Bahrain cracks down on dissent across sectarian divide

Jean Shaoul

Bahrain’s interior ministry announced last week that the ruling Sunni monarchy had decided to strip top Shiite Muslim cleric Ayatollah Isa Qassim of his citizenship. It is part of a broader crackdown on all opposition and the Shia community in particular.

The decision, which carries the imprimatur of Bahrain’s Saudi backers, has further inflamed sectarian tensions within the Gulf States and with Iran, which were already running high over the ongoing civil wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

The interior ministry claimed that Qassim had played a “major role in creating an extremist sectarian environment and worked on dividing society” and had abused his position to “serve foreign interests [a reference to Iran] and promote... sectarianism and violence.” It is also investigating a $10 million bank account registered in Qassim’s name, provoking outrage from senior clerics who oppose any attempts to interfere with the Shia practice of collecting a tax called khum.

Following a change in the law in 2014, Bahrainis can be stripped of their citizenship for any actions deemed harmful to the kingdom’s national interests, which in practice means the interests of the Khalifa royal family. Revocation of citizenship that would render a person stateless is illegal under international law.

The ruling clique have also introduced a new law banning religious leaders from membership of political groups, making it clear that it is not just the Shia who are the target of the clampdown but Sunni as well.

The move opens the way for Qassim, who was born in Bahrain in the 1940s, to be deported. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Bahraini authorities have stripped at least 250 people, mainly human rights defenders, political activists, journalists, academics and religious scholars, of their citizenship. The vast majority have been Shia. Many of those who have lost their citizenship became stateless and were subsequently deported.

The cleric’s supporters took to the streets throughout the tiny island kingdom, with thousands shouting “Down with [King] Hamad”--a crime punishable by a prison sentence--and staged a sit-in outside his house. There were clashes in some villages between his supporters and the security forces, including the National Guard that had been widely deployed in anticipation of unrest.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking on state television, said, “This is blatant foolishness and insanity. When he still could address the Bahraini people, Sheikh Isa Qassim... would advise against radical and armed actions.” He added that it would provoke a rebellion by young Shiites, who make up the majority in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.

The revocation of Qassim’s citizenship comes as the authorities brought forward court proceedings aimed at closing down the main Shiite opposition al-Wefaq Islamic Society, defying United States and UN calls for the ban to be dropped. Earlier this month, the court suspended all al-Wefaq’s activities and froze its assets.

The al-Wefaq bloc was the largest in parliament until its members withdrew in protest at the brutal suppression of the 2011 mass pro-democracy protests by Bahrainis across the religious divide. The demonstrations called for an end to the corrupt practices of the ruling family and sectarian discrimination, an equitable distribution of the country’s wealth and democratic elections. The Khalifa ruling family, unable to crush the protests with their own forces, called in military support from the Saudi monarchy, with which they have close family ties, and the Gulf Cooperation Council to shore up their rule.

Riyadh will countenance no compromise with the Shia-based opposition or parliamentary elections that might lead to them gaining power, as happened in Iraq. Its key aim is to prevent the spread of unrest to Saudi Arabia, which is linked to Bahrain by a causeway, and the rest of the Gulf States, all of which face dissent from their own impoverished masses. To this end, it has employed a divide-and-rule policy whipping up sectarian tensions against the Shia, who form the majority in the oil producing regions.

Since the 2011 demonstrations, there have been almost daily skirmishes between Shiite youths and security forces, as well as several bomb attacks.

Sunnis have also formed their own political movements with their own demands for higher wages and political representation, leading the authorities to redraw the electoral boundaries in 2014 to the disadvantage of their candidates.

Last month, the courts more than doubled a four-year prison sentence on al-Wefaq’s leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, for “inciting violence.” Last week, the authorities re-arrested prominent rights campaigner Nabeel Rajab on two charges of criticising the government, while dozens of activists were banned from travelling overseas to attend the 32nd UN human rights session in Geneva. Rajab is one of Bahrain’s most well-known human rights known activists, having established Bahrain’s Centre for Human Rights. He has served several jail terms for his activities.

Another activist, Zainab al-Khawaja, was forced to flee the country after being threatened with re-arrest and indefinite separation from her children. Just weeks earlier, she was released from prison following international condemnation of her incarceration for tearing up a picture of King Hamid.

The stepped-up repression takes place amid the devastating impact of the slide in oil prices on government revenue and the pressure to increase public spending since the Arab uprisings of 2011. While Bahrain has little oil, its financial services-based economy has been badly hit by the political turbulence, leading to a budget deficit every year since 2011.

In May, the international credit ratings agency Moody’s downgraded Bahrain’s debt following a budget deficit equal to 13 percent of GDP that is expected to rise, generating a government debt of 100 percent of GDP in 2019, up from 44 percent in 2013. This is despite the removal of subsidies that has led to dramatic increases in the price food, water and electricity. This has been combined with public sector job losses and increases in taxes that have hit poor Bahrainis across the sectarian divide. Poverty is set to increase with the introduction of Gulf-wide VAT, higher charges for government services and changes to pension benefits.

The two other ratings agencies, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch, have also downgraded Bahrain’s debt, with the latter downgrading it to “junk” status this week.

Bahrain’s interest payments this year could reach 27 percent of budgetary revenue, up from 16 percent in 2015. More than one-quarter of public spending goes on defence and security, much of which is purchased from the US, whose Naval Forces Central Command and Fifth Fleet are based in Bahrain, and Britain, which routinely turns a blind eye to human rights abuses.

The head of Britain’s armed forces was in Bahrain the day after the kingdom revoked Qassim’s citizenship. Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond’s last visit to Bahrain on May 30, when he welcomed “Bahrain’s commitment to continuing reforms,” took place the same day al-Wefaq leader Sheikh Ali Salman’s prison sentence was increased.

Two years ago, London agreed a deal with Manama to build a new naval base in the country, which according to a Freedom of Information request from the Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy, will largely be funded by Bahrain. Earlier this year, it was revealed that British naval commandos were training Bahraini security forces in sniping techniques.

Austrian high court overturns presidential election

Peter Schwarz

Austria’s Constitutional Court ruled Friday that the second round of Austria’s presidential election was invalid and must be repeated.

On May 22, Alexander Van der Bellen, the former chair of the Greens, defeated Norbert Hofer (Austrian Freedom Party, FPÖ) by just 30,863 votes. The candidates of the two governing parties, the Social Democrats (SPÖ) and Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP), had been eliminated in the first round.

