The Untold History of Independence Day

Posted by Juan Perez

Video -The Real News Network
July 05, 2014 “ICH” -Joining us to discuss the radical, little-known history of Independence Day is Peter Linebaugh. Peter is a historian and author. He just retired from the University of Toledo, where he taught for 20 years.

Historian Peter Linebaugh: The rights and freedoms that we celebrate on the Fourth of July are the product of vast human struggle that remains unfinished

PETER LINEBAUGH, AUTHOR, THE MANY-HEADED HYDRA: You’re welcome, Jaisal.

LINEBAUGH: So, Peter, you know, in popular memory, this day, Independence Day, we remember the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but it was a long process that got the colonists to that point. Talk a little bit about the different political forces, social forces that helped get the US–and this was just within the first year or two of the Revolutionary War, but it had been a decade or longer that this conflict had been ongoing between the colonies and Great Britain. Talk about how we got to this point.

LINEBAUGH: Okay, Jaisal, I will talk about that, but it’s hard. And even your question, you referred to how the U.S. got to this point, but, of course, it wasn’t the U.S. at the time. The United States of America is an expression that Tom Payne invented and used to apply to what had been 13 colonies in revolt against Great Britain. So we’re talking about an era before the U.S. has been formed. We’re talking about a period of historical creation.

And it’s complex. There are several sides to it. One side, it’s the struggle of freedom against monarchy, a struggle of the notion of a republic against monarchy. And that is probably the principal theme of the Declaration of Independence.

I would suggest, you know, that people reread the Declaration of Independence, because they’ll find 28 reasons for declaring independence from Great Britain. And these reasons reflect “a long train of abuses and usurpations” (or takeovers), to use Thomas Jefferson’s language in the Declaration of Independence.

And I think one of the most important of these grievances was that the King of England had opposed conditions for new appropriation of land. This is the seventh of 28 different reasons for declaring independence. And what that meant was that these settlers from Europe wanted to appropriate lands belonging to the Indians, belonging to different Native American peoples–the Haudenosaunee people, a confederation in New York; the Cherokee people of what’s now Tennessee and the Carolinas; the Potawatomi, from my part of the country, in Michigan and Ohio. The settlers wanted these lands. But Great Britain, as a result of the Seven Years’ War, had said that these lands were off-limits to settlement. This was part of the Treaty of Paris of 1763. So here is one of the lesser-known reasons for declaring independence, that is, that the settlers could not take as much land as they wanted.

On that same theme of wars against Native Americans, the 28th reason given is really misleading. It claims that the king of England, George III, and his ministry and parliament had caused the inhabitants of, quote, “our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions”–. So this was like–Jaisal, I liken it to a jihad or I liken it to a crusade, because this is precisely what Thomas Jefferson claims of the Native Americans is actually what will happen to them as a result of the Declaration of Independence, that is, that the wars against Great Britain led to a merciless destruction–in New York particularly of Sullivan’s raid of 1779 of the orchards, the cornfields, the senior citizens, the men and the women of the Haudenosaunee people of the Confederation in New York.

NOOR: And, Peter, it’s worth mentioning that the British weren’t necessarily against expanding and taking more of the natives’ land. It was just getting too expensive for them. They had, you know, spent an enormous amount of money fighting the French in the French and Indian War, as well as–and so they had been taxing the colonists, which had, you know, caused a great protest.

LINEBAUGH: Yes, a very good point, very good. They wanted the settlers, the settler colonists to pay for those wars against France. Quite right. And that’s where the famous phrase “no taxation without representation” comes in, and it’s–I think it’s the 17th reason given in the Declaration of Independence for severing the connection with Great Britain, that. And also the 19th reason–I’ll quote that–is “for transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”.

And that–I pause there for a minute to let the words sink in, because what will come to mind to those who’ve been following subsequent U.S. history is the practice by the CIA to render terrorist suspects and have them tried overseas, where torture is a form of investigation in secret courts in Egypt and Poland and in other countries we don’t know about. This process is called rendition. But I was amazed, you know, in the early part of this millennium, after the invasion of Iraq and when this kind of torturing began, that it was explicitly given as a reason for independence back in 1776, that is, transporting people beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses in foreign courts. So excuse me, Jaisal, for jumping, you know, right into the Iraq Wars, but the Declaration of Independence, if it’s going to live at all in current realities, you know, we must–we go back and forth between our present and our past.

