The American Military Uncontained , Out Everywhere And Winning Nowhere

William Astore

When it comes to the “world’s greatest military,” the news has been shocking. Two fast U.S. Navy ships colliding with slow-moving commercial vessels with tragic loss of life.  An Air Force that has been in the air continuously for years and yet doesn’t have enough pilots to fly its combat jets.  Ground troops who find themselves fighting “rebels” in Syria previously armed and trained by the CIA.  Already overstretched Special Operations forces facing growing demands as their rates of mental distress and suicide rise.  Proxy armies in Iraq and Afghanistan that are unreliable, often delivering American-provided weaponry to black markets and into the hands of various enemies.  All of this and more coming at a time when defense spending is once again soaring and the national security state is awash in funds to the tune of nearly a trillion dollars a year.

What gives?  Why are highly maneuverable and sophisticated naval ships colliding with lumbering cargo vessels?  Why is an Air Force that exists to fly and fight short 1,200 pilots?  Why are U.S. Special Operations forces deployed everywhere and winning nowhere?  Why, in short, is the U.S. military fighting itself — and losing?

It’s the Ops Tempo, Stupid

After 16 years of a never-ending, ever-spreading global war on terror, alarms are going off in Asia from the Koreas and Afghanistan to the Philippines, while across the Greater Middle East and Africa the globe’s “last superpower” is in a never-ending set of conflicts with a range of minor enemies few can even keep straight.  As a result, America’s can-do military, committed piecemeal to a bewildering array of missions, has increasingly become a can’t-do one.

Too few ships are being deployed for too long.  Too few pilots are being worn out by incessant patrols and mushrooming drone and bombing missions.  Special Operations forces (the “commandos of everywhere,” as Nick Turse calls them) are being deployed to far too many countries — more than two-thirds of the nations on the planet already this year — and are involved in conflicts that hold little promise of ending on terms favorable to Washington.  Meanwhile, insiders like retired General David Petraeus speak calmly about “generational struggles” that will essentially never end.  To paraphrase an old slogan from ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” as the U.S. military spans the globe, it’s regularly experiencing the agony of defeat rather than the thrill of victory.

To President Donald Trump (and so many other politicians in Washington), this unsavory reality suggests an obvious solution: boost military funding; build more navy ships; train more pilots and give them more incentive pay to stay in the military; rely more on drones and other technological “force multipliers” to compensate for tired troops; cajole allies like the Germans and Japanese to spend more on their militaries; and pressure proxy armies like the Iraqi and Afghan security forces to cut corruption and improve combat performance.

One option — the most logical — is never seriously considered in Washington: to make deep cuts in the military’s operational tempo by decreasing defense spending and downsizing the global mission, by bringing troops home and keeping them there.  This is not an isolationist plea.  The United States certainly faces challenges, notably from Russia (still a major nuclear power) and China (a global economic power bolstering its regional militarily strength).  North Korea is, as ever, posturing with missile and nuclear tests in provocative ways.  Terrorist organizations strive to destabilize American allies and cause trouble even in “the homeland.”

Such challenges require vigilance.  What they don’t require is more ships in the sea-lanes, pilots in the air, and boots on the ground.  Indeed, 16 years after the 9/11 attacks it should be obvious that more of the same is likely to produce yet more of what we’ve grown all too accustomed to: increasing instability across significant swaths of the planet, as well as the rise of new terror groups or new iterations of older ones, which means yet more opportunities for failed U.S. military interventions.

Once upon a time, when there were still two superpowers on Planet Earth, Washington’s worldwide military posture had a clear rationale: the containment of communism.  Soon after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 to much triumphalist self-congratulation in Washington, the scholar and former CIA consultant Chalmers Johnson had an epiphany.  What he would come to call “the American Raj,” a global imperial structure ostensibly built to corral the menace of communism, wasn’t going away just because that menace had evaporated, leaving not a superpower nor even a major power as an opponent anywhere on the horizon.  Quite the opposite, Washington — and its globe-spanning “empire” of military bases — was only digging in deeper and for the long haul.  At that moment, with a certain shock, Johnson realized that the U.S. was itself an empire and, with its mirror-image-enemy gone, risked turning on itself and becoming its own nemesis.

The U.S., it turned out, hadn’t just contained the Soviets; they had contained us, too.  Once their empire collapsed, our leaders imbibed the old dream of Woodrow Wilson, even if in a newly militarized fashion: to remake the world in one’s own image (if need be at the point of a sword).

Since the early 1990s, largely unconstrained by peer rivals, America’s leaders have acted as if there were nothing to stop them from doing as they pleased on the planet, which, as it turned out, meant there was nothing to stop them from their own folly.  We witness the results today.  Prolonged and disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Interventions throughout the Greater Middle East (Libya, Syria, Yemen, and beyond) that spread chaos and destruction.  Attacks against terrorism that have given new impetus to jihadists everywhere.  And recently calls to arm Ukraine against Russia.  All of this is consistent with a hubristic strategic vision that, in these years, has spoken in an all-encompassing fashion and without irony of global reach, global power, and full-spectrum dominance.

In this context, it’s worth reminding ourselves of the full scope of America’s military power.  All the world is a stage — or a staging area — for U.S. troops.  There are still approximately 800 U.S. military bases in foreign lands.  America’s commandos deploy to more than 130 countries yearly.  And even the world is not enough for the Pentagon as it seeks to dominate not just land, sea, and air but outer space, cyberspace, and even inner space, if you count efforts to achieve “total information awareness” through 17 intelligence agencies dedicated — at a cost of $80 billion a year — to sweeping up all data on Planet Earth.

In short, America’s troops are out everywhere and winning nowhere, a problem America’s “winningest” president, Donald Trump, is only exacerbating.  Surrounded by “his” generals, Trump has — against his own instincts, he claimed recently — recommitted American troops and prestige to the Afghan War.  He’s also significantly expanded U.S. drone strikes and bombing throughout the Greater Middle East, and threatened to bring fire and fury to North Korea, while pushing a program to boost military spending.

At a Pentagon awash in money, with promises of more to come, missions are rarely downsized.  Meanwhile, what passes for original thinking in the Trump White House is the suggestion of Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, to privatize America’s war in Afghanistan (and possibly elsewhere).  Mercenaries are the answer to Washington’s military problems, suggests Prince.  And mercs, of course, have the added benefit of not being constrained by the rules of engagement that apply to America’s uniformed service members.

Indeed, Prince’s idea, though opposed by Trump’s generals, is compelling in one sense: If you accept the notion that America’s wars in these years have been fought largely for the corporate agendas of the military-industrial complex, why not turn warfighting itself over to the warrior corporations that now regularly accompany the military into battle, cutting out the middleman, that very military?

