By Sara Flounders
Published Jan 18, 2012 8:48 PM
There is growing apprehension that through miscalculation, deliberate provocation or a staged false flag operation, a U.S. war with Iran is imminent.
The dangerous combination of top U.S. officials’ public threats, the Pentagon’s massive military deployment, continued drone flights and industrial sabotage against Iran provides an ominous warning. The corporate media have been more than willing to cheer industrial sabotage, computer viruses and targeted assassinations. War maneuvers with Israel scheduled for mid-January were suddenly postponed Jan. 15 until May or later.
The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly voted to include binding provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed the legislation Dec. 31 ordering Iran’s economic strangulation. These NDAA provisions demand that every other country in the world joins this economic blockade of Iran or face U.S. sanctions themselves. This itself is an act of war.
Iran has directly charged the CIA for the Jan. 11 assassination of physicist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, which has outraged Iranians. Roshan is the fourth scientist killed in five targeted assassination in two years.
Whether or not a war will actually erupt, it is essential to look at the powerful forces that lay the groundwork for such a conflagration.
A U.S. war would kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians and create regionwide destabilization. It would cause a wild, speculative hike in oil and gas prices, devastating fragile economies of the poorest countries and unhinging the increasingly shaky eurozone.
Revolutionary Marxists like Fidel Castro, political leaders in China and Russia, and even a hardened Israeli general have joined many political commentators to warn that a U.S. or U.S.-supported Israeli attack on Iran could quickly become a far wider war.
While defending its sovereign right to develop energy self-sufficiency, Tehran has made every effort to deflect U.S. threats and charges. Iran has submitted to years of intrusive inspections of its research and industrial facilities to confirm its compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
But Washington insists on stopping Iran’s development — and not only its nuclear energy development to assure its future as oil production declines. For decades Iran was forced to import refined oil. Washington has tried to stop Iran from importing parts to build oil refineries, as it has tried to stop all Iran’s development since the 1979 revolution.
The myth of stimulus from war
David Broder, Washington Post political correspondent for 40 years and news show pundit, described in an Oct. 31, 2010, article how Obama could deal with his weakened situation when the Republicans swept Congress. He argued that to fix the economy and regain popularity, the solution is obvious and unavoidable: “War with Iran.”
Broder had more than 400 appearances on “Meet the Press.” He even won a Pulitzer Prize. Broder could be counted on to reflect political thinking and planning in Washington. Only the war machine can pull the U.S. out of economic stagnation, Broder argued.
“Look back at FDR and the Great Depression,” wrote Broder. “What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II. [A showdown with the mullahs] will help [Obama] politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.”
Upon Broder’s death in March, Obama called him “the most respected and incisive political commentator of his generation.” (New York Times, March 9)
Broder’s statement shows an absolutely criminal mindset. It also shows a dangerous illusion. Broder calmly proposed the murder of tens of thousands of people, the devastation of entire cities, the destruction of a whole culture as a temporary economic fix to win a U.S. election.
Others commentators just as coldly argued with Broder that war with Iran would not be large enough, because all the weapons needed already exist and are in place. So no surge of military orders would follow. A larger war would be needed to give a big enough push!
In 1939 reviving shuttered U.S. steel, rubber and textile clothing plants with government orders for tanks, ships, jeeps, helmets, uniforms and life vests for sale to Europe was a big stimulus. The entry of the U.S. into World War II in 1941 provided an enormous surge of productive capacity that pulled the U.S. economy out of a 10-year economic depression. What worked as an economic stimulus 70 years ago, before the existence of the gargantuan, bloated, high-tech military-industrial complex, is long past.
Today the U.S. has a military machine and a military budget larger than that of the rest of the world combined, exceeding $1 trillion a year in stated and hidden costs, even without another war. It is guaranteed to grow at a rate of 5 percent to 10 percent a year. This is built into the Pentagon’s budget projections even without cost overruns.
World won’t bow to U.S. dictates
Washington’s plans to easily conquer Afghanistan and Iraq and set up stable puppet regimes were frustrated. The U.S. plan for economic war on Iran has also exposed U.S. weaknesses.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner launched a tour of East Asian nations in early January to convince south Korea, China, India and Japan to cut their massive Iranian oil imports and abide by the sanctions.
China and India — both major economies — refused directly. China buys a third of Iran’s oil exports.
The Obama administration said that the U.S. would offer countries that applied for a temporary waiver to continue oil purchases from Iran while they made other arrangements. An Indian cabinet minister said India will continue to do business with Iran. South Korea said it would apply for a U.S. waiver because it planned to increase oil purchases from Iran.
Japanese officials, when meeting with Geithner, seemed to agree. But after his departure Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba backtracked, saying, “The United States would like to impose sanctions. We believe it is necessary to be extremely circumspect about this matter.” (AFP, Jan. 13)
Russia announced its refusal to comply with sanctions. So did NATO member Turkey. The European Union insisted on a six-month delay, due to fears of the economic consequences to debt-ridden Italy, Spain and Greece. The Greek government said it needs at least a year.
Saudi Arabia’s crude oil contains more sulfur than lighter Iranian oil and requires substantially higher refining costs. In a time of global capitalist recession, this added cost is no easy sell.
Even outright U.S. collaborators are refusing Washington’s demands. Pakistan, for example, refused to abandon a pipeline to transport Iranian natural gas into Pakistan and in the future even into India.
All of this would be good news. But the danger is that U.S. corporate power, seeing on every side its declining ability to ram through its dictates, is increasingly driven to military solutions.
This is exacerbated by U.S. setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan that have weakened the U.S. superpower’s dominance of Southwest Asia relative to Iran. The more the U.S. loses its grip on the region, the more desperate imperialism may become to risk all in a mad adventure to recoup its past position.
Every voice must be raised at this urgent hour against sanctions and war.
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imperialism. Show all posts
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Sunday, October 30, 2011
"Women Workers Face Extreme Insecurity in India"
Published Oct 27, 2011 8:06 PM
Workers World contributor Dante Strobino interviewed Meghna Sukumar, a young organizer with the Women’s Workers Union, Garment and Fashion Workers section, on Sept. 24, the opening day of the United Electrical Workers union 72nd National Convention in Pittsburgh. Her union is part of the New Trade Union Initiative of India (NTUI). Sukumar was participating in the UE Young Activist international convergence, along with young militant trade unionists from some of the most progressive unions in France (CGT), Quebec (CSN), Mexico (FAT) Japan (Zenroren) and many young UE activists from across the U.S.
WW: On your website, the NTUI says that part of your mission is “to meet the challenges of the offensive against the working class, under capitalist globalization.” What is your view about some of the challenges faced by unions and workers in India during this world capitalist economic crisis since 2008?
MS: I think the biggest challenge has been coping with the scope and pace of informalization of work in many industries. This means that there is a large workforce that not only works for wages far below living wages, but also workers who are working in extremely precarious conditions with no job security and no social security. Unions in India are struggling to organize [these] contract workers. Another huge battle has been resisting the tremendous offensive on the right to association and trade union rights. It is important that trade unions remain independent and internalize democratic principles.
WW: Have conditions changed for workers in the past few years in India?
MS: I think there has been a renewed attack on trade union and collective bargaining rights. Especially in new industrial areas and Special Economic Zones, workers are facing tremendous obstacles from management and government to form or join unions of their choice.
WW: In June your union won passage of an important new labor law covering domestic workers. Can you tell us about that?
MS: The women workers’ union in Chennai has been campaigning for recognition and regulation of domestic work for several years now. Our demand has been for the inclusion of domestic work under the Minimum Wages legislation in the state of Tamil Nadu and a demand for 30 rupees [U.S. $.60] per hour as the minimum wage, a paid weekly day off and an annual bonus of one month’s salary. While there has been no legislation passed for regulation of domestic work as yet, the historic convention on Rights of Domestic Workers that was adopted by the International Labor Organization this year, which the government of India voted in favor of, is definitely a step in the right direction. We will continue to campaign for bringing domestic workers within the ambit of labor laws.
WW: We have witnessed in the past year that young people and workers have led many rebellions across the world, mostly catalyzed by record unemployment and police brutality. How is your union responding to these conditions within India or elsewhere around the world?
MS: What we are witnessing around the world is definitely encouraging and is a resounding call for change. It is quite inevitable that it will be the youth that will take the lead in any such movement towards social change. The trade union movement must be prepared to give any such movement direction and energy.
WW: Why does your union focus on the leadership of women workers? Have you seen the capitalist crisis disproportionately affect women? If so, how?
MS: Without a doubt, women are disproportionately exploited. It is a clear case of how capitalism uses patriarchy and vice versa to ensure that women’s work is unrecognized and grossly underpaid. In India, industries where women work have, on an average, much lower wages than industries with a primarily male workforce. The apparel industry is an apt example where the average daily wage is just over $2. Moreover, women’s work is only seen to be supplementary to a man’s income in a family. Also, more and more new industries like auto parts and electronics are being set up which employ first-generation young women workers with absolutely no knowledge about their rights at the workplace. This makes them extremely vulnerable to violence and exploitation. For these and a host of other reasons, it is important to build women’s leadership in unions so that women workers’ issues are brought to the forefront.
WW: Were you shocked or did you learn anything new about conditions in the U.S. in your meetings with young workers here?
MS: This has been my first interaction with workers in the U.S. Of course, we have been reading extensively about how the budget cuts have been affecting public sector workers’ social security. But meeting many young workers and actually hearing about the struggles that they have been facing over the past couple of years has been a tremendous eye opener. It is surely going to be a tough fight ahead.
Workers World contributor Dante Strobino interviewed Meghna Sukumar, a young organizer with the Women’s Workers Union, Garment and Fashion Workers section, on Sept. 24, the opening day of the United Electrical Workers union 72nd National Convention in Pittsburgh. Her union is part of the New Trade Union Initiative of India (NTUI). Sukumar was participating in the UE Young Activist international convergence, along with young militant trade unionists from some of the most progressive unions in France (CGT), Quebec (CSN), Mexico (FAT) Japan (Zenroren) and many young UE activists from across the U.S.
WW: On your website, the NTUI says that part of your mission is “to meet the challenges of the offensive against the working class, under capitalist globalization.” What is your view about some of the challenges faced by unions and workers in India during this world capitalist economic crisis since 2008?
MS: I think the biggest challenge has been coping with the scope and pace of informalization of work in many industries. This means that there is a large workforce that not only works for wages far below living wages, but also workers who are working in extremely precarious conditions with no job security and no social security. Unions in India are struggling to organize [these] contract workers. Another huge battle has been resisting the tremendous offensive on the right to association and trade union rights. It is important that trade unions remain independent and internalize democratic principles.
WW: Have conditions changed for workers in the past few years in India?
