7 Questions About the Syria Airstrikes That Aren’t Being Asked

Richard (RJ) Eskow

“Mission accomplished,” says the President. What, exactly, was the mission? And what exactly was accomplished?

Donald Trump is being mocked for using this phrase in a tweet to praise what he claims was a “perfectly executed” airstrike against chemical weapons facilities in Syria. This recalls George W. Bush’s egregious evocation of the phrase in 2003 to claim an early end to the U.S. entanglement in Iraq, which is still ongoing fifteen years later.

History made a fool of Bush for that proclamation, which was printed on a banner behind the President as he delivered his speech proclaiming an end to the Iraqi conflict on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

But Bush’s foolish and lethal incursion to Iraq had the backing of virtually the entire national-security establishment. So did Donald Trump’s bombing attack on Syria, as did the bombing attack he ordered last year.

The Costs of Intervention

U.S. media, for the most part, reinforce the idea that intervention by our military is the preferred solution to global conflicts. Some of the same reporters who now mock Trump for saying “Mission Accomplished” cheered on Bush’s invasion of Iraq. They remember Bush’s errors, but not their own.

The media’s job, we are told, is to ask skeptical questions about the people in power. That didn’t happen much in the runup to the invasion of Iraq, and it’s not happening now. Here are the questions that should be asked – not just on the eve of a bombing attack, but every day we continue our disastrous and drifting military intervention in the Middle East.

1. Why couldn’t the military wait for inspectors to do their jobs?

Inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, an international non-proliferation organization, were scheduled to arrive in Douma, Syria on Saturday, April 15 to begin investigating the reported chemical attack on civilians there. The airstrikes took place on Friday, April 14.

This is a disturbing echo of the 2003 Iraq invasion. There, too, the United States was unwilling to wait for international inspectors to discover the facts before beginning the attack. Fifteen years on, we know that didn’t work out very well. Why couldn’t the bombing of Syria wait for inspectors to do their work?

2. How do we know we’re being told the truth?

“We are confident that we have crippled Syria’s chemical weapons program,” said U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. That statement was echoed by military leaders. But a report from Agence France Presse suggests that one destroyed building, described by attacking forces as a chemical-weapons facility, was actually a pharmaceutical and research facility specializing in food testing and antivenoms for scorpion and snake bites.

“If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here,” said someone who identified himself as an engineer who worked at the facility.

Given our country’s long history of public deception from military and civilian officials, why aren’t we demanding independent confirmation of the airstrikes’ effectiveness?

3.Have strikes like these ever really “punished” a country’s leader – or “sent them a message,” for that matter?

We keep hearing the cliché that airstrikes like these are meant to “punish” leaders like Assad. This time was no different. And yet, it’s unlikely that Assad personally suffered as a result of this attack.

So who, really, are we punishing?

Then there’s this comment, from Defense Secretary James Mattis: “Together we have sent a clear message to Assad and his murderous lieutenants that they should not perpetrate another chemical weapons attack.”

That was also the presumed purpose of Trump’s last missile attack on Syria, less than a year ago. Trump supporters claimed that attack sent a forceful “message,” too – to Assad, to Putin, the Chinese, and others. “With just one strike that message was sent to all these people,” claimed former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka.

The situation in Syria did not perceptibly change after that attack. And the day after this latest airstrike, Assad launched a new round of airstrikes of his own.

These airstrikes seem more performative than tactical – warfare as theater, but with real lives at stake. There must be better ways to send a message.

4. Why isn’t the full range of U.S. activity in Syria getting more coverage?

Thanks to widespread under-reporting of U.S. involvement in Syria, commentators can complain about “years of unmasterly inactivity by the democracies” with a straight face, wrongly blaming that nation’s disasters on a failure to intervene.

In a paragraph that was subsequently deleted from its website, the Washington Post wrote that the latest airstrikes “capped nearly a week of debate in which Pentagon leaders voiced concerns that an attack could pull the United States into Syria’s civil war.” As of this writing, that language can still be found in syndicated versions of the article.

We were pulled into that civil war a long time ago.  The United States has more than 2,000 troops in Syria, a fact that was not immediately revealed to the American people. That figure is understated, although the Pentagon will not say by how much, since it excludes troops on classified missions and some Special Forces personnel.

Before Trump raised the troop count, the CIA was spending $1 billion per year supporting anti-government militias under President Obama.  That hasn’t prevented a rash of commentary complaining about U.S. “inaction” in Syria before Trump took office. It didn’t prevent additional chaos and death, either – and probably made the situation worse.

5. Where are the advocates for a smarter national security policy?

There’s been very little real debate inside the national security establishment about the wisdom of these strikes, and what debate there has been has focused on the margins. Anne-Marie Slaughter, a senior State Department official under Secretary Hillary Clinton in the Obama administration, tweeted:

I believe that the U.S., U.K, & France did the right thing by striking Syria over chemical weapons. It will not stop the war nor save the Syrian people from many other horrors. It is illegal under international law. But it at least draws a line somewhere & says enough.

In other words: This attack will not achieve any tactical goals or save any lives. And it is illegal – just as chemical weapons attacks are illegal – under international law. It’s illegal under U.S. law, too, which is the primary focus of Democratic criticism.

But, says Slaughter, the amorphous goals of “drawing a line” and “saying enough” make it worthwhile, for reasons that are never articulated.

Michèle Flournoy, who served as Under Secretary of Defense under President Obama and was considered a leading Defense Secretary prospect in a Hillary Clinton Administration, said:

• What Trump got right: upheld the international norm against [chemical weapon] use, built international support for and participation in the strikes, sought to minimize collateral damage — Syrian, Russian, Iranian.
• What Trump got wrong: continuing to use taunting, name-calling tweets as his primary form of (un)presidential communication; failing to seriously consult Congress before deciding to launch the strikes; after more than a year in office, still no coherent Syria strategy.