NOOR: And, Peter, so we were going to talk about a whole range of issues, but, you know, in your book Many-Headed Hydra, you talk about the little-known role that commoners and even slaves played in fomenting the American Revolution. Can you give us a little bit of that history?

LINEBAUGH: I can give you a little bit of it. The Dunmore’s Proclamation in Virginia promised freedom to slaves. Dunmore was a British general. So the slave, like the Indian, was caught between a rock and a hard place, that is, whether to join the colonists in their bid for independence, or whether to join the British, who promised immediate emancipation.

But slave revolts preceding the War of Independence, like the Indian revolts, like the great revolt of Pontiac in 1763, or the revolts against impressment that took place up and down the coast of the colonies, all of these here–you know, I gesture to Indians, to African Americans, and to European sailors and workers–I call them–we call them commoners because so many of them before they came to colonies under terms of coerced labor, so many of them had participated in economies which were not based on private property or incessant accumulation and aggression for land belonging or used by others. And these forms of other forms of economies, especially in England, were called commons. They were common lands. And when those lands were enclosed are fenced off, the people who formerly had subsisted on them now had few choices in life. And even if they weren’t enslaved or coerced as teenagers in West Africa or as commoners in England who were impressed, they began in the United States, in Philadelphia and Boston, in Providence, Rhode Island, they began to get to know each other, they began, and they did so in taverns, they did so in poorer parts of the town, and they did so above all on ships. So the ship itself was a machine–we usually see it as a machine of commerce or a machine of war, but it was also a machine where the people of the world first got to know each other, they first get to hear one another’s stories. And in some ways you can say, this is where multicultural America began to be formed.

NOOR: And so, Peter, you call that the motley crew, because it’s a multiethnic crew. Then the population may–oh, not even a crew, not just a crew, but also bands of people that worked on land as well, and, you know, they were multiethnic, and, you know, their relationships might have crossed class lines as well.

LINEBAUGH: Yes, this is quite true. You know, Herman Melville was the man who had the imagination to see this in all his great nautical books, whether Billy Budd or /taɪfuː/ or White-Jacket, and then of course Moby-Dick. But that reality of democracy on shipboard and, as you say, multiethnic communication was a big part of the background to the American Revolution. And it was–even though those people did not lead the revolution in the sense of signing their names to documents, they led the freedom from actual slavery, they led the freedom from actual coerced labor on ships, and they also led–in Philadelphia here I’m thinking, Jaisal–they led the struggle for fair prices, and they led the struggle against debt. And these are two issues that remain with us. So this motley crew will provide the force of the revolutionary armies. And when they’re not paid or when they’re mistreated, they are perfectly capable of mutiny.

NOOR: And, Peter, you mentioned one of the slogans of the revolution, “no taxation without representation”. But as we touched upon in this conversation already, there were many groups that were not franchised at the culmination of the revolution–obviously African-Americans, women, and men that were not–that didn’t don’t land. And, you know, it’s often portrayed as the elites created this framework, they created a constitution that would eventually grant these rights and, you know, the right to vote and other civil rights to the entire population. But talk about the revolutionary process that actually led to those rights being achieved.

LINEBAUGH: Okay, Jaisal, that’s a process of American history, that’s a process of struggle. That’s a–I hesitate to say class struggle, though it is a class struggle of slaves, it’s a struggle of poor people, it’s a struggle of weavers and spinners, it’s a struggle of housewives, it’s a struggle of women more generally, it’s a struggle that is not over. And sometimes the American Civil War is seen as a continuation, as the Chapter 2 where the Declaration of Independence and Fourth of July was Chapter 1.

