The Banks’ Big Squeeze: You’re Overdrafted, They’re Overpaid

Sam Pizzigati

Almost two-thirds of Americans today — 63 percent — don’t have enough savings to cover an unexpected $500 expense. Anything from an emergency brake job to a refrigerator on the fritz could zero out their bank accounts.

Most American households, in other words, are living on the financial edge. And that suits America’s biggest bank CEOs just fine. They love to see Americans desperately juggling credit cards and checking accounts to keep bills paid.

With all that juggling, our banksters know, something will inevitably get dropped. A checking account will be slightly overdrawn. A debit card transaction will overstep a limit. And that’s when the banks start to really clean up — through overdraft fees.

“Over the years,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray has testified, “overdraft programs have become a significant source of industry revenues.”

(Photo: Shutterstock)

How significant? Over the first three months of this year, Bank of America collected $393 million in overdraft fees, up from $371 million in the first quarter of 2015. Wells Fargo pulled in even more, with $411 million — a 16 percent increase from the same period last year.

Banks play all sorts of games to maximize these mega millions in overdraft income. They particularly enjoy “reordering” the purchases consumers make. Banks that “reorder” process a day’s biggest charge or check first, even if smaller charges or checks came earlier in the day.

What difference does this reordering make? A great deal more than you might think.

Say you start the day with $80 in your account and you charge three $25 items — and then find yourself having to shell out another $100 later in the day. If the bank processes these charges in chronological order, you’ll pay only one overdraft fee when the $100 charge pushes you over your limit.

But if the bank processes the $100 charge first, ahead of the three smaller purchases, you’ll end up paying four overdraft fees for the exact same day’s worth of charges.

Who’s benefiting from this sort of chicanery? Not bank branch managers. They’re only averaging $54,820 a year, calculates PayScale. And certainly not bank tellers. The typical American teller last year earned just $12.70 an hour, about $26,410 a year, says the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Bank CEOs, on the other hand, are living spectacularly high on the hog. Last year, the 10 most lavishly compensated of these top execs averaged over $15.5 million each, with the CEO of overdraft fee king Wells Fargo coming in at over $19.3 million.

Overdraft fees make these over-the-top CEO rewards possible. But let’s keep in mind an even more important point: Sky-high rewards for CEOs make overdraft chicanery inevitable. They give banking execs a powerful incentive to maximize overdraft income from reordering and all sorts of other tricks of the banking industry trade.

The federal government’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is trying to clamp down on these tricks and has already made some progress. But as overdraft revenues continue to rise, bank execs simply have no incentive to turn off the spigot.

If we want to see real reform in the financial industry, we can’t just put some limits on how much banks can grab from overdrafts. Maybe we need to start talking about limiting how much pay can go to the executives who run our biggest banks.

Don’t Move! How USA Murders Unpeople

Kathy Kelly

Two major news stories here in the U.S., both chilling, point out how readily U.S. authorities will murder people based on race and the slightest possibility of a threat to those in places of power.

On July 5th Baton Rouge police killed Anton Sterling in a Louisiana parking lot.  Sterling was a 37-year-old Black father of five selling CDs outside of a local storege. As captured on widely seen cellphone video, two officers tased him, held him with their hands and knees down on the ground and then shot him multiple times at close range. The officers pulled a gun out of Sterling’s pocket after they had killed him but witnesses say Sterling was not holding the gun and his hands were never near his pockets. The situation might have escalated further but clearly little concern was shown for the sanctity of a human life deemed a threat to officers. In the witness-recorded video one officer promises, “If you f—ing move, I swear to God!”

Police departments in the U.S. often arrest and all too often kill citizens on U.S. streets based on “racial profiling,” Young men of certain demographics are targeted based on their “patterns of behavior” for confrontations in which officers’ safety trumps any concern for the safety of suspects, and which easily ramp up to killing.

And so it is abroad. The week’s other chilling news involved the long-promised release of U.S. government data on drone strikes and civilian deaths. The report covered four countries with which the U.S. is not at war.  From 2009 through 2015 in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya the U.S. admits to its drone strikes having killed between 64 and 116 civilians, although these numbers are only a small fraction of even the most conservative estimates on such deaths made by credible independent reporters and researchers over the same period. With U.S. definitions of a “combatant” constantly in flux, many of the 2,372 to 2,581 “combatants” the government reports killed over the same period will have certainly been civilian casualties. Few eyes in the U.S. watch for cellphone video from these countries, and so the executing officers’ versions of events are often all that matters.

In June 2011 CIA Director John Brennan stated there hadn’t been “a single collateral death” caused by drone strikes over the previous eighteen months.  Ample reportage showed this statistic was a flat lie. Marjorie Cohn notes that what little we know of President Obama’s 2013 policy guidelines (still classified) for decreasing civilian deaths is inconsistent even on the point of a known target having been present. Many strikes are targeted at areas of suspicious activity with no idea of who is present.

As Philip Giraldi notes, a March 2015 Physicians for Social Responsibility report claims that more (perhaps far more) than 1.3 million people were killed during the first ten years of the “Global War on Terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Adding Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, he finds the current total might easily exceed 2 million with some estimates credibly going to 4 or beyond. He fears the data released July 1st will end up normalizing the drone program, writing: “The past 15 years have institutionalized and validated the killing process. President Clinton or Trump will be able to do more of the same, as the procedures involved are ‘completely legal’ and likely soon to be authorized under an executive order.”

The July 1st data minimizes civilian deaths by limiting itself to countries with which the U.S. is not at war. But the United States’ drone arsenal is precisely designed to project violence into areas miles from any battlefield where arrest, not assassination would before have been considered both feasible and morally indispensable in dealing with suspects accused of a crime. U.S. figures do not count untold numbers of civilians learning to fear the sky, in formerly peaceful areas, for weapons that might be fired without warning. The drones take away the very idea of trials and evidence, of the rule of law, making the whole world a battlefield.

In the U.S. neighborhoods where people like Alton Sterling most risk summary execution, residents cannot be faulted for concluding that the U.S.’ government and society don’t mind treating their homes as warzones; that lives of innocent people caught up in these brutal wars do not matter provided the safety and property of the people outside, and of the people sent in to quell disorder, are rigorously protected.