Hammering a Cloud of Gnats

Erik Prince’s mercenaries will, however, have to bide their time as the military high command continues to launch kinetic strikes against elusive foes around the globe.  By its own admission, the force recent U.S. presidents have touted as the “finest” in history faces remarkably “asymmetrical” and protean enemies, including the roughly 20 terrorist organizations in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations.  In striking at such relatively puny foes, the U.S. reminds me of the mighty Thor of superhero fame swinging his hammer violently against a cloud of gnats. In the process, some of those gnats will naturally die, but the result will still be an exhausted superhero and ever more gnats attracted by the heat and commotion of battle.

I first came across the phrase “using a sledgehammer to kill gnats” while looking at the history of U.S. airpower during the Vietnam War.  B-52 “Arc Light” raids dropped record tons of bombs on parts of South Vietnam and Laos in largely failed efforts to kill dispersed guerrillas and interdict supply routes from North Vietnam.  Half a century later, with its laser- and GPS-guided bombs, the Air Force regularly touts the far greater precision of American airpower.  Yet in one country after another, using just that weaponry, the U.S. has engaged in serial acts of overkill.  In Afghanistan, it was the recent use of MOAB, the “mother of all bombs,” the largest non-nuclear weapon the U.S. has ever used in combat, against a small concentration of ISIS fighters.  In similar fashion, the U.S. air war in Syria has outpaced the Russians and even the Assad regime in its murderous effects on civilians, especially around Raqqa, the “capital” of the Islamic State.  Such overkill is evident on the ground as well where special ops raids have, this year, left civilians dead from Yemen to Somalia.  In other words, across the Greater Middle East, Washington’s profligate killing machine is also creating a desire for vengeance among civilian populations, staggering numbers of whom, when not killed, have been displaced or sent fleeing across borders as refugees in these wars. It has played a significant role in unsettling whole regions, creating failed states, and providing yet more recruits for terror groups.

Leaving aside technological advances, little has changed since Vietnam. The U.S. military is still relying on enormous firepower to kill elusive enemies as a way of limiting (American) casualties.  As an instrument of victory, it didn’t work in Vietnam, nor has it worked in Iraq or Afghanistan.

But never mind the history lessons.  President Trump asserts that his “new” Afghan strategy — the details of which, according to a military spokesman, are “not there yet” — will lead to more terrorists (that is, gnats) being killed.

Since 9/11, America’s leaders, Trump included, have rarely sought ways to avoid those gnats, while efforts to “drain the swamp” in which the gnats thrive have served mainly to enlarge their breeding grounds.  At the same time, efforts to enlist indigenous “gnats” — local proxy armies — to take over the fight have gone poorly indeed.  As in Vietnam, the main U.S. focus has invariably been on developing better, more technologically advanced (which means more expensive) sledgehammers, while continuing to whale away at that cloud of gnats — a process as hopeless as it is counterproductive.

The Greatest Self-Defeating Force in History?

Incessant warfare represents the end of democracy.  I didn’t say that, James Madison did.

I firmly believe, though, in words borrowed from President Dwight D. Eisenhower, that “only Americans can hurt America.”  So how can we lessen the hurt?  By beginning to rein in the military.  A standing military exists — or rather should exist — to support and defend the Constitution and our country against immediate threats to our survival.  Endless attacks against inchoate foes in the backlands of the planet hardly promote that mission.  Indeed, the more such attacks wear on the military, the more they imperil national security.

A friend of mine, a captain in the Air Force, once quipped to me: you study long, you study wrong.  It’s a sentiment that’s especially cutting when applied to war: you wage war long, you wage it wrong.  Yet as debilitating as they may be to militaries, long wars are even more devastating to democracies.  The longer our military wages war, the more our country is militarized, shedding its democratic values and ideals.

Back in the Cold War era, the regions in which the U.S. military is now slogging it out were once largely considered “the shadows” where John le Carré-style secret agents from the two superpowers matched wits in a set of shadowy conflicts.  Post-9/11, “taking the gloves off” and seeking knockout blows, the U.S. military entered those same shadows in a big way and there, not surprisingly, it often couldn’t sort friend from foe.

A new strategy for America should involve getting out of those shadowy regions of no-win war.  Instead, an expanding U.S. military establishment continues to compound the strategic mistakes of the last 16 years.  Seeking to dominate everywhere but winning decisively nowhere, it may yet go down as the greatest self-defeating force in history.

Western Australian budget slashes thousands of public sector jobs

Oscar Grenfell 

The Western Australian (WA) Labor Party government of Premier Mark McGowan delivered its first budget last Thursday. The budget demonstrated that Labor will impose the austerity measures demanded by the corporate elite, amid a sharp fall in state revenues resulting from the collapse of the mining boom.

The budget eliminated 3,000 public sector jobs, building on a sweeping restructure announced in May. According to modelling by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the budget also will increase the cost of living by up to $1,000 a year for working-class families.

Labor came to office in March, in a state election characterised by massive swings against the former Liberal Party government of Colin Barnett, which lost a third of its primary vote compared to the previous election. Labor formed government holding 41 of the 59 seats in the state parliament’s lower house.

The result was spurred by widespread hostility to the Barnett government’s spending cuts and mounting opposition to the federal Liberal-National Coalition government of Malcolm Turnbull. Labor cynically combined populist denunciations of Barnett’s cuts with assurances that a McGowan government would return the budget to surplus by slashing social spending.

As a down payment on these pledges, the budget outlines $1.7 billion in “savings” in the public sector over four years, with $355 million extracted by destroying 3,000 jobs.

In a bid to stifle workers’ opposition, the government claimed it would seek the cuts through “voluntary” redundancies. Regardless of how the job cut is imposed, it will intensify the social crisis confronting the working class, coming on top of tens of thousands of sackings throughout the mining and resources sector.

Treasurer Ben Wyatt declared he wanted the redundancies to be pushed through in the 2017–2018 financial year. “I don’t want this to carry over into 2018–19,” he stated. This indicates that forced redundancies are on the agenda, along with further sweeping cuts in next year’s budget.

The government plans a “voluntary targeted separation scheme,” with redundancies sought in departments under the government’s axe. What is being prepared is a campaign of intimidation, aimed at forcing out staff members.

In May, less than two months after Labor took office, it announced that the number of public sector departments would be reduced from 41 to 25. It also introduced an effective four-year pay freeze across the public sector. Wage increases were capped at $1,000 per annum, resulting in a real pay cut when inflation is taken into account. A wave of resignations reportedly followed, as public sector workers recognised that forced sackings were on the agenda.