This is why the Fourth of July, you know, has this military flavor to it, you know, and we all turn out and we watch the fireworks. But the first fireworks, of course, were, as we know from the song, “the rockets’ red glare”. This came from a war. Speaking to you in Baltimore, I don’t need to remind you that Fort McHenry in Baltimore was where the British invaded in 1812. So what I’m trying to say is that war is the most extreme form of struggle, on a large scale, anyway. And those powers and rights and freedoms that you referred to and that we celebrate on the Fourth of July, they are the product of vast human struggle. I mean, the struggle for American independence was not just that war but was goes back to the 17th century.

The struggle against slavery was at least 100 years old. You know, if you take 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation, 100 years earlier it was 1763. That’s the plantation of George Washington. A hundred years before that, 1673, you also have slavery. So the struggle against slavery is a very old and long struggle and reaches a great, great culmination in the war between the states, in the Civil War. And may I quote, Jaisal, from Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist?

NOOR: Yes, absolutely.

LINEBAUGH: Okay, because he says something that I’m thinking about, and I wonder whether you all are thinking about it too. This is the speech he gave on the Fourth of July. And I think a lot of you are familiar with that speech where he says, what is the meaning of the Fourth of July to the slave? But before he says that, he says, what it is that we need. In this now is just a few years before John Brown’s raid, it’s a few years before Fort Sumter and the beginning of the Civil War. Here in the words of Frederick Douglass is what we need:

[I]t is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.

Isn’t that powerful? Here he’s using the rhetoric from the era of the Declaration of Independence, and he’s prophesying–it’s a prophetic voice from the Old Testament imagining the war to come, the American Civil War that at last put an end–well, not quite; it didn’t quite end slavery, did it? Because the Thirteenth Amendment permits slavery or involuntary servitude in cases of prison. And so I think it’s–you know, if we’re going to jump from the past to the present continuously, then we need to say, that is not yet finished, as the prison population of the U.S. continues to grow and to grow.

NOOR: Peter Linebaugh, thank you so much for joining us.

LINEBAUGH: You’re very welcome.

Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He recently retired after fifty years as a professor of history. Peter is the author of many books, including The London Hanged: Crime And Civil Society In The Eighteenth Century, The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, and most recently, Stop, Thief!: The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance.

Copyright of The Real News Network

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Strelkov and Militia Briefings, July 5, 2014

The Saker

Combined for July 5, 2014

Translated from Russian by Gleb Bazov

00:30 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from Alexander Mozgovoi

Today a column of the enemy, armed with heavy weaponry, was moving from Artyomovsk and was repelled by the Popasnyanskiy checkpoint At the same tim, near the Varvarovka settlement, where Msta-S and other heavy weaponry was located, our mortar group worked over the positions of the enemy. The enemy personnel suffered substantial losses. There were no losses on the part of our mortar group.

July 5, 2014 – The Ukrainian Army of Demons

Video: Posted by Ukrainian Soldiers on the Internet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo1ZvGFlY-Y

These are the amusements that the Nazis engage in. These are the types of videos they post on the Maidan-related web sites to brag about their accomplishments. More than that, they boast about how many “colorados” and “vatniks” [Note: derogatory terms used for anti-Maidan activists and the citizens of Novorossiya] they have killed to date. And Ukrainian tank crews have a lot to brag about – they kill entire families.

10:10 – July 5, 2014 – Statement from Pavel Gubarev

We spoke on the phone with Igor Ivanovich Strelkov: 

He has not made any further statements following his yesterday’s statement made to mass media. Anything else is disinformation.
He made it clear that he remains the Commander in Chief of [the Novorossiyan] army and that, in the nearest future, he will take up the task of consolidating the disparate forces of the Militia.

13:05 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from the Militia

Battles are ongoing in the Karlovka area and on the approaches to the Donetsk airport. At 12:35 (MSK), a pair of Su jets conducted airstrikes using NARs [Noted: unguided air-to-ground rockets] against the Donetsk airport. According to some of our information, last night the airport came under DPR [Note: Donetsk People’s Republic]control. This information is currently being verified.

July 5, 2014 – Statement from Pavel Gubarev

Igor Ivanovich Strelkov made a decision [personally] to leave Slavyansk. This was effected last night. The losses of the Militia are minimal. In an organized and cohesive manner, the forces of the Militia moved out in the direction of Kramatorsk. It is expected that the transfer will continue, evidently to Gorlovka and Donetsk.