My friends and sometime hosts in Afghanistan, the Afghan Peace Volunteers, run a school for street kids, and a seamstress program to distribute thick blankets in the winter. They seek to apply Mohandas Gandhi’s discipline of letting a determination to keep the peace show them the difficult work needed to replace battlefields with community. Their resources are small and they live in a dangerous city at a perilous time. Their work does little, to say the least, to ensure their safety. They aim to put the safety of their most desperate neighbors first.

It makes no-one safer to make our cities and the world a battlefield. The frenzied concern for our safety and comfort driving so much of our war on the Middle East has made our lives far more dangerous. Can we ask ourselves: which has ever brought a peaceful future nearer to people in Afghan or U.S. neighborhoods– weaponized military and surveillance systems or the efforts of concerned neighbors seeking justice? Gigantic multinational “defense” systems gobble up resources, while programs intended for social well-being are cut back. The U.S. withholds anything like the quantity of resources needed for the task of healing the battle scar the U.S. and NATO have inflicted on so much of the Muslim world.  If our fear is endless, how will these wars ever end?

We have to face that when the U.S. acts as self-appointed “global policeman,” what it does to poor nations resembles what those two officers did to Alton Sterling. We must temper selfish and unreasonable fears for our own safety with the knowledge that others also want safe and stable lives. We must build community by lessening inequality. We must swear off making the world our battlefield and be appalled to hear the U.S. government seem to tell the world “I will kill you if you f—ing move.”

Social Democrats, Left Party and Greens preparing coalition in Germany

Peter Schwarz

For weeks, there have been extensive discussions in the German press about the prospect of a coalition between the Social Democrats (SPD), Left Party and Greens after Germany’s federal election in 2017. The impulse was the dramatic losses suffered by the SPD and Left Party in regional elections in March. The SPD finished behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in two states, and the Left Party trailed the AfD in three. Further fuel for the debate about an SPD/Left Party/Green coalition was provided by President Joachim Gauck’s decision not to run for a second term in office and the vote in Britain to leave the European Union (EU).

SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel and the entire Left Party leadership are the main advocates of a coalition in Berlin. In mid-May, Gabriel met for the first time in Saarland with Oscar Lafontaine, who is considered persona non grata in the SPD after he turned his back on the party 17 years ago and subsequently became a joint founder of the Left Party. Following the meeting, Lafontaine and his wife, Left Party parliamentary chair Sahra Wagenknecht, have been pushing for an alliance with the SPD and Greens.

As Wagenknecht declared in the wake of Gauck’s announcement that he would not seek a second term, “We wish the SPD had the courage to free itself from the confines of the grand coalition and not only propose a joint candidate with us and the Greens, but also impose one.” The two joint chairpersons of the Left Party, Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger, also proclaimed their willingness to reach “an agreement on a joint candidature with the SPD and Greens.”

In a column in Der Spiegel 10 days later, Gabriel called for an “alliance of progressive forces” to combat the rise of a “radical bourgeois right.” This was widely interpreted as an invitation to the Left Party and Greens for cooperation.

The Greens are split over the issue. A significant section of the party, which is now governing two states in western Germany in coalition with the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), would prefer a coalition at the federal level with the conservatives.

But even discounting the Greens’ stance, the prospect of an SPD/Left Party/Green federal coalition seems highly speculative. Although the three parties hold a majority of the seats in the current parliament, this is hardly likely to be the case after the 2017 election. According to polls, all three parties combined are likely to win support from a little over 40 percent of the electorate.

However, as has often been the case in the Federal Republic, the haggling over new majorities is not simply a question of electoral tactics, but of a political change of course.

In 1969, the right-leaning free-market Free Democrats (FDP) united with the SPD to support the implementation of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik (Eastern Policy), which created new markets for German industry. And in 1998, the formerly pacifist Greens were brought into the federal government in order to make possible the return of German soldiers to war zones around the world. The Hartz reforms, which created a huge low-wage sector in Germany, were also the work of the SPD/Green coalition.

The proposal for an SPD/Left Party/Green coalition draws on this legacy. Along with domestic political goals, it aims to bring about a new orientation for German foreign policy that is being pressed for by sections of the ruling elite. Two issues are at the heart of this project: the reorganisation of the EU under German hegemony and a reorientation of German foreign and military policy on lines relatively more independent of the United States.

Among the governing coalition of the CDU, CSU and SPD, there are considerable differences on both of these questions, which in part cut across party lines. On both issues, the Left Party is considered an important prop for a new orientation.

As always, the change of course being strived for is accompanied by parsimonious phrases about peace, democracy and social justice. But those seeking to orient themselves politically must learn to distinguish between such phrases and real goals. An SPD/Left Party/Green coalition would stand for more militarism, a strengthening of the state apparatus and further attacks on social rights. In numerous interviews, articles and strategy papers, the leading spokespeople for the SPD and Left Party have exchanged ideas on this over recent weeks.

On the day after the Brexit vote, Gabriel and European Parliament president Martin Schulz (SPD) presented a joint foreign policy paper. Under the title “Founding Europe anew,” they demanded a closer centralisation of the EU under German pre-eminence. Given the increased inability of the European Council of heads of government to act, the European Commission had to be “restructured into a genuine European government.”

Further demands in the 10-point paper included: a “shift in economic policy and a new growth pact for the EU,” although the authors explicitly acknowledge the validity of the European Stability Pact, which compels indebted states to implement strict austerity measures; an “economic Schengen” (i.e., a further expansion of the European common market); the emergence of the EU as a “unified regional power for order”; effective cooperation on internal security; the establishment of a “European FBI”; and an “effective securing of Europe’s external borders.”

The paper was met with protests from the CDU. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble insist upon the leading role of the European Council of heads of government and do not want to give encouragement to nationalist tendencies within the EU with further centralisation.

In a newspaper interview, Schäuble attacked the EU Commission and its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, who, in spite of his membership in a conservative party, represents a position in line with the SPD on this issue. “If the Commission doesn’t act together, then we will take the matter into our own hands and solve the problems between the governments,” he threatened last Sunday.

In addition, Schäuble expressed the fear that the “growth pact” proposed by the SPD would undermine his austerity course. The revival of “the false idea” that “one can pump out growth by taking on new debt” could not be accepted, he said.

