More on Greece and the sad picture

Seeing more about the devastating Athens riots on television last night and reading more in media reports, it is obvious that the Greek security forces were totally unprepared for what happened. It was more on the scale of what is feared at the various world economic summits when anarchists on the left and right and just pure unaligned anarchists join forces to protest and do more than that if possible.

At those summits the security presence is immense and perimeters are secured everywhere. It appears that Greek security forces were expecting a "normal" major and even fiery protest march with some fringe elements engaging in physical confrontations. What happened appears to have been orchestrated, however loosely, by a small group of the marchers, a violent outburst and indiscrimate attack on property - 48 buildings burned beyond repair, hundreds more businesses big and small damaged and looted, all in central Athens.

Whether there is solely an element in Greece that would do this to their capital city or that old saw "outside agitators" also participated, who knows. Greeks are proud of their country and their culture and while the current economic situation has fractured the country's confidence and shaken its unsustainable system to the core, it is difficult to believe that the vast majority of Greek citizens are not appalled at the events of Sunday.

This is by no means only about Greece and their leaders. It was more of a show of force against the European Union and the power of capitalist economic forces globally. Poor Greece just happened to be the opportunity for the anarchists to have a field day.