The Three Global Super-Powers

Eric Zuesse

There are currently three global super-powers, three nations that lead the world: China, Russia, and U.S.

After World War II, until recently, the U.S. clearly dominated the world, not only culturally, with more influence over the world’s other cultures than any other single nation possessed, but also economically, with product-dominance throughout the world, and also militarily tied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and, then, after the Cold War, still possessing such military dominance, so that in 2006, America’s billionaires — as represented by the most-prestigious two agencies that represent their collective interests against the public, the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University — were actively promoting, broadly amongst foreign-policy academics, the idea that the U.S. should seek to occupy a position of such extreme military superiority over Russia, so that since 2006 the concept of “Nuclear Primacy” is reflected, by America’s power-centers, as being the correct goal for America, going forward, replacing the prior nuclear-strategic paradigm (since the 1950s) of “Mutually Assured Destruction,” or “M.A.D.,” in which nuclear weapons were (and, by Russia, still are) seen as purely defensive strategic military assets between the two nuclear superpowers, weapons whose only actual purpose, for either country, is to ward off a WW III — no usefulness at all in an actual aggressive military context. Thus, M.A.D. became replaced in America by Nuclear Primacy, nuclear weapons that are put in place to serve not only to ward off a nuclear attack, but also, ultimately, to win a nuclear war against the other nuclear super-power, Russia — nukes as aggressive weapons, by which the U.S. will (it has been expected, ever since 2006) soon be able to demand, and to receive, Russia’s capitulation, surrender, or else Russia will be destroyed by a U.S. nuclear first-strike, while U.S. casualties, from any presumably few Russian weapons that might make it through this ABM-BMD shield, will be kept to an “acceptably low” level, by virtue of that then-functioning ABM-BMD system, combined with increases in U.S. nuclear striking-power. This nuclear-primacy paradigm aims for America (its billionaires) to take over the entire world, including ultimately the world’s largest land-mass: Russia.

But, now, twelve years later, America’s presumed early lead in such ‘defensive’ strategic weaponry has become, instead, ever more clearly, just a figment of America’s military-industrial complex’s (MIC’s) fervid marketing-campaign for the development and sale of such weapons, ever since U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s promised “Star Wars” program during the 1980s got the effort, toward a winnable nuclear war, started, as an alleged ‘defensive’ measure — not yet overtly the end of M.A.D.

Soon after Reagan, the Soviet Union, and its communism, and its Warsaw Pact counter to America’s NATO military alliance, all simultaneously ended, in 1991, as a consequence of which, the U.S. military-industrial complex (MIC), and especially the large U.S. manufacturers of nuclear-weapons systems, the companies that dominate the MIC, were becoming stranded, because the market for their costliest wares was now in limbo. Though elimination of the Cold War wouldn’t have been an existential threat to these manufacturers, an end to the Cold War on the U.S. side would have threatened the market-values of those U.S. companies, which are controlled by U.S. billionaires, who have lots of clout in Congress. Thus, though the Cold War ended in 1991 on the Russian side, it secretly continued on the U.S. side (that is, amongst America’s super-wealthy, the people who control the U.S. Government — the main market for the MIC); and America’s strategic switch, away from M.A.D. to Nuclear Primacy (so as to unshackle their market from the prior politically imposed demand to maintain a nuclear balance between the two sides), has been a significant part of this secret continuation, by America, of the Cold War, while Russia’s Government continued instead to think in terms of the M.A.D. paradigm. (Russia’s weapons-manufacturers are still owned by the Government — socialized — so, there’s no need to grow their ‘market value’.)

In a strictly capitalist country, weapons-manufacturing is a major area of investment for billionaires, whose fortunes there rise to the extent that governments are buying their planes and bombs and missiles, especially those of the most sophisticated types, which are strategic weaponry, such as nuclear systems, which are the most profitable ones of all. Growth-at-all-costs has meant (and means) that the MIC is a cancer upon the entire world. (Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, on 17 January 1961, understated the problem.) Either the entire military will be a public entity, or else there will be (because of its privatized weapons-manufacturing) a tendency for the military to destroy everything else in order to continue to grow, like investors expect and demand — grow like cancer.

A major source of America’s decline was U.S. President George W. Bush, who came into office in 2001 when the Cold War could no longer excite the American public as being a threat (since the Soviet Union and its communism and its military alliance were now long gone), and a new demon thus needed to be brought before the American people, as warranting increased ‘defense’ expenditures. 9/11 came along just in time to fill this interim lack of a cause de guerre, to attack now Al Qaeda and other (as today’s U.S. President famously tags it) “radical Islamic terrorists.”  However, America’s spending on strategic weaponry requires instead focus against the other nuclear super-power as being the ‘enemy’, and this is what the end of M.A.D. and the start of Nuclear Primacy (which is manna from heaven for the ‘Defense’ contractors) have been all about: re-defining ‘the enemy’, from being a country with which peace must be maintained (M.A.D.), to becoming instead a country that should be outright conquered. And, amongst the lies which are necessary in order to sustain this switch (from M.A.D. to Nuclear Primacy), is the lie that ABMs have no aggressive function, but are ‘purely for defense’. This lie will enable the public to accept the spending of trillions of dollars of federal money on weapons whose sole real use will be conquering Russia — or, at least, the attempt to do so.

Nobody makes public the identities of the individuals, in the U.S. and in its allied countries, who comprise the suddenly booming market for luxurious nuclear-proof deep-underground bunkers. But whomever these owners are, three things about them are obvious: they’ve got lots of money; they think that the prospect of a nuclear war is very real — worth their pre-paying for suitably luxurious long-term temporary accommodations deep underground; and they aren’t themselves one of the high government officials for whom the government’s taxpayers have already built such bunkers. (Or, perhaps, some of them do belong to the last of those three categories, but they’ve got so much extra money that they can easily afford to pay for more luxurious quarters than the taxpayers have already supplied them with.)

Quite similar to Donald Trump, but far more overtly faith-based than the hyper-secular former Miss Universe Pageant owner Trump, George W. Bush had a confidence like the Taliban and Al Qaeda do, that “God is on our side”, and so Bush acted as if he had no reason to test-out America’s ABM weapons before ordering and buying them (at the public taxpayer’s expense, and private billionaires’ profits, of course). Or, perhaps alternatively, Bush didn’t even care whether these weapons would work, but only whether the owners of the companies that would be manufacturing them would be satisfied with their profits, from the decisions that he was making, which so powerfully affected their profits. In any case, Bush’s focus on rushing forward with a U.S. ABM system demonstrated his strong commitment to the replacement of M.A.D., by Nuclear Primacy. The whole idea of Nuclear Primacy rests upon there being an effective U.S. ABM system installed so as to make the enemy’s retaliatory weapons ineffective. Bush pushed the ABM into production even before there was any indication that it would work. He did this even before the very concept of “Nuclear Primacy” was publicly introduced by the two chief agents for America’s aristocracy in 2006. What Harvard and the CFR promoted, was already the Government’s policy. While there were criticisms of Bush’s execution of the plan, there was no significant scholarly opposition against the Nuclear Primacy concept itself.

All subject-areas of expertise (and this refers to scientists, not to scholars) despised the religious faith-based President George W. Bush, much like they despise the secular faith-based President Donald Trump. For example, everyone knows that Trump has great difficulty finding experts who are willing to serve in his Administration. Similarly, in the October 2004 “Poll of Academic Economists”by the Economist, 59% of them answered “no” when asked “If you had a chance to work in a policy job in Washington, would you take it?” And when queried “For whom would you rather work?” Bush or his then electoral opponent Senator John Kerry, 81% chose Kerry — notwithstanding that, as a predominantly conservative lot, the economists did like one thing about George W. Bush: “Outsourcing of jobs overseas,” which 86% of them rated to be either good or very good. (Of course, Trump claims to oppose that; so, in this regard, he’s even less acceptable to economists than Bush was.)