Having campaigned for a Labor government, the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has signalled it will assist with the public sector restructure, deepening the unions’ role as an industrial police force of successive governments and big business.

WA CPSU secretary Toni Walkington responded to the amalgamations in May by telling ABC Radio: “Some of our members believe this is an opportunity to get things right in the delivery of government services.” She claimed the cuts would affect only the “upper echelons” of the public sector, but the budget proves otherwise.

The union’s latest statements, feigning shock at the job cuts, are a fraud, aimed at channeling anger behind impotent appeals to the McGowan government. The CPSU has likewise suppressed opposition to major attacks on wages and conditions imposed by the Coalition government in the federal public sector.

Throughout the election campaign, Labor postured as an opponent of plans to privatise the state-owned electricity service and other assets. In its budget, however, Labor indicated it will continue the sell-off of public utilities, which have been spearheaded by Labor governments across the country.

The budget will force state-owned utilities, Synergy, an energy provider, and the Water Corporation, to make payments to the treasury of $473 million over the next four years. The dividend will deepen the corporatisation of both utilities, while creating the conditions for attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions.

Other budget measures that will hit workers and the poor include an annual increase in power bill fees of $169, public transport fare hikes averaging $80 per commuter each year and a rise in water, drainage and sewerage fees of almost $100.

At the same time, the government donned the “law and order” mantle. The budget earmarked $83.5 million to hire another 100 police and 20 state intelligence officers, on the pretext of combatting the growing use of crystal methamphetamine. The measure is a warning that the government will respond to the social distress caused by its policies, and mounting opposition in the working class, with police measures.

While the financial press generally welcomed the budget’s attacks on the working class, some commentators bemoaned the government’s “betrayal” of its pledge not to increase business taxes.

In reality, the budget measures would scarcely touch the bottom-line of the major corporations, including the mining companies that have extracted billions of dollars in profits over the past decade. Payroll taxes would increase by just 0.5 percent for corporations with annual payrolls of up to $1.5 billion, and 1 percent for larger businesses. Gold royalties would rise from 2.5 percent to 3.75 percent next year.

These marginal tax increases may not even pass the parliament’s upper house, where the government lacks a majority. Even if they do, they will make little difference to the state’s growing debt crisis.

According to the budget forecasts, public debt will rise to $43.8 billion in 2020–21, with budget deficits of over a billion dollars each year until then. The government’s claims of a return to surplus in 2020–21 are based on fanciful predictions of economic growth, flying in the face of warnings that the debt-fuelled national property bubble could implode.

The WA budget exposes the fraud of Labor’s attempts to posture as an opponent of social inequality and as a party of “working people.” A federal Labor government headed by Bill Shorten would be just as committed to imposing the austerity demands of the corporate elite.

South Asian floods: Death toll climbs to 1,300

Arun Kumar 

While floods have partially receded in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam, the death toll from the disaster is now 1,300, with an estimated 45 million people affected throughout South Asia.

Aid agencies report that 30 to 40 percent of those killed were children. Entire villages and vast tracts of agricultural land have been destroyed, along with crops and cattle. Tens of thousands of homes, schools and hospitals have been inundated and damaged.

Millions of flood victims in rural and urban areas face a desperate plight, trying to recover from the loss of their homes, crops, livestock, livelihoods and property. This situation is worsened by a deepening health crisis caused by infected water and the spread of mosquito- and water-borne diseases.

Ray Kancharla from the Indian branch of Save the Children warned of a massive increase in dengue, malaria, chikungunya and other mosquito-borne diseases this year. “These risks are huge,” he said, “especially for children and women.” Save the Children estimates that 17 million children in India urgently require humanitarian assistance, including basic nutritional support, health care and education.

While government authorities and the media constantly refer to the floods as a “natural disaster,” these catastrophes are entirely predictable and generally occur each year during the monsoon season, between June and September.

According to the UN, over 32 million people have been affected by the floods in India. In the eastern state of Bihar, 514 people have been killed and 17.1 million impacted, while in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, about 2.5 million have been affected and 109 killed.

Between June and July, heavy floods in the western state of Gujarat took 224 lives. In the eastern state of West Bengal, at least 152 were killed and 2.7 million people affected. The West Bengal government estimates the total damage in that state to be 140 billion rupees ($US2.2 billion).

On August 29, Mumbai, India’s financial capital, received 331.4 mm of rainfall in nine hours, the highest in a decade, producing chaotic conditions, inundating thousands of buildings and resulting in the loss of five lives.

In Bangladesh, at least 140 people have perished, with more than 700,000 homes destroyed and vast areas of farm lands ruined, posing the risk of long-term food shortages. More than 8 million people, including about 3 million children, have been displaced and about 2.4 million hectares of cropland have been ruined.

According to the Bangladesh International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, around 13,000 people are suffering from diarrhea, with officials warning that the infection rate is serious.

At least 23 people, including seven children, were killed by flooding in the Pakistani port city of Karachi when wide areas were engulfed on September 1, following prolonged rainfall that began on August 30.

In Nepal 160 people were killed, 25 are missing and 1.5 million homes, along with schools, hospitals and bridges, were destroyed. One UNICEF official reported: “The people are very poor here and houses are made of mud. So when floods came, it washed away their houses, and in some places, the water came so quickly, [and] with such force, that one village I saw looked like [it had been] hit by a tornado or cyclone.”

The Indian government and its respective state authorities are indifferent to the plight of millions of residents. Despite countless warnings from weather forecasters and disaster planning experts, successive governments have refused to implement basic mitigation measures to deal with flooding.

After major flooding in 2005, Mumbai authorities were warned they had to improve drainage systems, develop early warning systems, widen waterways and riverbeds and amend building codes. Twelve years on these demands largely have been ignored.

A recent report by India’s Comptroller and Auditor General, an official body that audits government spending, revealed that only 349 of India’s 4,862 large dams have emergency disaster action plans, and tens of millions of dollars in flood management funds remain unspent.

The Indian government has offered a pittance in emergency relief to flood victims. While total recovery costs for the flood-affected northeast states are estimated at 300 billion rupees, the government is providing only 23.5 billion rupees.

By contrast, New Delhi, in pursuit of geo-political interests, is spending billions of dollars on advanced military weapons in preparation for war, thus threatening the lives of millions throughout the region.

India recently issued a “request-for-information” to Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries for an estimated $8 billion contract to supply six advanced submarines.