This will permit us to win time, while Ukies relocate their personnel and artillery units (Ukies fight primarily by artillery shelling of peaceful cities). The advantage so gained will permit us to conclude the process of consolidating the forces of the Militia, of centralizing them under unified command, and to improve the quality of communications and logistics of the army and to strengthen the supplies of the armed forces, primarily in the area of heavy weaponry (artillery and armoured vehicles).

Kutuzov once retreated as well, and there was a plan to his retreat. And, in any event, Russians retreat only before a decisive victorious battle.

Right now we must improve the humanitarian support of Donbass. There were greater number of refugees on the Russian border yesterday then there were during the entire last month.

13:22 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from the Militia

Our friend, a militiaman called Dmitry, continues to remain in Slavyansk, at the front lines, together with his comrades. He informed us that the city is under full Militia control and commented on the nonsensical statements of the president of the former Ukraine:

“We invite Pyotr Poroshenko personally to hang the flag [over Slavyansk] … and make sure [to tell him] to take fresh linens. Slavs have a tradition to lay even our enemies to rest, but we always bury in clean linen.”

According to eyewitness and Ukrainian mass media reports, 2 tanks, 3 Kamaz trucks, an APC and 15 light vehicles with militia passed along the highway from Slavyansk. Later we received information that they were located in Kramatorsk, near the Militia headquarters.

Last night, there was indeed a transfer of personnel, equipment and armoured vehicles of the Militia that was necessitated by operational requirements. There were battles and the movement of large units.

15:01 – July 5, 2014 – Information from Eyewitnesses

The clean-up of the Donetsk airport area has been almost completed by the Militia. Today, Su jets came to assist Ukie [troops]. They made four [rocket] strikes and left. Battles continue.

Su jets have been observed in the Krasnoarmeysk-Donetsk area. They are shooting at the roads – probably looking for St. George ribbons.

15:01 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from the Militia

In Nikolayevka, there is enormous destruction and significant numbers of civilian victims. The information that civilian deaths have exceeded a thousand people in the last two days is receiving confirmation. There is ongoing expulsion of civilians from their places of residence in the areas where NazGuard [Note: National Guard] are being quartered following battles.

In Slavyansk and other centres of resistance the forces of the Militia are being regrouped and redeployed. The information about the surrender of Slavyansk is not confirmed – the redeployment of the Militia forces is continuing. I am calling attention to the fact that there is almost no communication with Slavyansk; any statements about the actions of the Militia in the areas of the military theatre, where communications are absent, should, at a minimum, be scrutinized carefully until there is video confirmation online.

In the morning, there were artillery strikes coming from the side of Krasniy Liman, closer to Raigorodok. The situation is difficult, but not critical.

15:13 – July 5, 2014 – Information from a Militiaman in Krasnodon

A [Militia] sniper, an Afghan veteran, who fought in the battle last night when Junta [troops] tried to break through into Krasnodon, is completely bewildered [by their actions].

He says that Ukies were either wasted drunk or completely drugged; in brief, it was like a scene from a movie about the Great Patriotic War, when the German [infantry] would advance, standing up straight and showering everything in front with automatic weapons’ fire. Ukies showed no self-preservation instinct whatsoever. Just like in the movies, he said. They walked without bending down at all. He personally shot at least three of them. Their personnel losses were huge. And then our tanks joined in and threw them back.

Today, after lunch, you could hear our howitzers pummeling the Junta troops. Pity we have so few of them. Right not it’s quiet.

July 5, 2014 – Briefing from the Militia

DPR saboteurs destroyed a Ukrainian border observation checkpoint on the shore of the Azov sea. On July 5, from 01:20 and until 02:15, militiamen conducted a shelling barrage against the technical inspection checkpoint on the shore of the Azov sea in the Donetsk region.

Photographs: The Remains of the Ukrainian Checkpoint


 

15:13 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from the LPR Militia

The army of LPR [Note:Lugansk People’s Republic] destroyed an Il-76 and 7 APCs of the enemy at the [Lugansk] airport.