Under Bush, experts were even trying, with no success, to inform this conservative faith-based President about areas in the federal budget where substantial funds were being simply wasted, but his blind faith caused him to ignore such scientific warnings, and enormous federal waste resulted. For example, the science reporter William Broad headlined in The New York Times on 24 September 2003, “Report Sees Risks in Push for Missile Defense”, and opened, “The Bush administration’s push to deploy a $22 billion missile defense system by this time next year could lead to unforeseen cost increases and technical failures that will have to be fixed before it can hope to stop enemy warheads, Congressional investigators said yesterday. The General Accounting Office, in a 40-page report, said the Pentagon was combining 10 crucial technologies into a missile defense system without knowing if they can handle the task [and subsequently the same thing happened in order to produce the scandalously overpriced and insanely multi-functional F-35 jets], often described as trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.” The article quoted a former Pentagon weapons testing chief, who said that to deploy such an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system just a year hence as planned, would be to deploy “no more than a scarecrow, not a real defense” — in other words, a system that would almost certainly fail in any actual use — because so many parts of the system wouldn’t have been tested sufficiently to be designed functionally that soon. The prior (Bill Clinton) Administration, more attentive to such concerns, had established a schedule for testing the various parts of this complex system prior to any possible deployment. However, one of G.W. Bush’s first actions coming into office was to deploy an ABM system, even if it might not work, and to do the testing afterward. Bush, it seems, possessed the faith that if science were to fail to supply the system’s functionality, then God would certainly do so, for the benefit of “God’s People.”

Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post thus headlined on 26 April 2004, “Dubious Threat, Expensive Defense” and closed: “Bush would spend twice as much on missile defense as on customs and border protection,” yet gain only “a rudimentary and uncertain defense against an unlikely long-range missile attack.” Diehl opined that, despite the transformed defense needs after 9/11, “The president who never admits error will stay the course.”

Bush did stay the course: by the time of 14 February 2005, as the New York Times reported the next day, “The nation’s fledgling missile defense system suffered its third straight test failure.”Commented one scientist there, “It’s as if Henry Ford started up his automobile production line and began selling cars without ever taking one for a test drive.” But not quite: Bush had now taken his third ‘test drive’ — and all three failed.

On 4 April 2005, the AP reported, “Congress is weighing how much to invest in the fledgling ballistic missile defense system, which has suffered setbacks and whose cost could easily top the $150 billion partial price tag the Bush administration has estimated.” Some congressional proponents of the ABM system were even quoted as saying that it had to be deployed in order to prevent future terrorist attacks, such as had occurred on 9/11. Of course, that allegation is absurd — 9/11 couldn’t have been stopped by an anti-missile defense system. But members of Congress aren’s so stupid as not to know this. That allegation was probably just a marketing-ploy sponsored in back-rooms by corporations such as Lockheed Martin, who might reflect their satisfaction with the statement, by donating to the ‘appropriate’ PACS.

Meanwhile, the Bush Administration and the Republican Congress were financially shortchanging many of the nation’s authentic anti-terrorist needs. This $150 billion+ could have gone a long way toward achieving real protection (and/or toward serving non-defense needs), if it had been scientifically allocated.

Were Al Qaeda to have been voting directly in the U.S. Congress, the ABM system would have had an easier time passing unchanged, exactly as Bush wanted. Al Qaeda would have been fervent Republicans — they were just as religious, and just as faith-obsessed, though in a different ‘inerrant Scripture’. If Donald Trump has faith in any ‘inerrant Scripture’, nobody knows what it is. But, he seems to have lots of faith in himself, even if experts in the respective subject-fields don’t.

By the present time, the failure of America’s entire ABM-BMD gamble — which was started under Reagan, begun being operationalized under G.W. Bush, and finally being installed by Barack Obama and now under Trump — is painfully clear. But success was never its actual goal: restoring the government’s growth in ‘defense’ spending (even while cutting now the government’s non-‘defense’ spending) is its real purpose. Those billionaires and centi-millionaires must be served, or else Congress-members will lose their seats to well-funded competitors in their own Party’s next primary. The system succeeds marvelously at doing what it’s intended to do: to serve the people who buy the Government — to serve the actual patrons of this ‘democracy’. Instead of being a democracy, it’s a government that’s bought and sold.

While America thus spends itself into becoming increasingly a third-world country, China and Russia pursue different objectives. Specifically in the case of Russia, its military spending is one-tenth of America’s, but, because Russia cannot afford to allow billionaires’ demands for private profit to constitute the incentive-system that drives the Russian Government’s military decisons, Russia has gone militarily from strength to strength, while post-WW-II America (spending ten times as much) has gone from Vietnam to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria, and yet America’s ‘news’media have cheered all of these evil billionaires’ invasions of those countries we wrecked, as if companies such as General Dynamics owned companies such as the Washington Post, and thus (with all that propaganda) the American public continue to respect America’s military higher than any other U.S. institution — despite such a long string of military failures by this country, despite spending ten times what Russia does on its military, and despite America’s military being the most corrupt part of the U.S. federal Government.

But, actually, America’s military spending is probably much higher than just ten times Russia’s, because America’s official figures — what SIPRI and others use, which is just the ‘Defense’ Department — excludes much of America’s military expenses, as a consequence of which, America’s official $617.1 billion FY 2019 expenditure for the Department of ‘Defense’ masks an actual annual military expense of $1,135.7 billion. That’s $1.36 trillion per year, to do things such as destroy Afghanistan, destroy Iraq, destroy Syria, destroy Libya, perpetrate coups such as in Ukraine, assist coups such as in Honduras, etc. But even that’s not the total ‘defense’ expenditure which taxpayers have bought for the billionaires, because, throughout its existence, the U.S. CIA has been getting unrecorded off-the-books billions from the international narcotics trade, starting in 1948, when it perpetrated a coup in Thailand and installed there a brutal regime that helped establish the CIA’s off-the-books funding-system, as I had mentioned in a prior article, where I discussed U.S. relations with Syria, in broader histrical context,

starting in 1949, when the U.S. CIA, under President Harry S. Truman, did its second coup d’etat, overthrowing a democratically elected progressive Government (the first having been Thailand 1948, where the CIA had installed an extremely barbaric dictator replacing the democratically elected government that had been headed by a staunch anti-fascist, and simultaneously set up the CIA’s off-the-books supplementary funding mechanism from the international narcotics-trade — a CIA practice which has continued till perhaps the present; and, furthermore, the infamous Nugan-Hand affair, which involved Thailand, definitely involved the CIA’s Michael Hand and William Colby; so, clearly, the CIA is funded off-the-books from the narcotics business, and America’s anti-narcotics laws thus are actually keeping narcotics-drug prices and resultant burglaries and CIA profits artificially high, funneling that illicit money into CIA coffers; and any method to defund the CIA down to its core intelligence-gathering function and to eliminate its coup-function, which is the function that took control in Thailand and Syria and then Iran and many more, would need to regulate — instead of to continue outlawing — drugs, which might be the main reason why it hasn’t yet been done: illegal drugs provide wealth to the CIA and other gang-lords, including some U.S. Government officials).

Another significant milestone in the development of the American elite’s plan to conquer Russia has been the overwhelming — more than 90% of the votes in both the U.S. Senate and House — support for the imposition in 2012 of economic sanctions against Russia, to punish the Russian Government for the alleged 2009 murder of one alleged anti-corruption whistleblower in a Russian prison, Sergei Magnitsky — the Magnitsky Act was passed, and was the first set of economic sanctions against Russia. (The evidence that Magnitsky had been a ‘whistleblower’, and the evidence that he was ‘tortured’ in prison, and the evidence that he wasn’t instead the American Bill Browder’s tax-accountant who had helped Browder in a complex tax-evasion scheme that had defrauded the Russian Government of $232 million, are all themselves fraudulent, and even are easily verified as being fraudulent, but both the U.S. Government, and the EU, ignored and continue to ignore all of it.) In order to have a ‘justification’ to attack Russia, an excuse is needed; and, since the ideological one — communism — ended in 1991, Russia needs to be at least a ‘dictatorship’; so, something such as the Magnitsky Act was necessary in order to get the military-industrial complex’a (MIC’s) PR ball rolling toward even-higher annual U.S. ’defense’ spending. However, that excuse, being a ‘dictatorship’ (with elections that are at least as honest as America’s are), isn’t enough. Russia also needs to be officially declared to be an ‘aggressor’ — an aggressive dictatorship — such as to have grabbed portions of its adjoining country, Ukraine. So, America’s Obama regime secretly started in 2011 planning, and then in February 2014 it carried out, a coup against and overthrowing the democratically elected and Russia-friendly Government of Ukraine, and installed there a fascist regime to replace the one that had received 75% of the vote in the Crimean region of Ukraine, and 90% of the vote in the Donbass region of Ukraine, so that both regions refused to be ruled by the Obama-installed rabidly anti-Russian Ukrainian regime, and Russia helped both of those two separatist regions on its borders, and even protected and accepted Crimea’s referendum-vote of over 90% to rejoin Russia, of which Crimea had historically been a part until the Soviet dictator in 1954 arbitrarily transferred it to Ukraine. So, now, the U.S. MIC has the excuses it wants, in order to place — and thus did place — its weapons and troops onto and near Russia’s borders, just a ten-minute missile flight-time to Moscow.

