Attack on Libya aims to reassert Western dominance

By David

The Western powers now bombing Libyan are protecting their easy access to Libyan, Saudi and Gulf oil and their overall control of the Arab World, which they have dominated since Britain and France carved up the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire after World War One (1914-18).

The rise of Arab Nationalism after World War Two threatened Western control, but with the help of Israel (formed by Jewish settlers in what had been Palestine in 1948), the US was able to reassert Western control.

Now the structure of imperial domination has taken a huge hit from the uprisings, particularly the fall of Mubarak in Egypt. The US and its allies know they must do something to ensure that whatever new order emerges it will still be under their control.

That easy bit, for them, is backing the Saudi / Kuwaiti / UAE invasion of Bahrain, to ensure the revolution is crushed there and does not spread. The kings of Saudi Arabia and of the smaller Gulf states have been important US allies for decades, providing cheap oil, military bases and political support within the Arab world. For any of these regimens to fall to democracy would be a huge set back for the US.

The hard decision was deciding what to do in Libya. When he first came to power 1969 Gaddafi was inspired by the Arab nationalism and Chinese Maoism. But the nationalists had already been defeated by Israel in the Six Day War of 1967, after which it occupied Gaza and the West Bank, as well as large parts of Syria and Egypt.

Like Syria, Libya remained independent from the US, but anti-imperialist and socialist rhetoric masked brutal dictatorships. Over the last ten years Gaddafi has made his peace with the West, but he is not dependent on them, and therefore not a reliable ally.

Waging war, nominally in support of, and at the request of, the rebels is a golden opportunity for the West to relegitimise military attacks in the Middle East after the disasters of Afghanistan and Iraq. It also offers the possibility of a new government dependant on Western support controlling either part or all of Libya and its oil. Most importantly, it allows the West to assert some control in this vital part of the world.

Chris Hedges: 'US Wars to Continue Until its Economy Busts'

The postwar war in Iraq

Eric Ruder explains what we should – and shouldn’t – expect from the “end of combat operations” in Iraq proclaimed by the Obama administration.

from Socialist Worker US

“WE WON. It’s over, America. We brought democracy to Iraq.” Those were the words of a soldier from the 4th Stryker Brigade, supposedly among the last U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq, two weeks ahead of President Barack Obama's August 31 deadline for withdrawal.

This is a watershed moment for Iraq. But not because the U.S. occupation is over or any of the other reasons put forward by the mainstream media.

Taking action outside Fort Hood

Cindy Beringer reports from Texas on an antiwar action outside Fort Hood.
from Socialist Worker US

Protesters organized by Iraq Veterans Against War march outside Fort Hood in July 

(photo Madeleine Dubus)

 
WHEN THE buses carrying the first group of soldiers of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment (ACR) stealthily approached the gates of Fort Hood in Texas, the protesters waiting outside had already won a victory.

Members of the regiment have seen some of the worst fighting of the war in Iraq over the course of multiple deployments. At least 50 soldiers have physical and mental diagnoses that should prohibit their return to military duty, and many others probably have not sought treatment. And yet, the buses were there in order to deploy these soldiers again.

A protest campaign against the 3rd ACR's redeployment had already brought unwelcome attention to the military's lack of concern for its soldiers.

On August 22, activists and supporters were at it again. They gathered at Fort Hood in Killeen to be a part of a direct action against the redeployment of the first group of soldiers.

Robert Fisk: Israel has crept into the EU without anyone noticing

By Robert Fisk
from the Independant
Saturday, 31 July 2010

The death of five Israeli servicemen in a helicopter crash in Romania this week [July 26] raised scarcely a headline.

There was a Nato-Israeli exercise in progress. Well, that’s OK then. Now imagine the death of five Hamas fighters in a helicopter crash in Romania this week. We’d still be investigating this extraordinary phenomenon. Now mark you, I’m not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).

NZ soldier killed, ‘Better ties’ with US ‘on cards’

By David

The first New Zealand soldier has been killed in Afghanistan.  