Van der Bellen’s victory was secured only by the counting of the 740,000 mail-in votes. Hofer held a lead after the counting of the votes. The FPÖ subsequently challenged the result due to irregularities and the challenge has been sustained by the country’s highest court.

Over the past week, 14 constitutional judges questioned 90 witnesses over five days and confirmed a number of formal mistakes. For example, the postal votes were already counted in a number of districts on Sunday, election day, even though this is only permitted to take place from 9 a.m. on Monday. In part, votes were counted without the presence of the entire electoral authority, which is a requirement.

The Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that there had been irregularities in the conducting of the postal vote with a total of 77,926 postal ballots affected.

By contrast, the court did not confirm any electoral manipulation or fraud. In many electoral districts, the FPÖ were themselves responsible for the irregularities. However, it was “insignificant if manipulations actually occurred,” the court’s ruling stated, if “the errors reach a scope capable of influencing the outcome of the election.”

Court president Gerhart Holzinger said that the ruling was aimed at strengthening trust in the rule of law and democracy. The decision did not make “anyone a winner or a loser.” Nonetheless, the FPÖ celebrated the ruling as a success. The right-wing extremist party will thus receive a second chance to gain control of the highest post in the Austrian state.

Van der Bellen’s appointment to the post of president was originally planned for July 8. The three-person presidium of the National Council, which includes FPÖ candidate Hofer, will now take over official responsibilities of the president. Hofer has already declared that he will not relinquish this responsibility during the election campaign.

Van der Bellen declared he respected the ruling of the Constitutional Court. He rejected speculation that he would not stand again for election, and declared he was sure of victory. “Of course I will stand in the re-run of the election, and I intend to win it for a second time,” he said.

The run-off is set to be repeated either on September 25 or October 2. After the decision by British voters to support Brexit, the possibility that a far right opponent of the European Union could assume the post of president in Vienna will further contribute to the crisis and destabilisation of the EU.

China grapples with implications of Brexit vote

Peter Symonds

In the wake of last week’s vote in Britain to exit the European Union (EU), the Chinese government, like its counterparts around the world, is grappling with the far-reaching economic and geo-political implications of the referendum outcome.

Speaking at a World Economic Forum gathering on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang appealed to investors to regard China as “a calm and cool head” in times of global economic uncertainty. Despite further signs of a marked slowdown, he said that Beijing was confident that it could handle the problems facing its economy.

“It’s hard to avoid short-term volatility in China’s capital markets, but we won’t allow rollercoaster rides and drastic changes in the capital markets,” Li declared. “It’s important for all of us to work together to strengthen confidence, prevent the spread of panic, and to maintain the stability of capital markets.”

In the immediate term, Li was concerned to prevent any plunge in the Chinese share markets as occurred in mid-2015 and for which he faced heavy criticism within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Unlike other stock markets, which fell sharply last week, the falls in China were small and were erased by gains this week.

However, the Brexit vote presents more complex economic problems to the CCP regime even in the short term, with financial analysts pointing to the vulnerability of the Chinese yuan to global currency movements.

Wall Street Journal analyst Lingling Wei pointed out on Monday that the yuan was “already the subject of a precarious central-bank high-wire act.” She continued: “With all major currencies except the dollar and yen plunging in the wake of the British vote, pressure grows on the People’s Bank of China [PBoC] to also let the yuan weaken. But if the gap with the dollar becomes too big, capital outflows could speed up again.”

In other words, if the PBoC maintains the value of the yuan against the US dollar, Chinese exports become less competitive in many markets. Any devaluation, however, particularly a large one, could result in a destabilising exodus of funds from China. Analysts estimate that up to $1 trillion flooded out of China in 2015.

Britain’s exit from the EU has also undermined China’s trade and investment strategy towards Europe, which sought to develop the UK as a European base of operations. Beijing has invested considerable effort in cultivating relations with Britain, making London an offshore trading hub for the Chinese currency. Companies such as Chinese technology giant Huawei have invested in Britain to extend their reach into Europe.

Prime Minister David Cameron feted Chinese President Xi Jinping during his state visit to Britain last October. Xi told the British parliament that a “great new age” of friendship had opened up between the two countries. Plans were announced for Chinese-built nuclear power stations, a high-speed rail service and joint space research.

The Chinese government clearly hoped that its ties with Britain would increase China’s chances of securing market economy status from the EU. Now Beijing will be compelled to operate within a far more uncertain situation where the Brexit vote is opening up fissures both in the UK and the EU.

Speaking on Tuesday, Chinese Premier Li declared that Beijing wanted to see a “united and stable” European Union and a “stable and prosperous” Britain.

At the same time, Beijing may no longer enjoy what British Chancellor George Osborne described as a “golden relationship” with London. The pro-China orientation of Osborne and Cameron has already been criticised by Washington particularly after Britain became the first major Western power to sign up to China’s Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in March 2015. The US as part of its “pivot to Asia,” which aims at undermining Beijing diplomatically, economically and militarily, was sharply opposed to the British decision.

The Conservative Party is not just divided over Britain’s policy towards Europe, but also to China. Significantly this week, an inner-party report has hit out at what it regards as the government’s failure to take a tough stand against China’s human rights record. The report suggests concern in sections of the Conservative Party that Britain’s longstanding relations with the US have been compromised by growing ties with China. Cant about “human rights” is Washington’s stock-in-trade as it pursues its predatory interests.

China’s AIIB initiative is part of far broader “One Belt, One Road” plans for massive infrastructure investment in high speed rail, road, Internet links and port facilities aimed at more closely integrating the Eurasian landmass. As well as boosting economic growth, Beijing regards the policy as a means of establishing closer ties with Europe and marginalising Washington. The Brexit vote, and the fracturing of the EU, compounds China’s already major difficulties in securing agreement for its proposals.

An editorial in China’s state-owned Global Times last weekend lamented the British vote declaring that it had “opened a Pandora’s box in Europe, pushing the continent into chaos” and reflected “the general decline of Europe.” It suggested that the changes would “benefit the US, which will lose a strong rival in terms of the dominance of its currency. Politically it will be easier for the US to influence Europe.”