This plan is moving forward, but nobody can yet say whether, or even when, the U.S. regime will invade. However, the U.S. regime and its NATO allies now also have the excuses that Russia has been holding ‘aggressive’ military exercises near its borders ‘threatening’ NATO countries on its border that might invade Russia, and Western ‘news’media have alarmed their publics against Russia’s ‘aggressive’ moves after its having ‘stolen’ Crimea and ‘attacked’ Ukraine in Donbass. And then there is yet more Russian ‘aggression’ when Syria requested and received Russia’s military assistance against the U.S.-backed jihadists who, since 2012, have poured, by the tens of thousands, from around the world, into Syria, to be led by the U.S.-backed Al Qaeda there, to overthrow the Syrian Government, which is allied with Russia. So, that too (the Syrian war) could produce a war between the U.S. and Russia; it could start over Syrian territory, where the U.S. insists on regime-change, but claims only to be ‘fighting terrorists’ there. Of course, regardless of whether the invader of Syria (the U.S.), or else the defender of Syria (Russia), wins, the loser in Syria, especially if it turns out to be the U.S. invader (i.e., if Syria remains one country instead of breaking apart, and if Assad becomes re-elected as President there), could then use that superpower-defeat in Syria, as constituting an excuse to invade the winning superpower there. This would be WW III, starting in Syria, instead of in Ukraine. The U.S. regime has set up those two scenarios.

1984 has come in the real world, but the declining and former leading superpower, America (“Oceania” in George Orwell’s uncannily prophetic description of the future that he prematurely set to occur in 1984), is apparently determined to stay ‘on top’, even if it’s the last thing that anybody does. Can it really be that if the world of the future won’t be led by America’s billionaires, then it won’t exist at all? Do they really demand “My way, or the highway” — really? Are America’s billionaires (despite any ‘humanitarian’ pretenses they individually so often hypocritically express, both in the fictionalized and in the real version) so stunningly united in their actual psychopathy (likewise in both versions — “Big Brother,” and today’s reality)? Thus far, it seems that they are. None of them — not a one of these people who have the financial resources to bring the world’s most pressing issue honestly to the American public — is speaking out against the others on it, and devoting major funds to exposing the others for their pumping lies against Russia, and to exposing the truths about such things as ABMs and the MIC. And collectively they’ve got the American public fooled into admiring the MIC (“the Military”) above all other U.S. institutions. But whether America’s billionaires will carry their collective evil to the extreme, isn’t yet clear. They are the actual decision-makers regarding U.S. Government policy, but they are playing their cards — as usual — privately and secretly, until their game (whatever it may turn out to be) will already be finished.

Meanwhile, Russia and China each proceeds forward on its own priorities, which aren’t necessarily similar to those of the conquest-obsessed American Government.

Meddling for Empire: The CIA Comes Clean

Binoy Kampmark

“We’ve been doing this kind of thing [electoral meddling] since the CIA was created in 1947.”

Loch K. Johnson, New York Times, Feb 17, 2018

Electoral meddling has become the gruel of US politics for months, and more servings are being promised in the wake of the indictments against 16 Russians and Russian entities dished out Robert Mueller last week.  Such actions can, when taken in isolation, seem sensible.  Righteous indignation can be channelled appropriately, and given the suitable icing of exceptionalism.

One of the difficulties behind the podium stance of virtue taken by the US political establishment on Russian interference in the country’s electoral process is one of simple hypocrisy.  In the game, and importantly theatre, of international relations, the shove, give, and take are all powerful incentives.  Express outrage, by all means, but do so with a certain sentient awareness that you have been as culpable as your opponent of the same charge.

Idealism, however, is the magic mushroom that clouds such assessments.  Filled with pride and a sense of purpose, individuals such as former CIA director James Woolsey are happy to first say that the CIA “probably” inserts its nose in the electoral affairs of other states, then justify it.

Friday’s encounter with Laura Ingraham of Fox News was sufficiently frank, if unsettling, in pulling down any pretence about the role of US power and its self-justified assertiveness in the electoral processes of other states.  “Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries’ elections?” posed Ingraham.  “Oh, probably,” came the humoured response, “but it was for the good of the system in order to avoid communists taking over.”

Then came a few points of illustration: “For example, in Europe, in ’47, ’48, ’49, the Greeks and the Italians, we CIA…” Ingraham, at that point, charged in with an interruption, asking whether the US “did that anymore”.  “We don’t mess around in other peoples’ elections, Jim?”

Faux, tinselled idealism is indeed an ugly sight of kitsch.  From a man familiar with the dark arts and antics of an organisation he once ran, it was hard to keep it in.  “Well… Only for a very good cause.”  Through good causes, catastrophe breeds its dark spawn.

Down from the clouds of unreality that remains Fox News, former intelligence officers have been even more candid, thrilled to confess to something as natural as eating.  “If you ask any intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” comes the view of Steven L. Hall, who left the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of service.  Not only had the US “absolutely” carried out operations in influencing elections, he hoped “we keep doing it.”

Long time student of the CIA, Loch K. Johnson, elaborates on the characteristics of such interferences. “We’ve used posters, pamphlets, mailers, banners – you name it.  We’ve planted false information in foreign newspapers.  We’ve used what the British call ‘King George’s cavalry’: suitcases of cash.”

It takes the sober touch of a study such as that of Dov H. Levin to show that Great Powers intrude, impose and meddle with gluttonous dedication.  Electoral systems will be tinkered with; candidates will be sponsored and cultivated.  Friendliness towards the great power in question will be encouraged, while enemies within that state will be defamed and denigrated.

The “stakes”, as Levin puts it in the International Studies Quarterly (2016), are high for “foreign actors”.  Elections in a particular country, whether democratic or even mildly authoritarian, can “lead to major shifts” in polices domestic and foreign.

Levin’s point is to argue that certain powers will find it irresistible to poke and prod through the undergrowth of a state supposedly at risk of changing course.  “Their methods range from providing funding for their preferred side’s campaign (a tactic employed by the Soviet Union in the 1958 Venezuelan elections… to public threats to cut off foreign aid in the event of victory by the disfavoured side (as the United States did during the 2009 Lebanese elections”.

Such interventions are impossible to be deemed good, as Woolsey would have it, despite the erroneous view that US involvement has been to assist political opponents against authoritarianism.  In some instances, they are impressively disastrous, installing such murderous regimes of the quality of Pinochet in Chile.

In others, they reaffirm the order of things – take the re-imposed status of vassalage on Australia after the overthrow of the Whitlam government in 1975.  The CIA role there is well documented yet discussed with a pinch of interest by Australians who tend to overlook the depravities of their paternal superpower.  This, perhaps more than anything else, is the tragic realisation of electoral interference. It bankrupts and corrodes.  But most disturbingly for US critics of the Russian operation, it affirms that the system was ripe for bankrupting.

Battle Line Blurs As Turkey Assaults Afrin

Farooque Chowdhury

Turkey’s assault on Afrin for the last few weeks has made it difficult to define a battle line in the imperialism-intervened Syria. The people in Afrin are experiencing death and destruction as Turkey is bombing and bombarding Afrin, yet a part of Syria. The Kurdish people in Afrin are being driven to caves and basements. And, the sectarian rights-mongers are silent on the massacre of the Kurdish people and flagrant violation of a sovereign country’s – Syria’s – boundary.

Citing the UN, a CNN report on February 1, 2018 described relentless airstrikes and shelling on Afrin by Turkey:

Turkey’s cross-border military offensive against Kurdish militias has driven civilians living in the Syrian enclave underground. An estimated 16,000 people have been displaced by the fighting.