MS: I think there has been a renewed attack on trade union and collective bargaining rights. Especially in new industrial areas and Special Economic Zones, workers are facing tremendous obstacles from management and government to form or join unions of their choice.
WW: In June your union won passage of an important new labor law covering domestic workers. Can you tell us about that?
MS: The women workers’ union in Chennai has been campaigning for recognition and regulation of domestic work for several years now. Our demand has been for the inclusion of domestic work under the Minimum Wages legislation in the state of Tamil Nadu and a demand for 30 rupees [U.S. $.60] per hour as the minimum wage, a paid weekly day off and an annual bonus of one month’s salary. While there has been no legislation passed for regulation of domestic work as yet, the historic convention on Rights of Domestic Workers that was adopted by the International Labor Organization this year, which the government of India voted in favor of, is definitely a step in the right direction. We will continue to campaign for bringing domestic workers within the ambit of labor laws.
WW: We have witnessed in the past year that young people and workers have led many rebellions across the world, mostly catalyzed by record unemployment and police brutality. How is your union responding to these conditions within India or elsewhere around the world?
MS: What we are witnessing around the world is definitely encouraging and is a resounding call for change. It is quite inevitable that it will be the youth that will take the lead in any such movement towards social change. The trade union movement must be prepared to give any such movement direction and energy.
WW: Why does your union focus on the leadership of women workers? Have you seen the capitalist crisis disproportionately affect women? If so, how?
MS: Without a doubt, women are disproportionately exploited. It is a clear case of how capitalism uses patriarchy and vice versa to ensure that women’s work is unrecognized and grossly underpaid. In India, industries where women work have, on an average, much lower wages than industries with a primarily male workforce. The apparel industry is an apt example where the average daily wage is just over $2. Moreover, women’s work is only seen to be supplementary to a man’s income in a family. Also, more and more new industries like auto parts and electronics are being set up which employ first-generation young women workers with absolutely no knowledge about their rights at the workplace. This makes them extremely vulnerable to violence and exploitation. For these and a host of other reasons, it is important to build women’s leadership in unions so that women workers’ issues are brought to the forefront.
WW: Were you shocked or did you learn anything new about conditions in the U.S. in your meetings with young workers here?
MS: This has been my first interaction with workers in the U.S. Of course, we have been reading extensively about how the budget cuts have been affecting public sector workers’ social security. But meeting many young workers and actually hearing about the struggles that they have been facing over the past couple of years has been a tremendous eye opener. It is surely going to be a tough fight ahead.
New Data on Global Corporate Control Confirms Lenin's "Imperialism"
By Deirdre Griswold
Published Oct 27, 2011 8:49 PM
Researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, have used a powerful computer database to analyze which transnational companies dominate the world economy. Their findings, called “The network of global corporate control,” appeared this summer at arxiv.org, an online publisher of scientific material.
Using information from the financial database ORBIS, which provided them with data on “37 million economic actors, both physical persons and firms located in 194 countries, and roughly 13 million directed and weighted ownership links (equity relations),” the team of scientists from ETH Zurich, headed by Stefania Vitali, used a new mathematical analysis to tease out the structures linking transnational corporations to their subsidiaries and to each other.
The result? Out of this vast number of corporate actors, in 2007 “a mere 147 companies controlled nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations,” wrote Rachel Ehrenberg in an article summarizing the group’s findings. (“Financial world dominated by a few,” Science News, Sept. 24)
The authors say their work is the first attempt ever made to plot the myriad connections among the transnationals, defined as companies that have at least 10 percent of their wealth in more than one country. They describe the structure that emerged as resembling a “bowtie,” with lots of corporate entities in the periphery but a small group at the center controlling the flow of wealth.
While the global capitalist economy today is vastly larger and more complex than a century ago when V.I. Lenin wrote his groundbreaking book “Imperialism,” this attempt by mathematicians to penetrate the murky world of corporate and finance capital confirms what the leader of the Russian Revolution wrote in 1916.
Lenin showed how even then the big banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions of Europe and the United States had grown to dominate over all other forms of capital. He used the data then available to show that they had formed giant cartels that divided up the world markets into “spheres of influence.”
Written during World War I, the book explained what drove capitalist nations to half-exterminate each other in the struggle for superprofits around the world. The message was clear: War and exploitation will continue as long as there is capitalism.
There is no such message in these recent findings. Rather, the research is directed at capitalist governments and multinational institutions that the authors hope will shape better policies.
However, coming at a time when the capitalist system is in a deepening crisis of overproduction that is being felt all over the world, this study dispels the theory that capitalism has somehow become more democratic because, for example, millions of people have to rely on pensions that invest in mutual funds.
As the Occupy Wall Street movement says, only a tiny number of the world’s people really control the wealth. They are really much less than 1 percent and are concentrated in the major imperialist countries.
The top 50 control-holders in the world are listed in a table at the end of the study. Twenty-four of them are from the U.S. Most of their names are obscure: FMR Corp., The Capital Group and State Street are among the largest. But behind these names are many of the same old ruling-class families that have picked presidents and secretaries of state for generations to ensure that the U.S. government puts their class interests before anything else.
In the recent period, this has meant getting their hands on trillions of dollars in government bailout money when the markets turned sour, even as millions of workers lose their jobs and homes.
Lenin called imperialism “the highest and last stage of capitalism.” How much longer will such a horrible system be allowed to endure?
Published Oct 27, 2011 8:49 PM
Researchers in Zurich, Switzerland, have used a powerful computer database to analyze which transnational companies dominate the world economy. Their findings, called “The network of global corporate control,” appeared this summer at arxiv.org, an online publisher of scientific material.
Using information from the financial database ORBIS, which provided them with data on “37 million economic actors, both physical persons and firms located in 194 countries, and roughly 13 million directed and weighted ownership links (equity relations),” the team of scientists from ETH Zurich, headed by Stefania Vitali, used a new mathematical analysis to tease out the structures linking transnational corporations to their subsidiaries and to each other.
The result? Out of this vast number of corporate actors, in 2007 “a mere 147 companies controlled nearly 40 percent of the monetary value of all transnational corporations,” wrote Rachel Ehrenberg in an article summarizing the group’s findings. (“Financial world dominated by a few,” Science News, Sept. 24)
The authors say their work is the first attempt ever made to plot the myriad connections among the transnationals, defined as companies that have at least 10 percent of their wealth in more than one country. They describe the structure that emerged as resembling a “bowtie,” with lots of corporate entities in the periphery but a small group at the center controlling the flow of wealth.
While the global capitalist economy today is vastly larger and more complex than a century ago when V.I. Lenin wrote his groundbreaking book “Imperialism,” this attempt by mathematicians to penetrate the murky world of corporate and finance capital confirms what the leader of the Russian Revolution wrote in 1916.
Lenin showed how even then the big banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions of Europe and the United States had grown to dominate over all other forms of capital. He used the data then available to show that they had formed giant cartels that divided up the world markets into “spheres of influence.”
Written during World War I, the book explained what drove capitalist nations to half-exterminate each other in the struggle for superprofits around the world. The message was clear: War and exploitation will continue as long as there is capitalism.
There is no such message in these recent findings. Rather, the research is directed at capitalist governments and multinational institutions that the authors hope will shape better policies.
However, coming at a time when the capitalist system is in a deepening crisis of overproduction that is being felt all over the world, this study dispels the theory that capitalism has somehow become more democratic because, for example, millions of people have to rely on pensions that invest in mutual funds.
As the Occupy Wall Street movement says, only a tiny number of the world’s people really control the wealth. They are really much less than 1 percent and are concentrated in the major imperialist countries.
The top 50 control-holders in the world are listed in a table at the end of the study. Twenty-four of them are from the U.S. Most of their names are obscure: FMR Corp., The Capital Group and State Street are among the largest. But behind these names are many of the same old ruling-class families that have picked presidents and secretaries of state for generations to ensure that the U.S. government puts their class interests before anything else.
In the recent period, this has meant getting their hands on trillions of dollars in government bailout money when the markets turned sour, even as millions of workers lose their jobs and homes.
Lenin called imperialism “the highest and last stage of capitalism.” How much longer will such a horrible system be allowed to endure?
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Workers World Statement: Imperialists Murder Gadhafi
Published Oct 21, 2011 12:36 PM
From: Workers World
News spread around the world on Oct. 20-21 that NATO planes had struck a car caravan leaving Sirte in Libya, wounding Moammar Gadhafi, and that the Libyan leader was captured alive and subsequently killed. The details of his death are sketchy and may be purposely distorted or obscured by his killers. This main fact stands out: It took the intervention of the imperialist air forces — including a U.S. Predator drone and a French warplane — to end the life of this African leader.
Thus the assassination of Gadhafi was like the rest of the so-called uprising in Libya: a complete creation of the imperialist powers in NATO. As we have stated in this column before, the “rebels” — the Transitional National Council leaders, the monarchists from Benghasi and whatever other forces joined the rag-tag anti-government crusade in Libya — could not have won one battle without the air power, reconnaissance, logistics, funding, planning and direct intervention of NATO.
That means that especially France, Britain and Italy, with full U.S. logistical support, carried out a war — using meager Libyan puppet forces — in an attempt to recolonize Libya, just as these imperialists have attempted to recolonize Iraq and Afghanistan. As of yet none of these attempts have completely succeeded in subjugating the people, who are still resisting heroically in each location. True, the imperialists have brought misery wherever they sunk their claws, but nowhere is their rule secure.
Those who deceived themselves into believing this was an honest popular uprising in Libya — like those in neighboring Egypt or Tunisia — have to feel humiliated listening to the triumphant speeches today of NATO heads of government Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi and Barack Obama. The words of the imperialist leaders ranting against the Gadhafi they murdered is proof enough that the Libyan leader died trying to fight for his oil-rich country’s independence from these very same predatory world powers.
The even more important lesson, however, is that the imperialist states and their leaders have no compunction about using force, breaking international laws and simply carrying out murders of government leaders. They are war criminals. They deserve no respect. They deserve instead to be put on trial.
In the past weeks hundreds of thousands of young people have been occupying the squares or demonstrating in the main cities of the countries headed by these imperialists. This latest murder should strengthen their determination to rid the world of the capitalist system, which not only robs them of their future at home but brings pain and misery to much of humanity.
Long live the struggle to liberate Libya, and the world, from imperialism and the banks and corporations that own it!
From: Workers World
News spread around the world on Oct. 20-21 that NATO planes had struck a car caravan leaving Sirte in Libya, wounding Moammar Gadhafi, and that the Libyan leader was captured alive and subsequently killed. The details of his death are sketchy and may be purposely distorted or obscured by his killers. This main fact stands out: It took the intervention of the imperialist air forces — including a U.S. Predator drone and a French warplane — to end the life of this African leader.