Shortly after Gabriel and Schulz’s publication, the German and French foreign ministers, both social democrats, released their own paper. Under the title “A strong Europe in an insecure world,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Jean-Marc Ayrault described the British decision to leave the EU as an opportunity to establish a European military and defence policy independent of the United States.

Both papers were greeted with enthusiasm in the Left Party. In the Bundestag debate on the Brexit vote, parliamentary chair Dietmar Bartsch praised the Gabriel-Schulz paper. It was a diametrical shift from the current policy, he claimed. “I think it is reasonable that we take the first step towards another Europe.” Against China, Japan and North America, Europe had “only a chance together.” “If one wants a united Europe, then one cannot talk so much; one must immediately act.”

Two days later, Wagenknecht promised Gabriel, who was travelling to Greece, her full support. Greece was “a good place to present a programme for another Europe,” she stated in parliament. “If Sigmar Gabriel is seriously concerned about a new start in Europe, to reduce inequality and create new European regulations to prioritise the welfare and social security of the people over the freedom of deregulated markets, he has our support.” “A fundamental change of course” was involved.

Wagenknecht, of course, knows full well that the SPD is not retreating from its austerity dictates to Greece, which are being implemented by her ally Alexis Tsipras. To leave no doubt about this, she demanded, “In Greece, and throughout Europe, public debt must be reduced.” Her rhetoric about “social security” and “deregulated markets” merely serves to cover the right-wing essence of the cooperation with the SPD.

The anti-American orientation of the proposed SPD/Left Party/Green alliance was formulated most explicitly by Oscar Lafontaine. In early June, he participated in a rally in front of the US Ramstein air base and told the Internet publication KenFM, “The United States is an oligarchic system, which is out to secure raw materials and markets around the world by military means.” The US wanted to “encircle Russia,” which was “obvious to anyone who looks at the map.” He called for a “security system including Russia and not confrontation, which the United States has been looking for for years.”

On his Facebook page, Lafontaine called for “drawing on the best traditions of an independent European foreign policy, as was developed by Charles de Gaulle for France and Willy Brandt for Germany.” He accused Chancellor Merkel of not understanding the “imperial goals” of the United States and of being “incapable of an independent German foreign policy.” By contrast, he praised Foreign Minister Steinmeier.

This anti-Americanism, which in the struggle against American imperialism strengthens German imperialism rather than the unity with the American working class, is reactionary in every sense.

The campaign for an SPD/Left Party/Green coalition is likely to intensify as the federal election draws nearer over the coming year. It will be concealed behind all possible promises of social security and peace so as to win over dissatisfied sections of the population. But it will lead to a dead end. An SPD/Left Party/Green coalition would be not in the slightest more progressive than the current right-wing government.

Canada Post moves to lock out 50,000 workers

Roger Jordan

Canada Post has given the required 72-hour notice to obtain the legal right to lock out 50,000 letter-carriers, mail-sorters and other postal workers and shut down Canada’s postal service nationwide starting this Friday.

The notice is highly provocative and makes clear that government-owned Canada Post is determined to press forward with an across-the-board attack on postal workers’ wages, conditions of employment and pension entitlements. But in the face of this frontal assault, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) is doing everything it can to isolate the postal workers’ struggle, boost illusions in the big business federal Liberal government, and prevent postal workers from taking strike action.

Canada Post is pushing for massive concessions. These include: elimination of the defined benefit pension system for new hires and its replacement by a defined contributions model; a pay freeze for temporary workers throughout the four-year life of the new contract; massive attacks on healthcare benefits; the cutting of paid meal times; and the undermining of job protection guarantees so that they would apply only to workers with 10 rather than five years of continuous service.

Although Canada Post has made multi-millions in profits over the past two years thanks to the concessions contract rammed through with the collaboration of CUPW in 2012, it has rejected out of hand the union’s modest demands, including a pay increase for rural delivery workers who earn 28 percent less than their urban counterparts.

Postal workers must reject all claims that Canada Post lacks the funds to offer them decent-paying, secure jobs, and make their struggle the spearhead of a working-class counteroffensive in defence of workers’ rights and public services.

This can be accomplished only if postal workers draw the lessons of the treacherous role played by CUPW and the pro-capitalist trade unions as a whole over the past quarter-century and take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the union bureaucracy.

CUPW—led by national President Mike Palecek, a former leading member of the pseudo-left Fightback group—has worked systematically to block postal workers from opposing the attacks of management throughout the more than six months of contract negotiations. For all his rhetoric about being a “left” and “militant” leader, Palecek has pursued precisely the same policies as the previous CUPW leadership, which oversaw a long series of defeats for postal workers, most recently in 2011 when the union bowed before the Harper Conservative government’s strikebreaking legislation and subsequently agreed to a concessions-laden five-year contract.

From the outset of negotiations last January, Canada Post made clear that it is determined to impose a cost-cutting deal. In April, management initiated “conciliation,” a move which effectively set a three-month time limit for negotiating a new contract. Palecek responded by repeatedly assuring Canada Post and the media that CUPW had no desire to call a strike. The union waited until the last minute before organizing a strike ballot in early June. That vote showed the overwhelming determination of workers to resist the assault on their working conditions, producing an overwhelming majority of over 90 percent in favour of strike action.

Yet instead of organizing for a genuine struggle, CUPW has played for time. Last week it pleaded for a two-week “cooling off period,” a proposal that was summarily rejected by management.

CUPW has also sown the most fatal illusions in the Liberal government and its “independent” task-force “review” of Canada Post, claiming that the review will allow workers to be heard and to “save” Canada Post. However, in announcing the terms of the review, Minister of Public Procurement and Infrastructure Judy Foote emphasized its recommendations must be predicated on Canada Post being run as a profitable concern.

CUPW fully accepts this reactionary framework and has repeatedly signaled to management, the government and big business its desire to expand its role as an accomplice in the attacks on postal workers. As Palecek said in an emailed statement Sunday, “We don’t want a labour conflict, especially when there’s a public review.”

Since 2013, CUPW has focused on a campaign to persuade Canada Post to introduce postal banking to counteract falling revenues from declining letter volumes. It has firmly rejected linking the defence of postal workers’ jobs with a broader working-class offensive in defence of public services, which are under sustained assault by federal and provincial governments alike.

