Robert (left) and Daniel (right), the two activists released Friday night (Photo by Steve Horn)

Two more antiwar activists, in from out of town to protest the NATO Summit, were released from a police station on the south side of Chicago late tonight at roughly 10:00 PM, making it a grand total of six activists released so far, of the nine detained without charge by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) on Wednesday, previously covered on Antiwar.com.

The other three remaining weren’t so lucky. They’ve been charged with, as Occupy Chicago has reported on its Twitter feed,  ”possession of incendiary or explosive device, conspiracy to commit terrorism & providing material support for terrorism.” “Material support” of terrorism, under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 signed by President Barack Obama, is a crime that could call for indefinite detention without a trial, begging the question: are these legitimate political prisoners?

One Occupy activist noted, “It’s NDAA in full effect. We are doomed.”

“The National Lawyers Guild deplores the charges against Occupy activists in the strongest degree,” said Sarah Gelsomino with the NLG and the People’s Law Office. “It’s outrageous for the city to apply terrorism charges when it’s the police who have been terrorizing activists and threatening their right to protest.”

There will be a bond hearing at noon today. The three activists names, according to the NLG, are Bryan Church, Jarred Chase, Brent Betterly.

The lame excuse for arrest and “terrorism” charges and the subsequent police raid to begin with?

The activists were making “molotov cocktails” to use in their protests, or so reported the sycophantic local press in Chicago. As Kevin Gosztola of FireDogLake explained in a previously written blog post well worth reading, “Local news reported a ‘police source’ had recovered ‘Molotov cocktails.’ There is no evidence of the existence or production of Molotov cocktails. The police did confiscate a home brew-making kit.”

“I haven’t stayed anywhere except for in the custody of Chicago’s finest,” he said after his release.

The “gang of nine” were (or still are, in the case of three being charged with “terrorism” charges) held in solitary confinement, with their two feet shackled and one arm cuffed to the bench in the cell, according to the activists.

Murphy said the police “Refused to tell us what charges were for our entire 20 hours spent there,” in an interview with Antiwar.com.

As is obvious from a quick glance on YouTube, Murphy is not shy about expressing his grievances with the police, in the case of this particular video, titled, “Daniel Murphy’s 3 minute rant to line of NYPD @ Union Square #OWS,” the New York Police Department (NYPD). Translation: he was likely an easy, visible target for the CPD or the FBI or whoever was responsible for targeting these activists.

The activists also said the police were taunting, name-calling (“terrorists”), and were, generally speaking, rude and verbally abusive in all ways to the activists.

Gosztola describes the horrifying arrest scene well, writing,

They came in with guns pointed at the activists’ faces and were screaming so we couldn’t really understand what they were saying. The activists froze and waited for them to give commands.

Police ransacked the home, throwing property. A watermelon and printer was thrown. They were dumping clothing and material out of bags. One of the arrested activists says police ‘destroyed everything.’

Remember, this all comes on the heals of the NATO Summit — the Summit and the big days of activism on the streets of downtown Chicago are yet to come. It should be an ugly weekend, to say the least.

Stay tuned for a follow-up report after the bond hearing.

Update: These pictures up on the blog Shortwave America, in a post titled, “Chicago NATO Command and Communications Operations Update,”  are a must-see. Chicago has been transformed into a war zone.

(Photo: Zach D. Roberts / GregPalast.com)

TruthOut Assistant Editor Yana Kunichoff has just filed an alarming report titled, “NATO Protesters Held Without Charge After Raid as Chicago Steps Up Police Activities,” showing that in the lead-up to the NATO Summit protests upcoming this weekend, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) raided the homes of nine Occupy Chicago activist leaders on Wednesday. Some of the activists were held in custody for nearly 24 hours without charge, with only four of them having been released at the time of the publishing of her story.

“I’d like to stress that we have done nothing wrong,” Zoe Sigman, an Occupy Chicago activist told Kunichoff, whose home was raided. “We have been planning to protest NATO and there is nothing illegal about expressing our feelings about a war machine. Now we’re being treated as mere criminals. As if we’re part of an organized crime that they’re trying to take down. Who knows what they’re going to pin on us. We’re terrified.”

