A Long-War Strategy For The Left

William T. Hathaway

As the viciousness of capitalism engulfs ever more of us, our yearnings for change are approaching desperation. The system's current leader, Barack Obama, has shown us that the only change we can believe in is what we ourselves create.

To do that, we need to know what is possible in our times and what isn't. The bitter probability is that none of us will see a society in which we'd actually want to live. Even the youngest of us will most likely have to endure an increasingly unpleasant form of capitalism. Despite its recurring crises, this system is still too strong, too adaptable, and has too many supporters in all classes for it to be overthrown any time soon. We're probably not going to be the ones to create a new society.

But we can now lay the groundwork for that, first by exposing the hoax that liberal reforms will lead to basic changes. People need to see that the purpose of liberalism is to defuse discontent with promises of the future and thus prevent mass opposition from coalescing. It diverts potentially revolutionary energy into superficial dead ends. Bernie Sanders' "long game" campaign is really only a game similar to that of his reformist predecessor, Dennis Kucinich, designed to keep us in the "big tent" of the Democratic Party. Capitalism, although resilient, is willing to change only in ways that shore it up, so before anything truly different can be built, we have to bring it down.

What we are experiencing now is the long war the ruling elite is fighting to maintain its grip on the world. The current phase began with the collapse of Keynesian capitalism, which flourished from the 1950s into the '70s, when the primary consumer market was in the capitalist headquarter countries of North America and Western Europe. Corporations were able to stimulate domestic consumption and quell worker discontent there by acceding to labor's demands for better wages and conditions. That led to a 30-year bubble of improvement for unionized workers, predominantly male and white, that began to collapse in the '80s as capitalism gradually became globalized.

Then to maintain dominance Western corporations had to reduce labor costs in order to compete against emerging competition in low-wage countries such as China, India, Russia, and Brazil. Also international consumer markets became more important than the home market, but reaching them required low prices. So capitalist leaders reversed hard-won reforms, forcing paychecks and working conditions in the West down. And they tried to keep control of crucial Mideast oil resources by tightening their neo-imperialist hold on that region: overthrowing governments, installing dictators, undermining economies.

This aggression generated armed resistance: jihadist attacks against the West. Our response has been the current holy war against terror. All of this horrible suffering is just one campaign in capitalism's long war for hegemony. Any dominator system -- including capitalism, patriarchy, and religious fundamentalism -- generates violence.

Since we are all products of such systems, the path out of them will include conflict and strife. Insisting on only peaceful tactics and ruling out armed self defense against a ruling elite that has repeatedly slaughtered millions of people is naïve, actually a way of preventing basic change. The pacifist idealism so prevalent among the petty-bourgeoisie conceals their class interest: no revolution, just reform. But until capitalism and its military are collapsing, it would be suicidal to attack them directly with force.

What we can do now as radicals is weaken capitalism and build organizations that will pass our knowledge and experience on to future generations. If we do that well enough, our great grandchildren (not really so far away) can lead a revolution. If we don't do it, our descendants will remain corporate chattel.

Our generational assignment -- should we decide to accept it -- is sedition, subversion, sabotage: a program on which socialists and anarchists can work together.

Sedition -- advocating or attempting the overthrow of the government -- is illegal only if it calls for or uses violence. Our most important job -- educating and organizing people around a revolutionary program -- is legal sedition, as is much of our writing here on CounterCurrents.

For subversion we could, for example, focus on institutions and rituals that instill patriotism in young people. School spirit, scouts, competitive team sports, and pledges of allegiance all create in children an emotional bond to larger social units of school, city, and nation.

Kids are indoctrinated to feel these are extensions of their family and to respect and fear the authorities as they would their parents, more specifically their fathers, because this is a patriarchal chain being forged. It causes us even as adults to react to criticism of the country as an attack on our family. This hurts our feelings on a deep level, so we reject it, convinced it can't be true. It's too threatening to us.

This linkage is also the basis of the all-American trick of substituting personal emotion for political thought.

Breaking this emotional identification is crucial to reducing the widespread support this system still enjoys. Whatever we can do to show how ridiculous these institutions and rituals are will help undermine them.

For instance, teachers could refuse to lead the pledge of allegiance, or they could follow it with historical facts that would cause the students to question their indoctrination. When a teacher gets fired, the resulting legal battle can taint the whole sacrosanct ritual and challenge the way history is taught in the schools.

Subversive parenting means raising children who won't go along with the dominant culture and have the skills to live outside it as much as possible.

Much feminist activism is profoundly subversive. That's why it's opposed so vehemently by many women as well as men.

Spiritually, whatever undercuts the concept of God as daddy in the sky will help break down patriarchal conditioning and free us for new visions of the Divine.

Sabotage is more problematic. It calls to mind bombing and shooting, which at this point won't achieve anything worthwhile. But sabotage doesn't need to harm living creatures; systems can be obstructed in many ways, which I can't discuss more specifically because of the police state under which we currently live. They are described in my book Radical Peace (http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Peace-People-Refusing-War/dp/0979988691).

We'll be most successful by using both legal and illegal tactics but keeping the two forms separate. Illegal direct action is sometimes necessary to impair the system, impede its functioning, break it in a few places, open up points of vulnerability for coming generations to exploit. This doesn't require finely nuanced theory or total agreement on ideology, just a recognition of the overriding necessity of weakening this monster, of reducing its economic and military power. It does require secrecy, though, so it's best done individually with no one else knowing.

As groups we should do only legal resistance. Since we have to assume we are infiltrated and our communications are monitored, illegal acts must be done alone or in small cells without links to the group. Security is essential. Police may have the identity of everyone in the group, but if members are arrested and interrogated, their knowledge will be very limited. The principles of leaderless resistance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaderless_resistance) provide the most effective defense for militants.

Using these tactics, we can slow down this behemoth, curtail its expansion, make it a less effective murderer. The government will of course try to crush this resistance. But that very response can eventually seal its doom because it increases polarization and sparks more outrage. People will see the rich have not only taken away our possibility for a decent life, but now they are taking away our freedom. Then the masses revolt.

When the police and military have to attack their own people, their loyalty begins to waver. They realize they too are oppressed workers, and they start disobeying their masters. The power structure grinds down, falters, and falls. At this point the revolution can succeed, hopefully with a minimum of violence. Then the people of that generation, with the knowledge and experience we have passed on to them, can build a new society.

This is not a pleasant path of action, and those whose first priority is pleasantness are repelled by it. That's why reformism is so popular: it's an illusion that appeals to cowards. But when their backs are to the wall, which will inevitably happen, even they will fight back. And there's something glorious in that revolutionary fight even in its present stage -- much more vivid and worthwhile than the life of a lackey.