In the course of the entire day yesterday, the enemy was subjective the settlements of Alexandrovsk and Bolshaya Vergunka to intensive artillery and mortar fire. Close to the evening, the detachment of the Ukrainian army, including tank units, attempt to entrench themselves in the area of Krasniy Yar, but were forced out of that location by the detachments of the LPR Army. In return, the Ukrainian forces conducted strikes against the positions of the Lugansk militiamen using Grad MLRS systems. The actions of the infantry forces received cover fire from three Mi-24 helicopters.

Thereafter, the Ukrainian army attempted to assault the city from three separate directions: Krasniy Yar, Metallist and Alexandrovka. All the attacks were successfully repelled by the LPR Army. The enemy lost 2 howitzers, a mortar detail and approximately thirty men dead.

On our part, the Lugansk militiamen conducted a successful operation in the area of the Lugansk airport, which is currently in the hands of the aeromobile detachments of the enemy. The enemy was shelled with heavy mortars and Grad MLRS systems, losing the an Il-76, seven APCs, a mortar detail, one anti-aircraft installation ZU 23-2, five vehicles and about a hundred fighters.

The situation near Sverdlovsk remains moderately tense; the enemy is actively shelling the centre of the city; the soldiers of the Ukrainian army engage in looting and are constantly getting inebriated.

15:50 – July 5, 2014 – Briefing from LPR Press Service

Provocations are being readied.

According the information of the operational headquarters of the Luganks Battalion “Zarya,” NazGuard are preparing provocations in the settlements neighbouring the Russian Federation: Kruzhilovka, Davydo-Nikolskoye and Parkhomenko. The HQ has become aware of saboteur groups, wearing Militia uniforms with St. George ribbons, who might try to shell the above-mentioned settlements with mortar fire in order to undermine their trust in the LPR defenders! Also, the HQ does not exclude the possibility that the Russian Federation army may be blamed for these provocations!

16:02 (MSK) – July 5, 2014 – Information from Alexander Zhuchkovskiy

 

The name of the second volunteer from St. Petersburg that died in Slavyansk has become known. His name was Matvey Efremov. He is survived by a wife and three children. In the nearest future we will meet with them to tell them about what happened and to provide assistance.

Vladimir Melnikov (on the photo, second from the left) had no one left; he lived alone. Before departing for Novorossiya, he left his documents and a large sum of money with friends, asking them to spend the money on the needs of militiamen in the event of his death.

On July 2, I wrote that, on that day, Matvey and Vladimir died in an unequal battle during the transfer from Slavyansk to Semyonovka. They were covering the retreat of their comrades.

18:33 – June 5, 2014 – Information from a Militiaman

The Slavyansk garrison has redeployed, spreading its forces among Donetsk, Kramatorsk and Enakievo.

In Donetsk there very many Slavyansk militiamen, thousands. Arrests have already taken place in the Donetsk regional police headquarters, OGA. Strelkov is restoring order there.

The detainees were taken outside. A much more substantial cleaning of the ranks from traitors and provocateurs is coming. There is a large number of foreign journalists. And this is very good. We need the truth to come out.

The airport is ours. At this time, it is being bombed by Ukies from the air. Purgin is the only one out of the entire DPR leadership who is in Donetsk.

All the rest (Pushilin, Borodai, etc.) are, for some reason, in Moscow.

I think that, in the very near future, we will witness significant changes in Donetsk and in the Donetsk region.’’

July 5, 2014 – Information from a Journalist

A RIA Novosti journalist is reporting that he saw Igor Strelkov in one of the administrative building in Gorlovka; everything is fine with him. The detachments that were formerly deployed in Slavyansk are also in the city; a part of them is already in Donetsk. At this time, the situation in Gorlovka is calm.

19:33 – July 5, 2014 – Statement by Alexander Borodai

The forces of DPR, taking into account the insurmountable numerical superiory of the Ukrainian military, were forced to leave their previous positions on the northern part of the front and to redeploy to the positions previously prepared.