How can a country uphold international norms by violating international law?

If Trump lacks a coherent Syria policy, he has company. Obama’s policy toward Syria shifted and drifted. Hillary Clinton backed Trump’s last round of airstrikes and proposed a “no-fly” policy for Syria that could have quickly escalated into open confrontation with Russia.

The country deserves a rational alternative to Trump’s impulsivity and John Bolton’s extreme bellicosity and bigotry. When it comes to foreign policy, we need a real opposition party. What will it take to develop one?

Commentators have been pushing Trump to take aggressive military action in Syria, despite the potential for military conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. MSNBC’s Dana Bash accused Trump of “an inexplicable lack of resolve regarding Russia” – leaving the audience to make its own inferences – adding, “We have not been willing to take them on.”

In the same segment, reported by FAIR’s Adam Johnson, Bash complained that “the U.S. hasn’t done “a very good job pushing Russia out of the way,” adding that “we’ve let Russia have too free a hand, in my view, in the skies over Syria.”  Her colleague Andrea Mitchell responded that “the criticism is that the president is reluctant to go after Russia.”

The Drum Beats On

“Mission accomplished.”

This drumbeat of political pressure has forced Trump’s hand. He has now directed missiles against Syria, twice. Both attacks carried the risk of military confrontation with the world’s other nuclear superpower.

That risk is greater than most people realize, as historian and military strategist Maj. Danny Sjursen explained in our recent conversation.

Trump has now adopted a more aggressive military posture against Russia than Barack Obama. Whatever his personal involvement with the Russian government turns out to have been, it is in nobody’s best interests to heighten tensions between two nuclear superpowers.

The national security establishment has been promoting a confrontational approach, but they’ve been unable to explain how that would lead to a better outcome for the US or the world – just as they’ve been unable to explain how unilateral military intervention can lead to a good outcome in Syria.

7. Did the airstrikes make Trump “presidential”?

“Amid distraction and dysfunction,” wrote Mike Allen and Jonathan Swan for Axios, “Trump looked and acted like a traditional commander-in-chief last night.”

The constitutional phrase, “Commander in Chief,” was originally understood to underscore the fact that the military is under civilian control. It has devolved into a title that confers a quasi-military rank on the president.  That’s getting it backwards. The fetishization of all things military is one of the reasons we can’t have a balanced debate about military intervention.

Besides, saying that an act of war makes Trump “presidential” – that’s so 2017!

Here’s a suggestion: In 1963, John F. Kennedy rejected his generals’ advice to strike Soviet installations during the Cuban missile crisis.

Rejecting reckless calls to military action: Now that’s a “presidential” act worth bringing back.

US and Britain hit Chinese telecom company ZTE

Nick Beams

In an escalation of inter-linked trade and national security wars, Britain and the US have taken action against the major Chinese telecom company ZTE, effectively banning it from both countries.

Yesterday, the British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) ordered the UK telecom sector not to use equipment or services from ZTE, as it would have a “long-term negative effect on the security of the UK.”

Hours later, the US Commerce Department announced it was banning the sale of components to ZTE for seven years. This was said to be enforcing an agreement the company entered when it pleaded guilty in March 2017 to breaching bans on sales to North Korea and Iran.

Under that deal, ZTE paid some $1.2 billion in fines and said it would take action against those involved. Four company directors were sacked but the Commerce Department said bonuses were paid to other employees that were involved. ZTE had “misled” it and so it was invoking the seven-year suspension.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said: “Instead of reprimanding ZTE staff and senior management, ZTE rewarded them. This egregious behaviour cannot be ignored.”

These declarations ring rather hollow. Senior US banking executives have been regularly rewarded with increased bonuses in the wake of the malpractices that led to the crisis of 2008.

In an indication that other reasons were involved, the Commerce Department said the company had argued “it would have been irrational for ZTE to knowingly or intentionally mislead the US government in light of the seriousness of the suspended sanctions.”

Commerce Department officials, cited by the Financial Times, claimed its actions were not related to the recent measures initiated by the White House targeting Chinese companies operating under the “Made in China 2025” program, by which China is seeking to advance its high-tech development in telecommunications and other areas.

“The timing of this is somewhat unfortunate because it could make it seem like they are connected,” a senior Commerce Department official said.

Under the decision, US companies are banned from conducting any business with ZTE in the US or anywhere else in the world.

Last year ZTE purchased as much as $1.6 billion worth of products from US chip makers, and is a significant customer of both Qualcomm and Intel. It has sold handset services to major US companies, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint.

A smaller US company, Acacia Communications, that supplies ZTE has been hard hit. Last year it derived 30 percent of its $385.2 million of revenue from sales to ZTE. Its shares fell 35 percent in trading yesterday.

The Commerce Department action came amid calls for more aggressive moves by US authorities against Chinese communications and telecom firms.

Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai issued an op-ed piece on Fox News.com yesterday, warning that a hostile foreign power could exploit the US telecom supply chain to “spy on Americans or attack our critical infrastructure by injecting viruses or launching denial-of-service attacks.”

The FCC earlier this month proposed rules that would make it more difficult for Chinese firms, such as Huawei and ZTE, to sell equipment to small rural US providers.

Last month the US fears of Chinese telecommunication advances were highlighted by the Trump administration’s decision, on the basis of a finding by the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US, to ban a proposed takeover by the US firm Broadcom of the high-tech company Qualcomm because it would advantage Huawei in the development of 5G phone technology.

The British decision to ban ZTE was taken on national security grounds. The NCSC said that if ZTE became a big supplier to the UK it could pose a risk to measures it has taken against Huawei, which is a big supplier to the British telecom sector. Huawei agreed some years ago to set up a centre where its components can be broken down and inspected.