Responding to Canada Post’s lockout notice, Palecek accused the company of “sabotaging the public review of the post office.” The union’s groveling appeal to the corporate elite was summed up in a July 4 statement in which CUPW boasted, “While the company has been creating uncertainty by warning the public to avoid the post office, CUPW has been showing up at the bargaining table with proposals to make the post office even more profitable and improve services for Canadian businesses and the public.”

CUPW’s statement went on, “We want to reassure the public and the business community that we intend to remain in talks as long as there is hope that the parties offer suggestions on how we can better serve Canadians.”

Such a pledge to the “business community” should be taken as a warning by postal workers. It reflects the fact that CUPW, like the union bureaucracy as a whole, has been transformed over recent decades into an appendage of corporate management and the state with interests irreconcilably hostile to those of its own members.

During the last labour dispute at Canada Post in 2011, CUPW crippled working class resistance by organizing futile rotating strikes. This token protest enabled management, egged on by Harper and his Conservatives, to seize the initiative by imposing a lockout. The government then used this as the pretext to illegalize any and all job action against Canada Post. Subsequently, CUPW capitulated to management’s concession demands, claiming it had no other option because otherwise a Harper government-appointed arbitrator would have dictated the contract’s terms.

The union’s hostility to postal workers is demonstrated most of all by CUPW and Palecek’s promotion of the big business Liberals, who have repeatedly outlawed postal workers’ strikes, most famously in 1978, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre Trudeau, ordered the arrest of CUPW President Jean-Claude Parrot and threatened to fire postal workers en masse.

Palecek was one of the most prominent leaders of the unions’ “Anybody But Harper” campaign during last year’s federal election campaign—a campaign that served to paint the Canadian elite’s traditional party of government as a “progressive” alternative to the Conservatives. The purpose of this initiative was to help bring to power a government that, unlike Harper and his Conservatives, would accept the unions’ offer of “partnership” and incorporate the union officialdom in designing and implementing policies aimed at making Canadian capitalism more “competitive,” i.e., profitable. Less than a week after Trudeau was appointed prime minister, Palecek was among around 100 Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) leaders who met with him behind closed doors and pledged to work with the new government.

Significantly, Prime Minister Trudeau has not ruled out stripping postal workers of their rights and imposing a contract. Speaking Tuesday, he said his government doesn’t believe it has an “immediate responsibility” to intervene in the event postal service is interrupted.

A sharp warning must be made to postal workers about the role of the CLC, which has isolated and repeatedly intervened to shut down militant worker struggles. An article in last Saturday’s Globe and Mail reported on the cozy relations between the CLC leadership and the Liberals. In interviews with theGlobe, top union officials, including CLC President Hassan Yussuff and Unifor President Jerry Dias, gushed about the warmth of their relations with the government and easy access to cabinet ministers, including Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Postal workers must take the initiative out of the hands of the CUPW leadership by establishing their own independent action committees to organize a strike in defence of jobs and living standards and prepare defiance of any Liberal back-to-work law. Such a struggle cannot be successful if it accepts the reactionary premise that Canada Post must be run as a profitable concern. Rather, postal workers must fight to mobilize the entire working class to protect and expand workers’ rights and public services. Above all, a new political strategy is required which rejects the capitalist profit system and fights for a workers’ government based on socialist policies.

Brazil’s interim president vows to carry through “unpopular” austerity measures

Bill Van Auken

The government of Brazil’s interim president Michel Temer vowed on July 4 that his government will move ahead with a series of “unpopular measures,” in a bid to place the full weight of the country’s profound economic crisis onto the backs of the working class and poor.

Temer made the remark after receiving a letter of support from 46 agribusiness firms gathered for the Global Agribusiness Forum 2016 in Sao Paulo. Temer addressed the forum, to boos from a section of the audience opposed to his administration, which was installed in May through the drive to impeach Brazil’s elected Workers Party (PT) President Dilma Rousseff on trumped up charges of budgetary manipulations.

Temer declared that Brazil’s economic and political crisis could be overcome only through a “national pacification, a national reunification, with the interaction between business and workers.”

In reality, the interim regime has been brought to power to effect a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest and most oppressed layers of Brazilian society to the country’s financial oligarchy and foreign capital.

The crisis of this new government, in which multiple ministers as well as Temer himself have been implicated in the massive bribes-for-contracts scandal at the state-run energy conglomerate Petrobras, has impeded the rapid implementation of the kind of sweeping austerity measures that Brazilian and foreign capitalists are demanding.

The aim has been to push the most drastic actions off until after August, when it is expected that the Senate will conclude the impeachment trial of Rousseff with a decision to permanently remove her from office, leaving Temer, her former vice president, to complete the last two years of her term. The letter from the agribusiness firms and other signals from big business, however, have been directed at goading the Temer regime to take more rapid action.

Until now, the government’s austerity drive has been limited to the shutting down of a handful of government ministries and the slashing of federal jobs, while it has come under criticism from big business circles for measures that run counter to the austerity agenda, but are aimed at avoiding a social explosion. These include minimal wage hikes for public workers and marginal increases in benefits provided through the social assistance program Bolsa Familia.

Temer confided that without the salary increases, which he insisted were negotiated previously by the PT government at below the level of inflation, “We could have had strikes ... in various essential sectors, which would have been something extremely and politically disastrous for the government.”

Temer defended his government’s actions, telling the agribusiness forum, “We are under a scenario of major containment. The containment hasn’t started taking effect yet, and that is why this document (the letter of support) is so important.” He said support was needed because, “after a certain time, we will start implementing policies that are, let’s say, more unpopular.”

The Brazilian daily Folha de S.Paulo quoted Temer aides as saying that “the government needs to introduce tougher measures in the next few weeks,” dispensing with the previous intention to postpone such actions until after the final impeachment vote.

Among the measures in the works by the interim government is the setting of deficit reduction targets that would automatically force huge cuts in social spending. Henrique Meirelles, the former banker and IMF official who has been installed as finance minister—he previously headed the country’s central bank under the first PT government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—declared that the regime is “concluding the calculations” and a new deficit target could be announced as early as July 7.

The Temer government has also sent legislation to congress that would essentially freeze public spending, limiting any increases to the inflation rate of the previous year.

These are only the foretaste of the attacks to come. The government is determined to radically “reform” the rights of Brazilians to social security, health care and education, while it is preparing a massive privatization program to turn over ever large shares of the economy, including Brazil’s oil wealth, to foreign capital.