The Dark Side Of Depending On Black Gold

Michelle P.

The development of oil prices between 2014 and 2016 has seen a sharp decline from well over $100 in mid-2014 to under $30 in early 2016. While for most of us in the West, the impact of the dramatic dip in oil prices is limited to a pleasant reduction in the cost of filling up at the gas station, this article will examine the impact on countries whose entire economy depend on oil and gas as well as the consequences of this development for the citizens and residents of such countries.

While there are already developments that are occurring as a short-term reaction to the slump in oil prices there is little agreement among economists, analysts, and politicians on what that future development in the Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) may look like. Hence this article will specifically look at Qatar as an illustrative example, not because it is necessarily disproportionately affected by this issue relative to other countries, but because it is representative of a hydrocarbon-based economy, with over 90% of the country’s GDP attributed to oil & gas production and because of the country’s dependency on oil money to attain a number of goals, ranging from regional political influence to drawing global attention to itself through sports events like the FIFA World Cup 2022.

Dip in Oil Prices

The current situation is the result of a perfect storm, from the perspective of oil-producing countries: China, the world’s second largest oil consumer (after the United States), has experienced substantially slower economic growth, reducing the expected global demand for oil in the foreseeable future. The monetary response of the Chinese government to the country’s economic slowdown has been a depreciation of its currency, the yuan, making oil imports more expensive and therefore decreasing demand further. At the same time, since Iran resumed a normal relationship with the rest of the world following its nuclear arms agreement and the removal of embargoes and recommencing of trade, further increased the global supply of crude oil and gas. Adding to the situation, oil production in the United States has surged through the increased extraction of shale oil through fracking, doubling the country’s output during the last five years, surpassing Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producing country. Overall, a number of contributing factors have aligned in such a way, that the price of oil has plummeted beneath $30.

Looking Beyond Oil and Gas

Qatar is a small peninsula, spanning only 11.5 thousand km² and jutting into the Persian Gulf. More than 90% of the country’s GDP, which is the highest per capita in the world, results from the production of oil and gas. 15 billion barrels of oil lie beneath its desert sands, but that pales in comparison to the country’s natural gas reserves, which amount to 13% of the world’s total supply and the world’s largest natural gas field, the North Dome, lying at its northern shores.

In recent years, Qatar has made substantial investments in order to diversify its economy and reduce the country’s dependence on hydrocarbons. The citizens and residents of the country also benefited from an expansive social welfare system and a range of subsidies which covered amenities such as electricity and water, health insurance, education as well as extremely generous financial provisions for its citizens. Petrol prices are also subsidized and were, until recently, set at around 25c (US) by the government. With the government budget slashed as a result of the decreasing oil and gas revenue, the price of petrol in the small Gulf state was increased by 30% on 15th January 2016. So while the price of petrol is decreasing around the world, ironically, it is increasing for the residents of Qatar.

One of Qatar’s priorities in its vision for the year 2030 was to be a cultural hub for the region and beyond, prompting billions to be spent on the construction of museums and amassing a sizable collection of famous paintings. The Qatari royal family’s investment arms are responsible for the acquisition of many of the most prominent (and expensive) properties in London such as The Shard, Harrods, 10% of the London Stock Exchange and others. A whopping 15 museums were planned for construction in the country’s capital, Doha. Currently only 4 are planned to be executed. Just how much of that reduction can be attributed directly to the price development of hydrocarbons cannot be said, as there is certainly an element of correction from what were ambitions plans at best, delusions of grandeur at worst. However, it is common knowledge that when a governmental budget shrinks, cultural expenses are often among the first to be cut. It seems likely that the budget deficit played a strong role in this decision process, considering that in 2013, just before the slide of oil prices, the staff of the national museums were pegged to double from 1200 by 2015, when in fact the number of employees has been cut to only 800. While Qatar’s
museums still boast sizable collections (and are far from crowded), if the government budget were to remain on a comparable level, it is certain that many of the investments and expenses, that could be considered non-core activities, i.e. not relevant to the country’s economy, security, or other vital areas, are likely to see substantial cutbacks. Frivolous expenses for glamour and prestige, with no prospect of purpose of making a return did not matter at oil prices over $100 per barrel –now they do.

The most well-known of Qatar’s prestige-projects is the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Though it is unlikely to be severely impacted due to the importance of the event to the country, it too will not go unscathed by tightening budgets. An intricate modern metro system that was introduced as part of the transportation plan for the World Cup will not be completed anywhere close to the scale in which it was envisioned. Instead of 4 metro lines, only 1 is still planned to be operational by 2022. Again, one cannot be certain that this is due to budget restraints, as large-scale construction projects in the Middle East more often than not have overly ambitious timelines with long delays in the actual execution being implicitly accepted as a fact of nature. However, the fact that even prestigious projects such as the World Cup are having fat trimmed indicates that Qatar is no longer able, or willing, to simply throw money at an issue until a problem is rectified.

Clearly, the government budget would show reduced spending in a number of areas, though the impact on the country’s population this would have is probably not too dramatic, seeing as the reductions would realistically be a categorical shift from opulent to still pretty extravagant. But would the impact of long-term low oil and gas prices be on the economy and how would that affect the country’s plans? This is certainly entering more speculative territory, as it is a scenario which was deemed impossible only a few years ago and would still be considered rather unlikely. In fact, I’d wager that the country itself doesn’t have detailed plans covering this eventuality. It is a difficult conundrum that would take place:

Should investments be made to strengthen non-hydrocarbon related activities, or should the country try to garner as much hydrocarbon wealth as possible and live off a sovereign wealth fund for as long as possible?

It has been the government’s declared goal for a number of years to diversify the country’s economy and therefore reduce its dependency on oil and gas. Such projects include the construction of a number of satellite campuses on US universities and the construction of the Qatar Science and Technology Park, in an attempt to shift towards a knowledge-based society. The national airline, Qatar Airways, as well as the substantial funding and luxurious conditions offered to numerous international companies as an incentive to open subsidiaries or research centers also contribute to this strategy. While any investment in education is certainly worthy of praise and the societal benefit of learning goes beyond the mere material impact, it cannot be ignored that these are hugely expensive projects which have, as of yet, been unable to make a dent in the country’s dependency on hydrocarbons.