Labour leader Phil Goff (chief champion of this war), is reported to have said it was “not a day for politics”, which simply reflects the fact that on this, as with so many other issues, he has no political differences with the current government.

Green Party Defence Spokesman Keith Locke, once a prominent campaigner against New Zealand participation in this war, now claims to be “proud of the good peacekeeping and reconstruction work that our Provincial Reconstruction Team has done in Bamian Province, and we mourn the loss of one of its members.”

It’s an unfortunate time for Locke and the Greens to jump on the pro-war bandwagon. As UNITYblog posts over the last week have shown, support for the war is collapsing everywhere else. Over the last nine years the anti-war movement has been consistently correct in our predictions about what the results of this war would be.

Thousands of Afghanis have been killed, maimed and made homeless. And what for? They are not “liberated”, but subject to foreign occupation, corrupt central government and local war lords who are just as brutal and intolerant as the old Taliban. Many see the resistance grouped around the “new Taliban” as their only hope regaining national independence.

Osama Bin Laden (remember him?) has never been “bought to justice”, the US are no longer looking for him. Meanwhile, like Bin Laden, the war has crossed over in to Pakistan, killing hundreds and causing tens of thousands to flee their homes.

In the West the war has fed that cancerous growth of Islamophobic racism. Such racism goes hand-in-hand with imperialist war, based as it is on the assumption of the superior value of the life and culture of the “advanced” nations.

The right of the US (along with UK, Australia, New Zealand and the rest of the “coalition of the willing”) to invade other countries and rearrange them to the satisfaction of the corporate lobbyists at the State Department, bestowing the free market and puppet “democracy” is taken for granted.

Murdering 3000 people in the US on September 11, 2001 was a “crime against humanity”, but murdering many, many more people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere is merely “collateral damage” and hardly worth worrying about.

The death of one soldier (occupying someone elses country) is treated as a “national tragedy”, but how many Afghans have been killed by New Zealand troops in nine years of war?

Of course the role of the NZDF in Afghanistan is not primarily killing Afghans, it’s providing support and cover for those who do. Under the guise of a “UN mandate” and “Provincial Reconstruction”, “our leaders” have deployed their forces to lend credibility to US imperialism, in return for closer trade and military ties to the US, (and a boost for Helen Clark’s career at the UN).

In this, the combined effort of Labour and National (oh, and the soldiers too), appears to be paying off. “Better ties with NZ on US cards”, according to a report on Stuff today, “including a step-up in military training and exercises between the two countries.”

MORE LINKS

Also worth checking out is this post from Socialist Aotearoa, which links to articles by Gordon Campbell and Afghan women’s rights activist Malalai Joya.

And statements from Peace Action Wellington, And Global Peace & Justice Auckland.

Is capitalism on the path to collapse? – Video from Wellington public meeting

Grant Morgan, author of UNITYblog's current Feature Essay, has just completed a short speaking tour. 

His talks in Christchurch and Wellington drew on, and developed, his 20,000 word essay on why global capitalism is tipping towards collapse, and how we can act for a decent future.

He argues that for the first time in capitalism’s 500-year history, a perfect storm is beginning to engulf the world system.

The main elements are system-level crises of profitability, ecology, resources, imperialism and legitimacy. Their concentration and intensification look set to trigger world system collapse within a historically short time period.

Humanity will face a life-and-death struggle as we confront economic chaos, global warming, resource scarcity and imperial breakdown.

Can we survive the chaos, conflict and carnage of looming collapse? Can Earth’s citizens collectively built a decent future in the face of elite counteractions? Yes, says Grant.

He resurrects Marx’s analysis of social change to explain the growing intersection of system-level crises which will collapse global capitalism as surely as previous civilisations were brought down by their own perfect storms.

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production,” said Marx. “Then begins an era of social revolution.”

An era of social revolution will be triggered by the perfect storm appearing over capitalism’s horizon as it collapses the economic, ecological and imperial foundations of the world system. The need to unite or die will call forth a Global Uniting of the mass of humanity which ushers in a society of solidarity.

