pic). May is the racist who was caught on video screaming "white power" during a Trump caravan through Alamance County earlier this fall.

Lindsay Ayling

@AylingLindsay

Upon reviewing some footage, I noticed that Adam Smith (who later threatened to kill me) made a hand gesture miming shooting me. You can also see that Proud Boy Jeremy Bertino was once again wearing an RWDS (right wing death squad) patch.

4:35 PM · Nov 28, 2020

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Could a green future spell the end of international sport?

Coreen Grant takes a reflective outlook on the opportunities the pandemic has presented us with in changing the impact sport has on the environment

'Looking forward, 2021 holds an unusually high number of major international sporting events.

by Coreen Grant


Sunday November 29 2020, 

As England enters the second national lockdown of 2020, elite sport shows no signs of slowing down. International fixtures continue to be played, with teams like England Netball travelling as far as New Zealand to begin a three-match series. Looking forward, 2021 holds an unusually high number of major international sporting events. With some events postponed from 2020, the sporting calendar promises to be particularly packed. England Netball will be joined in New Zealand by rugby teams from across the globe for the Rugby World Cup (women’s), while the Rugby League World Cup (men’s, women’s and wheelchair) will take place closer to home, in venues across England. Other major events in the calendar include the Euro 2020 Championship, the Invictus Games, and, of course, the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. With global audiences having endured tight restrictions throughout the pandemic, a stimulating series of gripping international sport seems just the ticket.

Or does it? Since the beginning of lockdown measures, voices across the political spectrum have been drawing attention to the unique opportunity the pandemic presents to change the way that society operates, for the better. A ‘green recovery’ from COVID-19 is near the top of national priorities, but how does a schedule of mega sporting events sit within a greener future? From the new infrastructure required for an Olympic Games, to the footprint of flying entire squads and fan-bases across the globe, it is clear that large-scale sporting events are at odds with efforts to decarbonise the economy and tackle climate change. CO2 emissions are not the only problem, either; mega sporting events generate tonnes of garbage and food waste and consume colossal amounts of energy in powering stadiums and their water usage.


“A ‘green recovery’ from COVID-19 is near the top of national priorities, but how does a schedule of mega sporting events sit within a greener future?”

Although the environmental sustainability of sport is not widely discussed in the mainstream nor in academic literature, the question is not a new one. Recognition of the importance of the relationship between sport and the natural environment dates back at least to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Concerns around the negative environmental impacts of the Games were addressed by carefully planned construction of facilities and initiation of more than twenty sustainability projects. As a result, the 1994 Olympics became widely regarded as the first ‘Green Games’. Since 1994, the sport industry has developed critical strategies to mitigate environmental impact via two main types of initiatives: reducing the ecological footprint of sport, and using sport as a means to raise environmental awareness. The former is not a simple goal, as this Forbes article shows. It is difficult enough to assess the global environmental impact of sporting events, let alone create strategies to address them. And the sporting industry, like many others where environmental measures can be at odds with profit, has not always wanted to address these issues. Host cities, attracted to mega sporting events by the lure of funding and boost in tourism, often encounter unforeseen – or at least unaccounted for – consequences. One problem is the tendency for host cities to relax rules around urban development and restructuring. This happened in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil; politicians in Rio executed ‘flash-votes’ to pass emergency bills, annulling the laws protecting historical architecture in order to develop the desired infrastructure. In such cases, physical goals such as state-of-the-art stadiums are prioritised to the neglect of their social and environmental impact. Likewise, the cost of mega sporting events is frequently borne out by public funding, even though local residents often cannot afford to attend such events, which are targeted towards the elite foreign traveller – another contributor to pollution. The legacy of the 1994 ‘Green Games’ seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the way. But is this still the case today, when the environment is increasingly at the forefront of development considerations?

Tokyo's sustainability concept TOKYO 2020

Among the world’s largest sporting events, the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo 2020) provides an ideal case study. The pandemic forced the Games to reschedule to summer 2021, but from their conception Tokyo 2020 has aimed to be the most sustainable Games yet. This focus is summed up by the motto, ‘Be better, together – For the planet and the people’. Tokyo’s Governor, Yuriko Koike, wrote that, “unlike many past Olympic hosts, the city is also committed to embedding long-term economic, social, and environmental needs into all planning processes”. To do so, Tokyo 2020 has shaped its approach around the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN specifies: “sport is also an important enabler of sustainable development”. Tokyo 2020 made an early and well-publicised statement in this regard by announcing that the iconic Olympic medals would be made from recycled metals, and the award ceremony podiums from household plastic waste – an emblematic signal of things to come. But how do the plans for Tokyo 2020 go beyond symbolic gestures?