New Delhi’s offer to provide 400 million Nepali rupees to the landlocked country of Nepal in flood relief is not driven by humanitarian concerns but motivated by the Indian elite’s hegemonic ambitions. The ruling elite, which is engaged in strategic rivalry with China over influence in Nepal, regards the poverty-stricken, mountainous country as part of its backyard.

Large wildfires continue to spread in US Northwest

Hector Cordon

Twenty-seven large wildfires are currently active throughout Washington and Oregon. Roughly 700,000 acres are in flames, stretching nearly 600 miles from the Diamond Creek Fire in the Okanagon National Forest adjacent to the Canadian border, south to the Miller Complex Fire on the California border.

According to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, of the 27 large fires (defined as 100-plus acres of woodland or 300-plus acres of grassland), 16 are uncontained. Another 8 smaller fires are active in the region as well.

An extended dry spell—due to a strong high-pressure ridge, which saw minimal precipitation in a normally wetter June to August—had primed the vast Northwest forests for multiple incidents of wildfires. On September 4 and 5, a combination of low humidity, high temperatures and winds gusting to 55 mph intensified many fires, which then expanded rapidly.

One of the two biggest fires is the Diamond Creek Fire in northern Washington, with 105,750 acres burning and which grew by 250 acres overnight while expanding into Canada. Three structures have been lost and $12.4 million spent so far fighting that fire. In southwestern Oregon, the Chetco Bar Fire, covering 182,284 acres, has caused 30 lost structures and has been 5 percent contained by more than 1,500 firefighters, with $42.6 million expended since July 12.

Across the entire western states of California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming, over 80 large wildfires are burning 1.4 million acres. Nearly 28,000 firefighters and support personnel are involved in suppressing these fires. This is a huge increase since last month, nearly double the amount of large fires in August. From Monday to Tuesday, the large wildfires grew an additional 12,581 acres.

The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), based in Boise, Idaho, has raised the National Preparedness Level to 5, the highest level. According to the NIFC, this indicates “a high level of wildfire activity and a high level of commitment of wildfire suppression assets (i.e., firefighters, aircraft and engines) to wildfires. Weather and fuel conditions are predicted to continue to be conducive to wildfire ignitions and spread in most of the western US through September and in parts of the Northern Rockies and California through October.”

The situation has become so dire that the NIFC on September 5 requested 200 active-duty military personnel from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington “to assist with firefighting efforts.” After three days of training, all 200 were to be deployed September 10 to fight the 30,000-acre fire in the Umpqual National Forest, 50 miles east of Roseburg, Oregon.

The Eagle Creek Fire, located 40 miles east of Oregon’s largest city, Portland, began September 2 and then rapidly expanded from 3,200 acres to a current 35,600. So far, the fire is 11 percent contained, slightly changed from late last week, with 1,000 firefighters battling to protect thousands of homes and structures. Approximately 2,000 people have been evacuated, while four homes have been destroyed.

Ash from these fires drifted to the Pacific Coast in some places and blanketed both Seattle and Portland. Meanwhile smoke-filtered sunlight was transformed into a murky orange. Residents, particularly those with health problems, were warned by the National Weather Service to avoid outdoor activity and to stay indoors with the air conditioning on, advice that the considerable homeless populations of both cities would have found difficult to follow. In Spokane, the Air Quality Index reached “hazardous,” the worst of six levels.

Governors of both states, Democrats Jay Inslee of Washington and Kate Brown of Oregon, declared states of emergency, allowing the use of the National Guard to join the firefighting efforts. States of emergency due to large wildfires had been announced previously in Montana, Arizona, Nevada and California.

Washington and Oregon had been approved in April and August, respectively, for federal disaster assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency due to the winter’s extensive damage by storms, floods, landslides and mudslides.

In Oregon, responding to the initial containment of the Eagle Creek Fire, Coast Guard officials Sunday reopened the Columbia River, a major economic artery for the movement of marine traffic. Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) continued its closure of a 54-mile length of Interstate 84, shut down September 4, from Troutdale east to Hood River. Officials anticipate another week until the highway will be allowed to reopen, as workers remove thousands of burned trees and falling rock debris.

The Eagle Creek Fire is alleged to have been started by a 15-year-old boy tossing fireworks from a bridge down a cliff.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has warned that climate change will affect the western United States with higher average annual temperatures than “for the planet as a whole.” The numbers of large wildfires (which they define as over 1,000 acres) has almost doubled since the 1980s, from 140 then to 250 in the 2000-2012 period. In addition, the fire season has grown from five months then to seven months today.

As in every major disaster since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the response of the various levels of government has ranged from minimal to outright indifference. Oregon’s official state web site encourages donations of money to fund “voluntary organizations” to assist victims of the fires. The federal government’s budget proposal under President Trump has called for a $350 million cut in funding from the US Forest Service’s wildfire fighting and prevention programs. Additionally, a 23 percent cut in federal funding for volunteer fire departments nationally has been proposed.

UK parliament approves sweeping executive powers under Brexit bill

Julie Hyland

The so-called Great Repeal Bill, incorporating European Union (EU) legislation into British law, passed its second reading in parliament early Tuesday morning, with a government majority of 36.

Now known as the EU Withdrawal Bill, it is the first step in legally removing the UK from the EU—scheduled for March 2019—following the Leave vote in last year’s referendum. It provides for sweeping “Henry VIII clauses,” massively extending executive powers, which the government claims are necessary to “provide for a smooth and orderly” Brexit.

No Tories voted against the bill, but seven Labour MPs defied the party whip to vote with the government, including Frank Field, Ronnie Campbell, Kate Hoey and Dennis Skinner. Caroline Flint abstained.

Labour’s amendment, criticising “ handing sweeping powers to Government Ministers allowing them to bypass Parliament on key decisions,” was defeated by 318 votes to 296. A vote on the timetable for parliamentary scrutiny of the bill at committee stage also passed by 318 votes to 301.

The debate was steamrollered through parliament, with only Thursday and Monday set aside for MPs to speak. Just eight days have been allocated for “line by line” scrutiny at committee stage, for a bill described as the largest legislative venture undertaken in British history, concerning some 12,000 EU regulations.

Labour is seeking to join forces with Tory MP’s critical of the measures, together with the Scottish National Party, Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru, to submit “sensible amendments.” On Tuesday, MPs tabled 136 amendments, mainly aimed at prolonging British membership of the EU customs union and single market, and for MPs to vote on a final Brexit deal.

No credibility can be given to such parliamentary manoeuvres. Henry VIII powers date back to the 1539 Statute of Proclamations, which enabled the King to rule by decree. Under the bill, hundreds of items of legislation—including concerning workers’ rights—can be amended by ministerial order.