In Washington, however, various analysts are already declaring that the real winner from the Brexit vote will be China. A comment from the Washington-based think tank, the Brookings Institution this week was headlined “Brexit aftermath: The West’s decline and China’s rise.” After considering the economic implications, commentator David Dollar declared:

“Finally, from a larger geostrategic perspective, it would seem that China is the big winner from Brexit. Europe is likely to be a less influential player on the world stage and will be absorbed with internal issues of negotiating the British exit, controlling immigration, and keeping the periphery inside the eurozone. The United States is also likely to be distracted by these European challenges. This gives China more scope to pursue its reclamation activities in the South China Sea and to play divide and conquer with European states on various issues.”

The remarks indicate concerns in Washington that Beijing will gain an advantage from the Brexit vote. The United States has no intention of ceding influence to China or any other power. It is already engaged in a comprehensive military build-up in Asia against China, and also in Europe against Russia, in preparation for war. In the coming weeks and months, Washington’s will undoubtedly ramp up this dangerous confrontation on both fronts.

Economic inequality soars in US

Patrick Martin

Economic inequality leapt ahead in 2015 in the United States, with the average incomes of the top 1 percent rising twice as fast as the incomes of the remaining 99 percent of households, according to a study released Friday for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. The top 1 percent had an average income of $1.4 million last year.

By far, the largest growth in incomes came in an even narrower section of the super-rich, the top 0.1 percent of households. These one-in-a-thousand households saw their incomes rise by nearly 9 percent to an average of $6.75 million.

The top 1 percent increased its share of total US household income from 21.4 percent to 22 percent. The top 10 percent collected more than half of all US household income, 50.5 percent, up from an even 50 percent in 2014. This was the highest figure for any year in US history, except for 2012.

These figures are based on an analysis of tax data by Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who is well known for groundbreaking research into income and wealth inequality. The data from the Internal Revenue Service gives a more accurate picture of the growth of income inequality than US Census data, which exclude capital gains and other sources of non-wage income, which go almost entirely to the wealthy.

The year 2015 was unusual compared to the rest of the period since the 2008 financial crash in that the wealthy did not monopolize all of the gains in real income. Average income for the bottom 99 percent rose by 3.9 percent to $48,768, the biggest annual increase since 1998, but only half the rate of increase enjoyed by the top 1 percent. This still left the bottom 99 percent of US families below the level of 2007.

“It is indeed the best growth year for the bottom 90 percent and bottom 99 percent since the late 1990s,” Saez told the Associated Press. “At the same time, top incomes grow even faster, leading to a further widening of inequality, which continues an alarming trend.”

Source: The Washington Center for Equitable Growth

The analysis by the Berkeley economist disproves claims by the Obama administration that the 2012 tax increase on the highest-income households, the result of a bipartisan deal with congressional Republicans, has had a significant impact on income inequality. Instead, the wealthy shifted income between years in order to avoid the impact of the higher tax rates.

“This suggests that the higher tax rates starting in 2013 will not, by themselves, affect much pre-tax income inequality in the medium-run,” Saez wrote, adding, “it seems unlikely that US income concentration will fall much in the coming years, absent more drastic policy changes.”

The Saez study gives the US side of a global phenomenon—the rapidly increasing economic inequality generated by the capitalist system on a world scale and exacerbated by the impact of the 2008 Wall Street crash.

A second report issued this week, by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, examined social polarization within the United States from the standpoint of access to a college education. While 14 million new jobs have been created over the past 68 months (more than five-and-a-half years) of “economic recovery,” it is well known that the vast majority of these jobs are lower-paying and more precarious than the jobs they replaced.

The Georgetown study found that these newly created jobs have been filled almost entirely by college-educated workers. Of the 11.6 million jobs created between January 2010 and January 2016, 11.5 million went to people with some form of college education. Some 75 percent of new jobs went to workers with a bachelor’s degree or better, and fully 99 percent went to workers with some college training. This left few or no new jobs available for those without a college education.

The report argued that “workers with a high school diploma or less hear about an economic recovery and wonder what people are talking about. … Of the 7.2 million jobs lost in the recession, 5.6 million were jobs for workers with a high school diploma or less.”

The study found that high school-educated workers have recovered only about 1 percent of those lost jobs over the past six years, and have seen virtually “no growth among well-paying jobs with benefits” during that period. There are 5.5 million fewer jobs for workers with no more than a high school education than there were in December 2007.

This continues a longer-term trend, with a decline of 13 percent since 1989, a loss of 7.3 million jobs, available to those with only a high school education. The number of jobs held by college-educated workers has doubled during the same period, with the result that “In 2016, for the first time ever, workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher comprise a larger proportion of the workforce than those with a high school diploma or less.”

College graduates comprise 36 percent of the work force, while 30 percent of workers have some college education, and 34 percent have only a high school education or less.

The Georgetown study demonstrates that, despite incessant claims that education is the road forward for working class youth to escape a life of economic deprivation, there is really no way out under capitalism.

Those who have not gone to college face a future of long-term unemployment, with little prospect of the decent-paying jobs their parents and grandparents once held. Those who have gone to college are employed, for the most part, in dead-end jobs for which they are overqualified, and where the wages are too low to allow them to repay their college loans. This year, student loan debt reached another all-time record, at $1.35 trillion.

These two reports underscore the objective, class basis for rising social discontent among working people and youth in the United States, discontent that finds only the most distorted expression within the political system, controlled by a two-party monopoly in which both parties represent the interests of the super-rich.

In the Republican Party, billionaire Donald Trump appealed to the discontent, particularly of older and less-educated workers, offering them the poison of economic nationalism and anti-immigrant racism.

In the Democratic Party, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won support, particularly among young people, for his condemnation of the “millionaires and billionaires” and his call for college tuition to be free at all public universities. But Sanders is now fulfilling the basic political aim of his campaign—to serve as a lightning rod for social discontent and channel it back behind the Democratic Party. He is folding up his campaign and shifting to support for Hillary Clinton, the candidate of Wall Street, the military-intelligence apparatus, and the bulk of the US political establishment.

Obama’s drone order: Institutionalizing a state murder operation

Bill Van Auken

Over three-and-a-half months after promising “in the coming weeks” an “assessment” of the number of civilians slaughtered in illegal drone missile strikes carried out in countries “outside of areas of active hostilities,” the Obama administration on Friday released numbers that represent a fraction of those documented by various independent investigations.

The report, drafted by the office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), was accompanied by an executive order reaffirming that the US president has the unquestionable right to order the state murder of anyone in any part of the world, while claiming a commitment to “promote best practices that reduce the likelihood of civilian casualties.”