In an organized fashion, and retaining their personnel and their weaponry, our armed forces have entrenched themselves at the reserve defence positions. We were prepared for this eventuality, as we are forced to confront a grouping numbering several dozen thousands of men and hundreds of armoured vehicles – in other words, the entire battle-worthy Ukrainian army.

Our armed forces continue to fight; their morale is high, and we are confident in our abilities.

20:00 – July 5, 2014 – Hourly Briefings from Locations

It is relatively calm in Donetsk now.

18:35 (MSK) – For several hours now, artillery from Karachun has been shelling some of the Slavyansk districts. A pair of Su jets performed sorties in the area of the quarry near Krasnodon. Another pair flew over Krasniy Liman. In the course of the battle at the Lugansk airport, an Il-76, 7 APCs, a mortar detail, an anti-aicraft gun, five vehicles, and over a company of troops were eliminated.

19:45 (MSK) – Loud explosions heard in Lugansk, in the area of Metallist-Shchastye.

20:00 (MSK) – Heavy artillery shelling of Slavyansk is ongoing. Part of the Artyom district and the districts of Lesnoy, Severniy and Tselinnaya are being targed. There have been over a hundred volleys as of this hour. Automatic weapons’ fire can be heard in the city.

There is such a concept as a military stratagem: there is much that cannot be made public that happens on the battlefield. Time may come when much becomes known or is revealed. In his time, Kutuzov surrendered Moscow, so as to later smash Napoleon head on. Motorolla, Babay and Strelkov are alive; and, however it may sound, a decision was made to abandon Slavyansk.

The main reason for this decision is the salvation of the civilian population. The problem is that the nightly and daily shelling of Slavyansk by the Ukrainian army, using MLRS, was a serious threat to the remaining population in Slavyansk. That which the fascists did to Nikolayevka was a very real fate for Slavyansk. However, in the fascists’ place I would not be calm in the streets and behind the walls of Slavyansk. They will soon understand this.

At this time, what is truly important is to same the lives of as many Donbass people and the militiamen as possible; a human life, and I mean specifically human, not fascist – is what is most precious. Redeployment is almost over and the main battles are still ahead. Victory will be ours, it will be Novorossiyan!

July 5, 2014 – Information from the Militia in Severodonetsk

Video: Ukrainian Military Supplies Intercepted

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb2KbCJRT3w

Ukrainian military sent supplies, equipment and uniforms to their soldiers via private postal service. The militiamen found this out, and, now, extend their deepest gratitude for the gifts.

23:55 – July 5, 2014 – Overview of the Military Sitiuation from the Militia

22:30 (MSK) – Tselinnaya is burning; maneuvering battles are ongoing; Rex’s guys are working. According to unconfirmed information, there are still several Ukrainian tanks on the outskirts of Kramatorsk. They are not entering the city; looks like they may be waiting for fresh underwear. Serious problems with telephone communications continue in the areas of the military theatre.

23:05 (MSK) – They are hitting Karlovka from Galitsinovka and Zhelannoye; the artillery cannonade is very intensive.

23:15 (MSK) – Artillery fire coming from the Izyum side, directed at Krasniy Liman. Something is burning on the outskirts of Krasniy Liman.

Igor Strelkov's First Interview After the Breakout from Slavyansk, July 5, 2014

Igor Strelkov: Advancing against us are real fascists, fascists in the very same sense that our predecessors understood this word. Monsters. Murderers. Bandits. Marauders. Pure Polizei. Banderovtsy, just as they once were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-mH1kt2Pao

Translated from Russian by Gleb Bazov

Q: What happened today? This is the key question that all of us, without exaggeration, want answers to.

Igor Strelkov: Last night, we effected a breakout from within a closing enemy ring, which was, in fact, already closed off. We performed a diversion against the positions of the enemy at the “Slavyansk” stella [Note: the Slavyansk city sign]. Our armoured group conducted the assault.

Unfortunately, and I will not hide it, the larger part of armoured group was eliminated in the course of the attack. This was so not so much connected with ... well, regrettably, this was an error on the part of the commander of the armoured group led to this. He made a wrong decision in carrying out his assigned task.