The report by the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution described the executive powers conferred by the Bill as “unprecedented and extraordinary,” raising “fundamental constitutional questions about the separation of powers between Parliament and Government.”

The bill contains multiple powers investing the executive with the ability to make “any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament.” In this way, it “weaves a tapestry of delegated powers that are breath-taking in terms of both their scope and potency,” and that “raise fundamental concerns from a rule of law perspective. The capacity of the Bill to undermine legal certainty is considerable,” the committee stated.

In 2008, David Davies resigned from the Tory shadow cabinet in protest at the Labour government’s assault on democratic rights, and subsequently joined forces with then leading Labour “left,” Tony Benn, to support the civil liberties organisation, Big Brother Watch. As the government’s Brexit Secretary, in charge of negotiating exit terms with the EU, he now denounces opposition to the bill as an “attempt to thwart the democratic process.”

The support for executive powers was made explicit in the debate by Tory MP Edward Leigh, who joked that Henry VIII was a bastard, “but he was my kind of bastard.” The government hopes to secure a majority on all standing committees concerning the bill, despite leading a minority government that was only secured through a £1 billion deal with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party.

This power-grab must be seen in the context of the authoritarian turn underway across Europe. In France, President Emmanuel Macron is seeking to buttress emergency laws as he attempts to push through labour reforms overturning workers’ legal protections.

In Germany, all the main parties are advocating a massive expansion of the police and intelligence agencies. The German bourgeoisie was central to Google’s decision to change its search algorithm’s so as to censor the World Socialist Web Site and silence opposition to the revival of German militarism. Last month, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière ordered the shutdown of the left-wing website linksunten.indymedia.org, one of the two German subsidiaries of the global media site Indymedia.

In Britain, ministers had made no secret of their desire to use Brexit to carry out a “bonfire” of workers’ rights. In addition, the government is trying to use the UK’s extensive military-intelligence apparatus as a bargaining chip with the EU to extract favourable terms for Brexit. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said that the UK’s “commitment to European security is undiminished” after Brexit, citing Britain’s role in NATO-led provocations against Russia.

This agenda of austerity, militarism and war, which is deeply unpopular and cannot be carried through democratically, is the real impulse for the resort to executive powers.

Labour has made no effort to mobilise popular opposition to these plans, despite the influx of new members under Jeremy Corbyn. This is because its own amendments to the bill are motivated less by concern for civil liberties than its attempts to limit executive powers in determining the terms of Brexit and any transitional arrangements put in place.

While officially accepting that Britain will leave the EU, Labour is committed to maintaining access to the single market and customs union for an undefined “transitional” period. But leading Labourites have made clear they want to overturn the leave vote.

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair heads this campaign, arguing that Brexit will do irreparable damage to the interests of British imperialism and the City of London. He has called for a second referendum and is proposing draconian anti-immigration policies are adopted to facilitate this. Blair’s former policy adviser Lord Adonis, said Labour would end up backing another referendum, which he described as a “first referendum on the exit terms.”

This has the support of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), whose annual conference began this week. Speaking on Monday, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady claimed that continued membership of the EU single market was the best way to protect workers interests. Her speech came after the TUC General Council issued a statement in favour of remaining in the single market.

Labour’s own amendment to the bill included the commitment to “ full tariff-free access to the European single market. ” It was signed by Corbyn, along with deputy leader Tom Watson, Labour’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer and Stephen Kinnock. The latter were instrumental in the attempts to remove Corbyn as leader, citing his lack of “enthusiasm” for the Remain campaign in last year’s referendum he was meant to be leading as a primary factor.

Corbyn had dropped his long-standing opposition to the EU on becoming Labour leader, but he voted with Prime Minister Theresa May after the leave vote to begin negotiations on Britain’s withdrawal from the single market and customs union. He now states that the UK should keep EU membership for as “short as possible but as long as necessary.”

Quizzed by the BBC on his response to Blair’s anti-immigration proposals, Corbyn refused to take a position, saying only that he had listened to Blair’s interview “with interest.” Corbyn has already committed Labour to limiting freedom of movement within the EU, arguing that this is needed to ensure “proper regulation of the labour market.”

Israel bombs Syrian government positions as anti-Assad opposition forces lose ground

Jean Shaoul

Last week, Israeli fighter jets attacked major military facilities near the town of Maysaf in western Syria from Lebanese airspace with the full backing of Israel’s paymasters in Washington.

The first attack killed two people and caused extensive damage, while a second killed or wounded a further seven people.

According to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—a British-based monitoring group with ties to forces opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad—Israeli missiles hit facilities belonging to the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) and a military base storing ground-to-ground missiles.

The SSRC is a Syrian government agency that the US and Israel claim is producing chemical weapons.

These strikes are part of a broader push by Israel to create “facts on the ground,” under conditions where Assad’s regime in Syria—with Russia and Iran’s backing—has been gaining the upper hand. They indicate the multiple rivalries in the region that threaten a wider conflagration in the resource-rich Middle East.

While Israel, as usual, did not confirm or deny the attacks, military intelligence chief Major General Herzl Halevi said that Israel was “dealing with threats near and far.” He added, “The threats to Israel are from armed militant groups, most of them aided and funded by Iran. They are grave threats, but not existential ones.”

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman was more explicit. He said that Israel was determined to resist Iran’s influence in the region, stating, “Everything will be done to prevent the existence of a Shiite corridor from Tehran to Damascus.”

Just a few days earlier, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu accused Iran of trying to produce advanced, precision-guided missiles in Lebanon and Syria. He said, “Iran is busy turning Syria into a base of military entrenchment and it wants to use Syria and Lebanon as war fronts against its declared goal to eradicate Israel. This is something Israel cannot accept.”

These strikes come exactly 10 years after Israel bombed Syria’s nuclear reactor in eastern Syria and follow numerous interventions by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in Syria’s six-year-long civil war.

Israel has been a largely silent partner in the US-orchestrated campaign to topple the Assad regime. But just last month in an interview with Ha’aretz, Major General Amir Eshel, the outgoing chief the Israel Air Force, admitted to launching nearly 100 attacks on Syrian territory, allegedly against convoys supplying Hezbollah, over the past five years. Israel has also carried out targeted assassinations of senior Hezbollah figures.

Hezbollah, the Shia party and militant group from Lebanon that is supported by Iran, has played a key role supporting President Assad. It has sent its forces to fight the ever-shifting alliance of Islamist groups opposing him that includes Islamic State, Al Nusra, Jaish al-Fatah and Ahrar al-Sham, variously funded at different times by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States and Turkey.