In a letter to British telecom firms, NCSC technical director Ian Levy wrote: “The UK telecommunications network already contains a significant amount of equipment supplied by Huawei. Adding in new equipment and services from another Chinese supplier would render our existing mitigations ineffective.”

The NCSC said it was concerned over new Chinese laws which it claimed gave Beijing “wide-ranging powers of compulsion” that could force companies to infiltrate or sabotage telecommunications infrastructure.

The US and British actions against ZTE were accompanied by a broader offensive by the two imperialist powers following the attack on Syria over the weekend.

Yesterday, the UK and US governments issued a joint warning about Russian cyber attacks on government and private organisations.

US Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Jeanette Manfra said the government had a “high confidence” that the Russian government was behind alleged intrusions.

“We hold the Kremlin responsible for its malicious cyber activities,” she said, claiming that Russia was trying to seize control of connectivity, including routers, and firewall detection systems, with a view to espionage, intellectual property theft or positioning for offensive action.

The head of the British NCSC, Ciarin Martin, said “there are millions of machines being targeted globally” and the alert was part of an allied “fightback against state-sponsored aggression in cyber space.”

The measures against ZTE, the trade war against China over its high-tech development and the warnings of cyber attacks, coupled with the missile attacks on Syria and the anti-Russia propaganda campaign, are part of an integrated offensive. The US is seeking to overcome its decline through economic and military warfare.

Russian government blocks messaging app Telegram

Clara Weiss

A Russian court issued a ruling Friday, April 12, to block the messaging app Telegram. In a months-long standoff with the Kremlin, the company’s CEO had refused to grant the secret service FSB access to users’ encrypted messages. The ban took legal effect on Monday, April 16.

The court hearing took just 18 minutes. Judge Yulia Smolina from the Tagansky court in Moscow ruled in favour of Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media), a national agency that is subordinated to the Ministry of Telecommunication and in charge of the massive censorship efforts of the Russian government. Pavel Durov, the head of Telegram, announced that the company would be using built-in methods to bypass the block for its 9.5 million users in Russia.

The ruling is based on the “anti-terror laws” signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2016, which have provided the legal basis for a massive crackdown on Internet and communication freedoms in the past two years. This is part of an international drive by capitalist governments to censor the Internet and block encrypted communication, in anticipation of mass struggles by the working class.

According to the Russian laws, telecommunications operators have to store their customers’ phone calls and text messages for six months. Messaging services like Facebook and Telegram have to provide decryption keys to the FSB. Moreover, Russians are legally required to inform authorities about potential terrorist acts, and postal employees are required to inspect packages.

The standoff between Roskomnadzor and Telegram started in June 2017, when the Russian agency asked the company to register in Russia and hand over the encryption keys to the FSB. Telegram did register but refused to provide the encryption keys to the FSB. Last month, Telegram lost the case before the Supreme Court and then failed to comply with the 15-day deadline to hand over the keys. The company can now appeal the recent court decision within 30 days.

There has been an outcry against the ban of Telegram on social media, with many users denouncing the step as a crackdown on freedom of speech and communication. One critic, “Artem,” sarcastically wrote: “Well that’s it! There will be no more terrorism, Telegram is blocked. Now we only have to ban reproductive organs in order to finally do away with rape!”

Many posts expressed anger over the measure as well as fears of impending blocks of other websites and platforms. Others announced that they would defy the ban. One Twitter user from Yekaterinburg, a major industrial city in the Urals, wrote: “Now that Telegram has been blocked I will use it more than ever. Out of principle.”

Telegram has about 200 million users worldwide and is especially popular in the Middle East and Russia, because it allows for encrypted communication and works much better under conditions of poor Internet connection than other messaging apps. In Russia, many young people and even government employees make use of the messaging app.

The company was founded by Pavel Durov, dubbed the Russian Mark Zuckerberg, who also created the hugely popular Russian social media network vkontakte. In 2014, Durov was forced to resign from the board of vkontakte, by then a $3 billion company, because he refused to shut down pages of politicians from the liberal opposition and hand over data from opposition and pro-Maidan pages to the FSB. He has since lived in emigration.

The crackdown on Telegram is in many respects symbolic. Telegram was the app most widely used in the organization of the mass working class protests in Iran last winter. The Kremlin no doubt fears a similar development in Russia where tensions are running high amid an escalating war drive by the imperialist powers and growing poverty in the working class. The recent fire in a shopping mall in Kemerovo provoked mass outrage on social media, including anger over the initial blackout of the fire by the state media and the reaction of the authorities to the disaster.

The blocking of Telegram, whether or not the company can circumvent it, signals that the Russian government will take whatever means are necessary to prevent encrypted communication and the organization of protests via social media and chat apps. This is part of a broader effort by the Kremlin and governments internationally to censor the Internet and spy on communications.

In Russia, these efforts are well-advanced. Especially since the protest movement of 2011-2012, which was spearheaded by the pro-Western liberal opposition, the Kremlin has undertaken a systematic crackdown on freedom of communication on the Internet. The central agency overseeing these censorship and surveillance efforts on the internet is Roskomnadzor.

Internet access in Russia has grown massively over the past 15 years. Between 2004 and 2015, the percentage of the population with Internet access grew from a mere 8 percent to 70 percent (92.8 million people). An estimated 97 percent of all young people between 16 and 29 and 82 percent of those aged 30 to 54 use the Internet. Internet usage was more widespread in urban areas, with a coverage of 83 percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg and 71 percent in cities with a population of 100,000 compared to 66 percent in small towns and the countryside.

Under conditions where most media outlets are controlled by the state, or by the liberal opposition, which is widely despised in the working class, the Internet has become a central source for alternative information about politics. Moreover, given the extraordinary destruction of social and cultural infrastructure during the restoration of capitalism, the Internet today is the main source of culture (be it books, films or other media) for the vast majority of Russians.

