What is the Domestic Significance of the Holey Bakery Terror Attack?

Ibtisam Ahmed

Bangladesh is facing a pivotal point of no return. The recent hostage crisis and siege at an uptown bakery/café in the Gulshan diplomatic zone of the capital Dhaka on 1 July has seen a fundamental shift in the way Islamic extremist violence functions in the country and these realities need to be checked. Unfortunately, authorities seem reluctant to actually engage with the situation, which does not bode well for the South Asian nation.

A Year of Living Dangerously

Over the past year, dozens of individuals have been attacked and killed by groups of extremists, usually wielding machetes or knives. Although individuals had been targeted with violence before – including the high profile murder of blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider in 2013 – the volume of killings since the start of 2015 has been staggering. Targets have ranged from bloggers, academics and LGBTQ+ rights activists, to Hindu and Sufi clerics and temple workers, foreign workers, and even a tailor whose only crime was belonging to the ‘wrong’ religious denomination.

The audacity of the attacks grew with each successful attempt. The initial targets were all self-proclaimed atheists whose writings and blog posts were critical of politicising Islam and the dangers of Islamic extremism. Although being atheist is not a criminal offence in the country, hurting religious sentiment is, as under Section 295A of the Bangladeshi Penal Code, which, combined with general social conservatism painting atheism in a negative light, led to the perpetrators being condemned and criticised for murder but not necessarily for their motives.

Similarly, the murder of two LGBTQ+ activists earlier this year sparked worldwide outcry but the prevalence of Section 377 of the Penal Code – which criminalises homosexual intimacy and is interpreted to legalise prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community – once again led to platitudes from the authorities regarding the intent of the killings. In fact, the Prime Minister went so far as to state that anyone who offends religious sensibilities needs to be careful as it goes against established norms, thus effectively suggesting that the victims were responsible for their own deaths.

Since then, the targets have widened even further to include anyone who is deemed a sinner by the extremist camp and the subsequent killings of people from various walks of life, and various religions, has pushed the country into a state of perpetual fear for religious minorities, secularists (including pro-secularist Muslims), free thinkers, and critics of extremism.

That the nation was founded in 1971 on the principle of secularism after the rejection of political pan-Islamism as a means of unity with Pakistan seems to have been largely forgotten, making way for a national identity that seems more welcoming of the current reactionary pan-Islamism that has emanated from West Asia in the wake of the ‘War on Terror’.

A New Ball Game

While the number of targets has been a legitimate cause for concern, the fact that they were individual killings had made it possible for the Government to either brush the incidents off as uncoordinated, random attacks or attempt to justify their lack of action by blaming the activities of the victims. The hostage-taking and murders at the Holey Artisan Bakery changed the scenario completely. Instead of individuals attacked with machetes, this was an entire building of casualties who were held at gunpoint before being executed.

Chillingly, it has come to light that all the victims inside the bakery (with two policemen also being killed in the siege) were made to recite from the Quran; failure to do so resulted in their deaths. The scale of the massacre, with the specific targeting of a bakery that is regularly visited by foreigners – and, indeed, with the majority of victims being non-Bangladeshi – was unprecedented. There had never been an incident where multiple foreign nationals were specifically killed in the country and it has already led to stern rhetoric from Italy, Japan and India (the nationalities of the deceased).

The other major concern is the identities of the assailants themselves. Previously, extremist attackers have been profiled as being from poor and uneducated backgrounds, either from rural communities or being taught in madrasas. However, it is certain that the gunmen from 1 July were all from upper-middle and upper class urban backgrounds. All of them were educated in the country’s top private schools and some had gone on to study at universities both at home and abroad. Most of them had gone missing since late last year or early this year, which hints at their radicalisation having taken place in a relatively short period of time.

All of this means that political groups and security forces need to re-evaluate how they approach extremism. The Government has consistently blamed homegrown terrorist groups without considering the impact of wider extremism and the possibility of trans-national influence. They have also blamed the Opposition on several occasions. For its part, the Opposition – which had utilised political Islam and had aligned itself with the only mainstream Islamic political party during its terms in power – has steadfastly refused to accept its role in the long-term growth of extremism, instead focusing its blame solely on the Government.

With the two sides too busy trying to tear each other down, the only victor so far has been the extremists. There needs to be a serious rethink and genuine attempts at unity going forward, for the security of Bangladesh and, indeed, the region more widely.