Thus the assassination of Gadhafi was like the rest of the so-called uprising in Libya: a complete creation of the imperialist powers in NATO. As we have stated in this column before, the “rebels” — the Transitional National Council leaders, the monarchists from Benghasi and whatever other forces joined the rag-tag anti-government crusade in Libya — could not have won one battle without the air power, reconnaissance, logistics, funding, planning and direct intervention of NATO.
That means that especially France, Britain and Italy, with full U.S. logistical support, carried out a war — using meager Libyan puppet forces — in an attempt to recolonize Libya, just as these imperialists have attempted to recolonize Iraq and Afghanistan. As of yet none of these attempts have completely succeeded in subjugating the people, who are still resisting heroically in each location. True, the imperialists have brought misery wherever they sunk their claws, but nowhere is their rule secure.
Those who deceived themselves into believing this was an honest popular uprising in Libya — like those in neighboring Egypt or Tunisia — have to feel humiliated listening to the triumphant speeches today of NATO heads of government Nicolas Sarkozy, David Cameron, Silvio Berlusconi and Barack Obama. The words of the imperialist leaders ranting against the Gadhafi they murdered is proof enough that the Libyan leader died trying to fight for his oil-rich country’s independence from these very same predatory world powers.
The even more important lesson, however, is that the imperialist states and their leaders have no compunction about using force, breaking international laws and simply carrying out murders of government leaders. They are war criminals. They deserve no respect. They deserve instead to be put on trial.
In the past weeks hundreds of thousands of young people have been occupying the squares or demonstrating in the main cities of the countries headed by these imperialists. This latest murder should strengthen their determination to rid the world of the capitalist system, which not only robs them of their future at home but brings pain and misery to much of humanity.
Long live the struggle to liberate Libya, and the world, from imperialism and the banks and corporations that own it!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
The "Iran Plot" - Psywar for a New U.S. Aggression?
Published Oct 13, 2011 8:45 PM
From: Workers World
Washington’s slanderous campaign against Iran for an alleged assassination plot lacks evidence and fails every test of logic. Many people have raised questions as to its truth. But there’s an even more important question to ask: Why is the U.S. government desperate to use an unbelievable pretext to begin a campaign of sanctions and possible war against Iran?
Remember that U.S. imperialism has been openly hunting and killing its alleged enemies around the world, breaking international laws to do so. It uses drone airplanes to fire rockets at cars and houses. It kills admittedly innocent people along with those it calls “terrorists.”
These, and not any unproven and illogical charges against Tehran, are the real crimes against international law.
The U.S. government, with or without its NATO allies, has also in the past 13 years unleashed four wars against sovereign countries: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Its troops still occupy the first three countries. In each case, for each country, there was a lie. A phony "massacre." In Iraq, the phantom "weapons of mass destruction.” This is accompanied by coordinated demonization of the leaders. And then the brutal bombing campaign begins, and an invasion.
The Pentagon and/or CIA also carry out drone attacks against targets in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. They kill nationals of those countries and, in a recent case, even a U.S. citizen. All this is supposedly justified by nothing but the government’s own statements based on reports from the same CIA and military intelligence organizations.
The charges of an Iranian-inspired assassination plot against a Saudi diplomat -- which Tehran emphatically denies -- come from this same U.S. rogue government, which makes military strikes and invasions all over the globe and regularly lies to justify its aggression.
So we repeat: The real question is why is the U.S. government now raising a campaign against Iran? Why is this happening soon after the Iranian government made a conciliatory move by releasing two U.S. citizens supposed to be just hikers?
Does someone in the U.S. establishment want to keep the confrontation with Iran burning? Is it even possible that the U.S. regime is preparing for yet another aggressive war?
For those in the U.S. who struggle against war, as well as those now fighting for jobs in the occupations from Wall Street to the main plazas of U.S. cities large and small, it is important to see these unfounded charges against Iran for what they are: an attempt by a totally discredited U.S. government to find a new scapegoat. There is no reason that an accusation from this government should be accepted as having any resemblance to the truth.
Stay alert. Be ready to struggle against another aggression. And stay in the streets against Wall Street and Washington.
From: Workers World
Washington’s slanderous campaign against Iran for an alleged assassination plot lacks evidence and fails every test of logic. Many people have raised questions as to its truth. But there’s an even more important question to ask: Why is the U.S. government desperate to use an unbelievable pretext to begin a campaign of sanctions and possible war against Iran?
Remember that U.S. imperialism has been openly hunting and killing its alleged enemies around the world, breaking international laws to do so. It uses drone airplanes to fire rockets at cars and houses. It kills admittedly innocent people along with those it calls “terrorists.”
These, and not any unproven and illogical charges against Tehran, are the real crimes against international law.
The U.S. government, with or without its NATO allies, has also in the past 13 years unleashed four wars against sovereign countries: Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. Its troops still occupy the first three countries. In each case, for each country, there was a lie. A phony "massacre." In Iraq, the phantom "weapons of mass destruction.” This is accompanied by coordinated demonization of the leaders. And then the brutal bombing campaign begins, and an invasion.
The Pentagon and/or CIA also carry out drone attacks against targets in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. They kill nationals of those countries and, in a recent case, even a U.S. citizen. All this is supposedly justified by nothing but the government’s own statements based on reports from the same CIA and military intelligence organizations.
The charges of an Iranian-inspired assassination plot against a Saudi diplomat -- which Tehran emphatically denies -- come from this same U.S. rogue government, which makes military strikes and invasions all over the globe and regularly lies to justify its aggression.
So we repeat: The real question is why is the U.S. government now raising a campaign against Iran? Why is this happening soon after the Iranian government made a conciliatory move by releasing two U.S. citizens supposed to be just hikers?
Does someone in the U.S. establishment want to keep the confrontation with Iran burning? Is it even possible that the U.S. regime is preparing for yet another aggressive war?
For those in the U.S. who struggle against war, as well as those now fighting for jobs in the occupations from Wall Street to the main plazas of U.S. cities large and small, it is important to see these unfounded charges against Iran for what they are: an attempt by a totally discredited U.S. government to find a new scapegoat. There is no reason that an accusation from this government should be accepted as having any resemblance to the truth.
Stay alert. Be ready to struggle against another aggression. And stay in the streets against Wall Street and Washington.
An Anti-Imperialist, Marxist Perspective: Why U.S. Wants Regime Change in Syria
Published Oct 14, 2011 10:59 PM
Following are excerpts from a talk given by Joyce Chediac at a Workers World Party forum in Detroit on Oct. 1.
The U.S. government claims it supports the huge social explosion rocking the Arab world and northern Africa. A closer look shows that it is trying to take advantage of these struggles to consolidate its stranglehold there.
U.S. “support” of movements opposed to Arab governments is selective. The government of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen killed 100 people last week. It was a massacre, but no U.S. administration official called Saleh “a monster murdering his own people.” There was no move in the United Nations for a no-fly zone. In fact, U.S. drones regularly bomb Yemen, a U.S. client regime located on strategic waterways. Instead, in his U.N. speech on Sept. 21 Obama made the mildest of comments and called for “seeking a path that allows for a peaceful transition” in Yemen.
The White House, Congress and the Pentagon are going after the few Arab governments with some independence from imperialism: Libya, and now Syria.
In Syria there is a great deal at stake for the workers and rural poor as there is throughout the Middle East. Syria is in a strategic anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist alliance with Iran, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with Hamas in Gaza. This alliance is crucial in holding back the predatory Zionist state [of Israel] from taking over the whole area. Washington would like to break up this alliance and move against them all.
Yet some progressives in the Middle East are opposed to the Syrian government, much as some were opposed to Gadhafi. Why is this so?
Marxist political perspective needed
Governments like those in Syria are called “bourgeois nationalist” by Marxists. They are nationalist because they seek to develop their countries free from imperialist domination. They are bourgeois because they are ruled by an exploiting class — capitalists. Marxists support these governments against imperialism because they are manifestations of self-determination of the oppressed. This does not mean that Marxists support every policy of these governments.
Marxists also recognize that these regimes have a dual character. They are bourgeois nationalist because they seek to push out the imperialists so they can better exploit their workers. But they have common interest with their workers when imperialism threatens the country’s sovereignty. These governments cannot consistently fight imperialism, as the working class can.
For example, Syria is a “front line state” with a border with Israel. This fact affects every aspect of Syria’s history, has made it an object of constant imperialist and Zionist pressure, and links the fate of the Syrian people to the Palestinian struggle.
Syria’s nationalization of a U.S. oil pipeline precipitated the 1967 war, with Israel attacking and occupying Syria’s Golan Heights, the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Golan Heights has since been annexed by Israel.
While Syria plays a regionally progressive role right now, this was not always the case. In 1976, the Syrian government intervened in Lebanon’s civil war on the side of Lebanon’s fascists, who were armed by Israel, against a revolutionary Palestinian-Lebanese alliance. The Syrian capitalists feared that a revolutionary Lebanon might lead to their overthrow by Syrians dominated by the Arab Socialist Baath Party. The current head of state in Syria is Bashir Assad.
Relentless pressure from the U.S. and Israel, and Israel’s refusal to return the Golan Heights, has Syria’s rulers back towards an anti-imperialist stance.
Syria, like other bourgeois nationalist governments, has neither broken with the capitalist world market, nor has the perspective to do so. Instead, it seeks a better deal in this market, which is completely dominated by Western banks.
During economic downturns, nationalist governments like Syria are forced by Wall Street to make economic concessions which attack the workers and establish a pro-imperialist elite, a comprador bourgeoisie, which undermines the government’s independence from imperialism and isolates it from the workers.
In 2006, Syria adopted an International Monetary Fund plan calling for austerity measures, a wage freeze, opening the economy to foreign banks, and privatizing government-run industries. For workers this has meant unemployment, inflation and deterioration in social conditions. These policies have benefited a group of elite businessmen close to the Assad family.
Nature of imperialist intervention
“The Syrian state once brought electricity to every town, but … can no longer afford the social contract of taking care of people’s needs.” (New York Times, April 30) The social contract among religious minorities has been “We will protect you but stay out of politics.” The government apparatus has been run by the same family, the Assad family, for 40 years. Those who disagreed suffered repression.
Many Syrians are fed up with the Assad government, and for good reason. But imperialism has not imposed sanctions on Syria because the government there has impoverished the workers and because few have a voice in the government.
U.S. imperialism hates Syria for hosting leaders of the Palestinian resistance; for refusing to give up its claims to the Golan Heights; for refusing to sign a peace treaty with Israel; for refusing to end its relationship with Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement and with Iran; and for refusing to be part of the attack on Iraq in 2003.
