The Saudi Oil Attack: Geo-Political Theatrics

Hassanal Noor Rashid

THE OPENING SCENE

The 14th September 2019 attack which had caused significant damage to Saudi based Aramco Oil plants in Abqaiq and Khurais, was the trigger for much of the recent rise in regional tension  at least when it comes to Saudi- Iran relations.

However, given the way that recent events have unfolded, it seems that a commitment to a comprehensive and fair investigation is not exactly on the agenda.

If anything, there seems to be a more concerted effort in doubling down on a narrative that Iran is responsible for the attack despite the mind-boggling irrationality of why Iran would commit such an aggressive action where it stands to gain almost nothing from it.

Iran doesn’t need to worry about competing with Saudi Arabia over oil markets given the ridiculously draconian economic sanctions placed upon it by the U.S. To attack Saudi Arabia in such an open fashion would only result in loss of global political standing while risking retaliation and antagonism which opens up more avenues for potential conflict which Iran, given its historical experience dealing with the global hegemonic warmongering engine that is the U.S, does not want to risk entering.

In short from a geo-political strategic standpoint, Iran doesn’t benefit at all, from such a move.

So why would it commit such a bold and brazen attack?

MYSTERY AND MISDIRECTION

Nonetheless, various officials from the United States of America, almost without hesitation have jumped into a murky pool of unsubstantiated conjectures while hyping up the sensationalized fictional bogeyman of Iran. Their primary motivation is nothing more than their own antagonistic foreign policy stance and agenda against the Iranian state.

Even when Yemen’s Houthi rebels’ armed forces, claimed responsibility for the attack, as payback for Saudi Arabia’s continuous aggression towards the Yemeni people (which is completely backed and supported by the US government) their claim was dismissed with the argument that the 10 unmanned drone operation of 14th September was something far beyond the capabilities of the Yemeni people.  The attack, US officials and others alleged, was far more effective and too “neat” compared to previous attempts by the rebels and “likely originated from Iraq”.

It should also be mentioned that this attack is also a significant embarrassment for the Saudis and the U.S. as the Saudi government had spent a significant amount to purchase the U.S. air defence system which had failed to defend their oil installations

Analysis of the drone parts however, revealed some interesting factors, namely that the drone parts developed was beyond the technological capability of both Yemen and Iran. Historically speaking, Iran’s missile arsenal, while formidable in its own right, has long been plagued by poor reliability and guidance problems. This fact alone would debunk the Saudi narrative.  The logistical and technological assets are just not in the capabilities of the Iranians at this time.

The missiles on the other hand which were shown through pictures supplied by the Saudi Defence Ministry itself had indicated through the number MC 79050 a Joint Electronics Type Designation System (JETDS). This particular missile type is one of many developed by the Counter Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), all of which were confirmed by the Saudis to have been fired from the Iraq-Kuwait border. The missiles themselves were speculated to have been supplied from Ukraine. Some have even gone on to suggest that it may have been the work of rogue U.S. elements 

However with the Saudis bullishly pushing through this narrative, it becomes clearer, that the agenda here is to implicate Iran as the instigator, willfully ignoring the lack of evidence and the lack of plausible motive while simultaneously not giving credence to the plight faced by the Yemeni people.

Even when China’s own Xi Jinping, expressing concern over the issue as the attack had caused quite a stir within the International energy market, called for a comprehensive and just investigation into the incident — a fairly standard and sensible approach to calming the tensions between the Saudis and the Iranian state for the sake of international energy security — China was rewarded with new rounds of American sanctions against it for dealing with Iran on oil.

Considering all these factors, one begins to wonder about a few things.

Firstly why is there such an insistence that Iran be painted as the criminal in this story despite the poor foundation of the accusations?

Second, as we have shown, Iran does not stand to benefit from this event, which is why the question has to be asked: who benefits the most from this whole debacle?

The answers are found among the role-players themselves who are now in a situation that can only be called grand geo-political theatrics with the protagonists being the U.S. and its allies, Saudi Arabia the hapless victim, and Iran, the proverbial bad guy.

HEROES, VILLAINS AND VICTIMS

Saudi Arabia has called for retaliation against the Iranian state and has played its role as a victim of aggression. Saudi Arabia play-acting is what is perhaps best described as bad comedy and to many who have followed the issue, the irony is not lost. Since 2015, the Saudis have been massacring the civilian population of Yemen. According to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, 67 percent of all reported civilian casualties in Yemen have been caused by Saudi-led coalition air strikes making them the “most responsible for civilian deaths” in Yemen since 2015. The current death toll now exceeds over 90,000 with many more suffering from treatable diseases in the midst of crumbling social infrastructure due to the on-going hostilities by the Saudis.

The leading role of the hero will most likely be the U.S. and its allies who not only perpetuate the narrative against Iran but also, as we have noted, militarily support the brutal war against the Yemeni people, one of the poorest people on earth. Apart from supplying arms to the unpopular Yemeni government, the US is also helping to enforce a naval blockade. A recent article by Amnesty International observes that a laser guided bomb manufactured by US company Raytheon, was used in a Saudi-led attack which killed six Yemeni civilians, three of whom were children. In addition to this mess, the United Kingdom government has come out saying that it “unreservedly” apologised for authorising arms deals to Saudi Arabia in breach of a court ruling against the sale of weapons that could be used in the war in Yemen.

With the U.S. and the Saudi state fanning the flames, one should also ask: what would be their motive for perpetuating and escalating conflict in the region?