The words “best practices,” drawn from the dry lexicon of corporate management, recur three times in the US president’s executive order, underscoring the way in which the methods of Murder Inc. have become routinized and institutionalized within the American capitalist state.

It is to further this process that the White House released its phony numbers, along with the hypocritical order feigning commitment to reducing the number of civilians killed by the Hellfire missiles fired from thousands of miles away by CIA and Pentagon operatives viewing their victims over video screens.

The new policy, according to a White House release, is designed to “develop a sustainable legal and policy architecture to guide our counterterrorism activities going forward,” and to “institutionalize and enhance best practices regarding US counterterrorism operations and other US operations involving the use of force...”

In other words, with barely six months left in office, Barack Obama is determined to secure a core element of his loathsome political legacy—turning the White House Oval Office into headquarters for drawing up “kill lists” and organizing “targeted killings,” i.e., political assassinations of foreign nationals and US citizens alike.

The Obama White House has set into motion a drone expansion program that will increase the military’s capacity to launch assassination strikes by 50 percent, while keeping the covert CIA drone program in place. All of those who appear in a position to succeed him have endorsed drone killings. In the case of the presumptive Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, she signed off on them as Obama’s secretary of state.

As for the pretense of concern for the “collateral damage” inflicted by this campaign—men, women and children who are not deliberately targeted but nonetheless blown to pieces—it is intended merely to provide a pseudo-humanitarian cover for cold-blooded murder.

Even the New York Times, which has in the past defended Obama’s drone assassinations, was compelled to note that the executive order and the casualty estimate from the DNI were released on the Friday afternoon of a long holiday weekend. This is a traditional time period for releases that the government hopes will escape close public scrutiny.

In this case, it is for good reason. According to the estimate provided by the DNI, the number of civilians killed “outside areas of active hostilities,” i.e., excluding the wholesale slaughter in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, between Obama’s inauguration in January 2009 and the end of 2015, amounted to a grand total of between 64 and 116. This compared in the US intelligence estimate to between 2,372 and 2,581 “combatant” deaths.

This admission represents an incremental change from when the architect of the drone murder program, now CIA director, John Brennan, claimed in 2011 that over the previous year there had not been “a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities” of the remote-control killing machine. At the time, Pakistan was counting its civilian victims in the hundreds, if not thousands, including 41 tribal leaders gathered in an open air, government-approved meeting in March of that year, who were ripped to pieces by four Hellfire missiles fired from multiple US drones.

Nonetheless, the numbers now provided by the DNI are absurdly low. Among the most cited sources on the subject, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has provided a conservative estimate that as many as 1,138 civilians have been killed by American drones—that is, tens times as many as are admitted by Washington.

Even this figure is a serious underestimation of the real human toll of Obama’s “targeted killing” program. A study done in 2014 by the human rights group Reprieve documented that in attempting to assassinate 41 individuals deemed by the White House to be “terrorists”—a category that includes anyone resisting American occupation or opposing US policy—drone strikes killed an estimated 1,147 people.

Among those reacting to Thursday’s press release was Letta Tayler, a Human Rights Watch researcher who documented through interviews with witnesses, relatives and officials the deaths of at least 57 civilians in US drone strikes in Yemen between 2009 and 2013. “I find it difficult to believe that in examining just seven attacks I happened upon well over half of the civilian deaths that the US acknowledges,” Tayler told the Washington Post .

One explanation for the immense discrepancy between the US government’s figures and those of virtually all other sources is that the Pentagon and the CIA have a policy of presumption of guilt for anyone killed by a drone missile. Males between the ages of 18 and 80 are automatically deemed “combatants,” and in many cases women and children are treated the same way.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper provided a simpler—and chilling—explanation Friday for the disparity in casualty estimates: the higher totals were the result of the “deliberate spread of misinformation by some actors, including terrorist organizations.” The meaning is clear. Those questioning a global assassination program carried out in the name of a “war on terror” are themselves suspect of acting in league with terrorists and, logically, potential targets.

The drone murder program—the signature policy of the presidency of Barack Obama—sums up the criminality not only of the president himself, but also of those he serves, the parasitical financial oligarchy and the vast military-intelligence apparatus. In the defense of their interests, war abroad is inevitably joined with repression at home.

The Obama administration’s move to sanctify this assassination program as a permanent institution of the American state must serve as a serious warning to the working class.

More student bodies disaffiliate from UK National Union of Students

Alice Summers

Two more UK universities, Hull and Loughborough, have voted to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students (NUS).

Student unions at these universities have joined those at Lincoln University and Newcastle University, who chose to leave the NUS in May. Ballots held at 11 other UK universities (Exeter, Surrey, Cambridge, Warwick, Worcester, Oxford, York, Bath Spa, Essex, Nottingham and Durham) on the question of whether to remain in the NUS, all narrowly returned a “Yes” vote.

The campaigns to disaffiliate follow the election of Malia Bouattia to the position of NUS president at the union’s April conference in Brighton, ousting incumbent president Megan Dunn by 372 votes to 328.

Since her election, Bouattia has been attacked by politicians and the media as an anti-Semite, in reference to comments she had previously made on the subject of Zionism. The condemnations of the former Birmingham University student have largely been based on her description of her alma mater as “something of a Zionist outpost” and referring to “Zionist-led media outlets.”

The media has also been quick to jump on the fact that Bouattia voted in 2014 against a motion condemning Islamic State (ISIS), using this incident to brand her as a terrorist sympathiser. Bouattia has strongly denied both allegations, recalling that her opposition to the ISIS motion was on purely terminological grounds. According to Bouattia, she criticised the motion for using “language [that] appeared to condemn all Muslims, not just the terror group. Once it was worded correctly I proposed and wholly supported the motion.”

Similarly, she stressed her comments on Zionism were directed against support for the Israeli government’s onslaught against Palestinian civilians, and not against the religion of Judaism.

The allegations of anti-Semitism levelled against Bouattia have run parallel to similar attacks against Labour Party members, such as former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Bradford West MP Naz Shah. In the interests of defending NATO and British imperialism, the ruling elite have sought to repress criticism of Israel, one of NATO’s principal allies in the Middle East, and to conflate such criticisms with anti-Semitism.

That these charges of anti-Semitism are far from the principal motivations behind the attacks on Bouattia has become increasingly apparent as the disaffiliation saga unfolds. Student groups at universities across the UK campaigning for a vote to leave the NUS have unashamedly made clear that the election of Bouattia was merely the pretext they had long been searching for to act on their hostility to the NUS.