Tokyo’s website has an entire section dedicated to their sustainability concept, goals and policies. It is clearly designed to be accessible to a wide range of readers. A page specifically aimed at people attending the Games lists possible actions to reduce their environmental impact, including: offsetting the carbon of their flights, using public transport, segregating waste at venues for recycling, reducing single-use plastic, saving energy during hotel stays, and reducing food waste. Although Tokyo’s wider sustainability approach includes themes such as biodiversity and co-operation, the reduction of emissions to tackle climate change is at the forefront of its campaign. The Carbon Offset Programme, ‘Towards Zero Carbon’, aims to encourage energy-saving measures and the use of renewable energy in both the preparation phase and during the actual games. But as any environmental activist will point out, carbon offsetting is little comfort in a time when the world needs to drastically reduce its overall emissions, not just offset extra. In this regard, the current trajectory for international sport hardly tallies with a green future. Yet, with its incredible cultural and social significance, it is difficult to imagine international sport is going anywhere soon.

'A Village Plaza Built by All'.TOKYO 2020

This brings us back to the second strategy adopted by the sporting industry to mitigate environmental impact: using sport as a means to raise environmental awareness. This strategy is clearly a cornerstone in Tokyo 2020’s concept of a sustainable Games. They state that spreading efforts to reduce and absorb emissions worldwide, including encouraging citizens to adopt both individual and collective actions, is equally as important as reducing their own emissions. A vivid visual example is the concept design for the Athlete’s Village Plaza – ‘A Village Plaza Built by All’. Involving a ‘Japanese lumber relay’, the Plaza will be constructed from lumber borrowed from local governments across Japan, to symbolise communities uniting under the Games. After the Plaza is dismantled, the lumber will be returned to the original governments to be used as a legacy in public facilities and elsewhere. It is hoped that concepts such as these will help to realise an environmentally responsible Games, while also inspiring sustainable action throughout society.

Perhaps initiatives like these, which capitalise on the global reach of mega sporting events to promote more sustainable ways of living, are at least a partial answer to how international sport can reconcile its place within a greener future. But are the benefits of awareness initiatives enough to offset the industry’s own emissions? Even with rigorous efforts to make Tokyo the greenest Games ever, this remains to be seen. 2021 is set to be a crucial year when the sports industry will need to demonstrate that large-scale, international sport is environmentally viable in the long-term – or risk that it will be relegated as a fundamentally energy-wasteful industry.


Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

Swiss firms narrowly avoid 'Responsible Business' liability as vote divides nation

By Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss firms narrowly avoided facing greater liability for human rights and environmental abuses on Sunday after a national vote rejected the proposal due to regional differences despite it winning majority popular support.



FILE PHOTO: A small banner reading: "Responsible Business Initiative - Yes on November 29" is fixed to the frame of a bicycle in Zurich, Switzerland November 23, 2020. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

In a divisive referendum, 50.7% of Swiss voters supported proposals by the Responsible Business Initiative (RBI) to extend liability over international human rights abuses and environmental harm caused by major Swiss companies and the firms they control abroad.

But the initiative failed to win support in a majority of cantons, a necessary condition for a public initiative to be enacted in Switzerland, paving the way for a milder government counter-proposal to come into force.

It is the first time in over 60 years a Swiss vote has failed on regional grounds after winning popular support.

“The Federal Council is pleased with the result, but is also aware that many who have fought for years for the initiative are disappointed today,” Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said at a press conference.

She said the enactment of new government measures meant supporters would not leave the campaign with empty hands. “The Federal Council is convinced that this is a good way to achieve the common and undisputed goal of better protecting human rights and the environment.”

The government proposal will require firms to step up and publicly report checks on their overseas operations and supply chains, hitherto voluntary measures, but stops short of extending liability to Swiss courts.

Proponents of the initiative said its broad public support - a rare, if symbolic, victory for a politically and economically progressive issue in the traditionally staid country - remained cause for sharper scrutiny of multinationals and commodities firms in one of the world’s leading commercial centres.

“Human rights is such a fundamental issue. People understand you can’t justify human rights violations by economic considerations,” Florian Wettstein, a professor for business ethics at the University of St. Gallen and co-organiser of the initiative, told Reuters.