Occupy Chicago, in a press release, says that the CPD’s behavior is the hallmark of a “militarized police state.”

Occupy Chicago demands the immediate release of the peaceful protesters terrorized by the Chicago Police Department in Wednesday nights raid. We are getting a taste here in Chicago of what it’s like to live in a militarized police state, with non-violent demonstrators targeted for expressing their First Amendment Rights and for standing up against the NATO war machine.

Kunichoff went on to explain that the preemptive arrests and arraignments were but the “tip of the iceberg” of what’s been brewing in the Windy City, noting that a local ABC News affiliate had reported yesterday that during a protest on environmental issues, “Dozens of uniformed Chicago police stood guard nearby, though they made no arrests. But around the corner a couple blocks away back-ups were apparently standing by. Inside 15 unmarked passenger vans they were dressed in black uniforms with riot gear.”

The takeaway, as is obvious: the tools of imperial repression have made their way home for those protesting the U.S. Empire in Chicago this weekend at the NATO Summit.

As FireDogLake‘s Kevin Gosztola put it,

For all the worries about protesters descending upon Chicago to create violence, it certainly seems like the people of Chicago should be more worried about NATO occupying Chicago. NATO is being used as a pretext to suppress dissent and go after activists. The police squads are more likely to violate someone than a protester raising his or her fist in the air while wearing a mask. In fact, that person wearing that mask just might be a police officer, federal agent, or some kind of hired agent provocateur.

Stay tuned for more coverage from the front lines in Chicago forthcoming on the Antiwar.com Blog.

Dana Frank, whose work I’ve been blogging about and highlighting for at least six months, is a professor of history at the University of California and has been very outspoken about the Obama administration’s terrible policies in Honduras (namely supporting a military coup regime and militarizing the country with U.S. Army and DEA troops under the pretext of the war on drugs). Here’s what she had to say about the conflicting stories on Democracy Now:

As a historian I would start by underscoring that we have to be very careful about believing what the State Department is saying at this point. They have admitted that there were four helicopters and that two of them were State Department helicopters and that there were Guatemalan military on board as well. So it is obviously getting even more complicated.

According to the Mosquito people on the ground, and the local mayor, and the Congress person that the U.S. forces—they descended from the helicopters after they had allegedly been shot upon by alleged drug traffickers in a different boat. According to people on the ground, they mistook that boat for the boat with civilians and started shooting at the civilians, killing at least four people—by some accounts five—including at least one pregnant woman, and by some accounts, children. Another woman was also shot at and lost limbs as a result, and a boy was shot in the arm from behind. U.S. troops were clearly on the helicopters but local people say U.S. troops were doing part of the shooting.

Meanwhile, the Honduran government—I do want to underscore, a week before, the day after it happened, they reported that it was drug traffickers that had been killed, and only after the civilians came forward very bravely and said, wait a minute, we’re not drug traffickers, we are local people—in fact, terrified of drug traffickers. And only thanks to AP do we even have it crossing over into the U.S. press, that there was U.S. DEA agent involvement in helicopters and on the ground.

Aside from this incident, we have to keep in mind that the Obama administration has blood on its hands anyways, given its committed support of the corrupt coup regime.

The police regularly kill people, and they have admitted that themselves, at least 300, have been killed by state security forces since Lobo came into office a little over two years ago. None of these people have been prosecuted. There are at least ten thousand denunciations of human rights abuses by state security forces, and even the government itself admits that—no one has been prosecuted for that. So this incident is happening in the context of U.S. ongoing support and even celebration of that regime, and welcoming Lobo to the White House just two weeks ago. In October—he was certainly speaking to the government in D.C. two weeks ago. So what’s going on is we have this tremendously corrupt government that’s killing its own people, and the U.S. is pouring more and more money into it.

As we speak, the U.S. has just recently tried to double a key piece of funding for the U.S.-Honduran military and police. Biden was recently down there, promising a hundred and seven million dollars more. We’re increasing the funding for the U.S. Air Force base at Soto Cano, and making the barracks there permanent there for the first time.