In short, imperialism is sanctioning the Syrian government and increasing pressure on it not for the bad things it has done, but for the good things.
Imperialism is a thoroughly reactionary and oppressive system. When the imperialists come to “help,” it is to help themselves. Imperialist intervention is always meant to benefit the imperialists, whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of workers.
Just look at what NATO’s “help” for the people of Libya has meant: The destruction of the civilian infrastructure and economy; cancer-causing radioactive residue from depleted uranium weapons; and using Libya to get its predatory Africom military command on African soil.
A U.S. and NATO intervention in Syria would be the worst thing for all the oppressed people in the Middle East and must be vehemently opposed. A win for imperialism abroad emboldens the capitalists in their attacks on workers at home.
Following are excerpts from a talk given by Joyce Chediac at a Workers World Party forum in Detroit on Oct. 1.
The U.S. government claims it supports the huge social explosion rocking the Arab world and northern Africa. A closer look shows that it is trying to take advantage of these struggles to consolidate its stranglehold there.
U.S. “support” of movements opposed to Arab governments is selective. The government of Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen killed 100 people last week. It was a massacre, but no U.S. administration official called Saleh “a monster murdering his own people.” There was no move in the United Nations for a no-fly zone. In fact, U.S. drones regularly bomb Yemen, a U.S. client regime located on strategic waterways. Instead, in his U.N. speech on Sept. 21 Obama made the mildest of comments and called for “seeking a path that allows for a peaceful transition” in Yemen.
The White House, Congress and the Pentagon are going after the few Arab governments with some independence from imperialism: Libya, and now Syria.
In Syria there is a great deal at stake for the workers and rural poor as there is throughout the Middle East. Syria is in a strategic anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist alliance with Iran, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with Hamas in Gaza. This alliance is crucial in holding back the predatory Zionist state [of Israel] from taking over the whole area. Washington would like to break up this alliance and move against them all.
Yet some progressives in the Middle East are opposed to the Syrian government, much as some were opposed to Gadhafi. Why is this so?
Marxist political perspective needed
Governments like those in Syria are called “bourgeois nationalist” by Marxists. They are nationalist because they seek to develop their countries free from imperialist domination. They are bourgeois because they are ruled by an exploiting class — capitalists. Marxists support these governments against imperialism because they are manifestations of self-determination of the oppressed. This does not mean that Marxists support every policy of these governments.
Marxists also recognize that these regimes have a dual character. They are bourgeois nationalist because they seek to push out the imperialists so they can better exploit their workers. But they have common interest with their workers when imperialism threatens the country’s sovereignty. These governments cannot consistently fight imperialism, as the working class can.
For example, Syria is a “front line state” with a border with Israel. This fact affects every aspect of Syria’s history, has made it an object of constant imperialist and Zionist pressure, and links the fate of the Syrian people to the Palestinian struggle.
Syria’s nationalization of a U.S. oil pipeline precipitated the 1967 war, with Israel attacking and occupying Syria’s Golan Heights, the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The Golan Heights has since been annexed by Israel.
While Syria plays a regionally progressive role right now, this was not always the case. In 1976, the Syrian government intervened in Lebanon’s civil war on the side of Lebanon’s fascists, who were armed by Israel, against a revolutionary Palestinian-Lebanese alliance. The Syrian capitalists feared that a revolutionary Lebanon might lead to their overthrow by Syrians dominated by the Arab Socialist Baath Party. The current head of state in Syria is Bashir Assad.
Relentless pressure from the U.S. and Israel, and Israel’s refusal to return the Golan Heights, has Syria’s rulers back towards an anti-imperialist stance.
Syria, like other bourgeois nationalist governments, has neither broken with the capitalist world market, nor has the perspective to do so. Instead, it seeks a better deal in this market, which is completely dominated by Western banks.
During economic downturns, nationalist governments like Syria are forced by Wall Street to make economic concessions which attack the workers and establish a pro-imperialist elite, a comprador bourgeoisie, which undermines the government’s independence from imperialism and isolates it from the workers.
In 2006, Syria adopted an International Monetary Fund plan calling for austerity measures, a wage freeze, opening the economy to foreign banks, and privatizing government-run industries. For workers this has meant unemployment, inflation and deterioration in social conditions. These policies have benefited a group of elite businessmen close to the Assad family.
Nature of imperialist intervention
“The Syrian state once brought electricity to every town, but … can no longer afford the social contract of taking care of people’s needs.” (New York Times, April 30) The social contract among religious minorities has been “We will protect you but stay out of politics.” The government apparatus has been run by the same family, the Assad family, for 40 years. Those who disagreed suffered repression.
Many Syrians are fed up with the Assad government, and for good reason. But imperialism has not imposed sanctions on Syria because the government there has impoverished the workers and because few have a voice in the government.
U.S. imperialism hates Syria for hosting leaders of the Palestinian resistance; for refusing to give up its claims to the Golan Heights; for refusing to sign a peace treaty with Israel; for refusing to end its relationship with Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement and with Iran; and for refusing to be part of the attack on Iraq in 2003.
In short, imperialism is sanctioning the Syrian government and increasing pressure on it not for the bad things it has done, but for the good things.
Imperialism is a thoroughly reactionary and oppressive system. When the imperialists come to “help,” it is to help themselves. Imperialist intervention is always meant to benefit the imperialists, whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of workers.
Just look at what NATO’s “help” for the people of Libya has meant: The destruction of the civilian infrastructure and economy; cancer-causing radioactive residue from depleted uranium weapons; and using Libya to get its predatory Africom military command on African soil.
A U.S. and NATO intervention in Syria would be the worst thing for all the oppressed people in the Middle East and must be vehemently opposed. A win for imperialism abroad emboldens the capitalists in their attacks on workers at home.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Despite U.S./NATO Bombing of Libya, Imperialist War Stalls
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jul 17, 2011 6:55 AM
After four months of heavy bombing, the U.S./NATO forces have failed to dislodge the Libyan government in Tripoli. The Western-backed Transitional National Council contra forces remain confined to select areas in the east and west of the oil-producing country of 6.5 million people.
There is no concrete evidence that the TNC and its imperialist backers are on the verge of taking the war to the capital, despite their constant claims. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tripoli continue to publicly demonstrate their opposition to the U.S./NATO war. The Libyan military continues to strike the rebels in areas around the port city of Misrata and in the Nafusa Mountains near the border with Tunisia.
With the escalation of the fighting in Misrata, which is being used as a transport area for rebel forces and Western humanitarian organizations, the conditions among the civilian population have worsened over the last several weeks.
In efforts to help the TNC gain a stronger presence in western Libya, NATO warplanes have escalated their anti-people bombing campaign. On July 9, NATO forces struck Libyan army units stationed outside Misrata. Nonetheless, the Associated Press admitted on July 9: “The civil war has fallen into a stalemate with rebels unable to make significant advances, even with NATO bombing Gadhafi’s forces to enforce a U.N. resolution protecting civilians.”
Actually, the war has never been geared toward protecting civilians. The actions of the rebel TNC and their U.S./NATO supporters have created dire conditions for the population in Libya and those who have fled the country by land and sea.
NATO, TNC cause humanitarian crisis
The beginning of the civil war in Libya on Feb. 17 prompted the worst humanitarian crisis in North Africa in modern times. Immediately the Benghazi-based rebel gangs set out to attack those perceived as supporters and allies of the central government in Tripoli. Dark-skinned Libyans and migrant workers from neighboring African states were harassed, beaten and even murdered.
Videos and photographs of these executions have been circulated broadly over the Internet. They remind some of the lynchings racist mobs carried out in the southern U.S. against African Americans during the late-19th and early-to mid-20th centuries.
The vast oil reserves in Libya, reputed to be the largest on the African continent, allowed the country to achieve the highest standard of living and per capita income in the region. Anywhere between 1.5 million to 2 million migrant workers were employed on oil, construction and service projects throughout the country.
The TNC and NATO attacks forced hundreds of thousands of these migrant workers to flee Libya. The International Organization for Migration, which monitors the dislocation of migrant workers as well as Libyan nationals, reports that 150,000 people have already left the country.
IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy said some 2,000 Chadian workers were left without transport in the southern Libyan town of Sebha: “They are really very vulnerable migrants — children, women and the elderly — very weak and sick,” too weak to continue traveling. Another 300,000 migrants who want to leave cannot due to the crisis caused by the U.S./NATO war. (AP, July 9)
A July 10 New York Times article exposed the political character of the TNC forces. When the TNC overran the village of Qawalish, many of the residents evacuated the area.
The Times noted that the shops were still well stocked with fresh fruits, vegetable and bread. However, almost immediately, “The [TNC] rebels began helping themselves to the fuel in Qawalish’s only gas station. ... A short while later rebels were shooting padlocks off the metal doors to shops, and beginning to sweep through them.” The article noted, “The town, in short, was being looted by the rebels, and vandalized, and worse.”
This report exposed the imperialist lie that the TNC army has mass support. After the NATO bombing of these villages and towns, the TNC forces move in to take nominal control. Yet the majority of the population flees in fear of the violence perpetuated in other areas of the country.
This is true even in the Nafusa Mountains where the Western corporate media have claimed that widespread support exists for the NATO bombing and the TNC. The village of El Harabah “still flies the green flag of the Gadhafi government,” the Times reported.
France calls for talks
On July 11 French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet called upon the TNC rebels to negotiate a settlement with the Libyan government. He emphasized that talks would be the only mechanism to end foreign intervention in the North African state.
At the same time Saif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, announced that the government in Tripoli is currently in negotiations with Paris. In an interview, the Libyan official said that Libya’s government “was negotiating with France and not with the rebels. Our mediator met with President Nicolas Sarkozy. (El Khaber, July 11)
After four months of bombings and a naval blockade of Libya, the NATO forces have begun to have serious internal disagreements over the war. Norway announced several weeks ago that it would halt its operations by August. Italy, the former colonial power, called for a ceasefire during early July.
A July 5 article in the Philadelphia Tribune reported, “In the Netherlands, Defense Minister Hans Hillen complained last week of ‘mission creep’ and suggested that the campaign’s advocates were deluded to believe they could crush Gadhafi. ‘People who thought that merely by throwing some bombs it would not only help the people, but also convince Gadhafi that he could step down or alter his policy were a little bit naive.’”
Inside the U.S. Congress both the Republicans and Democrats, although expressing reservations about the war, have continued to support its funding. This comes at the same time that a proposed defense budget would provide another $17 billion in funding for the Pentagon.
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Jul 17, 2011 6:55 AM
After four months of heavy bombing, the U.S./NATO forces have failed to dislodge the Libyan government in Tripoli. The Western-backed Transitional National Council contra forces remain confined to select areas in the east and west of the oil-producing country of 6.5 million people.