According to a report by the Jewish Chronicle Online, the leading figure in the disaffiliation campaign at Nottingham University, Blake Purchase, criticised the “direction” that the NUS has been taking for a long time, stating that opposition to the NUS had been growing amongst the student body since before Bouattia’s election.

Purchase, who is general secretary of the university’s Conservative Association, denounced the NUS for “focusing on things which aren’t relevant to students, like Israel or condemning ISIS. Students care about things like tuition fees, and they’ve had enough of the NUS imposing things on them which they shouldn’t be ...”

These condemnations of the NUS from the right are at the heart of the attacks on the union. Under the disaffiliation campaigns, even the vaguest and most empty criticism that the NUS makes of British imperialism is a step too far. Right-wing critics such as Mark Wallace, editor of the Conservative Home blog, characterise the union as a “bastion of the loony left” and denounce it for focussing on anything that is not related to specific issues for students on campus.

The right-wing nature of the disaffiliation campaigns is plain to see from the heavy involvement of the Conservatives. Conservative Party student organisations have submitted or supported calls to leave the student union at universities such as Cambridge, Manchester, Birmingham and King’s College London, while the “No to NUS” campaign at Hull University was led by the president of Hull University Conservative Future Society, Dehenna Davison.

Last year, Davison, who stood in both the 2016 local council elections and the 2015 General Election as a Conservative Party candidate, announced her engagement to Tory councillor John Fareham.

Along with other leading individuals calling for disaffiliation, Davison has couched her arguments in terms of issues facing ethnic minority and LGBT+ groups, condemning the NUS for being “detached … from unique issues gay men experience,” and celebrating the achievements of Hull University Students Union for implementing unisex toilets on their campus. These right-wing critics of the NUS have done their utmost to divert students’ attention away from the very real political threats that face them, and to instead direct political opposition into the dead-end channels of identity politics.

The NUS itself, however, is hardly a stranger to the use of identity politics for these ends. Under its widely hated policies of “Safe Spaces” and “No-Platforming,” speakers who are deemed to have views that may be offensive to minorities or selected “oppressed groups” are denied the opportunity to speak. Speakers who have been refused a platform include feminist activist Germain Greer, who the NUS considers to be “transphobic,” and WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Assange on the grounds that he is “rape denier.”

“Safe Spaces” and “No-Platforming” have alienated many students from the NUS, as they rightly view these policies as a suppression of freedom of speech. This disillusionment with the union has been clear to see in the low turnout in the disaffiliation referendums so far. Referendum campaigns have barely been able to muster the votes of a 1,000 students, with turnouts ranging from a high of 30 percent to the more common 6 to 8 percent. The referendum at Bath Spa University, which returned a Remain vote, had the participation of only 388 students.

The election of Bouattia has been celebrated as a turning point for the NUS by pseudo-left groups such as the Socialist Party (SP) affiliated Socialist Students, who have called for students to take part in the referendum campaigns to “Say yes to a fighting NUS.”

Despite criticising its previous “failure … to offer a lead in organising resistance,” Socialist Students insist that with the new “left-wing” leadership of Bouattia, students will be able to put pressure on the NUS to “use its resources and authority to organise mass action to defend students.”

Socialist Worker, newspaper of the pseudo-left Socialist Workers Party (SWP), has joined in the adulation of Bouattia, labelling her an “anti-racist and left wing activist.” Bouattia, whose election is touted as a great victory for the left by the SP and SWP—due to the fact that she is the first black Muslim woman to occupy the presidency—is a prominent advocate of identity politics. She has played an active role in campaigns such as “Why is my curriculum so white?” and “Black Lives Matter,” which seek to portray race, gender and sexual orientation as the central issues underpinning global political life.

Bouattia’s election, as well as that of Shelly Asquith, Shakira Martin and Sorana Vieru to vice-presidency, has been proclaimed by Socialist Worker as marking “a shift towards turning the NUS into a campaigning organisation.” In an article for the Guardian, Asquith also attempted to portray the NUS as being at the dawn of a new, more radical era, celebrating the “proud campaigning history” of the union, and declaring that “[that] campaigning spirit is now back at the forefront of the NUS.”

The NUS, in an attempt to regain support from students angry over its constant refusal to fight education cuts and tuition fees, was forced to organise a demonstration in the autumn against the government’s proposed hike in fees set out in the Queen’s Speech in May.

This is the same NUS that has routinely collaborated with successive Labour and Conservative governments to impose higher student fees, cut maintenance grants to students and scale back, sabotage and wherever possible end student protests. No matter how “left-wing” the rhetoric of its incoming leaders, the function of the NUS as a political safety valve to contain students anger, and divert it back into dead-end channels, remains unchanged.

US Congress rejects funding to combat the Zika virus

David Brown

On Tuesday, the US Senate failed to vote on the latest bill to provide funding to fight the Zika virus in the United States, essentially preventing any significant government response during the summer months as the mosquito populations that spread the disease boom. Both the House and Senate are heading into their Fourth of July holiday breaks and will reconvene just briefly before going into summer recess until the middle of September.

The Zika virus, which is responsible for a surge of birth defects like microcephaly in Brazil, is currently sweeping through the US territory of Puerto Rico and has the potential to spread to mosquito populations on the mainland where it is currently only sexually transmitted.

The White House requested $2 billion to fight the virus four months ago, and government health agencies have been carrying out minimal work with roughly $600 million that the Obama administration has shifted from Ebola funding since then. The Senate Democrats filibustered a Republican bill that would have provided $1.1 billion but also cut $540 million from Affordable Care Act funding, and prevented any Zika funding from going to Planned Parenthood.

The Republican bill would have required all Zika funding to go to public health departments and Medicaid-run clinics, excluding any private health centers such as Planned Parenthood. This would significantly impede efforts to halt the epidemic in Puerto Rico where only 12 of the island’s 78 municipalities have a Medicaid-run facility.

Extent of Aedes Aegypti in the United States, the main carrier of Zika

The inability of Congress to even minimally address the epidemic threat is indicative of the broader crisis in American politics. The sum of money they have debated over for four months without resolution is a little more than the daily budget of the US military or approximately 0.2 percent of the cost of President Obama’s proposed overhaul of the US nuclear arsenal.