University/Commonwealth Govt. Scholarships for Masters & PhD at University of Newcastle Australia 2016/2017

Application Deadline: 31 March 2016 (round 1) and 15 September 2016 (round 2) | 

Offered annually? Yes

Brief description: The University of Newcastle Australia is offering university and commonwealth government scholarships for Research Masters & PhD degree for international students

Eligible Field of Study: courses offered at the university

About Scholarship

Full-time research students are eligible to apply for University and Commonwealth Government scholarships, which are awarded during one main round offer. They provide a living allowance so you can commit to full-time study. Historically over 90% of international students hold a scholarship from UON or a sponsor.

Scholarship Offered Since: Not specified

Scholarship Type: Research Masters and PhD Scholarship

Selection Criteria: Scholarships are granted on the basis of academic merit, which includes your undergraduate grade point average and extra research attainments.

Eligibility

Eligibility criteria is set by the Commonwealth Government and candidates must:

• have a current offer of admission into a research higher degree.
• have completed at least four years of undergraduate study and have attained Honours Class 1 or equivalent and a high grade point average (GPA)
• be no more than two full-time equivalent years into their PhD (or one year for Masters) at the end of the year.

Successful international scholarship candidates usually also have:

• satisfied the English proficiency requirement (IELTS of at least 6.5)
• A master degree with strong research component
• International peer reviewed research publication or research experience

Scholarship conditions

• Be enrolled full-time (part-time enrolment may be approved in exceptional circumstances. Part-time scholarships are taxable)
• be enrolled on-campus (off-campus enrolment may be approved in exceptional circumstances)
• scholars may only work a maximum of 8 hours per week (between Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm)
• Scholarship offers must be taken-up in the year of the offer and cannot be deferred to the following year. A leave of absence may be taken after 1 year full-time enrolment.

Number of Scholarships: Several

Value of Scholarship: A scholarship funded by the University of Newcastle or the Commonwealth Government provides:

• An annual living allowance $26, 288 per annum (2016 rate – indexed annually)

The scholarship may also include:

• a relocation allowance (up to $2,020)
• a thesis allowance (up to $500)
• a full tuition fee scholarship (international students)
• overseas student health cover (OSHC) (international students)

Duration of Scholarship: PhD scholarships are for three years and Masters scholarships are for two years, less any tenure already completed towards a research degree.

Eligible Countries: International students

To be taken at (country): The University of Newcastle, Australia

How to Apply

• Currently enrolled candidates can apply for a scholarship by contacting researchscholarships[@]newcastle.edu.au
• New applicants can apply for a scholarship at the same time as applying for admission.

Visit scholarship webpage for details

Your application for admission must include:

• Copies of all academic transcripts
• A research proposal
• Evidence of extra academic attainments e.g. publications
• If required, certified evidence of meeting the English proficiency requirement

What happens once you submit your application?

• Applications are assessed and ranked according to merit
• Attendance at an interview is not normally required

• Scholarship outcomes are known from mid December each year

Sponsors: The University of Newcastle and Commonwealth Government

Important Notes: ensure you attach the following documents to support your scholarship application:

• Copies of research publications, exhibitions or conference papers
• Curriculum Vitae
• Details of previous research experience e.g. research work experience / study
• Any additional documents that may add to your scholarship application e.g. evidence of the award of a University Medal

To Stop Oil Trains, I Spent My Honeymoon in Jail

Daphne Wysham

It was a few days after my wedding. I was supposed to be honeymooning at a nearby winery with my newly minted husband, celebrating our unlikely marriage at age 55.

Instead, I was sitting on the railroad tracks in the pouring rain. Along with 20 other brave souls, some weeping, some singing, I was facing down a locomotive in a town — Vancouver, Washington — that many fear will be forced to accept the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country.

Why would anyone do something like that?

Because a few short days before, we’d watched in horror as a mile-long train filled with Bakken crude derailed in Mosier, Oregon and burst into towering flames.

We call these oil trains “bomb trains” because we know, with one tiny loose bolt, they can erupt into an inferno, scorching everything for miles. It happened in Lac-Megantic, Canada in 2013. Forty-seven people were killed in a matter of minutes, the town leveled when a train’s brakes failed.