The “‘This is a massacre’: Turkey’s bombs drive families into caves” headlined report describes the reality as it cites residents from Afrin:

Deserted city-streets littered with crumpled cars, debris and gaping holes. “We don’t know where to go,” says 10 year-old Mohammed Khaled. “The airplane has been dropping bombs for five days now. All our homes are destroyed.” The UNICEF had to suspend child protection services there amid the violence. Um Muhammed, Khaled’s mother, asks why Turkish president Erdogan is bombing her people. “What did we do to him?” she says in Arabic. “We lost our homes, our children, nothing is left. Is not this a shame that children have to live like that? We are human beings, are we not? Why are they doing this to us?” “This is a massacre,” she adds, breaking down in tears. “Please convey our message, we are pleading with the international community to stop the killing of the civilians, stop the airstrikes and the war against us.”

The report by Waffa Munayyer, Joe Sterling and Eliza Mackintosh describes the life in Afrin:

The report cites a lady: “What are the planes wanting from us? What are they bombing us for? What do they want from the little children?”“Kurdish families huddle on blankets in a dimly lit cave. Others hide in the rubble of a bombed-out building, gathered around a campfire. Those that have basements seek shelter there.”

It quotes a young girl named Yasmin. She went into hiding with her mother and her brothers after her father was killed: “It is really dark here. We are so scared because it is really noisy.” “They are conducting airstrikes. What did we do to them? We are just kids. Why is this our fault?” she asks.

The report describes Fatima Muhammed. Bundled in a red sweater and hair wrapped in a purple scarf, Fatima is among about a dozen civilians hiding out in the same cave. “We ended up in the caves … we can’t go back to our homes, they are all destroyed,” she says. “What kind of a country strikes civilians in this manner?”

On January 31, 2018, Turkish army and armed members of Al-Nusra pounded Afrin with rockets. The target of the assault was Afrin’s largely civilian Ashrafia neighborhood. Civilians including children and the elderly were injured.

The CNN report cited Dr. Jawan Muhammed, general manager of the hospital in Afrin: “Right now we are overwhelmed with injured and killed civilians. Our hospital is unable to cope. Our surgery rooms are overwhelmed. We conduct 18 surgeries a day. We are using up all our medical supplies because of the overwhelming number of casualties as a result of indiscriminate airstrikes and artillery fire.”

The report also cites Hevi Mustafa, co-president of the executive council of Afrin: “Our soldiers are fighting fiercely. They took on the defense of Afrin themselves. We expected this attack on our areas because we are part of a democratic project and wanting to end the Syrian crisis in this project. Of course, the Turkish government, they don’t want to end the crisis in Syria.” Mustafa calls the Turkish attacks “barbaric”. She expressed the hope that the international community would hold the Turkish government accountable for the violence.

Weeks have passed since the Turkish assault began. Turkey launched the assault on January 20, 2018. But, the sectarian rights-mongers are silent on the Turkish assault on the Kurdish civilians. Does their silence expose their position?

The Turkish military campaign on Syrian land, sarcastically named Operation Olive Branch, has targeted Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The Kurds’ struggle for a homeland appears a threat to the Ankara-rulers.

Turkish military campaign against Afrin has complicated the Syria-scene. The line of conflict has blurred as one finds, interestingly, Syria is standing by the homeland-seeking Kurdish people (YPG) while Turkey is making assaults on the Kurdish people (YPG), the US assures the YPG that it stands by them while tries to mend relations with Turkey, its NATO-ally, and is continuing with its intervention activities in Syria. Russia and Iran are extending support to Syria. Turkey is trying to procure important armament from Russia, which the NATO is not approving. There are proxies like the Free Syrian Army and Jabhat Fateh al Sham. At times, imperialism’s allies are fighting its allies, its proxies are fighting its proxies.  Proxies are getting support from the same imperialist source while are engaged with fighting among them. The same proxy is simultaneously being fought out and backed up by imperialism. Europe is not always in coherence with the US in the region of conflict.

The main imperialist actor in the area of intervention – US – is finding it difficult to bring a balance in its position. Its strategic ally is turning into its tactical foe. In the further broader area – beginning from Saudi Arabia and Yemen to Egypt and Libya, and to Israel and Turkey – the US finds itself in a more complicated position. No region has found imperialism in such a position, which is now being experienced today in this region.

It’s an indicator of imperialism’s present difficult position in the changing situation, where all are not moving according to its plans and wishes. It’s a major difference between the days of imperialism’s Iraq-Libya interventions and its days of Syria-intervention. Proxies of imperialism should take this reality into their consideration: As a master, how much imperialism is reliable? But, the unfortunate fact is: Proxies have no option other than relying on its masters.

The Coming Wars to End All Wars

Edward Curtin

“The compulsive hatred of Putin by many who have almost zero idea about Putin or Russian history is disproportionate to any rational analysis, but not surprising. Trump and Putin are like weird doppelgangers in the liberal imagination.”

                                     – John Steppling, “Trump, Putin, and Nikolas Cruz Walk into a Bar”

The Trump and Netanyahu governments have a problem: How to start a greatly expanded Middle-Eastern war without having a justifiable reason for one.  No doubt they are working hard to solve this urgent problem.  If they can’t find a “justification” (which they can’t), they will have to create one (which they will).  Or perhaps they will find what they have already created.  Whatever the solution, we should feel confident that they are not sitting on their hands. History teaches those who care to learn that when aggressors place a gun on the wall in the first act of their play, it must go off in the final act.

These sinister players have signaled us quite clearly what they have in store.  All signs point toward an upcoming large-scale Israeli/U.S. attack on Lebanon and Syria, and all the sycophantic mainstream media are in the kitchen prepping for the feast.  Russia and Iran are the main course, with Lebanon and Syria, who will be devoured first, as the hors d’oeuvres.  As always, the media play along as if they don’t yet know what’s coming.  Everyone in the know knows what is, just not exactly when.  And the media wait with baited breath as they count down to the dramatic moment when they can report the incident that will compel the “innocent” to attack the “guilty.”

Anyone with half a brain can see the greatly increased anti-Russian propaganda of the past few weeks.  This has happened as the Russia-gate claims have fallen to pieces, as former CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, the late Robert Parry, Paul Craig Roberts, and others have documented so assiduously.All across the media spectrum, from the big name corporate stenographers like The New York Times, CNN, National PublicRadio, The Washington Post to The Atlantic and Nation magazines and other “leftist” publications such as Mother Jones and Who What Why, the Russia and Putin bashing has become hysterical in tone, joined as it is with an anti-Trump obsession, as if Trump were a dear friend of Putin and Russia and wasn’t closely allied with the Netanyahu government in its plans for the Middle-East.As if Trump were in charge. “Russia Sees Midterm Elections as a Chance to Sow Fresh Discord (NY Times, 2/13), “Russia Strongman” (Putin) has “pulled off one of the greatest acts of political sabotage in modern history (The Atlantic, Jan. /Feb. 2018), “”Mueller’s Latest Indictment Shows Trump Has Helped Putin Cover Up a Crime” (Mother Jones, 2/16/18), “A Russian Sightseeing Tour For Realists” (whowhatwhy.com, 2/7/18), etc.

I am reminded of the turn to the right that so many “muckrakers” made during and after WW I.  Afraid of a revolt from below, bewitched by their own vision to articulate the world’s future, heady over their own war propaganda, and wanting to be on the safe side of the government crackdown on dissent (The Espionage Act, the Palmer Raids, etc.), many progressives of the era embraced a jingoism similar to the anti-Russia mania of today.

Only someone totally lacking a sense of humor and blind to propaganda would not laugh uproariously at today’s medianonsense about Russia, but such laughter would be infused with a forebodingawareness that as the Middle East explodes and U.S./NATO backed Kiev forces prepare to attack the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, the world is entering a very dangerous period.  And of course Trump has said, “The U.S. has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.”  Totally destroy 26 million human beings.  While his bully buddy in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently said at the Munich Security Conference that Iran is “the greatest threat to the world,” compared it to Nazi Germany, and claimed it was developing ballistic missiles to strike deep into the United States.  “Iran seeks to dominate our region, the Middle East, and seeks to dominate the world through aggression and terror,” he said.  And he vowed to act against Iran and anyone who supported it – i.e. Lebanon and Syria (Russia).