Anticipate Changes Ahead

With the size of the governmental resource pie shrinking, I believe that the government and citizens of the country will be more concerned with retaining as much of that pie in the future, rather than wagering on alternatives which may or may not slow down the shrinking of the pie. Realistically speaking, this may not be the worst strategy. Even the country’s most well-known enterprise, Qatar Airways, is economically not viable and relies for survival on cheap kerosene and subsidies. At the end of the day, the only comparative advantage in the global market is the presence of hydrocarbon resources and no endeavor to prove otherwise has proven successful.

In order to remain in control in a country in which citizens are outnumbered by migrants 8 to 1 and to ensure that the country’s resources aren’t siphoned off, the government, as in most of the other Gulf monarchies, has been tightening regulations which restrict access to high-level positions in government entities and government-owned companies to national citizens which is known as Qatarization. What is possibly an understandable move and sentiment could prove as catastrophic as Mugabe’s agrarian reforms in Zimbabwe. Due to a generational lag, with few Qataris enjoying a rigorous academic education prior up until a few years ago, many individuals in leadership positions are not the most competent people available for the job. As previously discussed, I expect efforts to expand the reach of these programs to intensify in the case of prolonged low oil prices.

The increased nationalization of the country would not only be a protective reflex, but would also be in line with the entire rational under which the country operates. The citizens of the country will be happy as long as their personal wealth and prestige renders them incapable of raising any qualms with the leadership of the country. The monarchy’s legitimacy lies in its ability to distribute wealth among its citizens. In case of a diminishing ability to distribute such wealth, the leadership may be vulnerable to challenges from within its citizenry. As the royal family is aware of this, it is unlikely that that the government handouts to citizens or rampant nepotism within government agencies would be reduced or cease to exist any time soon.

Finally, many of these potential consequences are unlikely to occur, both in the short term, or even at all. Personally, I believe a number of oil and gas producers would cut down production, leading to an end of the glut and a normalization of the hydrocarbon prices within a few years. Nevertheless, it highlights just how dependent Qatar, and other countries in the Middle East, are on the wealth supplied by hydrocarbons for their strategic investments, economic development, and internal stability.

An American Big Lie About ‘Terrorism'

Eric Zuesse

Micah Zenko is a blogger who posts on a main site of America's foreign-policy establishment, the Council on Foreign Relations, and he posted there on January 6th, “How Many Bombs Did the United States Drop in 2015?” He calculated: “Last year, the United States dropped an estimated total of 23,144 bombs in six countries. Of these, 22,110 were dropped in Iraq and Syria.”

His curiosity about this question had been sparked because he noticed that, “The primary focus — meaning the commitment of personnel, resources, and senior leaders' attention — of U.S. counterterrorism policies is the capture or killing (though, overwhelmingly killing) of existing terrorists. … I often ask U.S. government officials and mid-level staffers, ‘what are you doing to prevent a neutral [Islamic] person from becoming a terrorist?' They always claim … this is not their responsibility, and point toward other agencies, usually the Department of State (DOS) or Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where this is purportedly their obligation internationally or domestically, respectively.” But, Zenko noted, “The problem with this ‘kill-em'-all with airstrikes' rule, is that it is not working.”

One reader-comment there was, “This is b/c we are fighting an IDEOLOGY. We are not fighting a traditional military.” However, whereas in the non-Islamic world, it's an “ideology,” it is instead a sect within the Islamic world; and, right now, it's a rapidly growing one. It is, in fact, an offshoot of the Wahhabist sect of Sunni Islam that the Saud family have been advocating and promoting ever since the year 1744, and upon which they have established the nation that they now own. But, recently, it is inflaming much of the world.

Another, more-extensive, reader-comment, from a Michael Beer, observed: “If the USA were fighting an ideology, then it would be bombing and confronting the ideological heartland, namely Saudi Arabia. There is no significant ideological difference between Saudi Arabia (Wahabbis), Al Nusra, Al Quaeda and ISIIL. … USA's militarized response to September 11 has cost trillions, killed more than 1 million people and helped rip many societies apart. … Since Obama took office, he has slaughtered thousands of innocent Arab men, women and children to prop up fossil fuel monopolies and to make blood money profits for defense contractors.” Responses to that response were generally in the nature of: “I agree 100% with your comment. If only the average American knew and understood your statements…the farce that is the political system and the military industrial complex would have no leg to stand on.”

So: even regular readers of a U.S. establishment website are coming to recognize that something is very wrong with American foreign policies regarding terrorism. This problem goes deep:

America's leaders use the word “terrorist” to refer to Shia Islam, and not only to Sunni Islam. But the reality is that all international jihadism except against Israel, has come from fundamentalist Sunni Islam, and is based in fundamentalist Sunni interpretations of the Quran.

The only instances where there has been from Shiites anything like that terrorism — the terror-attacks against the U.S. and Europe, such as 9/11 and Charlie Hebdo — was when the Shiite organization in Lebanon, Hezbollah, in the 1980s and '90s bombed the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the Israeli Embassy in London, especially so as to punish the U.S. for donating $3 billion each year to enable Israel to continue being an apartheid state oppressing Muslims (called “Palestinians”). Whereas Israel (as long as it continues being an anti-Muslim apartheid state) has sound reason for opposing Hezbollah, no Western country has reason to consider Shiite nations to be a threat — yet the U.S. does, and so do its European satellites. There is important history behind this reality:

Iran is the center of international Shiism. In 1953, the U.S. and UK overthrew, in a U.S.-run coup, the democratically elected non-sectarian and progressive Iranian President Mohammed Mossadegh, and installed there a brutal Shah, who became world-renowned for his tortures and who did with Iran's oil and gas what the U.S. told him to do with it. Since Iran is the world's leading Shiia-majority nation, the decades between the installation of the U.S. puppet-Shah in 1953 and his overthrow by the increasingly rabidly anti-U.S. Iranian public in 1979, were a chamber of Iranian horrors that served Washington and the oil-based U.S. aristocracy, and that largely created the ongoing war between Shiia Islam itself, versus the U.S. and its allies. Leading the anti-Shiite war is not the U.S., but instead the al-Saud family, which gained its rule in 1744 on an oath to destroy Shiites. As The Atlantic  headlined on 21 September 2010, “Understanding the $60 Billion Saudi Arms Deal: It's About Iran.” Then, on 8 September 2015, the Congressional Research Service reported that, during the five-year period from October 2010 through October 2014, the U.S. and the Sauds signed deals to deliver $90 billion of U.S. weaponry to them. That's a lot of weapons-sales, all of which are from America's arms-makers, to Saudi Arabia, for use by the al-Saud family — enough to join-at-the-hip America's aristocracy to the Saud family, who are the core Saudi aristocrats and the world's most powerful family.