So the Obama administration is enthusiastically supporting perhaps the most brutal regime in the region with money and weapons, is basing more than 600 U.S. troops and probably many more DEA agents inside Honduras, and doesn’t think it’s any of the American people’s business if innocent men, women, and children are murdered in our name. This is the kind of prerogative that comes with leading the world’s only military hegemon. And I have a feeling the Blue Team won’t let it stop them from reelecting Barack Obama, Envoy of Change and Benevolence.

I’m certainly a fan of private equity (along with proprietorships, partnerships, cooperatives, and other organizational forms). But, as Art Carden and I discussed in a recent Mises Academy course, reports of the death of the public company are greatly exaggerated. Despite the additional regulatory scrutiny, the agency problems associated with diffused ownership, and other challenges, the corporate form is still an effective means of raising large amounts of capital.

To be sure, corporations benefit from a number of state interventions (though I don’t think the corporate form itself is one of them, contrary to a widespread view in “left-libertarian” circles). So do all forms of organization. With a diminution of the regulatory state we would see a flourishing of a variety of firms, both public and private.

IN THIS ISSUE

• Pledge Drive
• Top News
• Opinion and analysis
• Events

Dear Peace-Mongers:

This is a very a special pledge drive. In the midst of some of the most critical developing issues so far this year, we’re asking for your support as U.S. missiles pepper Yemen, as Congress vies for war with Iran, as Obama arms the rebels in Syria, as the drone war continues to expand, as NDAA and indefinite detention are challenged in the courts, and as the occupation of Afghanistan and a reckoning with the war crimes in Iraq persist.

Antiwar.com is on hyper-drive. You needed real time, in-depth analysis of the day’s antiwar, pro-civil liberties issues. The blog is as active as ever. And the news stories that keep you informed of the Empire’s latest excesses are always in our news section.

And we are being heard. Our Editorial Director Justin Raimondo was quoted in the New York Times this week scorning the War Party’s propaganda. Our DC Editor John Glaser reached out to young people, writing in the Young Americans for Liberty’s print magazine about the impending war on Iran. And we’re still digging into that case of the FBI snooping on us.

Antiwar.com doesn't merely give you the news but we take action. We joined hands with top activists in Come Home America. We provided daily updates on our dedicated page for National Day of Action: No Iran War. We even have taken our efforts to the social networks with #AfghanistanTuesday.

Donations, however, have been very slow. We are counting on all of our readers, who make our work possible, to show their support.

Please give today. We are standing by at 323-512-7095. Donations are tax-deductible. So, don’t pay the Pentagon; keep Antiwar.com in action.

This week’s top news:

Court Rejects Obama Arguments, Enjoins NDAA Detentions: A U.S. District Judge has issued a temporary injunction prohibiting the enforcement of the portions of the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 (NDAA) that relate to open-ended military detention of "suspects" and rejecting the Obama Administration’s attempts to have the case thrown out.

House Bill Shifting Red Line for War on Iran Passes Overwhelmingly: A bill in the House of Representatives passed on Thursday which essentially calls for a military strike on Iran if they attain "nuclear weapons capability," an undefined term that could already apply to Iran, and many other countries with civilian nuclear programs.

US DEA Agents Kill Up to Six Civilians in Honduras: Drug Enforcement Administration agents on helicopter gunships killed up to six innocent civilians more in Honduras in a drug raid gone bad.

Obama Decree Sanctions Any Who Challenge Rule of US-Backed Dictatorship in Yemen: President Obama signed an Executive Order on Wednesday threatening to exert economic sanctions against any person or group in Yemen or the United States who is "obstructing" implementation of the U.S.-backed political transition in Yemen.

Dueling Arms Shipments: Is Syria Becoming a Proxy War? Arms are flooding into Syria – from Iran and Russia to the Assad regime and from the U.S., Europe, and the Gulf Arab states to the rebel fighters – prolonging the conflict and preventing a peace deal.

Opinion and Analysis

• Justin Raimondo discussed the Parchin deception and Hillary’s favorite terror group
• Kelley Vlahos reported on the military’s mistreatment of rape victims.
• Ivan Eland listed the unlearned lessons of an already forgotten war.
• Philip Giraldi drew attention to a dangerous bill just passed by the House.

Events:

Angela Keaton will be speaking on techniques on how to speak to non-activists about the War at Porcfest, June 22nd. Porcfest is an annual gathering of peace and freedom lovers in Lancaster, NH.