Putin also, like all the mythic bogeymen, is portrayed as the new Hitler intent on conquering the world.  If the American public wasn’t so “sophisticated” and adept at seeing through lies – pause and laugh – we could expect some World War I posters with Russian soldiers (like The Huns), sharp teeth glistening, gorilla strong and beastly, holding American women in preparation for the kill or rape.  Last year, when Oliver Stone did the world the great service of releasing his four-part interview with Putin, he was bashed, of course.  Just as he was with his film JFK, the only movie in history to be reviewed and panned one year before its release by a Washington Post reviewer who didn’t see the movie but had a purloined preliminary script as his source.  The Washington Post:the object of the latest film drivel,The Post, portraying it falsely as the savior of the nation through the publication of the Pentagon Papers (which is another story).  The Washington Post – the CIA’s dear friend.

In his Putin interviews, Oliver Stone, a man of truth and honor, lets viewers catch a glimpse of the real Vladimir Putin.  Of course Putin is a politician and the leader of a great and powerful nation, and one should receive his words skeptically. But watching Stone interview Putin for four hours, one comes away – but I doubt few have watched the four hours –with a reasonably good sense of the man.  And putting aside one’s impressions of him, he makes factual points that should ring loud and clear to anyone conversant with facts.  One: that the U.S. needs an external enemy (“I know that, I feel that.”). Two: the U.S.A. engineered the coup d’état in the Ukraine on Russia’s border.  Three: the U.S. has surrounded Russia with US/NATO troops and bases armed with anti-ballistic missiles that can, as Putin rightly says to Stone, be converted in hours to regular offensive nuclear missile aimed at Russia.  This is a factual and true statement that should make any fair-minded person stand up in horror.  If Russia had such missiles encircling the United States from Cuba, Mexico, and Canada, what American would find it tolerable?  What would CNN and The New York Times have to say?  Yet these same people readily find it impossible to see the legitimacy in Russia’s position, resorting to name calling and illogical rhetoric. Russia is surrounded with U.S/NATO troops and missiles and yet Russia is the aggressor.  So too Iran that is also surrounded. These media are propagandists, that’s why.  They promote war, as they always have.  They are pushing for war with Russia via Syria/Lebanon/Iran and Ukraine, and they are nihilistically demonizing North Korea (as part of Obama’s pivot toward Asia and the encircling of China, as John Pilger has brilliantly documented in his film The Coming War on China)in what can only be called a conspiracy to commit genocide, as Dr. Graeme MacQueen and Christopher Black make clear in their Open Letter to the International Criminal Court: https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-genocide-conspiracy-against-north-korea-an-open-letter-to-the-international-criminal-court/5627351

We are moving toward a global war that will become nuclear if an international ant-war movement doesn’t quickly arise to stop it.Most people bemoan the thought of such a war to end all wars, but refuse to analyze the factors leading to it. It happens step-by-step, and many steps have already been taken with more coming soon.    It’s so obvious that most can’t see it, or don’t want to.  The corporate main stream media are enemies of the truth; are clearly part of the continuation of the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, and those who still rely on them for the truth are beyond reach.  Douglas Valentine, in TheCIA as Organized Crime, says the CIA has long aimed to use and co-opt the “Compatible Left, which in America translates into liberals and pseudo-intellectual status seekers who are easily influenced.”  And he adds that the propaganda is not just produced by the CIA but by the military, State Department, and red, white, and blue advertisements that are everywhere.  Nothing has changed since the Church Committee hearings in the 1970s.  Valentine adds:

                All of that is ongoing, despite being exposed in the late 1960s.  Various technological advances, including the internet, have spread the network around the world, and many people don’t even realize they are part of it, that they’re promoting the CIA line.  “Assad’s a butcher,” they say, or  “Putin kills journalists,” or “China is repressive.  They have no idea what they’re talking about but spout all this propaganda.

William Blake said it truly:

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infants cry of fear,
In every voice: in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear

How to break the chains – that is our task.

The Crisis of Social Democracy: From Norway to Europe

Asbjørn Wahl

The crisis of social democracy is being debated throughout Europe. Several of the historically strong labour parties have almost been wiped out in elections while others seem unable to recover from defeat. In the last few years, a number of social democratic parties have ended up with only one-digit election results (Greece, Ireland, Iceland, The Netherlands, France), while others have experienced major setbacks. The Norwegian Labour Party, for example, has experienced two of its worst elections – 2001 and 2017 – since the 1920s. Significant parts of the trade union movement believe that the party made serious blunders in what should have been an easy victory during last year’s parliamentary elections.

There is no doubt that social democracy is in a deep international crisis, although conditions vary widely between different countries. In Norway, this is neither about the deputy leader Trond Giske’s sexual abuse case, nor about the party leader Jonas Gahr Støre’s class background, nor about the army of party bureaucrats that has increasingly taken on roles as political actors in the party. These cases may be understood as symptoms of the crisis facing the party, but nothing more. If we really want to understand the crisis of the Labour Party, or more generally, of social democracy, we will have to go a little deeper into the current historical juncture.

Class Compromise at the Root of the Crisis

The dominant role of social democracy in much of 20th century Europe can hardly be understood without an analysis of how the economy and class relations developed during this period. Most important in this connection is the shift from confrontation to compromise in the relationship between the trade union and labour movement on one side and the employers/right-wing forces on the other. This historic compromise between labour and capital was the result of comprehensive class struggles that shifted the balance of power in favour of labour. [Ed.: see “The Rise and Fall of the Welfare State.”] Employers viewed such a compromise as a tactical step in order to dampen and counteract the radicalism of a strong and growing trade union movement. The compromise developed over time, but in Norway it was formalized through the first Collective Basic Agreement between the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO in Norwegian) and the Norwegian Employers’ Association in 1935. That same year the Labour Party, with support from the Peasants’ Party, was able to win government power for the first time. Those were decisive events for the political development in Norway.

With this compromise – as well as the depression of the 1930s, the defeat of fascism through World War II and the existence of another economic system in the East – the foundation was laid for the golden age of social democracy. It was a real compromise, which changed the balance of power and forced employers eventually to grant a number of concessions to the trade union and labour movement – including the acceptance of major political interventions in the market. Thus, the basis was laid for great social progress for workers. The welfare state developed. The Norwegian, or Nordic, model came into existence.

From its foundation in 1887 to the class compromise of 1935, the Labour Party had emerged as a party of social justice – with socialism as the long-term goal. The fact that there has always been disagreement on the left about social democracy’s strategy and tactics is not the main point here. The important thing in this context is that the party emerged as a real mass organization for workers. The class compromise, however, did not only contribute to social progress; it also proved to have unforeseen effects. The compromise itself, and the Labour Party’s central role in implementing it through policy, had a strong transformative effect on the party’s organization as well as its politics. This development constituted the material basis for a political-ideological transformation and a deradicalization of the party – among other things through the development of a social partnership ideology. In short, the party changed from being a mass organization for working people into an administrator of the class compromise. It is here we find the seeds of today’s crisis of social democracy.

The Norwegian Model and Transformation of the Labour Party

The so-called Norwegian model is the trueborn child of social partnership ideology. There is little disagreement that such a social model developed based on the compromise. How this model should be understood, is a completely different matter. While it came about as a result of a very specific historical development in the struggle between labour and capital, in the Labour Party’s understanding it was gradually delinked from this fundamental conflict of interest. For the employers, the class compromise was a tactical move to undermine a strong and socialist orientation in the labour movement. For social democracy, however, it appeared as a higher form of reason – a collective sense based on the fact that employers also understood that cooperation, rather than struggle, was in their interest,as Norwegian social democrats reiterate.

Based on this social partnership ideology, social democracy then developed a comprehensive understanding of society where the economy (capitalism) could be governed by political regulation and market interventions (Keynesianism). In this way, a regulated, crisis-free capitalism could be created, while mass unemployment, poverty and misery, as in the 1930s, were relegated to history. The class struggle itself was tamed, and in many ways reduced to an institutionalized, collegial rivalry such as the biannual collective agreement negotiations.