In the meantime the Zika virus has spread throughout Puerto Rico where an estimated 2 percent of the adult population is catching the disease each month and the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) estimates a full quarter of the island’s 3.5 million people will be infected with the virus by the end of the year. Roughly 32,000 babies are born in Puerto Rico each year and infected pregnant women pass the disease to their children in utero leading to sharp increases in birth defects.

The director of the CDC estimates that lifetime care of a child born with microcephaly, the most notable effect of fetal Zika infection, can range between $1 million and $10 million. Puerto Rico is currently facing a bankruptcy crisis that has seen massive cuts to its health care system as well as long term unemployment and widespread poverty. Many new parents will be unable to afford medical care for their newborns.

According to the CDC, there are currently 2,026 confirmed cases of Zika in US territories where the virus is spreading by mosquito bite and 935 cases in the US mainland that are either from people contracting the disease abroad or from having sex with those who have. A total of 537 pregnant women have contracted the virus and there have been at least 8 cases of Zika-related microcephaly or other congenital malformations.

Although microcephaly, a condition where an infant has an abnormally small head, is the most obvious impact of Zika infection, recent research from Brazil shows the virus causes a wider range of congenital brain damage. One in five infants suspected of contracting Zika in the womb had head sizes in the normal range but were still likely to have significant brain abnormalities.

Microcephaly is strongly correlated with an infection early in the pregnancy while normal head sizes with other problems are associated with third trimester infection. There is no point during pregnancy where an infant is safe from severe effects. Doctors have not yet determined how old a child has to be for Zika to no longer significantly impact the development of their brain.

Zika infection is associated with vision and hearing problems, as well as limb malformations. It is entirely possible that the virus, which is known to target brain and nerve cells, could have a subtler long-term impact on those infants who do not suffer an immediately obvious problem.

Extent of Aedes Albopictus in the United States, a mosquito also know to carry Zika

Although Brazil is the epicenter of the current outbreak, there is active mosquito-borne transmission in 63 countries and person-to-person infection in another 10. To coordinate the global response, the World Health Organization has asked for $122.1 million in special funding through December 2017. In the first six months of 2016 they have received just over $4 million, with the largest donor, Norway, giving $1 million.

Brazil, where over 1 million people have been infected with Zika, is planning on hosting the Olympic Games in August. Should any of the expected half a million foreign tourists introduce Zika into the mosquito populations of their home countries, the epidemic could spread much further. In countries with poor health care and sanitation, the disease can spread unseen for nearly a year, as it did in Brazil, until the unmissable impact on newborns is seen.

Over 2 billion people live in the range of the main vector of the Zika virus, the Aedes Aegypti mosquito. Within the US this encompasses the Southern states as well as those bordering Mexico. Another, more cold resistant mosquito, Aedes Albopictus, was recently confirmed to carry the Zika virus in Latin America, and extends the reach of the virus in the United States into the Midwest, as far as southern Minnesota.

US Senate gives last-minute approval to Puerto Rico debt package

Rafael Azul

On Thursday, President Barack Obama signed into law debt-management legislation for Puerto Rico, the so-called PROMESA (“promise” in Spanish) bill. The measure was approved the day before in the US Senate by vote of 68 for and 30 against, with 2 abstentions.

In return for allowing Puerto Rico to resort to some of the elements of bankruptcy (such as the ability to negotiate with creditors), the island territory will be placed under a financial control board, unelected by the people, which will be able to impose what amounts to a financial dictatorship until it determines that Puerto Rico’s financial health has been restored, an impossibility really, as is the case in Greece, Argentina, and other victims of draconian austerity.

As resources are shifted to Wall Street and the banks, the economy will shrink, requiring ever-deeper austerity measures, causing the economy to shrink once more, in a descending spiral of poverty and hunger. Already, Puerto Rico’s poverty rate (45 percent) is causing a demographic exodus by those who are able to leave.

With the creation of a financial control board, the new law imposes an openly colonial relation between the US and Puerto Rico, a status that had been politically masked since 1952 with the creation of the Commonwealth that granted the island self-rule over internal matters.

In addition to being able to increase taxes, as well as impose more cuts in education and health care on Puerto Rican workers and youth and lower pensions on public employees, the financial control board has the power to impose a sub-minimum wage on young workers. The legislation also exempts Puerto Ricans from rules that protect overtime pay.

Under the terms of the bipartisan bill, the seven-member Fiscal Control Board will now negotiate with creditors over the terms of payment of Puerto Rico’s $74 billion debt. It also has the power to sell off government assets, fire officials and modify laws and regulations.

Less than 24 hours after the Senate vote, on Thursday afternoon, Puerto Rico’s governor, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, signed two executive orders imposing a moratorium on and suspending payment on Puerto Rican general obligation bonds (GO bonds), due on July 1st. President Obama signed the debt bill a few minutes after Garcia Padilla’s announcements.

According to the San Juan daily Nuevo Día, the governor had decided that the default decrees would be issued independently of the Senate vote.

In addition to the GO bonds, the governor decreed other emergency measures designed to protect government agencies, such as the Metropolitan Bus Authority, the University of Puerto Rico, the Industrial Development Agency and public pension funds, from lawsuits.

At the same time, Garcia Padilla declared his approval of the federal debt bill.

Though Garcia Padilla presented his decrees as making it possible to protect Puerto Ricans from the worse effects of the debt default, his administration has already gone a long way in imposing austerity, closing 100 schools, cutting health care, refusing to fund public employee pensions and destroying public and private sector jobs. The appointment of the financial control board will now result in an acceleration of austerity measures.

Not defaulting is the public Electric Energy Authority (AEE), which announced its intentions to fully service its July 1st debt. This is made possible by a previous agreement with bondholders that in effect privatizes 70 percent of the AEE’s assets.

Lisa Donahue, who is in charge of AEE’s restructuring, declared that this “marked another step in the transformation of AEE.”

Hundreds of electric utility workers rejected the AEE announcement by rallying in protest on Thursday outside of Puerto Rico’s government house (La Fortaleza ), which was heavily guarded. The electrical workers union (UTIER) launched a one-day protest strike this Thursday against the deterioration of workers’ pension funds, the privatization of electricity plants and the loss of pension rights.

“We will win, no matter who is in there,” UTIER leader Angel Figueroa declared demagogically, pointing to the government house.

Public employees, members of the SEIU-affiliated Puerto Rican Workers Union, also set up a picket line in San Juan, across from the US Federal Building, to denounce the Fiscal Control Board.