Watch video footage of the Wellington talk below (apologies for the background hum in the audio track)

The new ‘forgotten’ war

Dahr Jamail, author of The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, looks at how the U.S. war on Iraq continues to decimate the country.

US Socialist Worker

 

A family of Iraqi refugees in Damascus (James Gordon)

The Western world that slaughtered Iraq and Iraqis, through 13 years of sanctions and seven years of occupation, is now turning its back on the victims. What has remained of Iraq is still being devastated by bombings, assassinations, corruption, millions of evictions and continued infrastructure destruction. Yet the world that caused all this is trying to draw a rosy picture of the situation in Iraq. -- Maki Al-Nazzal, Iraqi political analyst

AS AFGHANISTAN has taken center stage in the U.S. corporate media, with President Barack Obama announcing two major escalations of the war in recent months, the U.S. occupation of Iraq has fallen into the media shadows.

Afghanistan: war without end

British soldier punished for speaking truth By Mark Steel Politicians and newspapers love to revere a war hero from Afghanistan. It’s strange, then, that they haven’t got round to Lance-Corporal Joe Glenton, the British soldier who has been arrested for addressing an anti-war protest in October. His crime was to conclude that the war was making matters worse, it was immoral to carry on fighting and to say this publicly. So they put him in a military jail, presumably to stop him doing it again. 

As a soldier, this must leave you in a state of confusion, as I doubt whether the initial briefing includes a section that goes: “Now then, men, during your tour of duty with the British Army, I implore you to remain vigilant and wary at all times of the wily foes known as the British Army.” 


Full article


More recent articles on Afghanistan and the 'war without end' • Anti-war soldier Joe Glenton’s charges dropped • Afghan war kills three kids a day • Bribe plan for the Taliban • Blackwater is operating in Pakistan • Guantanamo: Murder, lies and a cover-up • Blair: No regrets and I’d bomb Iran

Waihopai Ploughshares ‘Domebusters’ go on trial, 8 March

At 6am on the morning of 30 April 2008, three members of a Christian Ploughshares team entered the Waihopai spy base and used sickles to deflate one of the two 30 metre domes covering satellite interception dishes. They then built a shrine and prayed for the victims of the war with no end – the so-called ‘war on terror’ led by the United States government which also controls the NZ taxpayer funded Waihopai base.

The trial of the Waihopai Ploughshares team has been set to begin in Wellington on 8 March 2010. More information about Waihopai Ploughshares is available at http://ploughshares.org.nz and http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/plshares.htm. ABC (Anti-Bases Campaign) hold protests at Waihopai most years. This year’s was the weekend before last. It generated more than the usual amount of publicity, because in that weekend’s Sunday Star Times was a story by researcher Nicky Harger – who first uncovered the spy base’s role in the US-run Echelon network – giving evidence about what the bases actually spy on. The collection of this evidence, by local residents and a consultant was made possible because of the bursting of the dome that covers one of the two spy dishes by the Ploughshares activists two years ago. According to Hager:

The Kiwi spy base was pointed at various times at regions occupied by Japanese, Chinese and Russian satellites. On one day in 2009 the target was one of two Asian telecommunications satellites, one Japanese and one Vietnamese, according to the surveyor's measurements.

You can read the full story here. Also well worth listening to is this ten minute interview with ABC organisaer Murray Horton on Christchurch’s Plains FM.