While direct Internet censorship by the state has, so far, focused on pages associated with the right-wing liberal opposition, all laws, and especially the mass surveillance, are designed to prevent and target above all movements by the working class which would threaten not only the current Putin regime but the capitalist system as a whole.

The most important restrictions and surveillance measures now in place on the Russian Internet include:

• An Internet blacklist (since November 2012); the criteria for inclusion on this blacklist included initially “child pornography” and the advocating of suicide and illegal drugs. Since 2013, the blacklist law also applies to content that is “suspected of extremism”, “calling for illegal meetings,” “inciting hatred,” and “violating the established order.” Websites deemed guilty of any of these are blocked at the initiative of Roskomnadzor.
  
• Providers of free public wi-fi are legally required to collect and store the personal information of all users, including addresses and passport numbers.
  
• The System of Operational-Investigatory Measures requires telecommunications operators, social media platforms, chats and forums to install hardware by the FSB which allows the agency to monitor users’ communications metadata and content, including phone calls, email traffic and web browsing.

Since 2014, social media platforms and telecommunications operators are also required to install equipment with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities, which include direct eavesdropping. Access to data obtained through these means is available not only to the FSB, but also the Interior Ministry, the Russian police and the tax police, border patrol, as well as the Presidential Security Service, the Kremlin Regiment, and Parliamentary Security Services.

• The virtual elimination of legal encryption in messaging apps. As of January 2018, operators of messaging apps are also not permitted to allow unidentified users.
  
• Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and other devices to surf anonymously on the internet have been banned since the summer of 2017.

Washington seeks permanent deployment of special forces brigade to Africa

Eddie Haywood

Republican Senator James Inhofe of the Senate Armed Services Committee last week sent a letter to Secretary of the Army Mark Esper outlining a proposal that would constitute an increase in troop levels deployed under AFRICOM, as well as broadening the American military’s footprint across Africa.

In his letter, Inhofe requested the Army secretary give his views regarding the assignment to AFRICOM of one of the six new Security Forces Assistant Brigades (SFAB). The special brigade, if deployed, would provide an additional 500 troops on a permanent basis for AFRICOM.

Inhofe wrote, “As you know, AFRICOM does not have any assigned forces, but must compete for allocated forces within the Department of Defense’s global force management process. The Army has allocated a Brigade Combat Team (BCT) to AFRICOM in the recent past as part of the Regionally Aligned Forces (RAF) program. These operations were a success for our African nation partners and built strategic partnerships for the United States. However, they also negatively affected the allocated BCT’s readiness, especially for core missions such as full spectrum combat operations.”

The SFAB were officially introduced last year with the first of six brigades activated. According to the Pentagon, the new units were “created in order to train, advise, assist, enable and accompany host nation conventional forces in infantry, armor, cavalry, engineer, artillery and combined arms warfare.”

According to the US Army website, the Pentagon envisions the SFAB as “specifically built to achieve the Army’s vision of enabling combatant commanders to carry out theater security objectives through partnered and allied indigenous security forces for decades to come.”

The drive to increase the American military’s presence in Africa comes after last year’s ambush killing of four Green Berets in Niger while conducting a combat mission with their Nigerien counterparts. Highlighting the predatory aim of AFRICOM’s presence in the region is the Niger defense minister’s admission that the US forces “wage war when necessary.”

The plan to expand AFRICOM follows an already amplified presence across the continent, with an estimated 6,000 US special forces and other military personnel on the ground in nearly every country in Africa.

AFRICOM was established in 2007 by the Bush administration to oversee and develop military operations on the resource rich continent. In the beginning, the command was little more than an appendage run under Central Command (CENTCOM) from its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Its exponential expansion today into every corner of Africa is a significant manifestation of Washington’s far-reaching drive to secure US economic dominance over Africa’s vast resources and block the advance of its economic rivals, foremost China.

The Trump administration has overseen a significant rise in drone strikes in Somalia, conducting 35 drone strikes in 2017. In comparison, there were 13 strikes conducted in 2016, and five in 2015. As the WSWS has reported, 2018 is on pace to surpass all previous years combined for drone strikes in the country.

Additionally, the Trump administration issued new rules of engagement for US military forces, essentially granting free rein for commanders to carry out open-ended warfare. The Pentagon has deployed another 500 troops to Somalia.

Notably, the US military has opened a new drone base in Agadez, Niger, which the Pentagon projects will give it the ability to carry out drone strikes and surveillance throughout Western and Northern Africa.

Major General Marcus Hicks, the Chief of Staff for US Special Operations Command, spoke to the Washington Post amid the annual Flintlock military exercise currently being held in Niger. Hicks reiterated the broad scope of the American military’s aim in Africa, saying, “We’re not reducing our footprint or tempo [in Africa].”

Flintlock is a counterterrorism exercise organized by AFRICOM, with the participation of several African nations, since 2005. Participating countries (both past and present) include, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Canada, Tunisia, Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom and the United States.

Naming the “rise of Islamic extremism” as the pretext for AFRICOM’s broadening mission, Hicks told the Post, “I believe al-Qaida has a more disciplined approach to developing infrastructure across Africa, north Africa, the Sahel. They are taking a patient approach to gaining ground in influence over organizations that are already there and co-opting local and regional grievances and turning it to their own devices.”

In fact, the cause for the rise of Islamic militants spilling into the Sahel and West Africa are largely the consequence of Washington’s intervention into Libya.

From the beginning of the campaign for regime change in Libya, Washington enlisted Islamic militants affiliated or linked to Al-Qaeda to carry out its dirty work in removing Gaddafi.

Now, in the aftermath of the bombardment of Libya by NATO air strikes in 2011 that led to the complete upending of Libyan society, from which it has yet to recover, the former US-backed fighters spilled forth out of Libya and down into West Africa.