Israel, for its part, has allowed competing Islamist groups opposed to Assad to set up bases in the Golan Heights, providing them with training, intelligence and medical facilities. It has maintained regular contact with these groups, according to a 2015 report published by the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), which has itself faced repeated lethal attacks from al-Nusra and other groups.

Following an agreement between Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2015, Russia and Israel coordinated the operations of their aircraft over Syria—in order to avoid accidentally trading fire. This proved what had long been suspected: that Israel has been intervening covertly in the Syrian conflict. Netanyahu himself has acknowledged that Israel’s air force has operated undisturbed in Syrian air space in violation of Syria’s sovereignty and its 1974 agreement with Syria following the October 1973 war.

While the Syrian government for its part warned of the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region,” it has not responded militarily as it has done on a few occasions in the past.

Instead, the Syrian Foreign Minister filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council and the Secretary General, saying “The Israeli aggression has become a norm.” The complaint added that Israel was seeking to provide aid and support for terrorist groups such as the al-Nusra Front and ISIS just as the Syrian army was advancing against them, and that inaction on the part of the Security Council would be “unacceptable.” Just last week, the Syrian army and Shi’ite militias drove out IS fighters from Deir el-Zour, in the eastern oil-producing region of the country.

The Israeli air strikes took place as the IDF was conducting the largest military exercise in 19 years on its border with Lebanon that involved tens of thousands of soldiers and civilian evacuation drills. Commentators have described the 10-day-long exercises as a dress rehearsal for a future war with Hezbollah that would counter multiple terrorist infiltrations from southern Lebanon.

Israel’s relations with Russia have soured recently following Moscow’s threat to veto any UN Security Council resolution designating Hezbollah a terrorist organization. A meeting between Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Black Sea resort of Sochi ended without any commitment by Putin to arrange the withdrawal of both Iran and Hezbollah from Syria and Netanyahu warning that Israel would act to protect its interests.

While Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has emphasized Russia’s commitment to Israel’s security interests and said the establishment of “de-escalation zones” in Syria would not harm Israel, Israel views the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces in Syria as a threat.

In any event, Russia is powerless to force Hezbollah’s forces out of Lebanon because of Iran’s support for the group as the basis for maintaining Tehran’s influence in Lebanon and as a crucial pro-Assad fighting force. Although Russia has sought to limit Iran’s role in Syria, to avoid antagonizing Washington, its aims—to shore up the Assad regime, preserve its only warm water port in Tartus, ensure its military and commercial contracts and loans with Syria and regional influence—are dependent on Iran.

Last month, Netanyahu told UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, during his visit to the Middle East, that Iran was building facilities in both Syria and Lebanon to make precision-guided missiles.

Accordingly, Tel Aviv seized on a UN report released the previous day to legitimize its aerial attacks. The report claims, without citing any evidence, that Syria’s attack on Khan Sheikhoun in March—that provided the pretext for Washington’s cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base—was just one of at least 20 chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Syrian government from March 2013 to March 2017.

Russia is party to an agreement with Washington and Damascus in which Syria agreed to destroy or send to Russia its chemical weapons. This was agreed in exchange for former President Barack Obama withdrawing his threat to invade Syria in September 2013. Russia indicated at the time that it would not oppose an attack on Syria’s chemical weapons stores if there was UN backing and proof of the use of such weapons.

Israel is seeking to use this to extend the justification under which it can attack Syria with impunity: that it has become Iran’s base of operations against Israel.

As the first Israeli strikes against Syria since the July cease-fire agreed between Russia and the US in southern Syria, along the border with Israel and Jordan, they signify that Tel Aviv is determined to impose its own interests in any political settlement of Syria’s civil war.

Israel opposed the agreement because it leaves pro-Assad forces, including potentially Hezbollah and Iran, in control of the border region, and also creates the template for future agreements in other parts of Syria, destroys the power of the so-called rebel groups that it has backed and leaves Assad in power.

Almost all the imperialist and regional powers have now withdrawn their demand that Assad must go as a pre-condition for negotiations on a peace settlement.

Hundreds of thousands march against Macron’s austerity measures in France

Alex Lantier & Anthony Torres 

Around 400,000 people protested yesterday against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to rip up France’s Labor Code, which would open the way for mass layoffs, pay and benefit cuts, and speedups. Macron’s labor “reforms” are the centerpiece of a massive campaign of austerity, including plans to slash state pension funds and unemployment benefits.

There were large protests in Paris (60,000 according to the unions), Marseille (60,000), Toulouse (16,000), Nantes (15,000), Bordeaux (12,000), Lyon (10,000), Rennes (10,000) Nice (5,000), and Le Havre, the home city of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (3,400). It was the first protest organized by the trade union bureaucracy since Macron’s election in May. Police used water cannons in Paris to attack protesters in the 13th district, while youth and police also clashed in Lyon and Nantes.

The ruling classes throughout the world, including in the United States and Germany, see Macron’s “labor reforms” as the spearhead of a new round of international attacks on the working class. The New York Times hailed Macron’s measures as upending “the notion of the worker in permanent need of protection against rapacious capitalists,” bemoaning the fact that “Every effort at fundamental reform for at least a quarter of a century has foundered on giant and sometimes violent” popular demonstrations.

Macron’s approval ratings are plunging, and the great majority of workers and youth oppose his plans to impose a social counter-revolution by extra-parliamentary decree. Macron won the presidency after defeating the neo-fascist Marine Le Pen in the second-round runoff of an election that saw mass abstention and an electoral debacle for France’s traditional political parties.

The demonstrations took place against the background of France’s state of emergency which provide the presidency with “extraordinary powers,” including subjection of people to house arrest without trial. These powers, which have been in effect since November 2015, have been used to persecute opponents of the labor law reforms under both Macron and his predecessor, Socialist Party President Francois Hollande.

WSWS correspondents attended protests in Paris, Marseille, and in the north of France. Protesters stressed their hostility not only to the destruction of the Labor Code, but also the drive to war and dictatorship. Many expressed their distrust of the trade unions and existing parties. After the elections, which provided a choice between a neo-fascist and a free-market ideologue, youth said they were disgusted with the political system.

In Paris, Nathanaël said: “This is the only way we have left to struggle: to show our discontent. The representative institutions of the Fifth Republic have failed, they have been failing for years. I am a high school student. I don’t vote, and even if I voted, I don’t see what it would get me. I don't see why I should. This is not how social protection works, this is not how the rule of law works. … We are forced now to go into the streets and protest in order to make ourselves heard.”