Dozen socialist groups in SE Asia & Oceania issue solidarity statement with the people of Haiti

On 13 January 2010, a 7.3 Richter scale earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The earthquake caused great destruction and 200,000 people are thought to be dead. Further, 3 million Haitians have been rendered homeless by the quake, which also damaged many public service buildings, such as hospitals and schools. The quake has caused Haitians, who have struggled under decades of poverty and imperialist intervention and exploitation, even deeper suffering. Approximately 75% of Haitians earned less than US$2 per day and 56% of Haitians – around 4.5 million people – earned less than US$1 per day. Most Haitians live in houses made of adobe and mud. Haiti is the poorest nation in the western hemisphere. The poverty is caused by the imperialism and neo-liberalism that has been oppressing the nation for centuries. The Haitian people has continuously struggled against this oppression. The 400,000 African slaves on the colonialists’ sugar and coffee plantations were among the first to fight against slavery and, in the early 19th century, won their struggle: Haiti became the first independent Afro populated nation previously colonized by France. However, the newly independent nation was forced to pay 150 millions Francs in “damages” to its former colonial master, France. For decades, the Haitian people suffered under and struggled against US-puppet dictatorships and regimes. In 2004, after eventually winning democratic presidential elections, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown in a US-backed coup and then ostracized by the US administration. Neo-liberal policies were enforced on the population: education and health services were privatized and import tariffs on rice were severely cut to pay Haiti’s foreign debt. Under the pretext of helping Haiti to recover from the earthquake, the US is now trying to retake power in Haiti and redesign the political and economic situation to suit international capital. This is not the first time the US has done this: New Orleans, smashed by Hurricane Katrina, and Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand, devastated by the great tsunami in 2004, have faced a similar situation to Haiti. Natural disasters are used to legitimize “aid” that has neo-liberal requirements attached, such as privatization and the selling of public assets. The US has sent 3000 fully armed troops to Haiti. Soon, it will increase that number to around 15,000 troops. This intervention is based on the declaration of an Emergency Situation, which was forced on Haiti by the US when Hillary Clinton visited Haiti on 16 January 2010. Very quickly afterwards, the US took control of the airport: it is now deciding what goes in and out of Haiti. US troops are not mobilized for the sake of humanity. Instead the US military’s mission is to preserve the reactionary social order for US corporations and to protect the wealthy few. This is evident by the failure to use US warships to take care the injured people. The increase in US troops in Haiti is closely related to the US’ economic and political interest in Latin America as a whole, where it is attempting to strengthen its power and is developing military bases. We note the bilateral agreement between the US and Colombia, which gives the US wide access to Colombia’s military bases and increases US forces stationed in Colombia, as the latest example of this. The next stage of the US’ post-disaster program in Haiti is redesigning the country’s economy. This is indicated by the IMF’s announcement of a US$100 million loan to Haiti that requires the implementation of more neo-liberal programs, including increasing electricity tariffs, freezing state workers’ wages and reducing inflation. That loan will greatly increase the burden on Haiti, which already has a debt of US$165 million. Based on this, we, the undersigned, extend our solidarity to the people of Haiti, including humanitarian aid and support for the Haitian people’s struggle for freedom from imperialist exploitation. Furthermore, we demand:

• The immediate and unconditional cancellation of Haiti’s debt.

• That government in our country give substantial, untied and unconditional humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti.

• That the humanitarian aid will support and be used to reconstruct Haiti in a way that will empower the people of Haiti to establish democracy and genuine independence for their nation.

• We condemn the United States government’s exploitation of the disaster to advance the US’s economic and political interests by making disaster as a relief industry.

• We are calling all democratic and progressive organizations around the world to unite to build true solidarity with the people of Haiti. This includes helping to end the Haitian people’s oppression by the imperialist states, and full support for the restoration of freedom and sovereignty for the people of Haiti.

SIGNATORIES Committee for a Workers International (Malaysia) Confederation Congress of Indonesia Union Alliance Partido Lakas ng Masa (Philippines) Partido ng Mangganggawa (Philippines) Peoples Democratic Party (Indonesia) Socialist Party of Malaysia Socialist Alliance (Australia) Socialist Alternative (Australia) Socialist Party (Australia) Socialist Worker (New Zealand) Solidarity (Australia) Working Peoples Association (Indonesia)

Securing disaster in Haiti

By Peter Hallward January 21, 2010 Source: Haiti Analysis Nine days after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010, it’s now clear that the initial phase of the US-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island’s recent history.[1] It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti’s own leaders and government, and ignored the needs of the majority of its people. And it has proceeded in ways that reinforce the already harrowing gap between rich and poor. All three tendencies aren’t just connected, they are mutually reinforcing. These same tendencies will continue to govern the imminent reconstruction effort as well, unless determined political action is taken to counteract them.