There is no concrete evidence that the TNC and its imperialist backers are on the verge of taking the war to the capital, despite their constant claims. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tripoli continue to publicly demonstrate their opposition to the U.S./NATO war. The Libyan military continues to strike the rebels in areas around the port city of Misrata and in the Nafusa Mountains near the border with Tunisia.
With the escalation of the fighting in Misrata, which is being used as a transport area for rebel forces and Western humanitarian organizations, the conditions among the civilian population have worsened over the last several weeks.
In efforts to help the TNC gain a stronger presence in western Libya, NATO warplanes have escalated their anti-people bombing campaign. On July 9, NATO forces struck Libyan army units stationed outside Misrata. Nonetheless, the Associated Press admitted on July 9: “The civil war has fallen into a stalemate with rebels unable to make significant advances, even with NATO bombing Gadhafi’s forces to enforce a U.N. resolution protecting civilians.”
Actually, the war has never been geared toward protecting civilians. The actions of the rebel TNC and their U.S./NATO supporters have created dire conditions for the population in Libya and those who have fled the country by land and sea.
NATO, TNC cause humanitarian crisis
The beginning of the civil war in Libya on Feb. 17 prompted the worst humanitarian crisis in North Africa in modern times. Immediately the Benghazi-based rebel gangs set out to attack those perceived as supporters and allies of the central government in Tripoli. Dark-skinned Libyans and migrant workers from neighboring African states were harassed, beaten and even murdered.
Videos and photographs of these executions have been circulated broadly over the Internet. They remind some of the lynchings racist mobs carried out in the southern U.S. against African Americans during the late-19th and early-to mid-20th centuries.
The vast oil reserves in Libya, reputed to be the largest on the African continent, allowed the country to achieve the highest standard of living and per capita income in the region. Anywhere between 1.5 million to 2 million migrant workers were employed on oil, construction and service projects throughout the country.
The TNC and NATO attacks forced hundreds of thousands of these migrant workers to flee Libya. The International Organization for Migration, which monitors the dislocation of migrant workers as well as Libyan nationals, reports that 150,000 people have already left the country.
IOM spokesperson Jean-Philippe Chauzy said some 2,000 Chadian workers were left without transport in the southern Libyan town of Sebha: “They are really very vulnerable migrants — children, women and the elderly — very weak and sick,” too weak to continue traveling. Another 300,000 migrants who want to leave cannot due to the crisis caused by the U.S./NATO war. (AP, July 9)
A July 10 New York Times article exposed the political character of the TNC forces. When the TNC overran the village of Qawalish, many of the residents evacuated the area.
The Times noted that the shops were still well stocked with fresh fruits, vegetable and bread. However, almost immediately, “The [TNC] rebels began helping themselves to the fuel in Qawalish’s only gas station. ... A short while later rebels were shooting padlocks off the metal doors to shops, and beginning to sweep through them.” The article noted, “The town, in short, was being looted by the rebels, and vandalized, and worse.”
This report exposed the imperialist lie that the TNC army has mass support. After the NATO bombing of these villages and towns, the TNC forces move in to take nominal control. Yet the majority of the population flees in fear of the violence perpetuated in other areas of the country.
This is true even in the Nafusa Mountains where the Western corporate media have claimed that widespread support exists for the NATO bombing and the TNC. The village of El Harabah “still flies the green flag of the Gadhafi government,” the Times reported.
France calls for talks
On July 11 French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet called upon the TNC rebels to negotiate a settlement with the Libyan government. He emphasized that talks would be the only mechanism to end foreign intervention in the North African state.
At the same time Saif al-Islam, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, announced that the government in Tripoli is currently in negotiations with Paris. In an interview, the Libyan official said that Libya’s government “was negotiating with France and not with the rebels. Our mediator met with President Nicolas Sarkozy. (El Khaber, July 11)
After four months of bombings and a naval blockade of Libya, the NATO forces have begun to have serious internal disagreements over the war. Norway announced several weeks ago that it would halt its operations by August. Italy, the former colonial power, called for a ceasefire during early July.
A July 5 article in the Philadelphia Tribune reported, “In the Netherlands, Defense Minister Hans Hillen complained last week of ‘mission creep’ and suggested that the campaign’s advocates were deluded to believe they could crush Gadhafi. ‘People who thought that merely by throwing some bombs it would not only help the people, but also convince Gadhafi that he could step down or alter his policy were a little bit naive.’”
Inside the U.S. Congress both the Republicans and Democrats, although expressing reservations about the war, have continued to support its funding. This comes at the same time that a proposed defense budget would provide another $17 billion in funding for the Pentagon.
Teresa Gutierrez: Cuba Crafts Economic Changes
By Teresa Gutierrez
Published Jul 17, 2011 7:22 AM
This July 26 marks 58 years since the attack on the Moncada Garrison in Santiago de Cuba by heroic Cuban revolutionaries.
The 1953 military assault against the U.S.-supported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista failed. Many of the combatants were killed and leaders of the action, including Fidel Castro, were jailed.
But that failed struggle for Cuba’s independence led just a short six years later to the successful ouster of the brutal Batista regime and, with it, the end of imperialist domination over Cuba. The revolutionary government within two years began dismantling capitalist ownership and replacing the profit-driven economy with socialist construction.
History was made just 90 miles from the shores of U.S. imperialism.
The Cuban Revolution born in 1959 forever changed the course of world history. Workers and oppressed people worldwide, no matter their ideological formation, saw Cuba as having achieved an unwavering victory against imperialism.
Cuba was and remains a shining beacon of hope for all those who seek their own emancipation.
Since then, the Cuban people and its leaders have remained undaunted in building socialism, guided by the exceptional teachings of not only Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin, but also of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, a winning combination.
Easier said than done
But it has been a most difficult road.
How could it not be when U.S. imperialism has been hell-bent on sabotaging the Revolution? From the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 to the longest economic and political blockade in history to countless mercenary attacks, the U.S. government has been relentless in its war against Cuba.
To add to Cuba’s difficulties, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 ushered in one of the most difficult periods in its history. For example, shortages of the most basic necessities occurred, and there was real hunger. It was indeed a bleak chapter of the Revolution.
It is important to note, however, that if any capitalist government were to lose 85 percent of its trade almost overnight, as Cuba did, it would have seen riots and subsequent government repression in the streets.
But not in Cuba. Instead, the people and the government pulled together to survive the Special Period, as it was called. It imposed conditions of war during peace, but Cuba survived.
Today marks yet another turning point for Cuba and the beginning of an adjustment toward building socialism.
Throughout the globe, workers and oppressed people are experiencing some of the most difficult times they have ever faced. They confront a worldwide economic crisis they did not create but one that the banks and corporations are forcing them to pay for.
Cuba is not immune to this worldwide economic crisis.
How can Cuba build socialism under these conditions? It is almost impossible.
A bump in the road
A few months ago, the capitalist press here ran several articles declaring that the Cuban government had announced it would cut hundreds of thousands of state jobs. This sounded so much like the dire news in the U.S. and elsewhere about the massive layoffs, furloughs and government shutdowns sweeping the country.
How could socialist Cuba, a government built on workers’ control rather than profit, lay off workers?
This evoked the decades-old problem of viewing Cuba through U.S. eyes. Nothing in the U.S. can compare to Cuba. No inequality, no economic problem that people face in both countries can be equated.
Before the announcement was made that Cuban workers would be “redirected,” a months-long process of deliberation and consultation was held in Cuba. Discussions and analysis were carried out in every single social and government venue.
Yes, indeed, Cuba was experiencing another bump in its long road to building socialism. It had to adjust its economic model of socialist construction in light of the worldwide economic crisis.
But it was a bump that once again included the workers of the nation in the most incredible way and led to discussions guided by the defense of socialism.
Based on much analysis and thought, the Cuban government issued “Draft Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution” last Nov. 9. Discussions about this document took place throughout the island from Dec. 1 to Feb. 28 of this year. An incredible number of 8,913,838 Cubans — out of a population of a little over 11 million — participated in these discussions in more than 163,000 meetings.
Three million people offered contributions to the document.
This mass, incredibly deep process culminated in the Sixth Party Congress of the Cuban Communist Party in Havana from April 16 through 19. The congress brought together 1,000 delegates representing almost 800,000 party members from more than 61,000 party cells.
The congress opened with a massive, youthful demonstration commemorating the defeat of imperialism in 1961, when U.S.-trained and -armed mercenaries invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Video footage of the march indicates not just a tremendous display of the liberated masses, but a united and disciplined show of Cuban youth in unison with the government.
Along with all Cubans, the youth are tireless in their fight to free the Cuban Five heroes, who sit in U.S. jails today despite their innocence.
As anyone who has traveled to Cuba can report, Cubans often say, “The people and the government are one.” That is exactly what was seen on April 16 in the streets of Havana.
Nonetheless, it is a difficult time in Cuba. As Cubans have also said, “We are not the hell our enemies decry, but we are not the paradise our friends declare either.”
In 2009, Cuba experienced $10 billion in losses and damage caused by three devastating hurricanes. As reported in Granma newspaper, “In just 72 days, approximately 20 percent of Cuba’s GDP was lost.”
Falling prices for Cuban exports like nickel have also had a dire effect. In 2009 nickel sold for $21,000 per ton. That dropped to $11,700 the following year.
Tourism is a staple of the Cuban economy. Even though the island received 2.9 percent more visitors in 2010, income from tourism declined because of the deteriorating exchange rate. As Raul Castro said, “In short, more tourists but less income.”
But above all the U.S. economic and political blockade of Cuba, the oldest in the world, is the number one cause of havoc in the economy. Estimates are that 50 years of the blockade have cost Cuba a whopping $751 billion.
This is an act of imperialist war and must be considered a crime against humanity.
Currently, in year 53 of the Revolution, the Cuban Communist Party — in consultation with government bodies, workers’ unions and mass organizations — has concluded that in order to deal with the times, it must carry out major changes in order to become more efficient.
As Cuban economists and leaders point out, “No one can indefinitely spend more than they earn; two plus two always equals four, never five.”
This is why the restructuring of the state apparatus and reduction in expenditure and staff are beginning. The big question is, who will create the wealth that people need? Raul Castro said eloquently, “Sometimes one has the sensation that we are eating socialism before building it, and aspiring to spend as though we were in communism.”
In order to assure its free education and health care and see that every Cuban who wants a job has one, Cuba’s leaders say they must make adjustments to the current socialist economic model.
Cuban government leaders and workers alike are assessing and revamping policies with the view identified by the Cuban leadership that there has been an “irresponsible attitude of consuming without anybody, or very few people, worrying about how much it costs the country to guarantee that, and above all, if it can really do so.”