In all of these policies, it is only accelerating measures that were already being pursued under the ousted President Dilma Rousseff. She and the PT sought to cling to power, not by appealing to the Brazilian working class, which had turned increasingly hostile to her government, but by insisting that they were best equipped to implement the attacks demanded by Brazilian and foreign capital. Their principal argument was that they could best ensure “governability” by utilizing their allies in the unions and so-called “social movements” to stifle popular unrest.

The increasing turn to the right by the Temer government and the deepening crisis of the PT have thrown all sections of the Brazilian pseudo-left into extreme crisis, from the Pabloites inside the PSOL (Party of Socialism and Liberty, a party formed by ex-PT officials), who have subordinated themselves to the corrupt PT apparatus, to the Morenoite PSTU (Unified Socialist Workers Party), which adapted itself to the right-wing impeachment drive by advancing the slogan “out with all of them.”

The PSTU this week announced a major split by “hundreds” of its members, including leading figures and one of its few elected officials, who apparently had opposed the failure of the party to oppose the drive to impeachment and its adaptation to opposition to the PT government from the right.

The PSTU majority responded to the split by accusing the minority of attempting to turn the organization into the “left wing” of the PT-led campaign to defend Rousseff. For its part, the minority accuses the PSTU leadership of “ultra-leftism” and “sectarianism,” while calling for the building of a “third camp” encompassing all of the “left” opponents of both the Rousseff governments and its right-wing antagonists.

The statements issued by both sides indicate no differences over the reactionary, pro-imperialist policies pursued by the PSTU over the past period, including its lauding of CIA-orchestrated regime change operations in Libya, Syria and Ukraine as “revolutions.” Nor are there any apparent differences over class orientation, which is to the middle class, through the medium of identity politics and an orientation to the trade union officialdom.

Like the pseudo-left as a whole, both factions oppose any genuine struggle for the political independence of the Brazilian working class based upon a socialist and internationalist perspective.

US planners prepare air war on China

Peter Symonds

A report published this month by the US-based Mitchell Institute has provided details of US Air Force (USAF) plans to use sophisticated “fifth generation” stealth aircraft in combat operations in an all-out war with China. These preparations are part of a far broader US military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific that envisages the basing of 60 percent of warships and aircraft in the region by 2020.

The authors of the report are serving USAF officers directly engaged in strategic planning, including for the deployment of “fifth generation” aircraft, particularly the F-22 Raptor and different versions of the F-35. Major General Jeff Harrigian currently heads the Air Force F-35A Integration Office at the Pentagon, having previously served as assistant deputy chief of staff for operations. Colonel Max Marosko, a F-22 pilot, is the deputy director of air and cyberspace operations at Pacific Command in Hawaii.

The report entitled, “Fifth Generation Air Combat: Maintaining the Joint Force Advantage,” declares that these aircraft are “a key element in US power projection in the 21st Century.” The F-22 and F-35 are designed to not only evade detection but “provide situational awareness of a conflict that is unparalleled in modern war, and lethal tools that enable both aircraft and capabilities in other domains to perform at a higher level.”

The war planes are packed with sensors and advanced electronics that provide greater “situational awareness” to their pilots, and to those of less-advanced fourth generation aircraft. The F-22 and F-35 are also able to jam or confuse enemy defence systems, enabling them to operate effectively “in highly contested combat environments, defined by the presence of the most capable current air and ground threats, and those reasonably expected to be operational in the foreseeable future.”

Air Combat Command chief General Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle declared last year that the F-22, which became operational a decade ago, “has even exceeded our expectations.” He boasted that the fifth generation aircraft gave the US “the asymmetric advantage we need to win our nation’s wars.”

In July 2013, Foreign Policy reported Carlisle’s plans for a huge build-up of US war planes and personnel throughout Asia, including in northern Australia, “Changi East air base in Singapore, Korat air base in Thailand, a site in India and possibly bases at Kubi Point and Puerto Princesa in the Philippines, in Indonesia and Malaysia.” The article also pointed out that old World War II bases in the Pacific, such as on Tinian Island in the North Marianas, were in the process of refurbishment.

Carlisle said the Air Force would “rotate” its “most capable platforms” into the Pacific, including F-22s, F-35s and B-2 stealth bombers. He noted that the first permanent deployment base for the F-35 would be in Asia.

The Mitchell Institute report spells out in greater detail how the fifth generation war planes will be deployed and used in combat. While China is not named, no one is in any doubt that it would be the chief enemy. In a section entitled, “Seizing the Advantage,” the report outlines a war scenario set in 2026, in which F-22s and F-35s would be rapidly dispersed to “numerous military and civilian airfields” throughout the region so that the enemy is unable to deliver a “knock-out” blow.

“As combat operations begin, US military fifth generation aircraft, along with F-35s from coalition countries effectively integrate and collaborate in the opening phase of operations,” the report explains. “[F]ighting focuses on the battle for air superiority as aircraft from both sides clash over contested territory … As the operations continue, it becomes apparent stealth aircraft like the F-22, F-35, B-2 and B-21 are the only aircraft capable of operating over the contested territory in the conflict due to the large number of adversary mobile advanced Surface to Air (SAMs) deployed …

“As the conflict continues, fifth generation aircraft seek out, degrade and destroy SAMs in contested territory, creating a more moderate threat environment. This enables legacy [older] aircraft to operate alongside their fifth generation counterparts. The mature integration and full operational capacities of fourth and fifth generation aircraft working together proves the turning point in the conflict.”

The scenario makes clear the critical role of allies and strategic partners in the Asia Pacific, not only to provide access to air bases and ground support for the USAF, but also in the case of countries like Australia and Japan, to join the US in carrying out combat operations with their own fifth generation war plans. The report as a whole stresses the need for the close integration and “interoperability” of the US and its allies, including regular war games to ensure their militaries can function seamlessly together.

The report highlights the key role of northern Australian airfields in providing a relatively secure rear base to maintain and repair fifth generation aircraft. Its scenario declares: “In one instance, a USAF F-35 is forced to recover at an Australian F-35 airbase after an inflight malfunction makes it impossible to return to its original deployment location. Royal Australian Air Force maintenance technicians are able to quickly repair, rearm, and refuel the USAF F-35 in a manner similar to US maintenance and regeneration practices. The F-35 in question rejoins combat operations the next day.”