Asked about the Parti de l'égalité socialiste’s call for an active boycott of the presidential elections to prepare the independent perspective mobilization of the working class against the president, he said: “I am pretty much in agreement with that. I am absolutely against the noxious, deadly ideas of the [neo-fascist] National Front [FN), but to vote is to support someone. Voting is supporting the system, the institutions.”

Nathanaël pointed to the French general strike of May 1968: “It is the only thing to do, to mobilize the working class. We are not in a trade union but a political struggle. … We’re close to a struggle like May ’68.”

He also denounced Macron’s plan to write France’s repressive state of emergency into common law: “That is the ultimate violation of the rule of law,” he said. “I see it very clearly in my high school, every day they search our bags, demand our papers. Teaching people to submit from high school or junior high on, that’s neither liberty nor the rule of law.”

He raised the Korean crisis to stress the concern of the youth faced with the danger of war: “For me, the threat comes not so much from North Korea as from the relationship between North Korea and the United States. Trump is impulsive, egocentric and obsessive, in fact this person does not even deserve the terms we use to describe him.”

Nathanaël also opposed law-and-order denunciations of protesters in the media: “I’m not a wrecker, I am not going to throw paving stones in storefront windows. … There is an entire type of rhetoric and language of the far right that is taking over the media coverage.”

The WSWS also spoke to Sarah, another student, who criticized growing social inequality and the turn to repression in France under Macron: “I find it intolerable to pass laws this way. I was not necessarily for Macron, especially on labor issues. In him, we’re dealing with a person who knows nothing. What he wants to do with contracts, where you can have a five-year temp contract, that is extraordinary.”

She added, “I am studying to work in Human Resources. I was a bit naïve. I thought that the work would be simple, there you have to help the workers. And now, time is going by, and I’m young but I am realizing that in the working world, relations are really vicious. And Macron is just piling on the viciousness.”

On the state of emergency, she said: “I think its main purpose is to scare the people. It scares people, obviously when you are young, when you come to Bastille Square [where the demonstration started] … We are basically under a type of dictatorship. It’s not the type of dictatorships that we know from the history books, but I think very bad things are happening, the way the president uses his power.”

Between the students and workers entering into struggle on the one hand, and the union bureaucracies and the pseudo left parties on the other, there is a class gulf. The unions and pseudo-left political forces like Jean-Luc Mélenchon of Unsubmissive France (LFI) are trying to present themselves as militant alternatives to the collapse of the Socialist Party (PS), discredited by the wars and austerity policies of Hollande. In fact, however, they are deeply integrated into the political establishment and hostile to a revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, which the Parti de l'égalité socialiste, the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International, aims to lead.

NATO launches war games in advance of Russian exercise

Bill Van Auken

The US and its NATO allies have launched a series of war games in advance of a major military exercise by Russia and Belarus scheduled to begin later this week.

The dueling war games are unfolding under conditions in which relations between Washington and Moscow are more tense than at any time since the height of the Cold War. They follow the imposition of unilateral US sanctions against Russia, a round of tit-for-tat expulsions of Russian and American diplomats initiated by Washington and an unrelenting propaganda campaign alleging Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

On Monday, military forces from the US and a number of other NATO countries joined the Ukrainian army for military exercises dubbed “Rapid Trident,” involving 2,500 troops. The war games, which are taking place in the western Ukrainian city of Yavoriv, are to continue until September 23.

Washington has steadily increased its support to the right-wing nationalist regime brought to power by a US-backed and fascist-spearheaded coup in February 2014. Last month, US Defense Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis traveled to Kiev, where he signaled his support for providing the country with lethal weapons.

The US and NATO have invoked Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, which came in response to a referendum expressing overwhelming support for the militarily strategic territory’s return to Russia, and the revolt by pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region as manifestations of Russian aggression, justifying the US-led military buildup in the region.

This has included NATO’s deployment last May of four “multinational battlegroups,” consisting of over 1,000 combat troops each, in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, led by the UK, Canada, Germany and the US respectively. This has been accompanied by the organization of a 40,000-troop rapid reaction force and a steady military buildup in the Black Sea region.

The US recently sent seven more advanced fighter planes to Lithuania to beef up its military presence during the Russian military exercise, along with an additional 600 American airborne troops. For the first time since 2014, the Pentagon has taken command of NATO’s air operations in the Baltics.

Meanwhile, NATO initiated another military exercise, “Steadfast Pyramid” in Latvia on Sunday, involving 40 senior commanders from NATO member states along with Finland and Sweden. NATO issued an opaque description of the exercise, which continues until September 15, declaring that it was focused on “further developing the abilities of commanders and senior staff to plan and conduct operations through the application of operational art in decision making.” A second stage of the war games, known as “Steadfast Pinnacle,” is to last from September 17 through September 22.

In addition to these US-NATO actions, American and French troops are participating, along with units from Finland, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania and Estonia, in the largest Swedish military exercises to be held in 20 years. The maneuver, which began on Monday and runs through September 20, represents another show of force directed against Moscow. In an unmistakable sign of the sharp tensions roiling the region, Sweden has substantially increased its military budget, re-instituted conscription and is debating joining NATO, an action that would break the country’s century-long tradition of neutrality.

The US-NATO military buildup in both Ukraine and the Baltic republics—as well as the war games in Sweden—are clearly aimed, in the first instance, at countering the “Zapad 2017” joint exercises being staged by Russia and Belarus, which is set to begin on Thursday and continue through September 20.

Moscow has said that only 12,700 troops will participate in the military exercise, but Western officials, echoing allegations by the right-wing nationalist regimes in Ukraine and the Baltics, have issued hysterical and unfounded statements predicting that some 100,000 will be involved, casting the maneuvers as a potential preparation for invasion.

Typical was the reaction of Britain’s Defense Minister Michael Fallon, who told the BBC: “This is the biggest exercise I think for four years, over 100,000 Russian and Belorussian troops now on NATO’s border. This is designed to provoke us, it’s designed to test our defenses, and that’s why we have to be strong.”

Such claims turn reality on its head. For the past quarter century, since the Moscow Stalinist bureaucracy’s dissolution of the Soviet Union, the US and NATO have steadily advanced on Russia’s borders, seeking to militarily encircle the country, while orchestrating regime change operations aimed at installing pro-Western governments in various former Soviet republics. Its ultimate aim is the dismemberment of the Russian Federation and its transformation into a semi-colony.

While there is nothing progressive about Moscow’s flexing of its military muscles, the fact is that Russia’s major troop mobilizations are taking place on its own territory, while under the banner of NATO, the Pentagon has deployed warplanes and paratroopers on Russia’s borders.