A policy under scrutiny, for example, is the ration book. Ration books, which have been provided to everyone, ensure that all Cubans can purchase basic foods at very low, subsidized prices. After analysis, it has become clear that this was leading to waste and inefficiency. How to phase out ration books while guaranteeing that no one goes hungry in Cuba is now under discussion. The Cuban Constitution says that the means of subsistence, health care and shelter are guaranteed as human rights.
But Raúl Castro wrote in Granma recently: “Many of us Cubans confuse socialism with ... subsidies and equality with egalitarianism. Quite a few of us consider the ration card to be a social achievement that should never be gotten rid of. In this regard, I am convinced that several of the problems we are facing today have their origin in this distribution mechanism.”
Despite Washington’s wishes and distortions, however, no market economy has been introduced in Cuba. The problems of distribution will be dealt with by strengthening socialism.
Based on the record of its leadership, coupled with its mass participatory democracy, a market economy will never be introduced in Cuba. Cubans have traveled to countries in the region like Haiti and Mexico, and they see what capitalism brings. The masses are overwhelmingly clear on the options: Defend and maintain the Revolution or return to the days of capitalist exploitation.
In an August 2009 speech Raúl Castro stated, “They did not elect me president to restore capitalism in Cuba or to surrender the Revolution. I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism, not to destroy it.”
Strengthening socialism, defending the gains of the Revolution and building on them are all part of the revolutionary process unfolding in Cuba today.
Revolutionaries and progressives around the world have the utmost confidence in the Cuban Communist Party, the workers of Cuba and their leadership. The Cuban Revolution will prevail.
Cuba is making its own road to socialism, but its Marxist foundation, coupled with the legacy of the great revolutionary, Fidel Castro, is extraordinary.
What those in capitalist countries need to do is build and widen the anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist struggle. It is the defeat of imperialism that will absolutely guarantee Cuba’s success.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Friday, March 11, 2011
Rebellions continue across North Africa, Arabia
By John Catalinotto
Published Mar 9, 2011 3:33 PM
With the corporate media’s attention concentrated on Libya, its oil reserves and the real danger of U.S. and NATO’s military intervention, one could almost forget that enormous popular revolts are percolating throughout North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Tunisia was the first country whose 10 million people forced out an entrenched, imperialist-backed dictatorship last Jan. 14. This first revolutionary wave drove out Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his corrupt family.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who had been in office since 1998, remained to head the government. The mass movement, which had been demanding Ghannouchi’s resignation, ebbed by the beginning of February.
Since that time a second wave of revolutionary upsurge has erupted. According to reports by Alma Allende in Tunis, some 100,000 people seized the Qasbah square once more on Feb. 25-26. This time the occupation was impeccably organized, with the UGTT union federation, political parties and other popular organizations playing a big role.
On Feb. 27, Ghannouchi resigned. The next day two more ministers that were holdovers from the Ben Ali regime, those of Industry and Finance, also resigned. Later, four more ministers connected with the old regime also decided to step down.
The following weekend, the new government promised a Constituent Assembly — after a delay of four and a half months — and elections next July. With the lukewarm acceptance of these proposals, the second occupation of the Qasbah ended.
Egypt with its 85 million people stunned the world when mass uprisings forced the 30-year, U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak to resign and flee to the resort town of Sharm-el-Sheik. A council of top officers from the Egyptian armed forces took over the government and has been issuing communiqués aimed at “restoring order.” That does not necessarily mean that all these commands are being obeyed.
Demonstrations continued and on Feb. 25-26 there were reports that the gathering in Tahrir Square, located in the center of Cairo and the national focus of the Feb. 11 revolt, was as large as any that had taken place earlier.
On March 4 and 5, the target of demonstrators shifted to the offices of the hated State Security Services, with thousands storming their headquarters buildings in Cairo and Alexandria. Those in the anti-Mubarak opposition said the demonstrators seized the files from these buildings in order to prevent the police authorities from destroying them and covering up their crimes.
Washington saw the Mubarak regime as a key ally and a linchpin to its strategy for controlling the region and defending its own and Israeli interests.
In Egypt and Tunisia, the strategy of the imperialists and the ruling circles to prevent the revolutionary upsurge from sweeping them aside seems to follow the saying made popular in the best-selling Italian historical novel, “The Leopard,” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The novel describes events in Sicily during Italy’s movement for unification in the 1860s. “If we want things to stay as they are,” says a young member of the aristocracy, “things will have to change.”
In some other countries in the region, the rulers have no intention of being replaced, nor do the imperialists appear to have viable alternatives.
In Bahrain, demonstrators have been in the streets for more than three weeks demanding an end to the reign of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Their first attempt to occupy Pearl Square in central Manama was shattered when security forces opened fire on the sleeping demonstrators, killing seven. Manama is the capital of the once oil-rich nation of 1.2 million people, more than half of them foreign workers, living on an island 34 miles long and 11 miles wide, 92 percent of which is desert.
Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Up to now not only has the Pentagon supplied all of Bahrain’s arms, but the U.S. State Department has stood behind the brutal monarch. This strategically important oil and banking center is reachable from Saudi Arabia over a 20-mile causeway and is only 150 miles from the Iranian coast across the gulf. Tanks were driven across the causeway from Saudi Arabia to reinforce the Bahraini king’s weapons to repress the demonstrators.
Massive demonstrations took place on Feb. 25 in Pearl Square, some estimated the numbers at 200,000. Demonstrators blockaded parliament on Feb. 28, stopping a meeting of the upper house, whose members are all appointed by the king. (Xinhua, Feb. 28)
On March 4-5 thousands of demonstrators moved from Pearl Square to surround the Al-Kudaibiya Palace, where every Sunday the regime meets. The security forces took up positions there. “The people demand the end of the regime,” was the cry of the crowd. (AFP, March 5)
Yemen, at the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is impoverished and oil-poor compared with Bahrain, and has a population of 23.5 million, nearly as many as in the bordering and enormously larger Saudi Arabia. The opposition has called for ever greater protests so that President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has already said he would not run for re-election in 2013, would be forced to resign now.
Some 30,000 marched on March 4 in downtown Sana’a, the capital, according to the Wall Street Journal (March 5), demanding the resignation of President Saleh. Eyewitnesses told the Journal that another march in a town 100 miles from the capital, raising the same demands, was fired on with rockets by an army unit, with eight people killed.
There is great resistance to making even cosmetic concessions to the mass movement, not only from the rulers of Yemen and Bahrain, but also from those in Saudi Arabia. The royal family there has already banned any manifestation whatsoever of opposition forces.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Published Mar 9, 2011 3:33 PM
With the corporate media’s attention concentrated on Libya, its oil reserves and the real danger of U.S. and NATO’s military intervention, one could almost forget that enormous popular revolts are percolating throughout North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.
Tunisia was the first country whose 10 million people forced out an entrenched, imperialist-backed dictatorship last Jan. 14. This first revolutionary wave drove out Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and his corrupt family.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, who had been in office since 1998, remained to head the government. The mass movement, which had been demanding Ghannouchi’s resignation, ebbed by the beginning of February.
Since that time a second wave of revolutionary upsurge has erupted. According to reports by Alma Allende in Tunis, some 100,000 people seized the Qasbah square once more on Feb. 25-26. This time the occupation was impeccably organized, with the UGTT union federation, political parties and other popular organizations playing a big role.
On Feb. 27, Ghannouchi resigned. The next day two more ministers that were holdovers from the Ben Ali regime, those of Industry and Finance, also resigned. Later, four more ministers connected with the old regime also decided to step down.
The following weekend, the new government promised a Constituent Assembly — after a delay of four and a half months — and elections next July. With the lukewarm acceptance of these proposals, the second occupation of the Qasbah ended.
Egypt with its 85 million people stunned the world when mass uprisings forced the 30-year, U.S.-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak to resign and flee to the resort town of Sharm-el-Sheik. A council of top officers from the Egyptian armed forces took over the government and has been issuing communiqués aimed at “restoring order.” That does not necessarily mean that all these commands are being obeyed.
Demonstrations continued and on Feb. 25-26 there were reports that the gathering in Tahrir Square, located in the center of Cairo and the national focus of the Feb. 11 revolt, was as large as any that had taken place earlier.
On March 4 and 5, the target of demonstrators shifted to the offices of the hated State Security Services, with thousands storming their headquarters buildings in Cairo and Alexandria. Those in the anti-Mubarak opposition said the demonstrators seized the files from these buildings in order to prevent the police authorities from destroying them and covering up their crimes.
Washington saw the Mubarak regime as a key ally and a linchpin to its strategy for controlling the region and defending its own and Israeli interests.
In Egypt and Tunisia, the strategy of the imperialists and the ruling circles to prevent the revolutionary upsurge from sweeping them aside seems to follow the saying made popular in the best-selling Italian historical novel, “The Leopard,” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. The novel describes events in Sicily during Italy’s movement for unification in the 1860s. “If we want things to stay as they are,” says a young member of the aristocracy, “things will have to change.”
In some other countries in the region, the rulers have no intention of being replaced, nor do the imperialists appear to have viable alternatives.
In Bahrain, demonstrators have been in the streets for more than three weeks demanding an end to the reign of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. Their first attempt to occupy Pearl Square in central Manama was shattered when security forces opened fire on the sleeping demonstrators, killing seven. Manama is the capital of the once oil-rich nation of 1.2 million people, more than half of them foreign workers, living on an island 34 miles long and 11 miles wide, 92 percent of which is desert.
Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Up to now not only has the Pentagon supplied all of Bahrain’s arms, but the U.S. State Department has stood behind the brutal monarch. This strategically important oil and banking center is reachable from Saudi Arabia over a 20-mile causeway and is only 150 miles from the Iranian coast across the gulf. Tanks were driven across the causeway from Saudi Arabia to reinforce the Bahraini king’s weapons to repress the demonstrators.
Massive demonstrations took place on Feb. 25 in Pearl Square, some estimated the numbers at 200,000. Demonstrators blockaded parliament on Feb. 28, stopping a meeting of the upper house, whose members are all appointed by the king. (Xinhua, Feb. 28)
On March 4-5 thousands of demonstrators moved from Pearl Square to surround the Al-Kudaibiya Palace, where every Sunday the regime meets. The security forces took up positions there. “The people demand the end of the regime,” was the cry of the crowd. (AFP, March 5)
Yemen, at the southeast corner of the Arabian Peninsula, is impoverished and oil-poor compared with Bahrain, and has a population of 23.5 million, nearly as many as in the bordering and enormously larger Saudi Arabia. The opposition has called for ever greater protests so that President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who has already said he would not run for re-election in 2013, would be forced to resign now.
Some 30,000 marched on March 4 in downtown Sana’a, the capital, according to the Wall Street Journal (March 5), demanding the resignation of President Saleh. Eyewitnesses told the Journal that another march in a town 100 miles from the capital, raising the same demands, was fired on with rockets by an army unit, with eight people killed.