The militarization of the continent comes amid a rise in strikes and demonstrations across Africa. Doctors and teachers in Algeria, Kenya, Togo and Nigeria have been carrying out protests and strikes, in many cases completely shutting down schools, universities, and hospitals.

In the final analysis, AFRICOM’s escalation and expansion complements Washington’s utilization of its massive military power to counter waning US economic and political influence in Africa to neutralize China’s rising economic influence on the continent. Beijing’s recent opening of a naval base in Djibouti, five miles from the joint US-France Camp Lemonnier base, is of particular concern to Washington’s strategists.

GM to slash 1,500 jobs at Lordstown, Ohio plant

Tim Rivers

In spite of a continuous chorus in the media of a booming economy creating robust job numbers, General Motors is unleashing a new round of attacks on autoworkers in North America as part of a global cost-cutting offensive against the working class.

The corporation announced on Friday it will cut one of two operating shifts at its massive Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant, cutting as many as 1,500 jobs effective June 15. As recently as 2016, the plant was operating three shifts around the clock with nearly 4,000 workers. By the end of June only 1,500 will remain.

As sales for the compact Chevy Cruze, the only vehicle produced at the facility, began to slip, GM shuttered the third shift in January 2017, axing 800 jobs. Over the course of 2017, the plant was idled for weeks at a time and rumors began to circulate about the impending layoffs.

As an indication of the severity of the cuts, this is the first time since the recession of the 1980s that the plant will operate with only one shift.

In September, anticipating the cuts, the United Auto Workers (UAW) international union merged the two local unions at the plant into one. Local 1714 joined UAW 1112. At the time, international president Dennis Williams said the move would increase efficiency and preserve union operations in the plant. The move was clearly intended to tighten the grip of the international, suppress any struggle against the job cuts and, on the contrary, boost the company’s cost cutting and profitability.

GM pretax profits for 2017 topped $12.8 billion. The company sold 450,000 fewer vehicles to dealers last year than they did in 2016, but because of aggressive cost-cutting attacks on the workers, imposed by the union, which include everything from an expansion of Temporary Part Time employees at less than half pay, widespread layoffs and shutdowns.

US passenger car sales are on track to decline for the fifth straight year while sales of light trucks are setting records. US sales of compact cars dropped 10 percent in the first quarter and 5.8 percent through 2017.

Lordstown is not the only plant affected by this shift. GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck factory, for example, relies heavily on production of small and midsize sedans, including the Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac CT6, Chevrolet Impala and the Chevrolet Volt. In October, the automaker announced plans to cut about 200 jobs there and halt production beginning November 20 through the Christmas break, affecting 1,500 jobs over the holidays. The second shift was eliminated in March 2017, eliminating 1,300 jobs.

Massive attacks imposed during the Obama administration’s 2009 restructuring of GM and Chrysler, which cut pay in half for new hires and sharply expanded the temporary workforce, allowed the automotive industry to lead the way in what was—for corporate America—a sterling economic recovery. The UAW was paid off handsomely with union officials receiving millions of dollars in corporate bribes to sign “company friendly” agreements.

Mary, a legacy worker from Lordstown who is about to retire, told the World Socialist Web Site, “A lot of people are going to be hurt. There are a lot of young families out there that need their jobs.”

When asked about a struggle against the layoffs, she replied with disgust, “We don’t have the union we had umpteen years ago. All of that has changed.”

Another legacy worker who will lose her job in June is outraged that the union is refusing to cover her health insurance when she retires. “The union doesn’t want to pay for my health care,” she said. “I am very upset. The union does nothing for me. A lot of people are angry about it. They rewrite the seniority clause in the contract when they want to, to protect their people.”

The same conditions are developing in factories everywhere as GM pursues its cost-cutting strategy with a vengeance. Last year, GM said it would withdraw from India, one of the few major automakers to walk away from a country many are counting on for cheap labor and growth. It also has withdrawn production from Europe and Australia and substantially downsized in Russia, Thailand and Indonesia.

GM has announced it will close a Korean factory in the coastal city of Gunsan cutting 2,000 jobs in May as a bludgeon to force workers at the three remaining plants to take cuts. The company is approaching a major restructuring of its operations in South Korea where it employs 16,000 factory workers. Its plants there produce cars mostly for export to dozens of countries—including Buick sport-utility vehicles sent to the US.

GM President Dan Ammann, who is in charge of global operations, said in an interview that the automaker has laid out its position to the union and government officials but declined to discuss specifics. In a threat that will ring all too familiar to American autoworkers, he said GM Korea’s factories are too costly to operate profitably.

“We’ve made clear we need to have a business that’s sustainably profitable in order for that business to attract further investment,” Mr. Ammann stated. He said retaining a presence in the country is the “preferred scenario.”

British government admits links to Manchester and London terror attack groups

Jean Shaoul

The British government has admitted that it “likely” had contacts with two Islamist groups, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and the 17 February Martyrs Brigade, for which the 2017 Manchester Arena bomber, Salman Abedi, and his father reportedly fought during the 2011 war in Libya.

Abedi killed 23 people in a suicide bomb attack as they were leaving the Manchester Arena concert last May.

A member of the 17 February Martyrs Brigade, an LIFG offshoot, Rachid Redouane was part of the terror group that killed eight people in the London Bridge/Borough market attack last year. He fought in the Libya war of 2011 for the Liwa al-Ummah unit.

The admission came as the British government, without a shred of evidence, continued to denounce the Russian government of Vladimir Putin for the supposed nerve gas attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

But there is now real evidence of Britain’s deep ties with terrorist groups that have killed many British citizens on British soil.

The US, UK and French governments provided air support in the NATO-led war to topple the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, while using Islamist groups as proxy forces on the ground.