In a polarizing campaign, the government and multinationals denounced the negative economic consequences of the proposal, while activists, religious groups and various political factions argued Switzerland risked falling behind other countries in tackling progressive social and economic issues without it.

“It was the most aggressive campaign I’ve ever experienced in my 20 years in politics,” parliamentarian Christa Markwalder told Swiss broadcaster SRF.

Meanwhile, voters more clearly rejected a proposal seeking to impose a ban on funding arms makers, the latest anti-military referendum in a nation that has not fought an external war for 200 years.

The vote, which held implications for major Swiss banks and investors including the country’s central bank and pension funds, as well as Swiss industry, received 57.5% rejection.

Organisers said the more than 40% approval gained by the initiative, spanning beyond the country’s most left-leaning political camps, nonetheless put pressure on arms financing and showed the need for further action.


Reporting by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jan Harvey

 SEE

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/11/switzerland-double-no-to-tougher-ethics.html

Illegal Logging Threatens Ancient Old Growth Forests of Romania

By Victoria Sinla
Nov 28, 2020 

The immense and ancient old-growth forests of Romania, straddling the vast Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, are being threatened by illegal logging.




They have been unchanged ever since the last ice age, but today, they are rapidly disappearing.

This deforestation has been due to the actions of the so-called "Timber Mafia," composed of criminals that many people believe collaborate with the Romanian government.

According to Orieta Hulea, the country director of WWF in Romania, the fragile forests must be preserved, as they shelter rich biodiversity. Over half of all bears are here, as well as 30% of all wolves. The forests have aesthetic, inspirational, biological, spiritual, and planetary value.

Violence against forest protectors

The people who try to stop the destruction of the forest are threatened, beaten, or killed. According to Agent Green founder Gabriel Paun, Romania's most celebrated activist for forests, fighting illegal loggers almost had him killed on several occasions. He says that if you fight this system, you will be eliminated.

In the past few years, Paun said that forest rangers were murdered, with many others dying suspiciously. Over 650 others have been attacked with guns, knives, and axes.

Over 50% of timber in Romania come from illegal logging, acquired from forests that are protected or are harvested beyond allowable quotas.

Romsilva logging

Romsilva is the biggest logger in Romania. It is owned by the state and has control over 48% of forests. Its mandate also includes the conservation of nature.

According to many past and present employees, Romsilva has been plagued by criminal infiltration. Murder, beating, and threats are part of their operation. However, the director of Romsilva said the company does not tolerate any illegality.

Paun says foreign companies are attracted to Romania because of the convenience brought by corruption.

HS Timber

HS Timber, formerly Holzindustrie Schweighofer, is the biggest logger in Romania. It consumes trees at breakneck speed but denies any illegal activities, despite covert video recordings of admission to acquiring illegal timber.

According to Ikea forest manager Mikhail Tarasov, they stopped accepting materials from the company in 2017 when its wrongdoings were made public. Nonetheless, Tarasov admits that it is impossible to have no wood in their supply chain which had an illegal origin.

Ingka Investment is Romania's largest privately owned forest owner, which is part of Ikea Brand's Group of companies. Tarasov insists Romania's Ingka Forests implements and secures requirements that are legal and even beyond.

Critical situation

The illegal logging in the country is critical, with the European Commission filing infringement procedure against it because it failed to halt illegal logging. This is the last step before forwarding the case to the EU's Court of Justice.

According to Gelu Puiu, Romania's state for forests secretary and former Romsilva senior manager, they have reduced crime and improved sustainable management, and are confident that they are on the right path now.

The future

There is still a lot of forests that still stand. However, there is little time left. If the ancient old-growth forests of Romania, the treasure of the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe, are to see the decade ahead, then drastic action is warranted if they are to be saved from being lost forever due to illegal logging. 

READ: Study Finds that the Largest Trees Capture Much More Carbon and Dominate Forest Carbon Storage 

READ ALSO: Scientists Say Proper Reforestation in Tropical Forest, and Savannah Biomes in Africa Is Crucial 

READ NEXT: Natural Forest Regeneration: Better than Tree Planting?

Drastic Ice Melt Reveals Frozen Archive of Ancient Arrows in Norway

By Rein F.
Nov 29, 2020 

Researchers discovered a trove of frozen arrows as climate change melts away an ice patch in Jotunheimen Mountains in Norway. These artifacts have been preserved in ice that has melted and refrozen over the years, with the oldest dating back 6,000 years.