Keep reading

Haiti, a very brief history

By David
Here’s the briefest summary of Haiti’s inspiring and tragic history I can manage. For more details, check out the links in the previous posts. Inspired by the French Revolution’s proclamation of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” black slaves in the French colony of Haiti rose up and fought for their freedom. The British tried to take advantage of the chaos, and invaded with 90,000 troops, the former slaves defeated them. Napoleon – who had conqured Europe – tried to re-impose slavery, his army was beaten too. And in 1804 Haiti was free. Haitian freedom fighters had fought with the American revolutionaries against the British. But the USA’s slave-owning elite didn’t return the favour, instead they ganged up with the French and British to impose trade and investment embargoes. Eventually the Haitians were forced to agree to pay the French “compensation” for the “property” they had lost when the slaves freed themselves. Since then Haiti (like so many other poor countries) has been in debt to European and US banks. Haiti was invaded and occupied by the US in 1915 and 1934, and suffered under a succession of brutal, US-backed dictators. The current government is part of this pattern. During the latest coup in 2004, the elected president, the hugely popular left-winger Jean-Bertrand Aristide was kidnapped by US troops and left stranded in Africa. UN “peacekeepers” backed the new regime and shot Aristide’s protesting supporters. Although the current government won elections, they were neither free nor fair. Not only was Aristide in exile, but his party – which still has the support of most Haitians – was banned from standing. Now there are fears that the government and its US bakers will exploit the tragedy to impose a “disaster capitalism” programme of free market reforms and political repression.

What’s happening in Haiti?

One of best sources of on-the-ground interviews and reports I’ve seen are coming from US internet radio and TV network Democracy Now, which has several reporters in Haiti.

Speaking to Democracy Now, Dr Evan Lyon – currently working at the Port-au-Prince General Hospital – contradicts mainstream media reports that violence from Hatian people themselves is holding up the relief effort:

One thing that I think is really important for people to understand is that misinformation and rumors and, I think at the bottom of the issue, racism has slowed the recovery efforts of this hospital... And there are no security issues... And there’s also no violence. There is no insecurity.

Also from Democracy Now, reporter Sharif Abdel Kouddous, describes why why some Haitians are getting angry at the way they are being treated by US and UN military and some aid agencies:

Yesterday, when we were in Léogâne, we were—we came to an area where a helicopter from a Mormon charity had landed. It was on the ground, and there was Haitians all around, young and old, waiting for food to be handed out. This helicopter took off, off the ground, and began throwing the food down at the Haitians. It did not distribute it when it was on the ground. They threw the food from the air. These were packets of bread that they were throwing.

It ignited just fury and indignation on the ground by the people there. They began screaming. One man started crying. He said, “We are a proud people. We are not dogs for you to throw bones at.”

It was a scene that I will never forget. And it really illustrates the problem with aid distribution here and the relief efforts here, that they are—they are not seen as people. As Haitians keep saying, they say, “This can happen to anybody. How would you like to be treated in this way?”

Writing in UK Times, author and aid specialist Linda Polman sites similar examples and argues ‘Fear of the poor is hampering Haiti rescue’. [Hat tip to www.socialistunity.com].

British blog Lenin’s Tomb has also taken up this issue in a series of posts, here and here.