On 28 January 2012, the Dayton Business Journal issued a carefully researched study, headlined “Top 10 foreign buyers of U.S. weapons,” and here were the rankings at that time: #1=Saudi Arabia; #2=UAE; #3=Egypt; #4=Taiwan; #5=Australia; #6=Iraq; #7=Pakistan; #8=UK; #9=Turkey; #10=S. Korea.

He who pays the piper calls the tune: those are the American aristocracy's main allies.

The Western countries are allied with the royal families — all of them fundamentalist Sunnis — that own and run Saudi Arabia (the al-Sauds), Qatar (the al-Thanis), Kuwait (the al-Sabahs), Bahrain (the al-Khalifas) and the six royal families of UAE. All of those aristocratic families — even when they have conflicts between each other, such as the al-Thanis versus the al-Khalifas — all of them are led by the al-Sauds, because King Saud is by far the world's richest person, owning and controlling at least a trillion dollars and perhaps in the tens of trillions, most of which is owned secretly but even the visible part is over a trillion (and was over ten trillion when oil was at $100/barrel).

Perhaps none of the other royal families has anyone who controls more than a trillion dollars. Neither Forbes nor Bloomberg, in listing the world's billionaires, includes any  royal family, because capitalism gets a bad image if the public come to know that most of the world's wealth is inherited, not earned by the owner. It's mainly the result of two things: conquest, plus inheritance. The origin of King Saud's wealth goes all the way back to the time 1744, when the jihadist preacher Muhammad Ibn Wahhab agreed with the Arab gang-leader Muhammad Ibn Saud, for Saud and his descendants to exterminate all Shiia and take over the world and impose Wahhab's version of Sunni Islam, and for Wahhab's followers to recognize and accept the Saud family's right to control the government.

That's what America has become allied with. The American Government now doesn't represent the American people — at least not in international relations. It represents the Sauds, who hate especially Iran and the Shiite secularist Bashar al-Assad who leads Syria, but also hate the Russians, for not only having been consistently opposed to jihadists (that's to say, consistently opposed to Sunni extremists such as those Arab potentates send around the world), but for having friendly relations with Shiite-led countries, which these Arab potentates aim to destroy if not take over. Increasingly since 1970, U.S. foreign policy serves those potentates — and, above all, serves the Saud family.

No Saudi King has ever bowed to any U.S. President. Hierarchy exists in international power. However, for U.S. Presidents to bow to Saudi Kings does not mean that the U.S. Government subordinates itself to the Saud family in all  matters, but only that in an overall  sense the U.S. Government in international affairs serves primarily the interests of the Saud family — the world's richest family. That's what these bows mean; that's what they actually signify.

The Sauds keep control over their own country not only by means of the local clergy authenticating the Sauds' authority from God to rule, and by means of the U.S. supply of weapons and training to the Sauds' army, but also by means of the Sauds' iron control over all their nation's news-media, so that the Saudi public will continue to accept the political status-quo in their country and will believe that anyone the Sauds kill is deserving of death. If any of these means of controlling the public — weapons, media, and clergy — were to end, violent revolution would break out in their country, and the Saud family (or at least ones that survive) would all flee abroad, perhaps mostly to America. They'd still be enormously rich because of their having diversified their portfolios so as to be not entirely dependent upon the economic output of only one land, Saudi Arabia. However, they'd be operating from abroad, to try to regain control over the mayhem that their family has been building towards since 1744.

The Saudi public are brainwashed so much that they admire ISIS. On 19 March 2015, the muslimstatistics website bannered “Saudi Arabia: 92% approve of ISIS representation of Islam and Sharia law – Poll.” (One can't reasonably blame the Saudi public for what they don't know, and for what they do know that's actually false. But that's how things actually are: they're mental slaves.) Therefore any ‘democracy' which might follow after the end of the Sauds' rule there would inevitably be just as extremist as the al-Sauds themselves are but incredibly violent and chaotic, and probably led by the Wahhabist clergy directly (which would be the only remaining authority there), basically cutting the Saud family out of the political picture and installing instead a professedly  jihadist government (which the Sauds are not — they couldn't be that and simultaneously retain any support from their subordinate aristocracies, especially the American and other non-Islamic ones). 

Saudi Arabia, under the al-Sauds, is the world's largest market for U.S.-made weapons, and, unlike Israel, which buys U.S. weaponry with three billion dollars annually that's donated by U.S. taxpayers, the far larger volume of U.S.-made weapons that King Saud buys for his country are being bought with cash from Saudi Arabia's taxpayers — not  from America's. America's “military-industrial complex” depends very heavily upon that market. It includes not only the Sauds, who buy the most U.S. weapons, but #2=UAE; #3=Egypt; #4=Taiwan; #5=Australia; #6=Iraq; #7=Pakistan; #8=UK; #9=Turkey; #10=S. Korea.

Several commentators have noted the similarity between the Islamic law that's applied by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the Islamic law that's applied by the Saud family in Saudi Arabia. When the U.S. Government allies with the Sauds, the only agreement or disagreement about anything is with the personnel in charge, not on any matter of principle, because the U.S. Government is already allied with extremist Sunnis. The U.S. Government is allied with Arabic royal families — and, above all, with the Sauds. (In fact, the top royal Sauds were also the top financial donors to Al Qaeda, at least pre-9/11.)

America's foreign policies are therefore personal, not based on principles (except on the principle: Might makes right, and wealth means might; so, wealth means right).

When the U.S. Government opposes Shiite-led nations such as Iran and Syria, the purpose isn't to defeat terrorism (except perhaps against Israel), but to serve the aspirations of the Sauds and their friends.

If the U.S. Government were serious about protecting its people against terrorist attacks, then the U.S. Government would apologize to the people of Iran and would switch its alliances within the Muslim world to Iran and away from the Saud family. This would not mean that the U.S. would have to endorse Shiite sectarianism: in fact, Iran's chief ally abroad is the Shiite leader of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, whose basic commitment (as a leader of the Ba'ath Party) has always been to oppose any control over the state by any religion.