In both those job actions, the dominant perspective was that of flag-waving nationalism designed to limit the workers’ anger to the level of protest and to discourage unity with US and Latin American workers. However, the large police presence at the Fortaleza demonstration suggests governmental fears that things could rapidly get out of control in a nation in which more than 80 percent of the workers are not affiliated with any trade union.

The deterioration of this island territory’s economy began with a recession in 2006. Puerto Rican governments borrowed in the bond market from hedge funds that took advantage of generous tax incentives in Puerto Rico and the US for income generated by those bonds.

The tipping point for those policies took place in 2014, when hedge funds bought $3.5 billion in GO bonds. Further benefitting the hedge funds was a stipulation that placed jurisdiction over the debt with New York courts, generally known to favor Wall Street. Since then, many of those bonds have wound up in the hands of “hold outs,” vulture funds that specialize in problem debt. Among them are some that were also involved in the 2001-2002 Argentine financial crisis and in the current Greek financial implosion: Aurelious Capital Management LP, Perry Capital LLC, and Fir Tree partners.

The broad powers granted the Fiscal Control Board ensure that the interests of the debt holders and hedge funds will be well protected at the expense of Puerto Rico’s impoverished workers.

Nuevo Día indicted that this is the first US territory to declare itself in default since the State of Arkansas did so in 1933.

Brexit vote heightens tensions in Europe

Peter Schwarz

Last week’s vote by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union has sharply intensified national antagonisms in Europe.

The withdrawal of the second-largest economy from the 28-member EU would dramatically increase the economic weight of Germany inside the union. Following Britain’s withdrawal, Germany’s share of EU gross domestic product would rise from just over a fifth to almost one quarter. These statistics only partially reflect German predominance.

Particularly since the 2008 financial crisis, Germany has sought political and economic supremacy in Europe. Both the austerity diktats imposed on Greece, Portugal and Spain, as well as the plans to extend the EU into a political and military world power, have been pushed most aggressively by Berlin.

The strategy paper presented by the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini at Wednesday’s EU Summit, which calls for the transformation of the EU into a military power, was elaborated in close agreement with the German defence ministry. And the book Power in the Middle by Berlin political scientist Herfried Münkler, which calls for Germany to assume the role of a “hegemon” and “task master” in Europe, has met with widespread approval by the German establishment parties and media.

Germany’s reaction to the Brexit vote takes place in context of its drive for hegemony in Europe. Before the vote, there had been little support in the German elites for a British exit. They feared a victory for the “Leave” camp would strengthen forces throughout Europe that oppose Germany’s hegemonic aspirations from a right-wing nationalist standpoint. And they regarded Britain as an important economic partner and reliable ally when it came to imposing strict budgetary discipline and neo-liberal economic policies in Brussels.

However, following the referendum, the German position changed abruptly. Now, Berlin is pushing for the quickest possible exit, rejecting any concessions to London and all speculation that the result could be reversed.

There are several reasons for this. One is the fear that long drawn-out exit negotiations and concessions to Britain could strengthen centrifugal forces in the EU. For example, news weekly Der Spiegel, which had previously argued strongly against a Brexit, warned that the British example could be copied if the EU acted too leniently towards London.

Above all, Berlin seized on the prospect of a British exit as an opportunity to press ahead with policies that the UK had opposed. This is especially the case for the development of a foreign and military policy independent of the US. The British government has consistently opposed German efforts to counter US foreign policy—as in the 2003 Iraq war—or to create a European army in parallel with NATO.

The result of the Brexit referendum had hardly been announced when German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier invited representatives of the six EU founding nations to Berlin to discuss further proceedings. Chancellor Angela Merkel met with President François Hollande to strengthen the Franco-German axis. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who faces nationalist pressure from the Five Star Movement and the Northern League, was also invited to the meeting in an effort to prevent Italy from drifting away.

The three government heads agreed to a series of measures to keep the EU together. The first order of business was “domestic and foreign security,” i.e., the arming of the state apparatus against domestic unrest and of the military for new war missions.

What they meant by these terms can be seen in the joint paper, entitled “A strong Europe in an uncertain world,” in which the foreign ministers of Germany and France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Jean-Marc Ayrault, summarise their conclusions from the Brexit referendum.

The paper defines the European Union as a “security union”, which “strives for a common security and defence policy,” and praises “Germany and France for campaigning for a Europe that acts with unity and self-awareness on an international level.” According to the paper, the EU should be developed “step by step into an independent and global actor.”

As regions in which “Europe” intervenes politically and militarily, Steinmeier and Ayrault name Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa, among others. Centralised EU institutions should be created in order to “more effectively plan and implement civilian and military operations.”

The meeting in Berlin unleashed panic in Eastern Europe. In Prague, a parallel meeting of the Visegrad states (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) took place. The Polish foreign minister invited representatives of ten EU members—including Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Austria, Spain and Britain—to Warsaw.

Above all, the Polish government vehemently rejects the Steinmeier-Ayrault paper. Instead of a “stronger Europe,” it proposes a redrafting of the EU treaties to devolve power to the national states. The ultra-nationalist Polish government feels threatened both by Berlin and Russia, and regards the US-dominated NATO as the guarantor of Polish independence.

On Thursday, the pro-government newspaper Gazeta Polska appeared with the headline, “Will there be a Fourth Reich?” together with a Swastika on the front page. The article accuses Germany and France of a pro-Russian orientation, and declares, “The political monsters have not died with Nazism and communism—the totalitarian vision of super states returns right before our eyes.” On the inside pages, a long article warns against a “Europe ruled from Berlin.”

Front page of Gazeta Polska : "Will there be a Fourth Reich ?"

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto attacked “Brussels’ immigration policy” and declared, “Europeans want to decide for themselves about their lives and their futures, and do not want to accept that decisions regarding the future of Europe are made by bureaucrats somewhere in Brussels in private and behind closed doors.”

In France, too, voices opposing German supremacy in Europe are being raised, and not just from the extreme right-wing National Front, whose leader Marine Le Pen is demanding France’s exit from the EU, but from the ranks of the conservative Republicans and pseudo-left.

For example, Henri Guaino, a close confidante of former President Nicolas Sarkozy, told the daily Le Figaro, “If the response to Brexit is an even more German Europe, then we are driving into a brick wall.” Sarkozy himself and former premier François Fillon, a possible candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, advocate a “Europe of the nations”— a weakening of the EU in favour of the national states.