Foreign Minister Alistair Burt, who was an under-secretary of state at the Foreign Office between 2010 and 2013—with responsibility for “Counter Terrorism, Counter Proliferation, Counter Piracy, North America, Middle East and North Africa, the Maldives and Sri Lanka”—told Parliament that “During the Libyan conflict in 2011 the British government was in communication with a wide range of Libyans involved in the conflict against the Gaddafi regime forces.”

He added, “It is likely that this included former members of Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and 17 February Martyrs Brigade, as part of our broad engagement during this time.”

His admission was contained in a written response to a parliamentary question submitted by Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle. It was published after the start of the parliamentary Easter recess in a move that would ensure it got minimal attention.

Russell-Moyle said Burt’s response meant that the government had “serious questions” to answer over whether it facilitated Abedi’s travel to fight in Libya, backed Islamists linked to Al Qaeda in pursuit of its war aims in Libya, supported the Islamist militia that had radicalised a Briton who went on to kill 23 and injured many hundreds in Manchester, and whether the Arena bombing was “blowback.”

Conservative Security Minister Ben Wallace refused to say which groups the Abedi family fought for in Libya, stating, “The Home Office does not comment on intelligence matters nor on matters which form part of ongoing investigations.” This ambiguous answer to another of Russell-Moyle’s questions provides a further indication of the nature of the links between the Abedis and the security services.

Within days of the Manchester and London attacks, the authorities were forced to admit that the perpetrators were known to the police, and that the UK’s MI5 intelligence agency had prior warning from the FBI that the Manchester suicide bomber planned a terrorist atrocity. In effect, MI5 gave him a free hand to launch a terrorist attack.

While Britain’s links with Libyan Islamist groups were widely suspected, this is the first time the government has admitted to having had contacts with them. It adds to the mounting evidence of the role of British intelligence and successive governments in cultivating terror networks and protecting these “assets” as part of their regime-change operations in Libya and Syria.

In the 1990s, the British government allowed numerous Islamist groups to operate in London, to such an extent it became known as “Londonistan.” Libyan dissidents and the LIFG, formed out of a group whose members had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, were able to develop a base of logistical support and raise funds.

MI6 even used an LIFG agent in London to plot Gaddafi’s assassination in an attack that killed or injured several civilians, while leaving Gaddafi unhurt, according to a report by former British spy David Shayler subsequently confirmed by US intelligence.

All that changed in 2004, when the Labour government of Tony Blair brought Gaddafi in from the cold to secure lucrative contracts for British oil companies.

As part of the deal, the authorities designated the LIFG as a “terrorist” group, which sought to establish a “hard-line” Islamist state and “part of the wider Islamist extremist movement inspired by Al Qaeda.” They rounded up opponents of the Libyan regime, in Britain and overseas, including one of LIFG’s leaders, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, and his wife. Britain sent them back to Libya, as confirmed by documents belonging to Libya’s intelligence chief Moussa Koussa discovered after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.

Following a deal between Gaddafi and the LIFG in 2009, many of these Islamists were released from Libyan jails. LIFG was apparently disbanded and many of its members joined the 17 February Martyrs Brigade.

In another switch of foreign policy, Britain—as part of the NATO-led invasion of Libya in 2011—used LIFG’s successor organisations and similar forces linked to Al Qaeda as proxies to topple Gaddafi. But by this time, former Prime Minister David Cameron was telling Parliament that LIFG was no longer linked to Al Qaeda.

According to reports published by the Middle East Eye website, which cited interviews with former rebel fighters, Cameron’s Conservative-led government effectively operated an “open door” policy. Prime Minister Theresa May was home secretary at the time when the security services allowed LIFG members to travel to Libya, providing them with passports and giving them security clearance, as part of the military operations to overthrow Gaddafi. The Manchester bomber’s parents were both LIFG members.

These individuals, including Abedi, were able to travel freely back and forth “with no questions asked,” even though many had previously been under counterterrorism control orders, with tight restrictions on their movement and Internet activity.

May lifted the control orders when Britain joined US and French efforts to topple Gaddafi. This was because the UN resolution sanctioning the war on the Gaddafi regime specifically excluded ground troops, a restriction Britain later admitted it had covertly overridden.

The 17 February Martyrs Brigade and similar rebel groups were provided with $400 million of weaponry by Qatar. Britain reportedly approved Qatar’s arms supplies, working closely alongside it as its principal partner in the war and helping covertly with their training. Such training was covert precisely because providing such “assistance to opposition forces” is illegal.

The same Islamist militias, along with large quantities of Libyan arms, were later shipped off to take part in the next US-sponsored regime-change operation in Syria, alongside offshoots of Al Qaeda.

The British government and security forces worked closely with these terrorist organisations in both Libya and Syria, and then allowed them to return “without hesitation,” thereby helping to spawn a layer of British-born jihadis such as Abedi.

Despite the publication of several articles about this relationship on Middle East Eye, none of the mainstream media have seen fit to comment on the government’s admission. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has likewise remained silent on the issue.

Trump’s Tariffs and a Looming Trade War: India's Stakes

Ayan Tewari


As US President Donald Trump imposes steel and aluminium tariffs on most countries, India is in a unique position to capitalise on the situation. Trump’s tariffs could direct foreign steel and aluminium towards India, benefitting consumers, distributors, and middlemen alike. Additionally, further retaliation against the US could open a space for Indian producers to sell in markets abroad. However, India must avoid getting caught in the crossfire in the trade war, while still ensuring that domestic producers can deal with foreign competition. 