This entire understanding was put to the test when capitalism again went into a crisis in the 1970s. Oil crisis, currency crisis, commodity crisis – and finally a full-scale economic crisis – displaced the post-war period of economic growth and stability. The social democratic policy of intervention in and regulation of the markets (Keynesianism) no longer worked. Stagnation and inflation arose in parallel (stagflation) and unemployment increased. Such a crisis was in many ways contrary to the prevailing social theory and ideology of the Labour Party. So were also the reactions of the employers and the political right, as “collective reason” gave way to an ever-increasing offensive against trade unions and the welfare state. Neoliberalism became the answer to the crisis from the employers and the right wing – not class compromise and joint solutions. In other words, the consensus-oriented labour movement was taken by surprise by this offensive.

The transformation of social democracy – from being a mass organization for workers, to becoming an administrator of the class compromise – made them unable to meet the attacks. Compliance towards the neoliberal offensive became the answer. Gradually, social democratic parties adopted more and more of the neoliberal agenda themselves – with privatization, deregulation and restructuring of the public sector to market-oriented New Public Management-inspired organizational and management models. This contributed further to strengthening neoliberalism within the Labour Party, as a large part of the state bureaucratic layer, which carried out this transformation, and where many ended up as well-paid directors, with strong self-interests, belonged to it. Thus, the party’s social basis was changed, something which makes it very difficult to turn or change its direction.

In fact, it is not a simple task to change a political organization. There are strong social, economic and political interests involved – as well as careerism, of course.

However, it is not just social democracy that struggles today. Both of the two main forces in the European post-war political landscape are experiencing formidable problems and major political turbulence. In a number of western European countries, the struggle between social democrats and so-called socially responsible conservative parties was dominant, and they often swapped positions. Both were linked to class compromises in different forms, and these characterized their policies. Now, however, the economic and political power relations have changed. The historical compromise between labour and capital has largely broken down, although the process is slower in the Nordic countries than in the rest of Europe.

The Resolution to the Crisis Lies in Building a Real Left Alternative

It is therefore not only the crisis of social democracy we are experiencing; it is the post-war political model in Europe, based on the historical class compromise, which is breaking down. In the first phase of this political crisis, new far-right parties emerged – viz Front National in France, the so-called freedom parties in Austria and the Netherlands, and the Progress Party in Norway. The lack of any alternative from social democratic and left-wing parties means they must take their share of responsibility for this development. They had no policy to take on the neoliberalist attacks on the social gains that had been won through the welfare state. In recent years, however, we have seen that new political alternatives have started to grow also on the left (Syriza in Greece, Podemos in Spain, Momentum in the UK, and the newly established Power to the People in Italy). These are young and incomplete initiatives, which can fail (like Syriza) or succeed, but in any case will further develop through struggles and experiences, victories and defeats.

There is little evidence that the Labour Party will be able to transform itself into what we need as a liberating force in the current situation. The social basis for radical renewal is too weak and organizational barriers too strong. It is also a question what it means to rebuild social democracy. The thesis of a late Norwegian party ideologist, that “socialism is the policy that the Labour Party is pursuing at any time” is hardly enough. As social problems are increasing and ever more people are feeling insecure and unsafe, any party of the left will need to have more radical alternatives, visions and solutions – very different from the political centre or the right.

In the absence of real alternatives, parties of the existing social democratic order will probably still be able to win elections without any deeper transformation – when frustrated voters move from one political option to another as they realize that election promises are broken. This should hardly lead to any relief among leaders of contemporary, crisis-ridden social democratic parties. A growing number of workers, and young people in particular, have started to demand more radical solutions.

Or, as Antonio Gramsci famously said: “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” •

Tonga faces deepening crisis after Cyclone Gita

Tom Peters 

More than one week after Cyclone Gita devastated the Pacific island nation of Tonga, thousands of people are still in need of shelter and basic supplies. There are growing fears of mosquito-borne dengue fever and diseases caused by contaminated water, as well as a food shortage.

The category four storm was the most destructive in Tonga for at least 60 years. The impoverished country, with a population of around 108,000, is likely to take years to recover.

Houses and other buildings were destroyed, food crops flattened and infrastructure damaged, including roads, power lines and water tanks. Parts of Tongatapu, the main island, remained flooded five days later. A Red Cross representative told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation the worst-affected area was the most-populated, low-lying eastern part of the capital, Nuku’alofa.

The total number of displaced and homeless people is not clear. According to an official estimate, 1,400 homes have been damaged or destroyed on the main island and neighbouring ‘Eua. On February 17, there were still 4,521 people sheltering in evacuation centres. Fairfax Media reported that some families were also sleeping in cars.

While electricity has been restored to some parts of Tongatapu, government officials say it could be a month before all villages have power. According to the Matangi Tonga website, the storm damaged 80 percent of power infrastructure around Nuku’alofa.

An estimated 40 percent of schools suffered severe damage, including inundation and destroyed roofs. Some will have to be rebuilt completely.

Tongan officials said the distribution of aid has been slow. On February 16, four days after the cyclone, the Emergency Management Office told Radio NZ that half the villages needing assistance were still waiting.

In ‘Eua, with just 5,000 inhabitants, a local official, Melenaite Sisifa Fili, told Radio NZ that 30 percent of homes across six villages were completely destroyed and 75 percent damaged. Crops, including bananas and breadfruit, were flattened, with the remaining supplies only enough to last a month. Farmers in ‘Eua export food to other islands throughout Tonga and internationally.

Radio NZ reported yesterday that ‘Eua residents were “desperate for food and aid.” At one evacuation centre, still without electricity, an evening meal consisted of a stew made with six cans of fish to feed up to 60 people. An evacuee, who was in the centre with eight family members, told reporters: “We just need food because we have lots of people here, we need help.” She said they would wait for family members overseas to send supplies to help rebuild their house.

Most Tongans have no disaster insurance. Apart from tarpaulins and temporary repairs provided by aid agencies and the government, there is no promise of help to rebuild thousands of houses. A Nuku’alofa resident told Radio NZ: “We’ve been seeking assistance from our family overseas, if they can provide financial support to build a new house.”

Cyclones and hurricanes are common throughout the Pacific, yet buildings are not constructed to withstand these natural disasters. Graham Kenna from the Emergency Management Office told Fairfax Media that Tonga’s official building standards were rarely followed or enforced. “People build what they can afford, so the buildings are poor because they are poor,” he said. The report noted that “the annual average income is around $7,600 and many Tongans live by subsistence agriculture alone.”

About 80 percent of the population is engaged in some form of agriculture, mostly with small plots of about two to four acres. Commercial farmer David Soaki told Newshub: “I think it will take six months to recover because we will have to replant, and it’ll take another three months for harvesting.”

According to an Asian Development Bank (ADB) report in 2016, 22.5 percent of Tongans live in poverty. Remittances sent from relatives living overseas, a major source of income, dropped sharply following the 2008 global financial crisis.

The economic impact of the cyclone has not been calculated but will undoubtedly run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Tonga’s government is already crippled with a debt of $US207 million, equivalent to 52 percent of gross domestic product.

The regional imperialist powers, Australia and New Zealand, have feigned concern for Tongans and sent military planes with some aid supplies to the country. New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that he and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern would visit Tonga and Samoa early next month to “see first-hand the ongoing response” and discuss “what support is required for long-term recovery.”

The amounts pledged so far are grossly inadequate. As of Saturday, the New Zealand government had pledged just $US1.65 million to Tonga and Samoa, a former NZ colony that was also affected by Cyclone Gita. The Australian government will give $2.4 million and the ADB $6 million. China is contributing $550,000.

New Zealand and Australia bear primary responsibility for the poverty and lack of development throughout the Pacific. For decades their companies have profited by using Tongans as a cheap source of labour, particularly in agriculture. Now, the New Zealand government is threatening major cuts to immigration, which would have a devastating effect on the Pacific. Peters’ right-wing populist New Zealand First Party has previously scapegoated Pacific island seasonal workers, blaming them for unemployment and other social problems.

The New Zealand government visit will be used to reinforce its hegemony in the Pacific. Canberra and Wellington are both seeking to counter China’s growing economic influence in the region. In 2013, New Zealand suspended part of its tourism development aid to Tonga in retaliation for the government’s acceptance of a gifted Chinese aircraft, which replaced a New Zealand-operated domestic service in the islands. In January, Australia’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific, Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, lashed out at Chinese aid and loans to the Pacific, which she claimed were funding “roads to nowhere” and “useless buildings.”