There is great resistance to making even cosmetic concessions to the mass movement, not only from the rulers of Yemen and Bahrain, but also from those in Saudi Arabia. The royal family there has already banned any manifestation whatsoever of opposition forces.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Libya Repels U.S. Attack as U.S. Seeks 'Regime Change'
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Mar 9, 2011 3:53 PM
As of March 7, Libyan military forces have stepped up their counteroffensive against rebel units backed by the U.S. and European Union countries. Government soldiers have retaken the town of Bin Jawad and are mounting assaults on rebels near the oil port of Ras Lanuf as well as Az Zawiyah, Tobruk and Misurata.
Meanwhile, Western and allied media sources have escalated their disinformation campaign against Moammar Gadhafi and the Libyan government in an effort to create the conditions for the overthrow of this oil-rich, North African state.
Gadhafi and the Libyan government are portrayed as the worst form of dictatorship in the world. Leading foreign policy operatives of the U.S. government like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice have openly called for Gadhafi’s removal.
The biased news coverage of developments in Libya has created the atmosphere for widespread vilification of Gadhafi and his government.
ICC threatens Libya from Europe
On March 3 the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, announced that Gadhafi, his sons and other leading figures in the Libyan government are under investigation for alleged war crimes. This institution has been dubbed by many people around the world as the “African Criminal Court,” since it has focused almost exclusively on leaders within the continent.
The ICC has issued warrants against Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for alleged crimes committed during that government’s efforts to restore order in the face of attacks by rebels operating in the western Darfur region of this central African state. The warrants against Bashir have been drawn up over the objections of both the African Union and the Arab League.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the international press on March 3, “I would like to use this opportunity to put [Libya] on notice. I want to be clear: If their troops commit crimes, they could be made criminally responsible.” (CNN, March 3)
Moreno-Ocampo acknowledged to questions, “This is the beginning of the investigation. I can give no details. We cannot confirm these allegations that these civilians were bombed by planes.”
Libya’s human rights standing
The United Nations Human Rights Council based in Geneva has suspended Libya from participating in its activities and the country’s representative to Geneva has defected. Prior to the new round of attacks against this North African state, however, this same council had prepared a report praising Libya’s record on human rights. (Reuters, March 3)
In relationship to the status of women in Libya, the report said: “The delegation indicated that women were highly regarded in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and their rights were guaranteed by all laws and legislation. Discriminatory laws had been revoked.” (Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, Human Rights Council, Jan. 4)
The report goes on to note that “Libyan women occupied prominent positions in the public sector, the judicial system, the public prosecutor’s office, the police and the military. Libyan legislation also guaranteed children their rights, and provided for special care for children with special needs, the elderly and persons with disabilities.”
Venezuelan proposal rejected by imperialists
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has submitted a proposal to mediate the current conflict inside Libya by establishing a negotiating team to be dispatched to the country and the region. This effort was outright rejected by the imperialist states of the U.S. and France.
Venezuela and Libya, two large-scale, oil-producing states, have good diplomatic and economic relations. When Libya was chair of the African Union in 2009 and president of the United Nations General Assembly, Gadhafi led a delegation of African representatives to Venezuela to participate in a high-level meeting with Latin American states.
The Arab League said that it was interested in the Venezuelan peace proposal. However, the U.S. and France apparently felt that such an effort would lend too much credibility to both Venezuela and the Arab League.
The African Union, a 53-member organization of independent African states, has issued two statements on the situation in Libya, which have largely been ignored by the U.S., the U.N. and the international corporate-oriented media.
The AU Peace and Security Council supported “the aspirations of the people of Libya for democracy, political reform, justice and socio-economic development” but stressed “the need to preserve the territorial integrity and unity of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.”
The biased reporting of the corporate media and the threats leveled by the International Criminal Court, the United States, NATO and the European Union indicate clearly that the Western governments are seeking to institute regime change in this North African country.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Mar 9, 2011 3:53 PM
As of March 7, Libyan military forces have stepped up their counteroffensive against rebel units backed by the U.S. and European Union countries. Government soldiers have retaken the town of Bin Jawad and are mounting assaults on rebels near the oil port of Ras Lanuf as well as Az Zawiyah, Tobruk and Misurata.
Meanwhile, Western and allied media sources have escalated their disinformation campaign against Moammar Gadhafi and the Libyan government in an effort to create the conditions for the overthrow of this oil-rich, North African state.
Gadhafi and the Libyan government are portrayed as the worst form of dictatorship in the world. Leading foreign policy operatives of the U.S. government like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice have openly called for Gadhafi’s removal.
The biased news coverage of developments in Libya has created the atmosphere for widespread vilification of Gadhafi and his government.
ICC threatens Libya from Europe
On March 3 the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, announced that Gadhafi, his sons and other leading figures in the Libyan government are under investigation for alleged war crimes. This institution has been dubbed by many people around the world as the “African Criminal Court,” since it has focused almost exclusively on leaders within the continent.
The ICC has issued warrants against Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for alleged crimes committed during that government’s efforts to restore order in the face of attacks by rebels operating in the western Darfur region of this central African state. The warrants against Bashir have been drawn up over the objections of both the African Union and the Arab League.
ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo told the international press on March 3, “I would like to use this opportunity to put [Libya] on notice. I want to be clear: If their troops commit crimes, they could be made criminally responsible.” (CNN, March 3)
Moreno-Ocampo acknowledged to questions, “This is the beginning of the investigation. I can give no details. We cannot confirm these allegations that these civilians were bombed by planes.”
Libya’s human rights standing
The United Nations Human Rights Council based in Geneva has suspended Libya from participating in its activities and the country’s representative to Geneva has defected. Prior to the new round of attacks against this North African state, however, this same council had prepared a report praising Libya’s record on human rights. (Reuters, March 3)
In relationship to the status of women in Libya, the report said: “The delegation indicated that women were highly regarded in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and their rights were guaranteed by all laws and legislation. Discriminatory laws had been revoked.” (Report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review, Human Rights Council, Jan. 4)
The report goes on to note that “Libyan women occupied prominent positions in the public sector, the judicial system, the public prosecutor’s office, the police and the military. Libyan legislation also guaranteed children their rights, and provided for special care for children with special needs, the elderly and persons with disabilities.”
Venezuelan proposal rejected by imperialists
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has submitted a proposal to mediate the current conflict inside Libya by establishing a negotiating team to be dispatched to the country and the region. This effort was outright rejected by the imperialist states of the U.S. and France.
Venezuela and Libya, two large-scale, oil-producing states, have good diplomatic and economic relations. When Libya was chair of the African Union in 2009 and president of the United Nations General Assembly, Gadhafi led a delegation of African representatives to Venezuela to participate in a high-level meeting with Latin American states.
The Arab League said that it was interested in the Venezuelan peace proposal. However, the U.S. and France apparently felt that such an effort would lend too much credibility to both Venezuela and the Arab League.
The African Union, a 53-member organization of independent African states, has issued two statements on the situation in Libya, which have largely been ignored by the U.S., the U.N. and the international corporate-oriented media.
The AU Peace and Security Council supported “the aspirations of the people of Libya for democracy, political reform, justice and socio-economic development” but stressed “the need to preserve the territorial integrity and unity of the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.”
The biased reporting of the corporate media and the threats leveled by the International Criminal Court, the United States, NATO and the European Union indicate clearly that the Western governments are seeking to institute regime change in this North African country.
Articles copyright 1995-2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Monday, December 20, 2010
Wiki-Leaks Reveals U.S. Role in Africa
By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Dec 18, 2010 11:15 AM
WikiLeaks release of U.S. State Department diplomatic cables continues to expose Washington’s Africa policy for its imperialistic designs. Various African states, those viewed as enemies and others considered allies, all face successive U.S. administrations’ efforts for economic control and political destabilization.
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson’s briefing on Dec. 9 outlined the Obama administration’s priorities on the continent. Carson played down the damages from WikiLeaks’ exposures and attempted to shift the discussion to other issues such as the recent disputed elections in Ivory Coast.
Carson said, “The United States government is very much focused and engaged in a wide array of issues across the African continent and WikiLeaks has not distracted U.S. officials in any way from their overall goal of building a strong U.S.- Africa partnership.” (America.gov, Dec. 10)
Throughout Africa, however, people inside and outside of various governments have expressed outrage at U.S. efforts to undermine the independence and sovereignty of various states. These cables reveal that U.S. decisions led to displacement and deaths for millions of Africans.
U.S. targets Somalia and Zimbabwe
For more than three decades U.S. imperialism has given special focus to the Horn of Africa. A major effort has taken place since the early 1990s in the nation of Somalia where the U.S. has intervened militarily both directly from 1992 to 1994 and indirectly in recent years since 2006.
According to the Sudan Tribune, the U.S.-backed government in Ethiopia was compelled to intervene in Somalia in 2006 to carry out Washington’s foreign policy aims in the region. The intervention resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis on the African continent, leaving tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million people displaced.
A series of leaked cables indicate that there was a secret agreement between the U.S. and the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi. The Ethiopian army would cross into Somalia to stop the Islamic Courts Union from consolidating power.
The ICU movement had brought a much-desired sense of social stability to a country which had been without an internationally recognized state since 1991. The ICU was an independent alliance of community organizations that sought to reconstruct Somalia based on the interests of the people and not Western imperialist forces.
The Dec. 6 Sudan Tribune wrote, “Ethiopia had no intention to invade and said the U.S. was behind the plot and it was sponsored by the United States government.” The report noted that Washington was “already tied up in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was in no position to openly launch large-scale attacks against Somalia and had to sponsor a country like Ethiopia.”
This same report wrote that the Bush administration’s “U.S. head for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer spearheaded the proxy war along with allies in the State Department and the Pentagon.”
Another major concern of the U.S. has been the growing involvement by the People’s Republic of China on the African continent. Relations have been particularly strong between the PRC and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, the ruling party in this southern African state.
Washington treats Zimbabwe as an enemy, since 2000 targeting President Robert Mugabe’s government for regime-change, following its implementation of a land redistribution program that empowered the Indigenous African masses.
A Dec. 12 Zimbabwe Herald article analyzing the WikiLeaks documents reported: “The West tried various strategies, including a desperate attempt to ask China to influence the reform of Zimbabwe’s security sector, in a futile attempt to effect regime-change. After most of their strategies dating back to the year 2000 such as civil unrest, the possibility of a coup and sanctions failed, the United States and Germany resolved to work towards a reform of the security services.”