Nevertheless, between 80%-90% of the personnel and 90% of the armaments were transferred out of the city. The number of dead and wounded is not that great, we have confirmed it. As well, we were able to evacuate a significant number of the families of our servicemen and other individuals that helped us, for whom to remain in the city was life threatening.

The breakthrough took the enemy completely by surprise. We adopted the necessary concealment measures. In that regard, we are awaiting those heroes that are now breaking through on their way to us, who gave us fire cover as a distraction from the trenches and demonstrated our presence on the defence positions.

Q: Igor Ivanovich, this deals with the outcome of what happened, but many are equally concerned about a plan for the future.

Igor Strelkov: We will continue our military activities. We will try not to make the mistakes we made in the past. These errors, in reality, were not mistakes as much as simply the consequence of a blatant lack of weapons and of ammunition.

We hope that we will be able to prepare for the next enemy offensive in a more diligent manner and without giving the enemy the opportunity to capture the key strongholds that they were able to take over so easily when we had only a few automatic rifles to our name.

Q: Some have claimed that your have apparently abandoned your responsibilities and removed yourself from your role, that you have even fled to Crimea, to Krasniy Perekopsk. Have your resigned or not?

Igor Strelkov: (smiling) Well, if this [around us] were Crimea or Krasniy Perekopsk, then, well … I don’t know … I guess so … But I am currently in Donetsk.

In addition to my direct duties I plan to create, tomorrow, by my Order as the Minister of Defence, a Central Military Council, which will include all the key field commanders, independent of their direct responsibilities, and where we will coordinate all questions related to the defence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and, possibly, in part, those dealing with the Lugansk People’s Republic, provided they are within our jurisdiction in the military theatre. And, moreover, until one is appointed, I will be performing the functions of the Military Commandant of the city, as well as those of the commander of the city garrison.

In other words, we will be preparing Donetsk for active defence, to ensure that it is not taken over by the enemy. Well, at the very least, as much as we did in Slavyansk, and certainly much more. In reality, with sufficient troops, Donetsk is much easier and more convenient to defend than the small city of Slavyansk.

Q: A final request. Regardless of how strongly I may sympathize with your circumstances, as a journalist, I have a duty to ask this question: with respect to those who remained in Slavyansk, what can you tell those people who stayed behind?

Igor Strelkov: (sighing deeply) First of all, I would like to ask them for their forgiveness for failing to retain the city. Our decision to break out of the city, not to die there, was motivated not only by a desire to save the garrison itself, which is natural for any commander, but also by the fact that we realized that we could not hold it, and that, meanwhile the city would be subjected to ever greater destruction and suffer even more victims.

Right now I am receiving information that, just as was expected, unfortunately, despite the fact that we evacuated the majority of those who helped and volunteered with us, the enemy has engaged in a massacre there. In Slavyansk, in Kramatorsk and in Nikolayevka.

Because today, pursuant to my order, we also withdrew our garrison from Kramatorsk. The battalion that defended it has been redeployed here, to Donetsk, in order to reinforce our positions. Defending it became entirely futile after the enemy had taken Artymovsk. It would simply have led to another city being encircled.

In any event, of course, the information that they engaged in a massacre there, first in the Artyom district, I am waiting for confirmation of it, but I already have several sources reporting the same information, that the NazGuard [Note: Ukrainian National Guard] exacted vengeance for their numerous losses on the people [of Slavyansk]. All the same, our endeavour to avoid victims among the civilian population did not save the population from being victimized.

This just further confirms, for those who believe that, if the Militia leave without putting up a fight, it would save them from repressions, that it would not save them. Advancing against us are real fascists, fascists in the very same sense that our predecessors understood this word. Monsters. Murderers. Bandits. Marauders. Pure Polizei. Banderovtsy, just as they once were. Despite the fact that eighty years have passed. Not eighty, seventy.