Treasure Trove in a Single Patch

The research team from the Universities of Cambridge, Oslo, and Bergen found 68 arrow shafts at the Langfonne ice patch in the Norwegian mountain. Some of these still have arrowheads attached, as the ice preserved the twine and tar that hold the arrow together.

Aside from the large collection of ancient arrows, the discovery also included a 3,300-year-old shoe from the Bronze Age, scaring sticks used in deer hunting from the Iron Age, and remains of reindeer antlers. They also found fabric that may have been used to package meat.

As published in the Holocene journal, the researchers have been secretly working on the Norwegian mountain slope for years to prevent others from contaminating the site. They were able to find various artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years. The most recent artifacts are from around 1,300 AD.

(Photo: Lars Pilø, Secrets of the Ice )
Researchers found 68 arrowheads in Langfonne, one of which is from around 700 AD.


READ: Melted Glacier Reveals Ancient Viking Mountain Pass


Frozen Pieces of History

The discovery confirms the interesting hunting practices of ancient people. It also describes the extent of ice at different times.

The arrowheads were made of bone, slate, quartz, iron, or mussel shell. The oldest of them dates back to 4,000 BC. These were found to be in poor condition, probably due to ice movement. Data from ground-penetrating radar (GPR) showed that ice deformation deep in the patch might have broken the brittle arrows.

Meanwhile, late Neolithic arrows, or those from 2,400-1,750 BC, were better preserved than arrows from the next 2,000 years.

In 2006, a well-preserved shoe was found by glacier archeologist Reidar Marstein. Radiocarbon dating revealed it to be 3,300 years old or from the Early Bronze Age. This launched an extensive study on the Langfonne area.


Window to Novel Archeological Discoveries

The Jotunheimen Mountains are located north of the Norwegian capital, Oslo. Over the past two decades, the ice melts in the regions have been drastically affected by global warming, with the Langfonne ice patch retreating by more than 70%.

Ice patches give way to high-level archeological findings. The Langfonne setting provides opportunities for researchers to engage in important glaciological investigations.

Researchers previously believed that items would be preserved chronologically and can be used to create a timeline. However, displacement in ice movement, meltwater, and other natural processes are believed to have affected the spatial patterning of artifacts in the site.

The spatial distribution of artifacts can measure increased hunting activities in the area during a certain period. Radiocarbon dating also revealed interesting usage patterns.

There are periods when many reindeer bones but few arrows were found, suggesting that the presence of human hunters was low and reindeer were most likely preyed on by wolverines.

Interestingly, artifacts from 600 to 1,300 AD showed an opposite pattern where there is an abundance of arrow finds but hardly any reindeer materials. This has been attributed to activities in the era when Vikings were raiding coastal communities in Northern Europe. Human hunters probably sold the reindeer fur and antlers from their harvest to other communities.

The discoveries also support recent ideas that long-distance trade in Northern Europe started earlier than previously believed.

READ: Valuable Archeologic Sites Emerge From Melting Glacier Ice

Skewed Responsibility: Australian War Crimes In Afghanistan

Tuesday, 24 November 2020
Article: Binoy Kampmark

The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry was always going to make for a gruesome read – and that was only the redacted version. The findings of the four-year investigation, led by New South Wales Court of Appeal Justice and Army Reserve Major-General Paul Brereton, point to “credible evidence” that 39 Afghan non-combatants and prisoners were allegedly killed by Australian special forces personnel. Two others were also treated with cruelty. The Report recommends referring 36 cases for criminal investigation to the Australian Federal Police. These involve 23 incidents and 19 individuals who have been referred to the newly created Office of the Special Prosecutor.

The Report goes into some detail about various practices adopted by Australia’s special forces in Afghanistan. The initiation rites for junior soldiers tasked with “blooding” – the first kill initiated by means of shooting a prisoner – come in for mention. “This would happen after the target compound had been secured, and local nationals had been secured as ‘persons under control’.” “Throwdowns” – equipment such as radios or weapons – would then be placed upon the body. A “cover story” would thereby be scripted “for purposes of operational reporting to deflect scrutiny.”

A “warrior culture” also comes in for some withering treatment, which is slightly odd given the kill and capture tasks these men have been given with mind numbing regularity. “Special Force operators should pride themselves on being model professional soldiers, not on being ‘warrior heroes.’” When one is in the business of killing, be model about it.