The dueling war games in Eastern Europe constitute a serious warning. After 16 years of uninterrupted—and unsuccessful—wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, US imperialism is increasingly shifting its focus toward preparation for military confrontation with its major geo-strategic rivals, in particular Russia and China, threatening humanity with a nuclear third world war.

The potential fuses to ignite such a powder keg stretch from Syria to North Korea, the South China Sea and Ukraine and the Baltics.

The simultaneous war games themselves hold the potential of inadvertently triggering a military confrontation.

“With two major exercises at the same time, there is always a risk for incidents,” a former Swedish army officer and Russian military expert, Joergen Elfving, told Sweden’s SR International radio. “The Baltic Sea area will be filled with military activity more than usual for a very long time.”

Australia: Turnbull government expands “cashless welfare card”

Richard Phillips 

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced late last month that his Liberal-National coalition government will expand its “cashless welfare card” trial to more than 3,400 working-age social welfare recipients in Western Australia’s Goldfields region in early 2018.

This punitive system, which big business wants applied across the country to all welfare recipients, quarantines 80 percent of an individual’s welfare into a debit card that can only be used at designated retail outlets. The remaining 20 percent is deposited into the recipient’s savings account.

The current Newstart allowance for a single job seeker without children is just $535.60 a fortnight. Those on the cashless welfare trial would receive only $107.12 in cash and $428.48 on the card every two weeks.

Cashless welfare cards have been “trialled” for more than 12 months at Kununurra and Wyndham in Western Australia’s East Kimberley and at Ceduna in South Australia. The Goldfields Region includes the towns of Laverton, Leonora, Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. All these areas have high unemployment and no real future for young people.

Announcing the trial, Turnbull, one of the wealthiest men in the Australian parliament, cynically claimed that cashless welfare was “an exercise in compassion.”

Human Services Minister Alan Tudge declared that the government was determined to stop “welfare-fuelled” alcohol and drug abuse and gambling and insisted that the measures had produced positive social improvements. Tudge previously worked for America’s Boston Consulting Group which advises government agencies on cost-cutting.

Cashless welfare has nothing to do with overcoming the endemic unemployment and associated social ills afflicting poor communities. It does not increase the current poverty-level welfare payments that are the root cause of the financial difficulties facing recipients and scapegoats the most vulnerable layers of society as alcoholics, drug addicts and criminals.

Cashless welfare was initiated in 2007 by the Howard government, with Labor Party support, as part of its so-called Northern Territory (NT) Intervention. The measure which quarantined 70 percent of welfare income via a “Basics Card,” only applied to Northern Territory Aborigines.

The Rudd Labor government, which came to power in late 2007, rebadged the card and spread it to urban working-class areas suffering high unemployment and poverty.

In every case, the Australian government has feigned concern about the horrendous social conditions for which they are responsible, while blaming the victims for the social crisis.

Like the hysterical media campaign that accompanied the NT Intervention, Turnbull’s cashless welfare announcement last week was preceded by a malicious social media video campaign funded by billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest and his Minderoo Foundation.

The video alleged that hundreds of indigenous children are being sexually assaulted and featured purported CCTV footage showing a drunken Aboriginal man physically abusing a child. Forrest, who insists that cashless welfare cards are the only way to prevent child abuse, has denounced anyone opposing welfare restrictions as “paedophile supporters.”

The Turnbull government claims that a recent report by ORIMA Research proves the life and social conditions of those forced onto the cashless cards in Ceduna and the East Kimberly have dramatically improved. Tudge told the media that the cashless welfare system had produced a substantial decline in alcohol and drug abuse and gambling and had widespread support from participants.

The ORIMA Research of those involved in the welfare trials is highly questionable and provides no statistical proof that cashless welfare cards assist poor communities. Those asked to participate in the ORIMA Research survey, mostly Aborigines, were promised $30 or $50 gift cards on completion of the survey, which obviously coloured their answers.

The questions were highly intrusive and included detailed information from individuals about what they spent on alcohol, drugs or gambling and their children’s education. Yet, all those surveyed said they did not have drinking or drug problems and did not gamble.

The results simply do not prove the government’s claim that cashless welfare improved living conditions. While 45 percent said they were better able to save only 23 percent said the system had made their life better. Over 40 percent said their lives had worsened and 48 percent said they found it harder to look after their children. Significantly 20 percent of those asked refused to participate in the survey.

While the Australian Council of Social Services and other welfare organisations have denounced extension of the government’s cashless welfare measures, the Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten, said the party “remains open to the idea” provided there was “adequate support in the community.”

Shorten was a minister in the previous Labor government, which extended welfare quarantining beyond the Northern Territory.

One of those speaking out against the cashless welfare trials was Lawford Benning, chairman of the indigenous Miriuwung Gajerrong Corporation. Having originally supported the East Kimberly trial in early 2016, Benning told media that the federal government had failed to provide the increased support services that was used to persuade local leaders to back the system.

Cashless welfare, he said, “didn’t do what I thought it was going to do … I’m seeing there is more drinking, there’s a lot of sly-grogging, and I’m seeing a lot of kids late at night when you go to the shopping centre.” Benning’s opposition was briefly reported by one media outlet and then buried by articles and comments slavishly repeating government claims about the “success” of the welfare measures.

Cashless welfare cards are just one of a number of government measures that demonise the poor and eviscerate their right to social welfare.

Last month the Turnbull government announced that 5,000 new recipients of the Newstart Allowance and Youth Allowance—about 1,750 in Bankstown in western Sydney, 2,500 in Logan, Queensland, and 750 in Mandurah, Western Australia—will be drug tested, starting early next year.

If found to be using illicit drugs, welfare recipients will be forced onto cashless cards. If they test positive on a second drug test they will be referred to a doctor for substance abuse treatment, as a condition for retaining payments. Failing that they will be subjected to payment suspensions and ultimately cancellations.

The drug-testing regime, which was part of this year’s federal budget, is yet to be endorsed by the Senate, has been opposed by the Australian Medical Association, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre and other peak medical bodies.

The federal government has also deepened its attacks on those forced into its so-called Community Development Program (CDP), a work-for-the-dole program in remote areas of Australia, where there are few, if any fulltime jobs.

The scheme which involves 35,000, mainly indigenous participants, pays the below-poverty rate of about $11 an hour and requires that they work or are involved in “related activities” for 25 hours a week, 46 weeks of the year. If CDP participants fail to comply with the program’s strict requirements, they are fined, causing great personal financial problems. In the final quarter of 2016, the federal government imposed over 35,120 separate financial penalties on CDP participants.