John Pilger: Breaking the great Australian silence

In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the “unique features” of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power “which speaks through an invisible government of propaganda that subdues and limits our political imagination and ensures we are always at war – against our own first people and those seeking refuge, or in someone else’s country”. Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from. I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” – a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823. Growing up in Sydney, I knew nothing about this. My mother’s eight siblings used the word “stock” a great deal. You either came from “good stock” or “bad stock”. It was unmentionable that we came from bad stock – that we had what was called “the stain”. One Christmas Day, with all of her family assembled, my mother broached the subject of our criminal origins, and one of my aunts almost swallowed her teeth. “Leave them dead and buried, Elsie!” she said. And we did – until many years later and my own research in Dublin and London led to a television film that revealed the full horror of our “bad stock”. There was outrage. “Your son,” my aunt Vera wrote to Elsie, “is no better than a damn communist”. She promised never to speak to us again. The Australian silence has unique features. Growing up, I would make illicit trips to La Perouse and stand on the sandhills and look at people who were said to have died off. I would gape at the children of my age, who were said to be dirty, and feckless. At high school, I read a text book by the celebrated historian, Russel Ward, who wrote: “We are civilized today and they are not.” “They”, of course, were the Aboriginal people. My real Australian education began at the end of the 1960s when Charlie Perkins and his mother, Hetti, took me to the Aboriginal compound at Jay Creek in the Northern Territory. We had to smash down the gate to get in. The shock at what I saw is unforgettable. The poverty. The sickness. The despair. The quiet anger. I began to recognise and understand the Australian silence.

Continue

Nobel Peace Prize winner backs convicted kidnappers

by Grant Morgan An Italian court yesterday convicted 23 US CIA and military personnel of the 2003 kidnapping of a Muslim cleric in Milan and sending him to Egypt to be imprisoned, tortured and, years later, released without charge. You can read a BBC report on the trial at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8343123.stm (or see previous post) This is the first time any court in the world has convicted US state agents for their illegal kidnappings, detentions and torture under the “war on terror” begun by George Bush. And what was the reaction of the latest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Barack Obama? A spokesperson for the Obama administration declared, “We are disappointed by the verdicts,” saying an appeal is likely. If the mass media were at all even-handed in their reporting, here’s how they would headline the Obama administration’s reaction:

Obama ‘disappointed’ at kidnappers being brought to justice

Of course, expecting fairness in the media is about as realistic as expecting any other reaction from Obama than the one we got. The US imperial war machine obeys its own laws, which require it to break the ordinary laws against kidnapping, torture and worse which govern mere mortals like us. And Obama obeys the US imperial war machine. But we all knew that, didn’t we?

CIA agents guilty of Italy kidnap

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8343123.stm BBC News 4 November 2009 An Italian judge has convicted 23 Americans – all but one of them CIA agents – and two Italian secret agents for the 2003 kidnap of a Muslim cleric. The agents were accused of abducting Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar, from Milan and sending him to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured. The trial, which began in June 2007, is the first involving the CIA’s so-called “extraordinary rendition” programme. The Obama administration has expressed its disappointment at the convictions. “We are disappointed by the verdicts,” state department spokesman Ian Kelly said in Washington. He declined to comment further pending a written opinion from the judge, but said an appeal was likely. Three Americans and five Italians were acquitted by the court in Milan. Symbolic ruling The Americans were all tried in their absence as they have not been extradited from the US to Italy. The CIA’s Milan station chief at the time, Robert Lady, was given an eight-year term, while the other 22 Americans convicted - one of them a US air force colonel – were sentenced to five years in prison. Lawyers for the 23 Americans said they would appeal against their convictions. The two Italian agents, who were convicted as accomplices to kidnapping, were given three-year prison terms. The court also ruled that those convicted must pay 1m euros ($1.5m) in damages to Abu Omar and 500,000 euros to his wife. CIA spokesman George Little in Washington declined to comment on the convictions, telling the Associated Press news agency: “The CIA has not commented on any of the allegations surrounding Abu Omar.” Secrecy laws Italian prosecutors said Abu Omar was taken as part of a series of extraordinary renditions carried out by the CIA – when terror suspects were moved between countries without any public legal process. They told the court he had been kidnapped in daylight on a Milan street in February 2003 and flown to Germany, and then Cairo, where he was held for years until being released without charge. Judge Oscar Magi acquitted the CIA chief for Rome, Jeffrey Castelli, saying he was protected by state secrecy rules, as were the former head of Italy’s military intelligence agency, Nicolo Pollari, and his deputy, Marco Mancini. Mr Pollari, who resigned over the affair, told the court earlier this year that documents showing he had no involvement in the kidnapping were classified under secrecy laws. Prosecutor Armando Spataro rejected the argument that legal provisions could shield those accused from prosecution, saying any agreement to carry out a kidnapping was “absolutely against Italian law”. He had sought a 13-year jail term for Mr Castelli and Mr Pollari and 12 years for Robert Lady. Activist group Human Rights Watch welcomed the verdict, saying it sent “a strong signal of the crimes committed by the CIA in Europe”. Spokeswoman Joanne Mariner said: “For us, this first case puts the war on terror on trial.”