In the aftermath of the Mosier derailment, local fire chief Jim Appleton, who was originally unwilling to condemn oil trains, was beginning to sound more and more like one of us: “I think it’s insane” to ship oil by rail, he told a reporter. “Shareholder value doesn’t outweigh the lives and happiness of our community.”

And yet shareholder value is outweighing the lives and happiness of communities all over the world. I live in the “blast zone” less than a mile from tracks that ply this dangerous cargo here in the Pacific Northwest. And millions of people, most of them on the other side of the world, are already feeling the heat.

More bomb trains, after all, mean more climate change. Rising temperatures mean dangerous weather patterns, like the floods that recently killed hundreds in Pakistan and China.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, whose scientists knew as early as the 1960s that catastrophic climate change would ensue if they didn’t change course, has invested in climate denial in order to maximize their shareholder value, counting on us to not connect the dots.

I grew up in India. I can see the faces of friends and loved ones on Facebook enduring record heat and flooding there. So if the trains wouldn’t stop coming, I figured, I’d put my body on the line in Vancouver. If I went to jail, I hoped my husband would forgive me for skipping out on our first big date as newlyweds.

The riot police were beginning to gather, and the railroad’s private police were issuing their warnings while hundreds chanted nearby. Not wanting to lose valuables in jail, I gave my wallet, cell phone, and wedding ring to a friend.

Then they hauled us off, one by one, in plastic handcuffs like tiny angel’s wings behind each protestor’s back. They put the 13 women — as young as 21 and as old as 85 — in one cell and the eight men in the other.

Seven hours later, as we were released from our windowless cage into the beautiful summer evening, I felt an unspeakable gratitude to my cellmates and those who awaited us outside.

Should we go to trial, many of us will be arguing we did this out of necessity, in order to prevent a far greater looming evil — of being incinerated in our sleep, of doing nothing to stop this deadly fossil fuel cargo while hundreds of thousands of people die each year from floods, disease, malnutrition, and heat stress due to climate change.

Call me crazy, but we might just win this one. And in so doing, we’ll send a very strong message to the oil companies that threaten us all that they must end this madness.

A New Declaration of Independence

Tom H. Hastings

The US has entered the Orwellian Era of permanent war—until we decide that it’s over.

Why, after nearly 15 years, do we still have 10,000 American troops fighting, killing, and dying in Afghanistan?

Why, after more than 13 years, have we nearly exited and then escalated back into Iraq with 3,500 US troops fighting, killing, and dying?

We are gaining absolutely nothing from this armed occupation of two countries for so long—instead we are losing lives, spending $billions, and creating endless ill will amongst yet another generation in the Middle East and Central Asia. Even the Military Times notes that US troops are “deeply unpopular” in Iraq. It has been a complete waste since the US invaded in March 2003 based on Bush regime lies about WMD and false claims of alliance between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

US combat mortalities since 2001: Afghanistan, 1,742; Iraq, 3,527.

Civilian mortalities in Afghanistan since US invasion: more than 25,000.

Civilian mortalities in Iraq since the US 2003 invasion: more than 160,000.

The dollar costs of war since 2001: nearly $1.7 trillion.

We can argue into the night about fault but can we turn toward solutions even more strenuously? US citizens could help convince our government, our officials, and our candidates to begin advocating for these steps that will de-escalate the conflicts and work toward sustainable peace:

* Stop all arms transfers—both military aid and sales—to the region. That is only pouring gasoline on the flames, demonstrably, repeatedly, with those arms perpetually falling into the wrong hands. The “loss” in revenue to arms manufacturers would be more than covered by the next step.

* Withdraw the US military from the region. All we do there is provoke more hatred. Our violent responses and presence have caused a worsening of terrorism steadily to the point we now see a caliphate, unthinkable until recent years. US taxpayers would either get tax relief or see domestic infrastructural or services improved significantly.

* Declare a hands-off policy on military intervention in the region and get used to the people of the region redrawing their own borders and having the forms of governance they decide to have.

* Increase nonviolent measures of influence, from humanitarian aid to financial sanctions. Withdraw all support for human rights violators in the region, friend or foe.

* Support the nonviolent supranational and US-based organizations that can help enhance the well being of the people of the region.

These measures and more could transform so much—and the US would benefit greatly from taking these steps unilaterally. Time for a Declaration of Independence from foreign military disasters.

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.