Big Oil and U.S. policy toward Nigeria
WikiLeaks’ most striking revelations arguably relate to U.S. interference in the internal affairs of the oil-rich west African state of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. A leading newspaper in Nigeria, ThisDay, reported Dec. 8 that the U.S. State Department, in conjunction with Shell Oil, planted operatives within the government to influence domestic and foreign policy.
According to ThisDay, “Shell’s top executive in Nigeria told U.S. diplomats that Shell had inserted employees to every relevant department and so knew ‘everything that was being done in those ministries.’ She also reportedly boasted that the government had ‘forgotten’ about the extent of Shell’s infiltration and were unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.”
In addition, ThisDay continues: “The cache of secret dispatches from Washington’s embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo-Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the U.S., in one case providing U.S. diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the U.S. on whether the militants had acquired anti-aircraft missiles.”
Also in Nigeria, a potentially criminal case against the Pfizer pharmaceutical company was sabotaged when the firm hired operatives to foster allegations of corruption against Nigeria’s attorney general. Pfizer had come under fire for the 1996 “test” of tainted antibiotics used to treat meningitis in children. The test resulted in the deaths of patients and the sickening of others who suffered brain damage, paralysis, deafness and blindness. (New York Times, Dec. 10)
The New York Times reported: “The cable indicated that the information alleging corruption on the part of the attorney general was spread through the media to publicly pressure him to drop the lawsuits.” Nigerian Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa dismissed the $6 billion lawsuit and eventually settled the case for $75 million.
The Nigerian Vanguard newspaper reported on Dec. 11 that Pfizer reached the settlement for a mere $75 million for the damage done through the tainted medicines, which resulted in the deaths of 11 children and deformities in dozens of others. The so-called clinical trials in 1996 were said to have involved 200 patients who were given the drug Trovan.
Trovan had been approved for usage in adults only in 1997 in Europe and the United States. In the aftermath of reports of liver failure and deaths resulting from Trovan usage, however, it was then banned in Europe and restricted in the U.S. in 1999.
Egypt and Sudan unity
Washington is also hostile toward another oil-rich African state, Sudan, whose government has maintained an independent foreign policy. The U.S. and the International Criminal Court have subjected Sudan to allegations of war crimes and genocide.
The Khartoum central government headed by the National Congress Party of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed several years ago a Comprehensive Political Agreement with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which is based in the south of Africa’s largest geographic nation-state. The CPA resulted in the cessation of hostilities.
The southern region has set a referendum in 2011 on its future. This could result in breaking up Sudan and a resumption of the civil war involving the SPLM and Khartoum. The U.S. is pushing to hold the referendum on schedule and has sent a delegation to the south of Sudan headed by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a leading adviser to President Obama on foreign affairs.
Nonetheless, a close U.S. ally, Egypt, has told Washington of its fears over the potential division of Sudan. Documents published by WikiLeaks reveal that “Egypt had even asked the U.S. government to help postpone next month’s referendum by four to six years.” (Kenyan Daily Monitor Correspondent, Dec. 7)
Leaked cables highlight need for anti-imperialist demands
The exposed cables make it clear that the Democratic Party and the Obama administration have not changed Washington’s imperialist policy toward Africa. The anti-war and peace movements in the U.S. need to incorporate anti-interventionist and anti-imperialist demands with specific reference to the African continent into their political programs.
At a July 23-25 national conference hosted by the United National Anti-War Committee in Albany, a strong resolution was adopted calling for an end to U.S. military intervention in Africa and upholding the right of self-determination and sovereignty for the African continent. The resolution was jointly sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the International Action Center, the Virginia Defenders for Freedom Justice and Equality and among other progressive organizations.
This resolution can serve as a guide to the anti-war movement as a whole, which must address concretely U.S. imperialist policy toward the African continent. These efforts on the part of the anti-war movement in the U.S. can assist greatly in strengthening international solidarity throughout the world.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Published Dec 18, 2010 11:15 AM
WikiLeaks release of U.S. State Department diplomatic cables continues to expose Washington’s Africa policy for its imperialistic designs. Various African states, those viewed as enemies and others considered allies, all face successive U.S. administrations’ efforts for economic control and political destabilization.
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson’s briefing on Dec. 9 outlined the Obama administration’s priorities on the continent. Carson played down the damages from WikiLeaks’ exposures and attempted to shift the discussion to other issues such as the recent disputed elections in Ivory Coast.
Carson said, “The United States government is very much focused and engaged in a wide array of issues across the African continent and WikiLeaks has not distracted U.S. officials in any way from their overall goal of building a strong U.S.- Africa partnership.” (America.gov, Dec. 10)
Throughout Africa, however, people inside and outside of various governments have expressed outrage at U.S. efforts to undermine the independence and sovereignty of various states. These cables reveal that U.S. decisions led to displacement and deaths for millions of Africans.
U.S. targets Somalia and Zimbabwe
For more than three decades U.S. imperialism has given special focus to the Horn of Africa. A major effort has taken place since the early 1990s in the nation of Somalia where the U.S. has intervened militarily both directly from 1992 to 1994 and indirectly in recent years since 2006.
According to the Sudan Tribune, the U.S.-backed government in Ethiopia was compelled to intervene in Somalia in 2006 to carry out Washington’s foreign policy aims in the region. The intervention resulted in the worst humanitarian crisis on the African continent, leaving tens of thousands dead and more than 2 million people displaced.
A series of leaked cables indicate that there was a secret agreement between the U.S. and the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi. The Ethiopian army would cross into Somalia to stop the Islamic Courts Union from consolidating power.
The ICU movement had brought a much-desired sense of social stability to a country which had been without an internationally recognized state since 1991. The ICU was an independent alliance of community organizations that sought to reconstruct Somalia based on the interests of the people and not Western imperialist forces.
The Dec. 6 Sudan Tribune wrote, “Ethiopia had no intention to invade and said the U.S. was behind the plot and it was sponsored by the United States government.” The report noted that Washington was “already tied up in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was in no position to openly launch large-scale attacks against Somalia and had to sponsor a country like Ethiopia.”
This same report wrote that the Bush administration’s “U.S. head for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer spearheaded the proxy war along with allies in the State Department and the Pentagon.”
Another major concern of the U.S. has been the growing involvement by the People’s Republic of China on the African continent. Relations have been particularly strong between the PRC and the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, the ruling party in this southern African state.
Washington treats Zimbabwe as an enemy, since 2000 targeting President Robert Mugabe’s government for regime-change, following its implementation of a land redistribution program that empowered the Indigenous African masses.
A Dec. 12 Zimbabwe Herald article analyzing the WikiLeaks documents reported: “The West tried various strategies, including a desperate attempt to ask China to influence the reform of Zimbabwe’s security sector, in a futile attempt to effect regime-change. After most of their strategies dating back to the year 2000 such as civil unrest, the possibility of a coup and sanctions failed, the United States and Germany resolved to work towards a reform of the security services.”
Big Oil and U.S. policy toward Nigeria
WikiLeaks’ most striking revelations arguably relate to U.S. interference in the internal affairs of the oil-rich west African state of Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation. A leading newspaper in Nigeria, ThisDay, reported Dec. 8 that the U.S. State Department, in conjunction with Shell Oil, planted operatives within the government to influence domestic and foreign policy.
According to ThisDay, “Shell’s top executive in Nigeria told U.S. diplomats that Shell had inserted employees to every relevant department and so knew ‘everything that was being done in those ministries.’ She also reportedly boasted that the government had ‘forgotten’ about the extent of Shell’s infiltration and were unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.”
In addition, ThisDay continues: “The cache of secret dispatches from Washington’s embassies in Africa also revealed that the Anglo-Dutch oil firm swapped intelligence with the U.S., in one case providing U.S. diplomats with the names of Nigerian politicians it suspected of supporting militant activity, and requesting information from the U.S. on whether the militants had acquired anti-aircraft missiles.”
Also in Nigeria, a potentially criminal case against the Pfizer pharmaceutical company was sabotaged when the firm hired operatives to foster allegations of corruption against Nigeria’s attorney general. Pfizer had come under fire for the 1996 “test” of tainted antibiotics used to treat meningitis in children. The test resulted in the deaths of patients and the sickening of others who suffered brain damage, paralysis, deafness and blindness. (New York Times, Dec. 10)
The New York Times reported: “The cable indicated that the information alleging corruption on the part of the attorney general was spread through the media to publicly pressure him to drop the lawsuits.” Nigerian Attorney General Michael Aondoakaa dismissed the $6 billion lawsuit and eventually settled the case for $75 million.
The Nigerian Vanguard newspaper reported on Dec. 11 that Pfizer reached the settlement for a mere $75 million for the damage done through the tainted medicines, which resulted in the deaths of 11 children and deformities in dozens of others. The so-called clinical trials in 1996 were said to have involved 200 patients who were given the drug Trovan.
Trovan had been approved for usage in adults only in 1997 in Europe and the United States. In the aftermath of reports of liver failure and deaths resulting from Trovan usage, however, it was then banned in Europe and restricted in the U.S. in 1999.
Egypt and Sudan unity
Washington is also hostile toward another oil-rich African state, Sudan, whose government has maintained an independent foreign policy. The U.S. and the International Criminal Court have subjected Sudan to allegations of war crimes and genocide.
The Khartoum central government headed by the National Congress Party of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir signed several years ago a Comprehensive Political Agreement with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which is based in the south of Africa’s largest geographic nation-state. The CPA resulted in the cessation of hostilities.
The southern region has set a referendum in 2011 on its future. This could result in breaking up Sudan and a resumption of the civil war involving the SPLM and Khartoum. The U.S. is pushing to hold the referendum on schedule and has sent a delegation to the south of Sudan headed by the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a leading adviser to President Obama on foreign affairs.
Nonetheless, a close U.S. ally, Egypt, has told Washington of its fears over the potential division of Sudan. Documents published by WikiLeaks reveal that “Egypt had even asked the U.S. government to help postpone next month’s referendum by four to six years.” (Kenyan Daily Monitor Correspondent, Dec. 7)
Leaked cables highlight need for anti-imperialist demands
The exposed cables make it clear that the Democratic Party and the Obama administration have not changed Washington’s imperialist policy toward Africa. The anti-war and peace movements in the U.S. need to incorporate anti-interventionist and anti-imperialist demands with specific reference to the African continent into their political programs.
At a July 23-25 national conference hosted by the United National Anti-War Committee in Albany, a strong resolution was adopted calling for an end to U.S. military intervention in Africa and upholding the right of self-determination and sovereignty for the African continent. The resolution was jointly sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the International Action Center, the Virginia Defenders for Freedom Justice and Equality and among other progressive organizations.
This resolution can serve as a guide to the anti-war movement as a whole, which must address concretely U.S. imperialist policy toward the African continent. These efforts on the part of the anti-war movement in the U.S. can assist greatly in strengthening international solidarity throughout the world.
Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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