The scenario outlined is for nothing less than a massive air attack on the Chinese mainland, spearheaded by stealth war planes, and operating in intimate collaboration with allies like Australia. A relentless air assault is one component of the Pentagon’s AirSea Battle strategy for fighting a war with China. The air attacks would be complemented by missiles fired from bases, warships and submarines based off the Chinese mainland with the aim of destroying much of the Chinese military, communications, command centres and key industrial sites. AirSea Battle also envisages a naval blockade designed to cripple the Chinese economy.

The Mitchell Institute report underscores the advanced nature of US preparations for war with China. While the scenario is set a decade ahead, many of the measures advocated by the report—joint training, access to numerous airfields, the stationing of advanced aircraft, warships and submarines in the Asia Pacific—are already well advanced. Having immeasurably heightened tensions throughout the region over the past six years, the US determined to be able to take advantage of any incident in the regional flashpoints, which it has deliberately inflamed, to advance its aims of subordinating China to American interests.

Signs of post-Brexit financial crisis mount

Nick Beams

Three more property funds in Britain shut the door on redemptions Wednesday following the earlier decision by three major funds on Monday and Tuesday to halt withdrawals of cash.

A total of more than £15 billion in the commercial property market is now frozen, threatening to snowball into the biggest seizing up of financial markets since the 2008 financial crisis.

The six funds were forced to close the door on withdrawals after growing numbers of investors sought to pull their cash on fears of a collapse in the British commercial property market in the wake of the June 23 Brexit vote.

The freezing of the market began when M&G Investments, Aviva Investors and Standard Life Investments suspended withdrawals on Monday and Tuesday. They were followed by Henderson Global Investors, Colombia Threadneedle and Canada Life on Wednesday. According to a statement by Canada Life, the freeze could last for up to six months.

In a note to clients, Laith Khalaf, a senior analyst at the investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said that “over half of the property fund sector is now on ice” and would remain so until managers could raise enough cash to meet redemptions. The funds would likely be closed for weeks or months rather than days, she added.

There is a significant risk that as the funds are forced to sell commercial real estate to meet cash demands, they will further depress real estate prices, spurring more withdrawal orders and triggering a chain reaction leading to disaster.

A spokesman for Britain’s Financial Ombudsman Service said that although the decision to suspend redemptions had been expected, the extent of the suspensions so far had been “quite troubling.”

The commercial property market has proven to be particularly vulnerable to the shock waves from the Brexit vote because of the previous inflow of cash into London and southeastern England fuelled by the cheap money policies of the Bank of England and other central banks since 2008. The funds lend long-term for the financing of property development projects but borrow short-term, offering investors the prospect of being able to withdraw their cash on short notice. This is the same business model that led to the collapse of Britain’s Northern Rock bank in 2007.

The Brexit decision had an immediate impact on the inflated commercial property market because of fears that financial and investment firms would chose to relocate their European headquarters to the continent so as to retain access to the European Union market. The Financial Times reported that at least £650 million worth of large-scale commercial property ventures had been shelved within a week of the Brexit vote.

The turbulence could rapidly extend beyond commercial property into the financial system as a whole. According to Keenan Vyas, a director at the financial advisory firm Duff & Phelps, the consequences could be profound. “If there continues to be a tremendous pressure in a short period of time, this could result in a large number of sales transacting below book value and an eventual overall correction in property asset pricing across the UK market,” he said.

Sales below book value will mean that firms that borrowed money on the assumption that property prices would continue to rise will be unable to pay off their debts, extending the crisis into the banking system.

Lloyds Banking Group and the Royal Bank of Scotland could be badly affected. According to Sandy Chen, analyst at the UK securities firm Cenkos, “both have large commercial property loan portfolios, and the coming falls in commercial property indices will translate into higher required impairment provisions against them.” In other words, they will have to make greater provisions for bad loans, impacting their balance sheets.

Overall, the large UK banks have lent £69 billion to the £800 billion British commercial property market.

The sell-off goes beyond property and is a key factor in the stability of the financial position of the UK. In its latest financial stability report, released Tuesday, the Bank of England (BoE) noted that the financing of Britain’s “large current account deficit” relied on continuing capital inflows.

Commercial property has been a key source of foreign cash, but, as the BoE reported, foreign flows into UK commercial real estate sank nearly 50 percent in the first quarter. Moreover, “valuations in some segments of the market had become stretched.” This is a euphemism pointing to an asset bubble in commercial real estate, fuelled by speculation.

The BoE report pointed to high levels of UK household indebtedness and the vulnerability of such households to increased unemployment, “fragilities in financial market functioning, which could be tested in a period of elevated market activity and volatility,” and “subdued growth in the global economy, including the euro area, which could be exacerbated by a prolonged period of heightened uncertainty.”

The growing financial turbulence has seen the British pound continue its fall. From a level of $1.50 before the Brexit vote, it has touched levels below $1.30, with predictions that it could go to as low as $1.15.

The global bond market is characterised by a manic flight to safety, which has pushed up bond prices and dramatically lowered yields (the two move in an inverse relationship).

On Tuesday, the yield on US 10-year government bonds reached a record low of 1.375 percent, with yields on German and Japanese long-term bonds in negative territory. Australian government bonds, while still positive, have also hit record lows. The total value of bonds with negative yields has soared, rising by more than $1 trillion over the past month. It is now heading towards $12 trillion.

The Brexit fallout is not confined to Britain. In the immediate sell-off that followed the June 23 referendum, Italian banks, which have about €360 billion worth of bad loans on their books, were among the hardest hit. The largest Italian lender, UniCredit SpA, has lost 60 percent of its share value so far this year.

In an interview with Bloomberg Television on Wednesday, the chairman of the French financial firm Société Générale and former member of the executive board of the European Central Bank, Bini Smaghi, warned that the country’s banking crisis could extend to the rest of Europe. He called for rules preventing direct state aid to banks to be reconsidered to prevent that taking place.

“The whole banking market is under pressure,” he said. “We adopted rules on public money; these rules must be assessed in a market that has a potential crisis to decide whether some suspension needs to be applied.”

Under EU regulations, national governments cannot directly use public funds to prop up their banking systems. But this has been challenged by Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who has said he is prepared to intervene if necessary with a 40 billion euro taxpayer bailout of the country’s major banks. The main opponent of such action is Germany. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble underscored this by insisting at a news conference that his Italian counterpart intended sticking to banking union rules.