After two years of speeches and threats accusing the rest of the world of taking advantage of the US, Trump finally levied tariffs on steel (25 per cent) and aluminium (10 per cent) on every country barring Canada, Mexico, the EU, Australia, South Korea, Brazil, and Argentina. However, the White House has made it clear that these exemptions are merely temporary (until 1 May 2018). The EU has threatened tariffs on various US products (Harley-Davidson, Levi’s, Kentucky Bourbon), and China has already retaliated, imposing duties of up to 25 per cent on US$ 5 billion worth of US imports, including US$ 1.2 billion worth of pork. In response, Washington drew up a list of 1,333 Chinese exports worth US$ 50 billion annually that it plans to impose tariffs up to 25 per cent on. China responded swiftly, presenting a list of 106 products worth US$ 50 billion, which it plans to also tax 25 per cent.

As opposed to European and Chinese companies, India barely relies on the US to satisfy its steel and aluminium surplus, with only 5 per cent of Indian steel going to the US, and most of India’s aluminium going to Southeast Asia. This limited reliance on the US provides India with a window of opportunity to take advantage of a trade war when juxtaposed with China's recent pledge to fix the bilateral trade imbalance. The question is, how should India place itself in this situation while avoiding a trade war? 

The direct short-term effect of the steel and aluminium tariffs will involve a surge of foreign steel and aluminium entering the Indian market. After 1 May, countries such as Russia, Turkey, and Japan, and others such as South Korea which have large stakes in US and Indian steel and aluminium markets, may seek to expand into India's large consumer market. The government's INR 5.97 trillion spending plan on infrastructure in the 2018-19 budget, combined with low transportation and labour costs, is likely to create a desirable market for foreign steel and aluminium. These imports will not only lower prices for Indian buyers, but may also disrupt the oligopoly plaguing the Indian steel market comprising TATA Steel Group, JSW Steel Limited and the Steel Authority of India Ltd. Additionally, the government and middlemen will obtain increased revenue, ultimately resulting in higher employment and more disposable funds. 

Foreign companies in India may also resort to dumping, resulting in domestic producers being edged out of the market through unfair means. To avoid such negative effects, appropriate inspections, enforcement, and intelligent and targeted application of rules must be conducted, and smaller domestic firms and start-ups should be considered for subsidies to deal with competition from China and the EU. These steps can also help thwart the oligopoly.

While it is difficult for Indian companies to compete in China, the tariffs on Chinese products - such as low-end colour TVs (worth US$ 3.9 billion) - will leave a vacuum in the US market, one that Indian companies could possibly fill. Moreover, as the trade war intensifies, the US may impose duties on more Chinese products. While products that the US relies on - such as Chinese mobile phones and computing equipment - are not likely to be taxed, the multi-billion dollar industries of Chinese furniture (US$ 29 billion), toys (US$ 24 billion), and footwear (US$ 15 billion) might be under scrutiny, and prime opportunities for Indian companies to capitalise on. 

The argument here is not for the imposition of duties. Rather, it is one where dumping and unfair trade practices are thwarted, while market rationalisation allows the export sector to function without subsidies. India has already come under immense scrutiny from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for its export promotion schemes (Merchandise Exports from India Scheme, Export Oriented Units Scheme, Electronics Hardware Technology Parks Scheme, the Export Promotion Capital Goods Scheme), with both the US and Japan publicly accusing India of wrongdoing. The continuation of these programmes may antagonise more countries, and in today’s tense climate, trade sanctions must be avoided. 

If carefully calibrated, these steps could, in the short-run, benefit Indian companies, giving them the advantage of lower prices and greater choice, and in the long-run, lead to the dismantling of oligopolies. However, if the government overplays its hands and engages in ham-handed protectionism such as subsidies on exporting firms, Indian jobs and revenue will be in peril due to retaliation.

New Technologies Demand New Laws and Ethics

Vijay Sakhuja


The Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS) met in Geneva earlier this month and emphasised the critical necessity to ban "fully autonomous weapon systems." They urged states to move towards negotiating a legally binding instrument on this issue. The International Committee for Robot Arms Control (ICRAC) has positioned issues of ethics and public conscience in the forefront and reiterated the "Principle of Non-Delegation of the Authority to Kill" by non-human mechanisms. 

Fully autonomous weapon systems are a product of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) centered on disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), deep machine learning, robots, and drones. These have opened the flood gates to new opportunities in nearly all facets of human activity including warfare. Autonomous and intelligent machines such as robots have brought enormous advantages, freeing human operators from routine and mechanical tasks. These are highly exciting technological advancements; however, there is also the potential for frightening outcomes amid fears that humans are being pushed to the secondary level or even sidelined in the decision-making process. Further, delegating complex tasks including decision-making to devices, sensors and algorithms could potentially engender severe complications. 

Warfare is not immune to usage of unmanned systems and devices, and these have found relevance in tasks such as search and rescue, bomb disposal, firefighting, and so on, making warfare and emergency response more efficient and accurate with less collateral damage. Some militaries may be exploring weaponisation of autonomous technologies and it is their belief that soldiers and civilians will be at less risk as also liberating them from any moral consequences of killing or for self-defence.

A number of NGOs have been agitating against the use of LAWS and have called for an international ban on ‘killer robots’ including “a treaty for emerging weapons.” A campaign - ‘Coalition to Stop Killer Robots’ - led by Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield claims support from about 64 NGOs. Sharkey has expressed concerns over the growing competition among companies and militaries to build and acquire autonomous and smarter weapons, and labelled this trend as “a new arms race.” Further, it has also been noted that “inanimate machines cannot understand or respect the value of life” and “machines should never be permitted to take human life on the battlefield or in policing, border control, or any circumstances.”

Similar sentiments have been expressed elsewhere: some Google staffers have written a letter in an attempt to impress upon the company the need to “suspend work on a US military project that involved drones and artificial intelligence capability.” Likewise, scientists and academics at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in Seoul have threatened to boycott projects developing AI for military use. Elon Musk, a leader in pioneering robotics and AI, is heading a group of 116 specialists from across 26 countries urging the UN to ban the development and use of ‘killer robots’.