Such statements have nothing to do with concern for the welfare of Pacific islanders. Tonga and other countries are caught in a fierce geo-political rivalry, bound up with advanced preparations by US imperialism for war against China. New Zealand and Australia are close allies of the US and support its aggressive threats against both China and North Korea.

Rubbish dump collapse kills 17 in Mozambique

Eddie Haywood

Several hours of torrential rains early Monday triggered the collapse of a refuse dump in Hulene, an impoverished district on the outskirts of capital city Maputo, resulting in a 15-meter (49 ft.) tall mountain of rubbish plunging down and burying several homes. Seventeen were killed, including several children, and a number of others were injured.

The heavy rains beginning Sunday night, which continued into the early hours of Monday, caused flooding in various areas of Maputo, making several roads impassable. Multiple schools and businesses suffered flood damage and were closed.

The garbage dump at Hulene is one of the largest refuse disposal sites in Maputo, and, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa, the dump reached the height of a three-story building. Experiencing extreme poverty, many local residents visit the dump in search of food or items to salvage and sell.

Many homes that were affected by the collapse and flooding were located down the hill from the refuse dump. In describing the destruction of the collapse, Fatima Belchior, a national disaster official, said, “The mountains of garbage collapsed on the houses and many families were still inside these residences.”

Hulene resident Mario Castigo told Voice of America a heart-wrenching account: “I heard people screaming. I was alone, I couldn’t help. The water sliding pushed the trash, and it covered the houses down the hill. It took the lives of families, children.”

Illustrating the contempt of the city government towards the population of Hulene, in the days leading up to the collapse, authorities declared makeshift dwellings in Hulene “illegal structures” and ordered the inhabitants to vacate them immediately. These dwellings, constructed from scavenged materials, are inhabited by the most severely deprived residents of the city, who can afford no other place to live.

For years, the unsafe conditions posed by the dump site and its threat to public health were well known. Over several years, health workers have issued warnings over the government’s neglect to provide sanitary management at the site, reporting that the emanating fumes and vermin rampant in the refuse heap pose severe hazards to public health.

Residents spoke of their frustration with the government’s neglect of the refuse dump. Maria Huo, whose son was injured by the dump’s collapse and whose home was also partly destroyed, expressed outrage that authorities had failed to safely manage rubbish levels at Hulene.

Underscoring the deprivation experienced by the broader Mozambique population, Huo told the BBC: “I live in this neighbourhood because I have nowhere to go. Had the government told me to go to another place to live, I would have left here.”

Teresa Mangue, a local neighborhood leader in Hulene, voicing her anger over the government’s neglect, declared, “It's been more than 10 years that the dump should have been closed because it’s full, but they still continue to pile trash on the trash. The consequence is this.”

No doubt fearing a social explosion over its criminal neglect and responsibility, various government officials feigned sympathy for the victims of the dump collapse. They promised to accommodate survivors in temporary housing, make psychological treatment available, and also provide funds for funeral services for the dead.

To this end, the Maputo City Council opened a temporary emergency shelter for survivors. Maputo Municipality’s President, David Simango, cynically declared, “We assume all the responsibilities for the Hulene accident. We will not try to justify ourselves with the closure or the resettlement, otherwise we would be evading our responsibilities.”

Out of a population of 29 million, more than 60 percent of Mozambicans live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank. The government has starved the population of funding for even the most vital infrastructure, such as sanitary water facilities, which has resulted in scores of deaths and a scourge of treatable diseases, such as cholera and dysentery. The majority of the population subsists on less than a dollar per day.

The Mozambican masses experience high illiteracy rates, with the education budget starved of funds. HIV prevalence is among the highest on the African continent, at 11.5 percent. Treatable diseases such as malaria are the most common cause of death in Mozambique.

Inflation has skyrocketed in the country over the last two years, which has exacerbated already drastic economic conditions for the masses, who now must pay even higher prices for food and other goods needed for the barest day-to-day existence.

In contrast to the blight of severe poverty experienced by the masses, a corrupt aristocracy occupies the height of Mozambican society. Sitting atop this pinnacle are 50 individuals with assets worth more than $10 million, who make up Mozambique’s political and business elite class, including former president Armando Guebuza. Guebuza made his fortune when as president he oversaw the sale of state-owned assets to international corporations, which in turn enriched himself and members of his clique.

Discoveries of significant offshore gas reserves were recently announced, with various international oil companies, including British Petroleum (BP) and Exxon Mobil, lining up to hammer out deals with the current corrupt government of President Felipe Nyusi, which predictably awarded these companies contracts to exploit these vast resources.

Deal to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland collapses

Steve James

The latest attempt to revive power sharing in Northern Ireland collapsed last week, despite media reports that an agreement was imminent. Thirteen months after late Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness resigned from his position as deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, there is still no functioning government in Stormont.

Theresa May’s divided and crisis-ridden Conservative government has been unable to impose terms on the party on which it relies to stay in power—Northern Ireland’s pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)—which is now demanding the reintroduction of direct rule from Westminster.

The prospective deal between the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein and the pro-British unionist DUP involved an Irish Language Act, an Ulster Scots Act and a Respecting Language and Diversity Act, as well as a proposed mechanism to prevent future collapsing of the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly. Sinn Fein was said to have agreed to DUP leader Arlene Foster remaining in office, dropping its previous demand for her removal.

Since 2006, Sinn Fein has been seeking legislation for Irish Gaelic to be available for use in courts, in the Assembly and by official bodies. An Irish language commissioner, designated Gaelteacht areas where Gaelic is the primary language, the right to education in Irish, and bilingual signage are also sought.

In 2014, the DUP’s Gregory Campbell told the Assembly, “We will never agree to an Irish language Act at Stormont and we will treat their [Sinn Féin’s] entire wish list as no more than toilet paper. They better get used to it.” Campbell notoriously parodied the Irish “go raibh maith agat”, which means “thank you, Speaker” and is frequently used by Sinn Fein speakers, with “curry my yoghurt”. He was barred from the Assembly for a day.

By early this year, however, Campbell indicated that were Ulster Scots given the same status, a deal was possible. Other unionist voices did not agree. Lord Empey, former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, warned the DUP of the implications for unionism. “Sinn Fein,” complained Empey, “want to transform the face of Northern Ireland to show that it is different from the rest of the UK. They want to put Irish in a superior position. This would only serve to destabilise Northern Ireland and further erode our position within the UK.”

Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister complained hysterically that the campaign on language recognition had been “militarised.”

Nevertheless, according to newly installed Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald, a deal had all but been agreed. But, she said, “We advised the DUP leadership that the deal should be closed before those opposed to it could unpick what we had achieved.”

In the event, the DUP was unable to persuade its own membership and unionist rivals that the language act was a price worth paying to allow the Assembly and Executive to be resuscitated. No sooner had the talks collapsed than former Northern Ireland First Minister and DUP leader Arlene Foster denied a deal had even been close.

Whatever the truth of the negotiations, the dispute between all the parties centres primarily at this stage on Brexit and the status of Northern Ireland’s border with the Irish Republic, not on language. Brexit, or its consequences, underlay Sinn Fein’s decision to walk out of the Executive in late 2016, when a long-running scandal over the shameless manipulation of a government heating scheme was seized on as the pretext for Sinn Fein’s departure.

Sinn Fein, along with 56 percent of Northern Ireland’s voters, supported the Remain camp, but the DUP supported and continues to support a “hard” Brexit in which the UK leaves both the European Union’s single market and customs union. Under such conditions, the Northern Ireland border becomes an external border of the EU. Brexit, moreover, particularly a “hard” Brexit, is likely to have a bigger impact on the Irish economy than on the British.

Seeking to offset this, all parties and governments have stated they oppose the construction of a “hard” border with customs posts. At the same time, the DUP has been able to extract from the British government pledges that there will no regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the UK. This is impossible unless both Northern Ireland and the UK remain in close alignment with the EU, but this is not a “hard Brexit”. No one, least of all the May government, has yet been able to reconcile these entirely contradictory positions.

The issue was fudged in the agreement late last year between the EU and Britain to allow trade talks to open.