Donations:

For more information visit Antiwar.com/donate or call +1-323-512-7095. We can’t do this without you.

Sir, In response to the correspondence (Letters, May 7) in relation to Ron Paul’s op-ed “Our central bankers are intellectually bankrupt”, I would suggest the gentlemen first acquaint themselves with Austrian economics before proposing their own theories or rehashing those of Keynes.

Congressman Paul’s views are informed by Ludwig von Mises and, in particular, his magnum opus Human Action.

Government interference in markets leads to artificially low interest rates, a misallocation of resources and, in essence, creates the business cycle.

Fiscal stimulus is the cause of and not the solution to the crisis that “nobody saw coming”.

Alec Gourley, Swellan, County Cavan, Ireland

By Carolyn Eisenberg and Gael Murphy

Some readers probably heard on the news how the Democrats were hopping mad when the House Republicans voted recently to overturn the “sequester” on the Defense budget, enacted at the end of the year as part of the deficit reduction deal. With that money restored, House Republicans cheerfully went about their business of making up the difference by slashing food stamps, Medicaid for children, federally supported Meals-on-Wheels for the elderly and other vulnerable programs. Democrats were united in opposing this move and promptly incorporated it into the campaign narrative of hard-hearted, mean-spirited Republicans, whom they are determined to challenge and expose come November.

But one odd thing occurred last week. In the House Armed Services Committee, when the Republicans put forward a sequester- busting $642.5 billion for the 2013 Defense Authorization bill, Democrats on the Committee overwhelmingly supported it in a lop-sided vote of 56-5.

This is in every respect an appalling bill. Apart from the colossal waste of money, it includes $88 billion for a war in Afghanistan that the majority of Americans oppose; nuclear upgrades that threaten non-proliferation agreements; programs and weapons that even the Pentagon doesn’t want. The bill also promotes reckless threats on Iran, enables reckless actions by Israel and once again prohibits the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to the United States.

On Thursday Representative Barbara Lee, who has been valiantly opposing the war in Afghanistan before it even began, introduced amendment #158 that would limit funding for the war to the safe and responsible removal of all US troops and security contractors from the country. Showing greater strength than previously, 113 members of the House voted in favor. It’s a sign of progress, albeit snail-like, that this many Representatives were willing to stand up and take a clear position. On the other hand, it’s a remarkable commentary on our democracy that 303 Representatives voted to continue a war, which the American public now rejects.

Throughout this week Congressional progressives and libertarians have been battling for valuable amendments that would curtail, prevent a military confrontation with Iraq and strike out “indefinite detentions.” However, at the end of the day, HR 4310 National Defense Authorization AcT (NDAA) remains an outrageous bill, which no self-respecting member of Congress should be supporting. Partisan rhetoric must not be allowed to obscure the reality that if this over-sized military budget passes the Congress, it will be paid for by programs that affect the most vulnerable- food stamps, school lunches, health insurance for low income children, “Meals-on Wheels” for the elderly.

It makes no sense to excoriate Republicans for lifting the sequester on military spending and then yielding to their request for $642.5 billion for the Pentagon.

All of this nonsense can occur, when constituents are not paying attention to what their elected officials are up to. On Friday May 18, it will be easy to follow the story: members of Congress will be voting on the FY 2013 Defense Authorization. Every person in reach of a cell-phone can do something useful today. Call that office and make it clear that voters are paying attention and that if that Representative continues to feed the war-machine at the expense of truly urgent human needs, they should not expect constituent support come November.

[Per Just Foreign Policy: The Friends Committee on National Legislation has established a toll-free number that connects you to the Capitol Switchboard: 1-877-429-0678. Then you can ask to be transferred to your Representative's office. To write members of Congress, visit here. --AK]

Warnings about a dangerous world also benefit powerful bureaucratic interests. The specter of looming dangers sustains and justifies the massive budgets of the military and the intelligence agencies, along with the national security infrastructure that exists outside government — defense contractors, lobbying groups, think tanks, and academic departments.

See Zenko interviewed on these ideas further:

As Less Antman said recently, “Drowning people in fear is the key to power.”