They are genuine Nazis that hide behind the ideas of “United Ukraine” to perpetrate ethnic cleansing. And they are effecting it. And that is why we will be resisting in Donetsk just as we had been resisting them in Slavyansk, only far more successfully.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

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July 6th Iraq SITREP by Mindfriedo

The Saker

5th July: Rumour spreads that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi is killed in airstrikes near the Syrian border and has been taken to Syria for medical treatment. Daash disputes this and releases a video of Baghdadi addressing Friday worshippers in Mosul. The government in Baghdad calls the video a fake.

5th July: Two civilians are killed and six injured when two car bombs go off in Basra, Southern Iraq. The number killed is later reported to be eight.

5th July: Two senior army figures Ali Ghaydan (commander of Land Forces) and Mohsin al-Kaabi (Commander of federal Forces) are to be retired.

6th July: Hussein Firas al-Mashhadani, the Amir of Al Qaida in Iraq is killed by security forces in Iraq.

6th July: The police chief of Thi Qar, in the south of Iraq, has sent reinforcements to the west and north of Iraq. Hassan al Zaydi, the police chief, has stated that this in response to the call made by Sistani.

6th July: Twenty rebels are killed by security personnel when they attempted to bomb a government building of Salahuddin province in Tikrit. 

6th July: In possibly a first, an official within Daash and two of his security detail are killed when a car they are travelling in is hit by an IED in north east Baqouba, Diyala.

6th July: A parliament session of Iraqi Kurdistan will be held on Monday to discuss the acute shortage of fuel and petroleum products being faced in Kurdish cities.

6th July: Masoud Barzani has told a German newspaper that according to him the partition of Iraq is inevitable. He stated that people in the region have an ethnic or religious identity but no national identity. He blamed Maliki and his ignoring of important issues that has led to this impasse. He also referred to the improving of relations between Turkey and Kurdistan over the last 10 years and stated that Turkey is now a "good neighbour" of Kurdistan."

6th July: The Iraqi Defence Ministry has sent a tank battalion to help government forces fight rebels in Jurf al-Sakher, north of Babel.

6th July: The National Coalition, the largest parliamentary block and a coalition of a Shi'a parties, is to hold a meeting today to decide on their Prime Ministerial candidate. The Kurdish and Sunni block have withheld the name of the President and Speaker until such time as the candidate for Prime Minister is announced.

6th July: Sameera al Mousavi of the State of Law coalition calls on the National Alliance to seek Sistani's guidance in forming the next government.

6th July: Former Prime Minister of Iraq, Iyad Allawi, has met Turkish officials in Istanbul and has called on Iraq neighbours to work towards Iraqi unity. He has also asked Maliki to step down and withdraw from the post of Prime Minister.

6th June: Qatar based Muslim Britherhood/regime cleric, Al-Qaradawi, has called the declaration of caliphate by Baghdadi of The DI of Daash as invalid and detrimental to the Islamic cause.

6th July: Indian press is reporting that the Indian government took the help of the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar and their line to Daash in Syria to secure the release of the trapped nurses in Iraq.

6th July: DI of Daash issues passports guaranteeing protection to its citizens. Abu Bakr Baghdadi is seen wearing a Rolex watch during his Friday Sermon.

6th July: Nickolay Mladenov, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General discusses the situation in Iraq with Ammar Al-Hakim of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council and confirms UN support for Iraq

6th July: Three civilians are killed by mortar shells in North eastern Baqouba. The shells were allegedly fired by Daash. 

6th July: Atta's/Government claims for the day:
Government carries out air strikes against rebel targets in Tal Afar, Northern Iraq, and reports killing a number of fighters
The government has attacked and destroyed eight vehicles belonging to rebels outside of Baiji refinery and killing the occupants as well
The government's 2nd Brigade has seized explosives, grenades and a mine in the Rashidiya area of Baghdad
The government has attacked a rebel convoy in Fallujah destroying five vehicles and killing their occupants

Related news:
6th July: The al Nusra stronghold of Shuheli in Eastern Syria falls to Daash on Thursday. It expels 60000 residents from Shuheli and neighbouring towns.

Further Reading:
Comparing General Soliemani to Soze and Karla with very little facts and a lot of fiction:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/02/iran-s-top-spy-is-the-modern-day-karla-john-le-carr-s-villainous-mastermind.html

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!