On 21 April 2015, International Business Times headlined “Christians Threatened By ISIS In Lebanon Turn To Hezbollah For Help,” and their Alessandria Masi reported from Ras Baalbek Lebanon, and interviewed “Rifat Nasrallah [who] commands the Christian militia of Ras Baalbek, aligned with Shiite group Hezbollah, to fight the Islamic State group in Lebanon.” His army were allied with “Hezbollah fighters. The members of the Shiite militia, which the European Union and the U.S. both consider a terrorist group, are concerned about the Sunni jihadis from Syria enough to make common cause with Christians. In fact, the Christians of Ras Baalbek and the Iran-backed militants are downright friendly to each other. … They are pioneering a new approach: Christians and Shiites together, against the Sunni extremists. … ‘The only people who are protecting us are the resistance of Hezbollah,' Nasrallah said. ‘The only one standing with the army is Hezbollah. Let's not hide it anymore.'” ISIS was spreading from Syria into Lebanon.

Indirectly, their common enemy then was the United States (and its European allies) — because the U.S. was actually allied with the Sunni extremists who were fighting to bring down the non-sectarian Shiite, Bashar al-Assad, in Syria, and replace him with a fundamentalist-Sunni leader, in accord with the desires of the Arabic oil families.

It would be wrong to say that the United States is a terrorist nation, but the U.S. is the world's leading backer of international terrorism. The U.S. supplies the weapons through its fundamentalist-Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, Kuwait, UAE, and Libya. The U.S. is serving as the most important international agent of the Saud family.

That's the reality. The Big Lie about terrorism is that the West (U.S. and its subordinate aristocracies in Europe) opposes international terrorism. International terrorism in Iraq, Libya, and Syria, drives millions of refugees from those countries into Europe, but the United States is allied with the Saud family producing this refugee crisis there. That's just a fact.

And even some regular readers of propaganda-sites for the American aristocracy have come to understand this.

Forecast 2016: Fruits of Diplomacy

Sheel Kant Sharma


But for the Iran nuclear accord, the year 2015 would have been a wasted year for arms control and non-proliferation. All high praise and superlatives marking Iran’s implementation of the nuclear deal with P5+1, are fully apt. Iran’s entry into the global nuclear community was sealed on 19 January 2016 in the statement by the Director General of the IAEA that ‘Iran is a normal state’. The IAEA’s professional contribution in this context has been outstanding. The tireless diplomatic marathon that brought this about and the leadership provided by US and its partners in P5+1 have been unprecedented. They would not have made headway without the sagacity, wisdom and forward looking disposition of the leadership in Tehran, particularly after the 2013 elections. In terms of dispelling war clouds and letting diplomacy win in the Middle East, one can find in it shades of Anwar Sadat’s fateful diplomatic offensive resulting in the peace treaty with Israel in 1979, which too, in a sense, had foreclosed repetition of a full scale war. However, the peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear imbroglio is truly in a class of its own, without a parallel.

Its larger political impact will take time to show. However, to fully grasp the importance of the nuclear accord, a brief historical prelude may be pertinent. The nuclear file on Iran which the IAEA scrambled to construct in 2002 has grown over the past decade plus, and has entirely new features different from past experience with proliferation. The 1990 disclosures about Saddam Hussain’s clandestine nuclear weapons program had already led to substantial strengthening of IAEA safeguards through the 1990s under the Non-proliferation Treaty, including the Additional Protocol to the mandatory comprehensive safeguards. 

After a series of undeclared and suspicion-causing nuclear activities in Iran came to light in 2002-03, the IAEA prepared a questionnaire and sought closer engagement under its Statute to come to grips with the implications of Iran’s actions. Iran responded by fielding a team of negotiators with IAEA as well as the EU-3, namely, France, Germany and UK. This team was then led by present President Rouhani in his earlier avatar as Chief Negotiator. With efforts on EU’s part, there seemed a chance and a fledgling hope in late 2003 of Iran resolving the issues and coming clean. However, the opening up and readiness of Iran to accept obligations under the Additional Protocol, pending ratification – which Rouhani was able to do - was not enough for its interlocutors. They conveyed the strict US demand for a complete cessation of suspicious activities, total transparency about what was underway and unhindered access to sites in Iran to IAEA inspectors for monitoring and verification of Iran’s compliance with enhanced safeguards obligations under a provisional Additional Protocol.

This was a tall order for Iran and failed to get any traction whereas new evidence surfaced from Libya about Iran’s forays into nuclear weapon design and related work. By the end of 2004, a downward spiral set in on Iran’s engagement with the EU interlocutors and the IAEA. What followed 2005 onwards was massive and defiant escalation of all nuclear activities in Iran even as it carried on with implementing the IAEA’s NPT safeguards minus the Additional Protocol. Thus the Iran file gathered mass through monitoring, inspections, and analyses as well as open source and intelligence inputs by several states – all of which figured in the regular reports to the Board of Governors under a special agenda item on Iran every quarter. In addition, Iran’s alleged breach of safeguards obligations was referred to the UN Security Council, much to Iran’s annoyance.

While negotiations, in spite of the shadow of Security Council sanctions, still continued from 2005 till 2012, they were marred by upsets. The upsets were caused by revelations of undeclared nuclear activities such as a huge new underground centrifuge plant for uranium enrichment, a plutonium reactor project, heavy water production and trappings of a range of processes dealing with uranium metal in chemical forms suitable for possible weapons purpose. On the other hand, as Iran’s credibility dipped, the UN Security Council kept up with more censure and tighter sanctions; also covering Iran’s ballistic missiles program. Iran chose defiance and set on course to build, operate and refine thousands of centrifuges and amass tons of low enriched uranium by 2011, as its right under the NPT, even while complying with the IAEA’s inspections and verification. There was increasing clamour during 2011-12 about military solution and resort to force alongside sabotage of Iran’s nuclear program. The vice grip of tighter sanctions by the US, UN and EU became nastier on Iranian society.

The challenge for diplomacy to find a modus vivendi in this difficult situation was twofold. First, Iran’s interlocutors sought to compel it into full compliance with obligations under the NPT, to roll back its huge enrichment venture at every place, and to abandon the plutonium reactor project and all suspected activities with possible military use. Second, to reduce all capacity and capability of Iran to a level which would rule out a ‘break out’ scenario under which, like North Korea, Iran too could at some point in time scrap engagement with the IAEA, expel inspectors, terminate safeguards and give up on the NPT to proceed to weaponisation. Since Iran, however, held that its nuclear program was permissible under the NPT, that it remained in compliance with the NPT and that it had no weapons program, the interlocutors’ demands were dismissed as being without any justification based on facts.

The stalemate hardened and led to mounting threats of the exercise of a military option both by Israel and the US. It is in this scary backdrop that a change of guard took place after general elections in Iran in 2013 and President Rouhani assumed office, with blessings of Supreme leader Khamenei.