As with any revelation of war crimes, the accused parties often express bemusement, bewilderment and even horror. The rule at play here is to always assume the enemy is terrible and capable of the worst, whereas somehow, your own soldiers are capable of something infinitely better. “I would never have conceived an Australian would be doing this in the modern era,” claimed Australian Defence Force Chief General Angus Campbell.

History has precedent for such self-delusions of innocence abroad. The atrocity is either unbelievable, or, if it does take place, aberrant and capable of isolation. The killing of some 500 unarmed women, children and elderly men in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai on March 16, 1968 by soldiers of the US Americal Division was not, at least initially, seen as believable. When it came to light it was conceived as a horror both exceptional and cinematic. A veteran of the Twenty-Fifth Infantry Division went so far as to regard My Lai as “bizarre, an unusual aberration. Things like that were strictly for the movies.”

The investigating subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee responded to My Lai in much the same way, suggesting a lack of sanity on the part of the perpetrators. The massacre “was so wrong and so foreign to the normal character and actions of our military forces as to immediately raise a question as to the legal sanity at the time of those men involved.”

The Brereton Report also has a good deal of hand washing in so far as it confines responsibility to the institution of the army itself. “The events discovered by this Inquiry occurred within the Australian Defence Force, by members of the Australian Defence Force, under the command of the Australian Defence Force.”

Even here, troop and squadron commanders, along with headquartered senior officers, are spared the rod of responsibility. The Report “found no evidence that there was knowledge of, or reckless indifference to, the commission of war crimes, on the part of commanders at troop/platoon, squadron/company or Task Group Headquarters level, let alone at higher levels such as Commander of Joint Task Force 633, Joint Operations Command, or Australian Defence Headquarters.”

Such a finding seems adventurously confident. If accurate, it suggests a degree of profound ignorance within the ADF command structure. For his part, Campbell acknowledged those “many, many people at all sorts of levels across the defence force involved in operations in Afghanistan or in support of those operations who do wonder what didn’t they see, what did they walk past, what did they not appreciate they could have done to prevent this.”

The Report also sports a glaring absence. The political context in terms of decisions made by Australian governments to use such forces drawn from a small pool is totally lacking. Such omissions lend a stilted quality to the findings, which, on that score, prove misleading and patently inaccurate. Armies, unless they constitute the government of a state, are merely the instruments of political wish and folly. Nonetheless, the Report insists that, “It was not a risk [the unlawful killings] to which any government, of any persuasion, was ever alerted. Ministers were briefed that the task was manageable. The responsibility lies in the Australian Defence Force, not with the government of the day.”

Prime ministerial and executive exemption of responsibility is thereby granted, much aided by the persistent fiction, reiterated by General Campbell, that Australian soldiers found themselves in Afghanistan because the Afghans had “asked for our help.”

History may not be the ADF chief’s forte, given that the government at the time was the Taliban, accused of providing sanctuary to al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden, responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States. Needless to say, there was no invitation to special forces troops of any stripes to come to the country. The mission to Afghanistan became a conceit of power, with Australia’s role being justified, in the words of the Defence Department’s website, to “help contain the threat from international terrorism”.

It is also accurate to claim that Australian government officials were unaware of the enthusiastic, and sometimes incompetently murderous activities of the SAS in the country. On May 17, 2002, Australian special troops were responsible for the deaths of at least 11 Afghan civilians. They had been misidentified as al-Qaeda members. The defence minister at the time, Robert Hill, told journalist Brian Toohey via fax that the special forces had “well-defined personnel identification matrices” including “tactical behaviour”, weapons and equipment. These suggested the slain were not “local Afghan people.” This turned out to be nonsense: the dead were from Afghan tribes opposed to the Taliban.

John Howard, the prime minister responsible for deploying special operations troops to Afghanistan in 2001, is understandably keen to adopt the line of aberrance in responding to the Report’s findings. The ADF was characterised by “bravery and professionalism”, and the disease of atrocity and poor behaviour could be confined to “a small group of special forces personnel who, it is claimed, amongst other things, were responsible for the unlawful killing of 39 Afghan citizens.”

This is much wilful thinking, though it will prove persuasive to most Australian politicians. In Canberra, there are few voices arguing for a spread of responsibility. One of them is the West Australian Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John. “The politicians who sent [the special forces] to #Afghanistan & kept them there for over a decade,” tweeted the sensible senator, “must be held to account, as must the chain of command who either didn’t know when they should’ve or knew & failed to act”.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at SelwynCollege, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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