The DUP immediately seized upon on the collapse of the current round of talks to push for direct rule of Northern Ireland from Westminster. According to Foster, “It is now incumbent on Her Majesty’s Government to set a budget and start making policy decisions about our schools, hospitals and infrastructure.” DUP MP Sammy Wilson agreed, stating, “Call it whatever you want; direct rule, ministerial intervention, whatever.”

Direct rule was also endorsed by former First Minister David Trimble, who as leader of the UUP was one of the architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that initiated power sharing with Sinn Fein. Trimble, now a lord, told the Daily Telegraph, “I would prefer to see full-blown direct rule”. This would “clarify the situation and mean the government could speak more effectively to Dublin and Brussels on these issues.”

Direct rule would require Westminster to pass a law suspending the Northern Ireland Assembly, while control of policing, prisons, transport, housing and all areas of devolved responsibility would pass back to Westminster. Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers told Sky News, “It looks inevitable that there will need to be Westminster legislation to set a budget and sort out various other key issues because time has run out.”

Direct rule, particularly over the period of Brexit implementation, would serve the DUP well, as it could avoid responsibility for budgetary cuts and blame London and the EU should a border actually emerge, while waving the Union Jack to its supporters.

The current incumbent Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley has thus far declined to openly endorse this position. Speaking in Belfast, Bradley, forlornly, stated her intention to “deliver devolved government back at Stormont”.

Sinn Fein immediately insisted that direct rule was not an option. From the first, Sinn Fein has seen Brexit as an opportunity to push for a referendum on Irish unification, a call reiterated by McDonald in her inaugural speech as Sinn Fein president.

McDonald also sought to present herself as a prospective coalition partner for ruling Fine Gael in Dublin. She told reporters on Saturday, “The Government in Dublin has been crystal clear on that. They have reiterated that position. Direct rule would be entirely unacceptable to us and nationalist opinion.”

Irish Taoiseach [Prime Minister] Leo Varadkar ruled out a return to direct rule last November. Sinn Fein met with Varadkar Monday, for 90 minutes. Varadkar again opposed the introduction of direct rule, after speaking with McDonald and her deputy Michelle O’Neill, and stressing a united commitment to the Good Friday Agreement. Varadkar reportedly spoke to Theresa May on the phone following the meeting, speaking of his “firm position” that the Good Friday Agreement must be implemented in full.

Amazon set to open new depot in Sheffield—“low pay capital of the UK”

Danny Richardson

Global retail conglomerate Amazon is set to further expand its UK investment by opening a “giant fulfilment centre” on the outskirts of Sheffield, in South Yorkshire, England.

The local Sheffield Star newspaper reported in January that “the US firm is believed to be in discussions with Peel Logistics about taking half of a 48-acre plot situated beside Junction 34 of the M1 and close to the giant Meadowhall shopping centre and transport hub. If the proposal goes ahead it is expected to create 1,000 jobs.”

The Amazon iport warehouse near Doncaster in South Yorkshire

Amazon has an existing distribution site in Sheffield, which operates as a “last mile depot” delivering Amazon parcels to homes in the Sheffield area. It also operates four recently opened major sites in nearby Doncaster, employing more than 1,000. The newest and largest is on the iport business estate, which opened in time to go into full production for 2017 Christmas deliveries. The iport estate contains 6 million sq. ft. of warehousing and incorporates a 35-acre Rail Freight Intermodal Terminal.

Other occupiers of the iport estate include Fellowes, Ceva and Lidl. The owner of the building housing Amazon’s largest iport operation is the developer Verdion. Speaking about the relationship of Labour Party-run Doncaster council to the big business operations at iport, Verdion’s John Clements said, “It’s gone well here, Doncaster Council is very business friendly.”

Sheffield and its surrounding area was previously a major steel producing region and each of the Amazon “Fulfilment Centres” in South Yorkshire area were built on shuttered steel plants.

Peel Logistics bought up the former Outokumpu stainless steel processing site in May 2017. It applied and was granted planning permission from the Sheffield City Council to erect a business park there early in 2018.

The history of the Outokumpu site reflects the collapse of the steel industry in South Yorkshire and the loss of jobs paying reasonable wages. In its heyday, it employed thousands of workers who processed stainless steel in dozens of plants and workshops. It was given a major redevelopment in the 1950s by the then state-owned British Steel Corporation, producing the cold rolling and cutting of stainless steel into sheets.

After privatisation of British Steel in the 1980s by the Thatcher Conservative government it became British Steel Stainless (BSS). Later, in 1992, BSS was sold to Swedish company Avesta and renamed Avesta Sheffield, which in turn became Avesta Polarit. When the Finnish company Outokumpu bought into Avesta Polarit is was renamed in 2002, this time as Outokumpu. Nine years later, in 2011, all the buildings and plants were demolished and the site completely flattened.

The Star ’s online readers’ comments section at the bottom of the Amazon article reflects the anger at the collapse of the Yorkshire steel industry and the mass unemployment and poverty it has created for the new generation of workers—enabling global corporations such as Amazon to exploit the situation as a means to drive down wages.

Peel Logistics’ glossy brochure for the Outokumpu site has a list of attractive benefits for any potential “partner.” The fourth item listed, in bold text, declares “WAGES BELOW THE NATIONAL AVERAGE—£496.60 PER WEEK COMPARED TO GB AT £541.00 (2016).” It also boasts the council will be offering business rate concessions.

Two recent reports, based on studies by the Resolution Foundation, highlight why Amazon is attracted to Sheffield. The first is headed “Sheffield named as the low pay capital of the UK”. It states, “the city has a high concentration of large, low-paying sectors, such as office administration and retail, where typical hourly pay is lower than the UK average.”

The second report found “that the new National Living Wage—the new wage floor of £7.20 an hour for workers aged 25 and over—which comes into effect in April this year—will be felt differently across the UK. In Sheffield, “28 per cent of employees are set to be affected—more than any other major city in the UK.’

The report continues, “Average hourly pay is £11.03 per hour, the lowest of any city region in the UK, yet many earn even less with nearly one in five workers employed on the National Minimum Wage.”

Compare this to Amazons CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest individual, with a personal fortune estimated at more than US$100 billion. Amazon’s global profit reached $1.9 billion for the final quarter of 2017, an increase of more than 150 percent from the previous year, according to the company’s latest financial earnings report. Bezos’ personal wealth increased by more than $17 billion in the past month.

Bezos and two other US billionaires, Berkshire head Warren Buffett and JPMorgan’s Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, announced in January their plan to drive down their costs even further by utilising advanced technology to slash the cost of providing health care for the firms’ combined US work force of over 1 million.

Last November, the Sunday Mirror, sister newspaper to the Daily Mirror, published several reports produced from an “undercover operative” reporter, Alan Selby, at Amazon’s plant in Tilbury, England.

It confirmed many of the conditions the International Amazon Workers Voice has highlighted and published on the World Socialist Web Site since the launch of the IAWV in May 2017.

The four-storey Tilbury site occupies 2.2 million square feet—the size of 11 football pitches—and employs 1,500 workers. In one passage Selby describes his working conditions “Alone in a locked metal cage, 10 feet from my nearest colleague, a robot approaches from the shadows and thrusts a tower of shelves towards me. I have nine seconds to grab and process an item to be sent for packing—a target of 300 items an hour, for hour after relentless hour.”

The growing exploitation of workers by Amazon is not confined to the UK or any particular country. Amazon has become a global giant by offering cut price goods delivered from its sweatshop “fulfilment” hubs. Workers at the newly opened Melbourne “fulfilment centre” in Australia are the latest to experience the physically harmful demands of an Amazon warehouse that features relentless speed-ups, total surveillance of the workforce, dangerously hot conditions and minimal toilet and meal breaks.

Across the globe local authorities and politicians of all stripes fall over each other to encourage Amazon into their locality by offering up ever greater conditions of exploitation.

The actions of Sheffield’s Labour-run council are similar to those of the local capitalist politicians in approximately 200 US cities who are locked in a grotesque scrum to house Amazon’s 2nd Headquarters. The bidding town and state leaders are offering billions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives. Newark, New Jersey offered Amazon $1 billion in property tax abatement and a waiver for $1 billion in city wage taxes over 20 years. In Stonecrest, Georgia, the leaders have offered to rename the town Amazon if the company decides to build its HQ there.