As it turned out, informally and through back channels with the US, President Rouhani’s team was already exploring options to turn the page on the impasse and to explore negotiating options for lifting of sanctions. A very consistent and serious endeavour, therefore, was made on the part of all sides to seek a breakthrough by talks not just under the P5+1 format but also bilaterally between the US and Iran.

This endeavour bore early results by November 2013: Iran accepted a specified scaling down and verifiable freeze of all its alleged nuclear activities in return for limited sanctions’ relief; pending time-bound pursuit of a comprehensive solution through intensive negotiations under agreed terms of reference.

First taste of success was in the outlines of a comprehensive deal which emerged by April 2015 even though it faced sustained opposition from hardliners in the US, Israel and in the Gulf states as also by the religious orthodoxy in Iran. The outlines indicated that both sides had bridged the gaps substantially on multiple aspects to block all pathways for Iran to acquire a bomb in return for lifting of all nuclear related sanctions. The mainstay of the vehement campaign against an accord was the breakout scenario – i.e. regardless of the nature of Iran’s expanded commitments, what if Iran were to rescind them all at the time of its choosing and rush for the weapon?

The accord at hand today has effectively addressed this breakout dimension and it is here that the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action (JCPOA) marks another leap on the non-proliferation front. This leap goes further than the mandate of the Additional Protocol and comprises closer, continuous monitoring of the permissible running of about 6000 centrifuges for 3.6 per cent enrichment at Natanz by, among other things, latest equipment capable of real time data transmission; the IAEA’s control on dismantled parts of more than 12000 centrifuges and the plugging of all gaps in the IAEA’s information base about military dimension of Iran’s activities – none of this was hitherto imagined within the NPT’s legal remit. Iran has demonstrated its resolve and openness by accepting this vastly expanded IAEA role, albeit only within a specified and limited timeframe. The IAEA’s 15 December 2015 report is a landmark on non-proliferation annals in that it brings out in the open Iran’s past undeclared dabbling into military use of nuclear technology and details how that has ceased.

There were instances after the Cold War, of South Africa, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus returning to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states but the IAEA’s verification of that transformation was nowhere as intrusive and extensive as it is in Iran’s case. It is here that the disclaimer in the JCPOA as well as the related Security Council resolution that the agreement with Iran does not set a precedent is pertinent. This protects Iran’s emergence, by and by, as a ‘normal’ member of international community, as the timelines set by the JCPOA kick in and sanctions are lifted. It possibly also sets at rest apprehensions about the IAEA’s expanded non-proliferation mandate being applied elsewhere. 

Nonetheless, in terms of new and advanced verification and compliance activities by the IAEA – and that too with a cooperative negotiated process bearing the UNSC’s stamp – the Iran agreement has scaled new frontiers and established new benchmarks.

No wonder that the successful implementation of the deal has engendered an all-round trust that underpins the mainstreaming of Iran not only within the nuclear community but also the global economy and trade. Iran is confident that it richly deserves the end of its isolation even as it voices its undiminished scepticism about the West and eschews broader cooperation. The US too remains careful and delicately balances claims about success of diplomacy with good deal of caution; particularly not to let die hard domestic critics of the JCPOA impede implementation of the deal in this election year. Hence the broader political ramifications would need to be harnessed with a calibrated pace.

Ruffled sensitivities are in full display among Iran’s neighbours who in these past several decades became confident of a new regional dispensation against Iran whereby even the Persian Gulf of all history was being rechristened as mere ‘Gulf’, if not Arab Gulf. Iran’s emerging from isolation in the new avatar seems set to shatter that confidence. With the nuclear shadow out of way Iran’s allegations against its detractors may not be so easy to dismiss, especially in regard to grappling with the Daesh menace and resolution of crisis in Syria. Hence, there is severe unease among the US allies and partners in the region. At the same time, Chinese President Xi Jing Ping’s much heralded visit to Tehran shows how others are rushing in to capitalise on the opportunity. Pakistan too, by visits of its prime minister and the army chief to Iran and Saudi Arabia, is exploring ways to derive what advantage it can in the situation. The question naturally for a New Delhi observer is what initiatives India should have been contemplating at this juncture.

COP21: China's Dual Identity

Tenzin Lhadon

The 30 November to 11 December 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) placed special interest to receive the much awaited cooperation and effort from China. In particular, the focus was on whether China identifies itself as a global player, aligning with other developed nations, or among the developing nations, despite being the second largest economy.

China and COP21China is recognised as the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter and therefore, its position at the international climate change negotiations – as one of the leading and most influential actors in addressing global climate change – is not just crucial but sets the tone for the success of global efforts towards combating climate change in the future.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speech at the opening ceremony of the COP21 and Beijing's commitments and assurances on reducing its greenhouse gas emissions have been highly appreciated. There have been several debates and questions on whether or not China is to be regarded a developed country, because, it is the world’s largest exporter, with a GDP growth rate of 50 per cent, making its economy worth $26.98 trillion – bigger than that of the US', which stands at $22.3 trillion.

A recent New York Times commentary illustrated how Beijing likes the Renminbi to be treated at par with other leading currencies, as well as for recognising China as one of the world’s leading economic powers. However, contradictorily, at the COP21, China shied away from identifying itself as a developed nation, apprehensive of the fact that it might have to face more regulation and responsibilities if categorised as a developed country. In fact, Beijing spoke on behalf of developing countries at the conference, calling on all the developed nations to reaffirm their promises to assist financially and otherwise, to help develop the poorer countries in their growth and sustainable development.

China and G77In 1964 China joined the G77 group that mostly comprises of poorer countries affected by global climate change, and where developed nations were deemed responsible for providing annual financial assistance worth $100 billion. China asserted its position as a global player at the COP21 because it not only provides Beijing with a perfect platform to raise a justified voice and act as a spokesperson for the G77 nations but also helps project itself as a benign global power.

Although many observers in China felt the international climate change agreement could help with the restructuring of the economy, Chinese citizens and Beijing feel that they have a lesser say in international proposals that which are dominated by the US and EU. Many observers in China also feel the need to find a better way to communicate the country’s position and improve its international standing. Despite the recent economic slowdown, Beijing's economic prowess and its participation and agreement on climate change issues have a bearing on China’s global stature.

China’s Special Representative on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua lauded the adoption of the historic climate change agreement at COP21, and while simultaneously reiterating China's status as a developing country, stated that it will take actions according to its national capacity and development stage.

Climate DiplomacyThere is a general perception that countries in the northern hemisphere are developed and that those in the southern hemisphere, are not. In the global configuration of developed and developing countries, this 'North-South divide', and the problematic nature of this division – i.e. based on economic capabilities – always featured in international climate change negotiations.