But Smaghi said there was the possibility of a system-wide crisis unless the government stepped in. He said there were too many banks in both Italy and Germany, and the Italian government had to take politically unpopular measures, including mergers, leading to job cuts.

He also warned that proposals by Britain to further cut corporate tax rates, in order to attract investment, would lead to tax rate competition across Europe.

New bank bailouts and competitive cuts in corporate taxes will mean further attacks on the working class, including deeper cuts to social services to pay for them.

Whatever the immediate developments flowing from the Brexit turbulence, two things are clear in light of the bitter experiences of the crisis of 2008 and everything that has followed.

First, the ruling elites not only have no solution to the crisis—their actions over the past eight years have only created the conditions for a new and bigger financial meltdown—and second, any measures they do adopt will bring ever-worsening conditions for the working class in Britain and across Europe.

Obama halts drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan

Thomas Gaist

US President Barack Obama announced Wednesday a halt in the reduction of US troop strength in Afghanistan, leaving the US troop strength at current levels until he leaves office next January. The decision is in response to the increasing instability of the US puppet regime in Kabul, and to facilitate an escalation of US military operations by the next US president.

“The decision I am making today insures that my successor has a solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan, as well as the flexibility to address the threat of terrorism, as it evolves,” Obama said. “Instead of going down to 5,500 troops, the United States will maintain approximately 8,400 troops into next year, through the end of my administration.

After hailing “the heroic efforts of our military and intelligence agencies,” the US President warned that “the security situation remains precarious.”

The extended deployment of US troops, recommended to President Obama by US Commander in Afghanistan John Nicholson and the Pentagon leadership, will be “tailored to help Afghan forces continue to improve,” and will support “critical counterrorism operations” in Kandahar, Jalalabad and elsewhere, Obama said.

He called on Washington’s NATO allies to use the upcoming Warsaw summit as a platform to “define their own commitments” in support of the US-led war. The timing of the announcement—two days before the NATO summit begins—strongly suggests that the extended US troop presence will be used as a lever to extract additional troop commitments for Afghanistan from powers like Germany, Italy, Britain and Canada.

“Afghan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be,” Obama said. Afghan forces have “pushed the Taliban out of some areas,” and “remain in control of most district centers,” but face “a continued Taliban insurgency and terrorist networks.”

“I strongly believe that it is in our national security interest—especially after all the blood and treasure we’ve invested in Afghanistan over the years—that we give our Afghan partners the very best opportunity to succeed,” Obama said.

Absurdly, Obama claimed that the US is “no longer engaged in a major ground war in Afghanistan.” In reality, during the year and a half since the purported “end of the war in Afghanistan” in December 2014, the American military has continued to organize and lead military repression against the country’s rural areas and any forces deemed hostile to the US-backed state. US combat forces are involved in frequent clashes with Taliban militias and other insurgent forces, and the past year has seen the combat deaths of thousands of Afghan national forces. Pentagon planners envision an American presence of thousands for “decades to come,” US generals told media earlier this year.

“The narrative that we’re leaving Afghanistan is self-defeating,” Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a US Army conference Wednesday. Carter warned that an “enduring commitment” by the United States is necessary to prevent Afghanistan’s “use as a safe haven for terrorists.”

This turns reality on its head. Beginning in the late 1970s, the American government worked systematically to finance, train and arm Islamist networks in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, fueling the growth of the very same terrorist and insurgent forces that Washington now claims to oppose, including the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Since 2001, 15 years of US invasion, occupation, counterinsurgency and mass terror, directed largely against Afghanistan’s rural and oppressed population, have failed to produce anything close to a stable centralized state, and the position of the extremist and insurgent forces in Afghanistan appears stronger than ever. Islamist insurgencies and terror groups are waging an increasingly successful civil war against Kabul, one that threatens to produce an Iraq-style takeover of Afghanistan’s major cities and infrastructure by insurgent militias.

The US-backed administration in Kabul, run by a coalition of imperialist stooges, drug traffickers and wealthy feudal landowning families installed by an American invasion force in 2002, has been repeatedly humiliated by opposition forces since the official “end” of the US combat role. Last September, Islamist insurgents captured the key northern city of Kunduz, and government forces regained control only with aid from US Special Forces, and the US air bombardment that infamously targeted and incinerated a well-known a Doctors Without Frontiers (MSF) hospital.

Last June, Taliban attackers penetrated the Kabul government’s central compound, firing machine guns and setting off explosives just outside an ongoing session of the Afghan legislature. In April, Taliban fighters attacked the Afghan Special Forces’ headquarters in Kabul, killing dozens and wounding over 300. The Islamist fundamentalist movement also remains in control of large areas of Afghanistan’s hinterland and border areas with Pakistan, along with a smaller but growing Afghan Islamic State affiliate.

Fearful of inflaming popular anti-war sentiment just months before the elections, the Obama administration has sought to delay another official revision of the American troop presence as along as possible.

At the same time, the White House has green-lighted the Pentagon to lay the foundations for a more extensive US intervention in Afghanistan and Central Asia, once the elections are past and a new administration has taken office, approving expanded US air and ground operations in June.

In May, Obama authorized the assassination of Taliban leader Mullah Aktar Mansour in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, signaling that the US government is prepared to expand the war against the Taliban into areas of Pakistan that were previously off-limits to the US drone war.

Wednesday’s announcement comes as the latest confirmation that Washington intends to wage permanent war in Afghanistan. The US political establishment is determined to retain its grip over the impoverished and war-ravaged country, which has considerable natural resources of its own, and can serve as a staging area for future military and covert operations throughout the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia, in Pakistan, and in western China.

Factions within the American ruling class are pushing for expanded US involvement along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the strategic and highly unstable Pakistani Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

This week, US Senator John McCain staged a high-profile tour of Pakistani military sites in Miranshah, a fortress town in the FATA province of North Waziristan. McCain made overtures to pro-US factions within a Pakistani ruling elite that is increasingly being forced into an alliance with China, promising increased American involvement in “counter-terror” operations run by Islamabad. “We look forward to closer relations and resolving the differences we have,” McCain said.