US ratchets up pressure on Russia amidst shifting imperial relativities

by Grant Morgan 27 October 2009 During October 2009, Washington suddenly ratcheted up its pressure on Russia. We are starting to see a slide back to a Cold War chill between the world’s two big nuclear powers. Acting on orders from US president Barack Obama, his vice-president Joe Biden toured Eastern Europe where he called for revolutions against authoritarian rule in Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Biden specifically named these six countries, which all happen to border Russia. Revolutions against authoritarian rule is, of course, code for pro-US revolutions. Likewise, Biden’s talk about spheres of influence being an outdated 19th century concept is code for Washington’s drive to undermine Moscow’s influence over bordering countries in order to defend US global influence. The US private intelligence agency Stratfor has analysed Washington’s renewed pressure on Moscow and its likely downstream implications. See the essay “Russia, Iran and the Biden Speech” on the Stratfor webpage. Washington’s renewed sabre rattling against Moscow grows out of the relative decline of American imperial power in the face of the economic, political and military rise of China, which is allying with Russia. The 20th century’s two World Wars grew out of Great Power moves to redivide an already divided world at a time of shifting imperial relativities. Now we are beginning to experience something similar with the upturn in Washington’s belligerence towards Moscow as a consequence of America’s relative decline, especially in relation to China. This frightening scenario contains the germs of new wars, possibly on a global scale and including nuclear exchanges. The shifting imperial relativities of the early 21st century both spring from and intersect with the quartet of contradictions driving late capitalism towards global collapse. The profitability crisis, the ecological crisis, the resource crisis and the legitimacy crisis are accelerating and coalescing worldwide. While the existential impacts of this quartet of contradictions may be slowed by intelligent government actions, they cannot be halted. Indeed, they are more likely to be hastened by stupid government actions flowing from the imperatives of competitive profiteering and imperial rivalries. The world is entering very dangerous times as social collapse contradictions become interwoven with shifting imperial relativities. Nearly a century ago, the Marxist Rosa Luxemburg predicted our future in her famous phrase “Socialism or Barbarism”. Given today’s perils of climate warming, nuclear warfare and resource depletion, we possibly need to upgrade her warning to “Socialism or Extinction”. Some of the feedback I get from good people runs along these lines: “We hate and fear what’s happening in the world. But socialism as a global force appears to be dead. There doesn’t seem to be any believable alternative to capitalism.” While I understand these sentiments, I don’t share them. Why? Because the intensification of social contradictions and imperial tensions mean that global capitalism is on a slide towards collapse and revolution. The real question arising within a historically short time period will be: “Capitalism is dying, so what will replace it?” During that interregnum the world will experience turbulent conflicts between opposing social forces. A new global order that’s better, not worse, than capitalism will grow from struggles for practical gains that strengthen the grassroots and weaken the elites. This is the living terrain of a powerful socialist rebirth. This is a process already underway in every country. This is where hope can realistically be found. If you liked this story, forward it to your friends. Feel free to contact the author at grantmorgan@paradise.net.nz Full address of the Stratfor article: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20091026_russia_iran_and_biden_speech?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=091026&utm_content=readmore