Ideally, developed nations should shoulder more responsibility towards reducing global carbon emissions and consumption of the world’s resources, as well as contribute more towards the progress of developing countries with a particular focus on those most-affected by climate change.

The Beijing Review underscored the Chinese foreign ministry’s call for fairness in dividing responsibilities between developed and developing countries, calling the Paris climate change agreement a "a new beginning in international cooperation."

“In broad terms, richer countries wanted to build new and less restrictive processes, while developing country blocs wanted to focus on ‘fairness’ and historical emissions, and to protect the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities,” said Yu Jie, communications strategist with China Dialogue, and former director, Climate Policy, The Nature Conservancy.

However, China's proclaimed status of a developing nation has becoming increasingly disputable given how it is the world’s largest CO2 emitter and an economic giant itself. In fact, the Beijing Review continues to project how China can play major role in G77/China, Brazil, South Africa, India, China (BASIC) and Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), to bridge differences between these groups as well as between parties in a broader manner.

Reflecting on China’s significant role in the international climate debate, it is apt to conclude that Beijing's encouraging stance at the COP21 is not only momentous but essential to the country's task to behave like a global player. Although it is an positive effort by China, several questions still remain on its achievements towards improving the global climate situation and the amount of efforts invested towards addressing the matter.

Weak Renminbi: Implications for India

Tapan Bharadwaj

On 07 January 2016, China's renminbi (RMB) depreciated against the dollar. Previously, on 11 August 2015, there was a significant devaluation in the value of RMB. However, the January 2016 depreciation was less unexpected than the devaluation in August 2015.

Today, China is a major player in the global trade system. Its trade grew exponentially between 2001 and 2008, with imports and exports each crossing the $ 1 trillion mark in 2008. The crisis initiated in the US in 2008 and in Europe in 2011 has resulted in a drop in Chinese exports. However, Beijing still enjoys a comparatively better position than the rest. Foreign trade is a crucial element in the country's economic growth, and this has been the trend throughout the past decade.

Over the past few years, China has been gradually liberalising its stock market for foreign investors. Although a weak RMB had negative impacts on stock markets across the world, the  bigger cause for worry is something else. The slowdown in China's growth and Beijing's attempts to regain pace are evident. A slowdown in the world's second-largest economy (GDP measured in nominal terms) or largest economy (GDP measured in PPP terms) rings alarm bells for everyone. 

Reasons for Renminbi's DepreciationChina exercises significant state control and influence towards determination of macroeconomic outcomes - a model different from those practised by other participating economies in the world market. Other economies follow either a capitalist model or mixed model, where the market plays a significant role in determining macroeconomic outcomes.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has officially announced that they want the exchange rate to be determined by market forces as opposed to being state-controlled. This decision has now made the RMB cheaper it previously was. On several occasions in the past, China has manipulated the value of its currency in order to acquire a competitive edge for its products in the global market.

This time, the RMB devaluation/depreciation has come when the asset market bubble in China has collapsed and Beijing is looking for an export thrust to boost growth. Moreover, in the recent years, China has been investing in infrastructure and financial institutions, and also providing aid to developing countries.

China requires a robust growth rate for these activities to continue to be viable, and also for the success of its ambitious cross-continent One Road One Belt initiative.

A weak RMB against the dollar has made the already low cost Chinese products cheaper than its competitors', in the global markets. Consequently, China’s exports have increased, fuelling its economic growth. This is probably how China plans to regain its growth and attain a 'new normal' rate for its economic growth. A weakening of the RMB value could also be a manifestation of what it is undergoing in order to join the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket, scheduled for 01 October 2016.

Implications for the Indian EconomyThe weakening of the RMB has caused severe negative effects in the stock markets all over the world. The Indian stock market followed the trend. Today, India's aims to become a manufacturing hub. New Delhi launched the 'Make in India' initiative to encourage multinationals as well as domestic companies to manufacture their products in India. This project has vast potential to attract foreign direct investments in the targeted sectors. A weak RMB will make India-manufactured products more expensive than Chinese products in the global market. Thus, an RMB 'revaluation' also has a potential to hurt the 'Make in India' initiative.

India runs a huge trade deficit with China. There are many manufacturing firms that already find it difficult to survive against Chinese competition; several firms have stopped manufacturing; and a weak RMB has further impeded the domestic producers from competing with Chinese products in the market.

India's Minister of Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman, said “a decline in the value of China's currency against dollar may lead to a sharp increase in cheap imports which will hurt several Indian industries.” However, the weakening of the RMB also brought some good news for India, at least in the short run: it reduced India's current account deficit and trade deficit.

A fall in China’s growth means a fall in China's demands from the commodity market, which resulted in a drop in oil, gold, and steel prices, among others. India imports large amounts of oil and gold, and therefore, lower prices will help improve India’s current account deficit. Money thus saved could then be reallocated for other purposes. Having said that, India should not seek a slow economic growth for China. New Delhi must instead look for opportunities for its own economic growth.

Both Asian giants have manifestly benefited from globalisation, but the growth stories of both economies are markedly different. As rightly put by  the former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, "there is enough space in the world for the development of both India and China and indeed, enough areas for India and China to cooperate."

War and the destruction of social infrastructure in America

Andre Damon

As the water crisis in Flint, Michigan continues to occupy national headlines in the United States, scientists and environmental officials have revealed a dirty secret of American life: the poisoning of drinking water with toxic chemicals is not unique to Flint, Michigan, but takes place all over the country.

Counties in Louisiana and Texas, as well as the cities of Baltimore, Maryland; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington D.C. and Boston, Massachusetts all reported that substantial numbers of children have been exposed to elevated lead levels, largely through municipal drinking water.

This week, the head environmental regulator in the state of Ohio called national water regulations “broken,” saying that they dramatically understate the true scale of lead poisoning in American cities. As Virginia Tech researcher Marc Edwards put it, “Because of the smoke-and-mirrors testing, Flint is meeting the standard even as national guardsmen walk the street.”

Many water pipes in the United States are over 100 years old, and a large number of cities still have 100 percent lead plumbing.

The reasons are not hard to find. According to the Congressional Budget Office, public capital investment in transportation and water infrastructure, already underfunded for decades, has been slashed by 23 percent since its peak in 2003.

The year 2003 is significant as it coincides with the beginning of the illegal invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration. The “war on terror” has entailed a vast expansion of the military at the same time that spending on anything not directly related to the accumulation of wealth by the financial aristocracy has suffered from continual cutbacks.