Although no country has openly declared that they are pursuing LAWS, states have made public their views on the issue. For instance, China's submission to the GGE notes that although LAWS has not been clearly defined, the issue merits the attention of the international community, and it supports the use of LAWS in operations involving nuclear, biological and chemical weapons environments. However, LAWS lack capability of distinction in use against combatants and innocents; do not possess the capability of determining proportionality of use of force; and it is difficult to establish accountability, which can potentially lead to the killing or maiming of non-combatants. It is therefore necessary to formulate general legal norms for LAWS. 

The UK has endorsed and made public its policy to not “develop and use fully autonomous weapons, or weapons that can make decisions independent from human oversight.” British MP Mark Lancaster, minister of state for the armed forces, has observed the issue from a doctrinal perspective and stated that it is “absolutely right that our weapons are operated by real people capable of making incredibly important decisions, and we are guaranteeing that vital oversight.” 

Unlike China and the UK, the Russian submission to the GGE notes that the "preventive, prohibitive or restrictive measures against LAWS" are complex, and given the limited human understanding of these technologies, such a ban may not serve the purpose. Although it is difficult to distinguish between civilian and military developments in autonomous systems, a ban on LAWS can preclude peaceful uses of these technologies. 

While that may be so, legal and ethical issues are beginning to gain greater salience particularly in the context of warfare where surrendering unbridled control to machines to take decisions to kill, injure, or destroy could challenge international law, ethics of warfighting, and human values.

IDRC Research Awards for Students from Canada and Developing Countries 2018

Application Deadline: 30th May, 2018 by 4:00 PM (EDT)

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Canada and citizens of Developing countries (except the following listed below)

To be taken at (country): Positions are available at IDRC’s head office in Ottawa, Canada; at their Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean in Montevideo, Uruguay; and at IDRC’s Regional Office for Sub-Saharan Africa, in Nairobi, Kenya. Eligibility criteria differ for each location.

Fields of Study: 20 awards will be offered during this call. There is one call per program listed below. You may only choose ONE of the following:
Advisory Committee on Research Ethics, Agriculture and Food Security, Climate Change (in Uruguay), Collaborative Adaptation Research Initiative in Africa and Asia, Employment and Growth, Food, Environment, and Health, Foundations for Innovation, Governance and Justice, Livestock Vaccine Innovation Fund (in Kenya), Maternal and Child Health, Networked Economies, Policy and Evaluation, Think Tank Initiative

About the Award: Research award recipients will undertake a one-year paid program of research on the topic they have submitted, and will receive hands-on experience in research management, grant administration, and the creation, dissemination, and use of knowledge from an international perspective.
For payroll purposes, awardees are considered full-time employees of IDRC. Benefits include employer contributions to Employment Insurance, Employer Health Tax, Canada Pension Plan, and paid vacation leave. Some travel and research expenses are also supported, up to a maximum of CA$15,000.

Type: Research, PhD

Eligibility: To be eligible, you must meet the following requirements:

• You must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada, or a citizen of a developing country.
• You must be enrolled at a Canadian university at the doctoral level (when you submit your application, you must have completed several courses of the doctoral program, but not necessarily all of the courses).
• Your research proposal must be approved by your thesis supervisor. Please provide proof.
• Your proposed field research must take place in one or more developing countries and be conducted for a doctoral dissertation.
• Your field research must correspond to IDRC thematic priorities. Applications proposing field research outside these thematic areas will not be considered.
• You must provide evidence of affiliation with an institution or organization in the developing region(s) in which the research will take place.
• You must have completed coursework and passed comprehensive exams before taking up the award.
• You may not be in receipt of two or more active IDRC awards at the same time. No time overlaps will be permitted.

If you are selected for an award, you have up to 12 months to start your field research from the date of the final selection.
It will be your responsibility to ensure that you follow all Government of Canada travel advisories while applying, when planning your trip, and while in the field. IDRC will not approve travel to a region for which there is an advisory that all travel should be avoided. If you are selected and the advisory changes, you will still be required to follow it even after a contract is signed.

Research country exceptions
In principle, IDRC supports research in all developing countries. At this time, however, we do not offer awards for research that involves the following countries:
Afghanistan, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Micronesia, North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of), Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Southern and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South Caucasus, and some small island states, including Comoros, São Tomé and Principe, Saint Helena, Timor-Leste, and Oceania (Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis & Futuna).

Countries subject to approval
You may apply for research in the following countries and territories, but if you are recommended for an award, your application may be subject to a further stage of approval within IDRC:
Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Democratic Republic of), Côte d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Gaza, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Maldives, Mauritania, Monserrat, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, Suriname, Tunisia, Venezuela, West Bank, and Zimbabwe.

Selection Criteria: The following criteria will be used to evaluate applications:

• Fit with IDRC mission and thematic priorities;
• Overall appropriateness, completeness, quality, and clarity of the research proposal;
• Overall methodology and considerations of cultural, logistical, and scientific constraints;
• Overall feasibility, duration, and timing of the research;
• Originality and creativity of the research;
• Potential contribution to existing knowledge on the issue;
• Gender dimensions of the research;
• Ethical considerations of the research;
• Benefit to the communities where the research is taking place;
• Suitability of the affiliated institution;
• Potential for research results to be disseminated and used;
• Budget;
• Applicant’s capacity to conduct the proposed research, including academic training, local language capacity, professional skills, research experience, and knowledge of country/region of research.

Number of Awards: 20

Value of Program: A maximum of CA$20,000 each

Duration of Program: 3-12 months

How to Apply: Before applying, please read the checklist of documents required for this call via Program Webpage (Link below).

Then Apply online

Visit Program Webpage for details

Award Provider: International  Development Research Centre (IDRC)