Keep SAS out of Afghanistan

SAS combat troops “look set to return to Afghanistan” according to an NZPA article, that reports on Prime Minister John Key’s response to a request for more troops for the war from the US. The PM says he is “somewhat sympathetic” to the request.
 The mistaken belief that the people from Afghanistan had something to do with the September 11 attacks, or that the aim of the war was to capture Osama Bin Laden, has meant the war in Afghanistan has always had more support in this country, and more importantly in the US, than the war in Iraq. The previous Labour Government was able to exploit this, using troop commitments in Afghanistan to cosy up to the US. National will no doubt continue this policy. 
As the NZPA the article reminds us, there are already “About 140 army, navy and air force personnel are involved in New Zealand’s provincial reconstruction team (PRT) operating in Bamiyan province. The team has been there since 2003 and is committed until September 2010 so far.” And as Peace Movement Aotearoa (who forwarded the the NZPA report) points out:

SAS troops previously deployed to Afghanistan have been integrated with other Special Forces in the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force under US military command. Along with US Special Forces, “six foreign nations including New Zealand and Australia, also assigned some of their best ‘hunters and killers’ to the group” which is headquartered near Bagram air base. Clearly not deployments that could be regarded as peacekeeping by any stretch of the imagination ...


It will be even easier for National to continue New Zealand’s involvement, now that Obama is working to promote Afghanistan as the “good war” in contrast to the mess in Iraq. But the truth is the occupation of Afghanistan has no more justification and is no more successful than the occupation of Iraq. In both cases the US and it’s allies, including NZ, are slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people, while strengthening the “extremeists” they claim to be trying to stop. As Malalai Joya, a women’s rights actavist elected to the Afghan parliament in 2005, recently stated:

Almost eight years after the Taliban regime was toppled, our hopes for a truly democratic and independent Afghanistan have been betrayed by the continued domination of fundamentalists and by a brutal occupation that ultimately serves only American strategic interests in the region.

It is long past time for New Zealand to end it’s support for the war crime that is the occupation of Afghanistan by withdrawing all troops. As Joya argued in another recent interview, with Australia’s Green Left Weekly (GLW):

“But what’s going on today is like civil war. People are squashed today between two enemies: an internal and an external enemy ... “That’s why its better if the foreign troops leave as soon as possible. People are saying: we don’t expect anything good from you, just stop your wrongdoing. “Bombs falling from the sky are killing our people. On the ground, the Northern Alliance and Taliban are killing our people. From both sides our people are the victims — especially women and children.” She cited a May 4 US air-strike in her native Farah province. “The mainstream media wants to throw dust in the eyes of the world. Over 150 people were killed. I spoke to a young woman who lost 20 members of her own family. “This was a massacre. I was banned from giving a press conference. But the US government and media said only 20 were killed. “Our people hate warlords, don’t support Karzai and his puppet government of war criminals and drug lords who now want to negotiate with the Taliban. Our people hate the Taliban. “If the troops withdraw, then it is easier fight with one enemy. Now we are fighting with two enemies: occupation forces and these criminals.

A village elder from Granai, Afghanistan, points to the grave where his sister and her children are buried. Over 150 people were killed when the village was bombed by the US Air Force on May 4. Photo by Guy Smallman.

For more details about the massacre on the May 4 bombing of Granai village in Farah province, see the interview with Photojournalist Guy Smallman “the only Western reporter to visit the village” in Britain’s Socialist Worker newspaper. For an overview of what’s happening in Afghanistan today, take a look at ‘The Afghan war — unjust and unwinnable’ in the latest Green Left Weekly. Also of interest Reactions to US President Barak Obama’s recent speech “to the Muslim World”, from Noam Chomsky and Robert Fisk.

Towards the integration of the Dollar and the Euro?

by Michel Chossudovsky from Global Research 20 July 2009 With a view to restoring financial stability, World leaders have called upon the Group of 20 countries (G-20) to instigate a new global currency based on the IMF's Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). The media has presented the global currency initiative as a consensus building process, in which BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) would participate in the revamping of the international monetary system.

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