The response of the political establishment to the poisoning of tens of thousands of people in Flint and potentially millions more throughout the United States has been characterized by indifference. The politicians responsible, from Michigan Governor Rick Snyder to local Democratic Party officials and the Obama administration, pull long faces, pretend to take responsibility or seek to shift blame, while doing nothing to address the issue.

Nowhere is there a single politician who has responded to the disaster by demanding what is clearly required: the immediate allocation of a relatively modest sum, $273 billion according to the Environmental Protection Agency, to replace all of the municipal lead pipes in the US. This is equivalent to the annual spending on the US Army, just one of the four branches of the US military. There is simply “no money” for such a proposal to be considered, much less approved.

While politicians pore over any allocation of resources for social spending with a fine tooth comb, almost unimaginable sums are made available to the military without a second thought. How many know that the US military is shelling out over a trillion dollars to defense contractor Lockheed Martin to fund its beleaguered F-35 program? Or that it is spending another trillion dollars to “modernize” its nuclear arsenal by making atomic bombs smaller and more maneuverable?

The US spends more on its military, as Obama boasted in his most recent State of the Union address, than the next eight countries combined. Yet more is continuously demanded.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently evaluated the Defense Department’s so-called pivot to Asia, in which military hardware has been either procured or restationed in the Western Pacific to counter the economic and military rise of China. Strikingly, the CSIS report gave the US military a failing grade. It called for the expansion and development of every aspect of US military capacity in the Pacific if it was to maintain superiority in the event of a shooting war with China.

Since the early 1990s, the US military has operated on the basis of a strategic doctrine that it will allow the existence of no other power that can challenge its military authority on even a regional level. That means that the US must be able to field such overwhelming military force that it would be able to defeat another major power, such as China, in a conventional war far away from the borders of the US.

This is a recipe for the bleeding white of American society in an insane attempt to maintain its military dominance, which can only end in catastrophe for the population of the US and the entire world.

Of course, it would be simplistic to say that war is the only cause of America’s social problems. The most conspicuous element of life in the US continues to be the vast chasm between the rich and the poor. However, the rise of war and militarism are interrelated and have a common root.

In response to the the longterm decline in the global position of American capitalism, the American ruling class responded on the one hand by promoting a wave of financial speculation, mergers and acquisitions, wage cuts, and the transfer of social wealth from the great majority of the population to its own pockets. On the other hand, it has sought to use its predominant military power to counteract the consequences of its economic decline by force.

In the insane and socially destructive priorities of the American ruling class, one sees in concentrated form the inextricable connection between war and capitalism, and at the same time the inextricable connection between the fight for all the social rights of the working class and the struggle against imperialism.

Death toll climbs to 49 in US snowstorm

Tom Hall

The death toll from last weekend’s blizzard in the eastern United States climbed to 49 on Wednesday, according to the latest press reports, as the region struggles to bring its decaying infrastructure, devastated by repeated budget cuts, to something like working order.

The fatalities over the weekend follow closely the deaths of more than two dozen people from flooding along the Mississippi River at the beginning of the year, as well as the deaths of eleven people from tornadoes in the Dallas, Texas area late last December. The fact that such severe (but not uncommon) weather in the wealthiest country in the world routinely results in such widespread death and destruction exposes the rot of official American society, which spares no expense when it comes to criminal wars abroad but which is somehow unable to provide for needed infrastructure for the American population as a whole.

The majority of the deaths, which were documented by the Associated Press, were entirely preventable, some of them even senseless. At least fifteen people died of cardiac arrest while shoveling snow outside their homes. Most of these people were middle-aged or elderly, but the figure also includes a pregnant 18-year-old woman in Pennsylvania. Three people were killed after being either being covered in snow or struck by snowplows.

Seven people were killed by carbon monoxide poisoning while seeking shelter from the cold. At least five people died of carbon monoxide poisoning after retreating to their cars for warmth, when the exhaust pipes became clogged with snow. In South Carolina, an elderly couple died of carbon monoxide poisoning after resorting to a generator to heat their home, which had lost power during the storm. Seven people in Northern Virginia were hospitalized for carbon monoxide poisoning in their own apartments after the vents for the building’s ground floor furnace became blocked with snow.

The response of the political establishment was not to prepare ahead of time for what is becoming, in part due to man-made global warming, an increasingly routine event in this part of the country. Instead, as always during a public emergency in the United States, they deployed the military. Thousands of National Guard troops were mobilized as part of the states of emergency declared in 11 states last week, including 1,200 in Virginia and Maryland alone. Some states issued travel bans and threatened people with arrest if they were found attempting to drive motor vehicles. Days after the storm itself, states of emergency still remain in force in eight states. A state of emergency in Washington, DC was lifted at 6:30 Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, an ongoing commuter nightmare continues in the nation’s capital. As of this writing, Washington’s public transit system, the Metro, still remains at much reduced service levels, five days after being shut down entirely in anticipation of the storm. While all lines of the Metro’s subway system were finally restored by Wednesday morning, almost half of the city’s 300 bus lines remained closed. However, even on the open lines officials “warned of possible delays and detours,” according to the Washington Post. Conditions for DC motorists are little better. While the city hoped “to have at least one lane open on all streets by Wednesday morning,” officials conceded that “they may not get to all of them,” the Post reported.

The Metro’s infrastructure has become increasingly decrepit and unsafe due to constant cuts to maintenance and improvements. In January of last year one person was killed and more than 80 injured when smoke filled a stalled Metro subway car after an electrical failure. Last August, an unoccupied train derailed during the morning rush hour, resulting in the closure of three of the system’s six subway lines.

The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) gave the Metro system a “D” in its 2013 Report Card, citing a then-$16 billion dollar funding gap (the nation as a whole received a “D+” in the report). Instead of fully funding the city’s public transit network, however, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill last summer that would have slashed federal funding for the subway system by $50 million, or one-third. While these cuts were restored to their previous levels in the eventual five-year transportation bill signed by President Obama in December, overall spending on infrastructure remains well below the $3.6 trillion needed by 2020, according to the ASCE.

Twenty Washington, DC-area school districts remained closed on Wednesday, with seven school districts announcing closures for Thursday as well. While DC Public Schools reopened on Wednesday, school officials told parents to “use discretion” when deciding whether to send their children to school, and said that it would excuse all absences.

However, cafeterias at ten DC schools opened on Monday in order to feed impoverished students, many of whom would otherwise have struggled to find a meal. One school official estimated that between 75 and 80 percent of all public school students in the city qualified for free or reduced-price meals, an indication of the extreme levels of poverty facing working-class youth.