The Chilcot verdict on Iraq: A war crime by British and US imperialism

Julie Hyland

The report of the Chilcot inquiry into the role of the British government in the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, released Wednesday, provides devastating confirmation of the illegal character of the war and the criminal role of those officials, both British and American, who organized and led it.

The conclusions of the investigation headed by Sir John Chilcot were issued seven years after the inquiry was first convened. The 2.6 million-word, 13-volume report covers the policy decisions made by the British government, military and intelligence services between 2001 and 2009. The inquiry has no legal powers, and any finding on the legality of the invasion was specifically ruled out by the Labour government of Gordon Brown that established it.

Nonetheless, the report provides conclusive proof that those responsible for the war have the blood of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, on their hands.

This applies not only to then-Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, who functioned in Britain as liar-in-chief for the invasion and, as such, features heavily in the report. By extension, it is also an indictment of the principal architects of the war in the United States: former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others, as well as all those leading officials who supported it, including the Democratic Party’s current presumptive presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Personal testimony, confidential documents and private memos confirm that Blair opted to support a US-war against Iraq that was prepared at least from the start of 2002, all while publicly claiming that there were no such plans.

The invasion that began on March 20, 2003 took place before “peaceful options for disarmament” had been exhausted, Chilcot notes. Damningly, he states, “Military action at that time was not a last resort.”

Iraq’s Saddam Hussein did not present an “imminent” threat at the time, and claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction were “not justified.” The invasion was launched on the basis of “flawed” intelligence assessments that were not challenged when they should have been, Chilcot states.

These facts in and of themselves demonstrate that the invasion was a brazen violation of international law. But the reality is far more incriminating.

The Chilcot report includes a declassified version of the so-called Downing Street Memo, memorializing a July 2002 meeting between Blair and other top officials in which the head of British intelligence explicitly acknowledged that “Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

In other words, a false pretext was being manufactured to justify an unprovoked war, and they all knew it.

The legal case for UK military action was “far from satisfactory,” Chilcot states. Moreover, while Blair was attacking France for failing to support a second United Nations Security Council resolution authorising military action, “we [the inquiry] consider that the UK was, in fact, undermining the Security Council’s authority.”

The report finds that the invasion failed in its stated objectives. It notes, “The risks of internal strife in Iraq, active Iranian pursuit of its interests, regional instability, and al-Qaida activity in Iraq were each explicitly identified before the invasion.”

Not only were 176 British soldiers killed (along with 4,491 US troops) and many thousands horribly wounded, “The people of Iraq have suffered greatly.” According to the most reliable estimates, the number of Iraqi lives lost as a result of the war stands at roughly 1 million. An estimated 5 million more people were driven from their homes. The country remains embroiled in bloody sectarian conflict and extreme economic and social hardship.

Of all those arraigned before the International Criminal Court Hague over recent years, such as Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, none are responsible for even a fraction of the deaths caused by Blair and Bush.

The Chilcot inquiry is an indictment of the policy pursued by US and British imperialism over the past 15 years. Its genocidal dimensions are made apparent from the catastrophes inflicted on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, which have served only to strengthen sectarianism and Islamic fundamentalism.

The verdict should be clear enough: Blair, Bush, et al are war criminals. They, along with their co-conspirators, should face immediate trial.

The Nuremberg Trials convened following the Second World War were clear and unequivocal in their principal conclusion: the use of war to achieve political ends that cannot be justified by imminent threat of attack constitutes the most heinous of war crimes. Bush and Blair are as culpable as the 12 Nazi defendants sentenced to death by hanging.

The Chilcot findings include previously secret memos from Blair to Bush (those sent from Bush to Blair were kept secret at Washington’s request) that make clear that the real motive behind the war was not the threat of weapons of mass destruction or terrorism, but, as was the case with the leaders of the Third Reich, global domination. Within days of the invasion, Blair exulted in the act of military aggression, declaring it a chance to establish “the true post-Cold War world order.”

The reaction of many of the families of British soldiers killed in the Iraq conflict bear repeating. Sarah O’Connor, whose brother Bob died in Iraq in 2005, said, “There is one terrorist in this world that the world needs to be aware of, and his name is Tony Blair, the world’s worst terrorist.”

Roger Bacon, whose son Matthew was killed in Basra, said, “Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.”

Mark Thompson, father of Kevin, killed in 2007, said Blair “should be stripped of everything he has for what he’s done. It was an illegal war. My son died in vain. He died for no reason.”

Blair knew “he was manufacturing and massaging” intelligence, said Reg Keys, whose son Thomas was killed, while Eddie Hancock, whose son Jamie also died, called for Blair to “be banned from any form of public office for life, at the very least.”

Such honest and heartfelt statements stand in stark contrast to the response of the powers-that-be, who are trying to conceal the implications of the inquiry and turn it into a framework for waging more efficient wars in the future.

Prime Minister David Cameron claimed that, whatever the consequences of Iraq, it is “wrong to conclude that intervention is always wrong.”

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was the most craven apologist of all. Lamenting the “disastrous decision” to invade Iraq, he said it had left a “stain” on the Labour Party. Not so much of a stain, however, that Corbyn felt obliged to even mention Blair’s name, let alone moot his expulsion from the Labour Party.

This cleared the path for Blair’s arrogant and belligerent response to the report, in which he sought not only to defend past crimes, but to justify new ones. “The world was and is, in my judgment, a better place without Saddam Hussein,” he said.

In a statement issued from his Texas ranch, ex-US President George W. Bush echoed Blair’s remarks, declaring that “the whole world is better off without Saddam Hussein.”

What these murderous sociopaths are saying is that the “world is better off” without the 1 million people annihilated by their war.

The response to the inquiry’s findings by not only Bush and Blair, but the entire political establishment on both sides of the Atlantic, makes plain that the fight for truth and justice--and compensation for the Iraqi people--can proceed only in struggle against the capitalist ruling class.

The Chilcot report has been released against the backdrop of an escalation of imperialist militarism, not only in the Middle East, but increasingly against Russia and China as well. The preparations for a Third World War have advanced rapidly during the seven years of the commission’s deliberations.

The lessons of this investigation confirm the essential conclusion of the International Committee of the Fourth International in its statement “Socialism and the Fight Against War,” published February 18, 2016: “The struggle against war must be based on the working class, the great revolutionary force in society, uniting behind it all progressive elements in the population.”