Former Economics Minister Arnaud Montebourg, who is regarded as a “left” in the Socialist Party, and the leader of the French Left Party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, are also sounding increasingly nationalist and anti-German tones.

The European consequences of a Brexit are only beginning to emerge. On the one hand, there is the drive by Germany to unite Europe under its hegemony, which will be accompanied with violent attacks on working people, increased state repression and militarism. On the other, there is a poisonous nationalism in both a far-right and pseudo-left form, which divides the working class and bolsters xenophobia.

For the European working class neither the one nor the other offer a way forward. Once again, it becomes clear that Europe cannot be united on a capitalist basis. Only a movement by the working class, unified on the program of the United Socialist States of Europe, can prevent the continent descending once again into the horrors of the twentieth century: world war and fascism.

The Istanbul airport bombing: Blowback from the war in Syria

Bill Van Auken

The death toll in the June 28 terrorist attack against Istanbul’s Ataturk international airport rose to 43 Thursday with the death of a critically wounded three-year-old Palestinian boy. The child’s mother was among those killed in the attack, which wounded 239 others.

The worldwide horror over the triple suicide bombing in one of the world’s busiest airports has been mixed with growing anger among the the people of Turkey, who blame not only the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the apparent author of the terrorist act, but also this group’s principal patron and facilitator, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The New York Times Thursday published an article titled “Ending Free Rein for ISIS, Turkey Learns Its Wrath,” that was strikingly blunt in its admission of the role played by the Turkish government.

“From the start of the Islamic State’s rise through the chaos of the Syrian war, Turkey has played a central, if complicated, role in the group’s story. For years, it served as a rear base, transit hub and shopping bazaar for the Islamic State ... The group’s long honeymoon with Turkey started with the country’s aid to rebel groups that were fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad of Syria, often with the blessing of Western intelligence agencies ... Because so many of the group’s foreign fighters passed through Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, the destination itself became synonymous with intent to join ISIS.”

These so-called foreign fighters, the article acknowledges, enjoyed free movement into Turkey and on to Syria, as well as back again through Turkey and into Europe, where they have been responsible for similar terrorist atrocities.

In other words, Washington’s NATO ally and key regional partner has been principally responsible for sustaining the terrorist organization that is ostensibly the target of US imperialism’s renewed war in the Middle East.

With the reference to “the blessing of Western intelligence agencies,” the Times delicately skirts the reality that the US Central Intelligence Agency collaborated directly with the Erdoğan government in funneling both foreign fighters and hundreds of tons of weapons into the bloodbath in Syria to further the shared objective of regime-change: the ousting of Assad and the imposition of a more pliant Western puppet.

The main beneficiaries of the operations carried out by US intelligence have been ISIS and Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Al Nusra Front. The main victims have been the hundreds of thousands killed and millions turned into refugees in Iraq and Syria, along with those killed and maimed in the growing number of terrorist attacks from Paris to Brussels and now Istanbul.

Friction between the US and Turkey has emerged over Washington’s attempt to utilize Kurdish separatist forces in both Syria and Iraq as proxy troops in an effort to curb ISIS’s advance, even as Turkey is waging a civil war against its own Kurdish minority and fears the creation of Kurdish enclaves on its border. While launching limited strikes against ISIS positions in Syria, Turkey has turned its overwhelming firepower against Kurdish positions in both Iraq and Syria.

The Times article suggests that the attack at Ataturk airport may be the response of ISIS to the limited Turkish attacks on its forces in Syria as well as a spate of prosecutions of ISIS members in connection with previous terrorist attacks.

The degree to which the organization still operates with relative impunity inside Turkey, however, was made clear in the immediate aftermath of the bombing, when Turkish security forces launched a series of raids hitting 16 separate addresses in Istanbul as well as other locations in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir. The whereabouts of ISIS operatives was no secret to the Turkish state.

Details that have emerged about those who carried out the attack, however, point to another possible motive. The three suicide bombers are now said by Turkish authorities to have been from the Russian republic of Dagestan and the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

It has further been reported that the organizer of the attack was one Akmed Chatayev, an Islamist veteran of the Chechen wars, who was granted asylum in Austria and then found refuge in Georgia, where he established ties to the security services of the US-backed government. He has reportedly been active in recruiting and training anti-Russian Chechen fighters from Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge region and sending them to fight in Syria.

Virulently anti-Russian fighters from the same region have played an increasingly prominent role in both the leadership and the ranks of ISIS in Syria. Tarkhan Batirashvili, a former Georgian army sergeant who was described as a “star pupil” of US special forces trainers and then fought in the 2008 war against Russia, became a top ISIS commander.

Given the background of those who planned and staged the Istanbul airport bombings, it can hardly be taken as mere coincidence that the attack was executed in the immediate wake of the Erdoğan government’s issuance of an apology for last November’s shootdown of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 jet as it was carrying out bombing runs against Turkish-backed and Al Qaeda-linked forces on the Syrian-Turkish border. The incident raised the specter of the war for regime-change in Syria turning into an armed clash between NATO and Russia with the potential of escalating into a nuclear war.

The apology is part of Ankara’s attempt at rapprochement with Russia aimed at removing sanctions that have hit Turkey’s tourism, agricultural, construction and trade sectors.

For the anti-Russian forces fighting in Syria, who have likewise been deployed in support of the US-backed regime in Ukraine, the turn to Moscow may well have been taken as a betrayal of previous understandings and commitments, with violent retribution against their erstwhile patron the response. This is a familiar pattern, seen in the evolution of Al Qaeda, which was nurtured by the CIA and then abandoned after Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. The end result was September 11, 2001 and the deaths of 3,000 Americans.

US imperialism and its allies have created a multi-headed Frankenstein’s monster in Syria. In addition to the fighters from Russia and the former Soviet republics, who are believed to number roughly 10,000, several thousand ethnic Uighur Islamist militants have been brought into the country from the Xinjiang region of northwestern China via Turkey. Their presence has been credited with much of the advances made by Al Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, in northwestern Idlib province.

These forces have been brought into Syria not only for use as cannon fodder in the Western-backed war for regime-change, but also to be bloodied in combat in preparation for far more dangerous and potentially world-catastrophic wars against both Russia and China.

The slaughter at the Istanbul airport, like the Paris attacks of last November and the bombings in Brussels in March, serves as a warning of the immense dangers posed by these imperialist conspiracies to working people all over the planet.