Some have laid the blame directly at the U.S. administration and President Donald Trump, accusing the president of going back on his election promise to end US involvement in military conflicts in West Asia.

But is that true?

Trump, despite many other failings, has shown considerable restraint by rejecting demands to launch major attacks on Iran. If his previous actions are any indication of what his stance on conflict escalation is, notably on wanting to draw down forces from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria (his decision to pull out of Syria resulted in the resignation of his then Secretary of Defense James “Mad Dog” Mattis), Trump is more inclined to avoid getting caught in another costly war.   He would rather strike a deal with his foe.

One simply has to recall during the previous Presidential Election Campaign when Trump adamantly labelled the entire Middle East Wars as “stupid” and given that he is aiming to contest for the U.S. Presidential election next year, it makes little to no sense to commit American lives to another senseless war.  It also goes without saying that should the US involve itself in a military operation against Iran, it will only expose its forces in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan Somalia and other places in the region to hostilities and possible Iranian guerrilla attacks.

So while it may be an admittedly contestable conjecture at this point, if we entertain the idea that this whole scenario was a false flag operation (something the U.S. has been historically known to do to attack sovereign foreign governments), it stands to reason it is not Trump’s administration that is directly coordinating these events in recent weeks and in fact there may be those within the U.S. government that seek to oppose the President on his own foreign policy stance.

The murky swamp that is the deep state of the U.S. largely controlled by the neocons, has always been the lever  of power within the U.S. administration and many in it have served to advance the Zionist project of the Israeli State. Exemplifying this is perhaps people like prolific warmonger John Bolton, who unlike Trump, seeks very much to enter into military conflict with Iran. He was quoted in 2017 by the Mujahedeen Khalq, MEK, which is represented by members of the Iranian exile group, as saying that the Trump Administration should embrace their goal of “regime change” in Iran and that before 2019, they will “celebrate in Tehran”.

Lest we forget, it was John Bolton, who vigorously campaigned against Tehran, and he was the one who ultimately demolished the hard and long struggle for the Iran Nuclear deal, tearing it to pieces and causing further rifts between Iran and the U.S. and essentially damaging U.S. foreign policy for the Trump Administration.

Bolton succeeded to some extent but in early September 2019, he was asked by President Donald Trump to resign as the National Security Advisor, noting that he “strongly disagrees” with many of Bolton’s suggestions “as did others in the administration”.

Perhaps it is coincidental, but one cannot help but draw a connection between Bolton’s resignation, and the Saudi oil plant attack as it had occurred soon afterwards.

With all that was mentioned previously, it would seem that the U.S. and Donald Trump’s Administration would benefit very little from this event and may face more backlash from it. Why then does the U.S. insist on pushing this poorly structured narrative of Iran’s involvement in the September 14 attack?

Does Bolton and his neo-con friends in the deep state have anything to do with this attack, and if so why and what would they have to gain?

Perhaps at this stage we must look beyond the theatrical show being presented to us and have a peek behind the proverbial red curtain and follow the puppet strings that are being pulled.

HIDDEN HANDS BEHIND THE CURTAIN

President Donald Trump’s call for John Bolton’s resignation via twitter had sent some shockwaves within the bureaucracy of the U.S. Administration, especially with Trump now having gone through a total of three National Security Advisers, H.R. McMaster, Michael Flynn and now Bolton.

Bolton’s dismissal brings us back to the question of who stands to gain?

To encapsulate, there is no credible evidence to suggest Iranian involvement. The Trump Administration gains almost nothing from the attack. So who stands to benefit from it?

One suspect is the Saudi elite with its prolonged proxy war against the state of Iran, more commonly known as the Iran-Saudi proxy conflict. The Saudi elite sees itself as a regional power. It views Iran as a direct challenge to that ambition.  This conflict is primarily political and economic in practice, but there have been attempts to exacerbate religious tensions especially between the Sunni and Shia sects within the Muslim Ummah.  This has repercussions beyond West Asia. Its impact upon Malaysia is an example. Influential Saudi trained preachers continue to demonize and vilify Shia groups and religious practices. Though there is hardly an indigenous Shia community in Malaysia, this vilification obviously serves the larger Saudi agenda of marginalising Shias and Iran.

However if we do not wish to entertain the idea that Saudi Arabia is willing blow up its own oil infrastructure to begin a false flag  operation to justify military action against Iran, then we have to abandon “the  Saudis did it theory”. Besides, the attack as we have acknowledged was a sophisticated technological exercise beyond Saudi capabilities. Even a false flag operation would play into the hands of the local Shia population that inhabits that particular geographical area in Saudi Arabia and for that reason would undermine the interests of the Sunni helmed Saudi state.

This leaves us with one other country that fits the proverbial bill and perhaps stands to gain the most from the deliberate targeting of Iran. It is the Zionist state of Israel.

Israel’s link to the lobbyist movement in America, its relationship with the neo-cons and its close historical ties with the deep state are all embodied in its intimate tie with John Bolton.

The Israeli government, in particular Benjamin Netanyahu, had hoped that by working through Bolton, there would be a more vigorous US policy against Iran, especially as mentioned before, Bolton clearly had been campaigning for maximum pressure against Iran, with him calling for more sanctions and the cancellation of the Iran Nuclear Deal as soon as he became National Security Adviser in April 2018.

All for the state of Israel.

Upon John Bolton’s dismissal from the Trump government, there were definitely segments in the Israeli Administration that were left uneasy by his departure. As a case in point, Amos Yadlin, the head of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv stated that “There’s no doubt that there’s sadness in Jerusalem” as John Bolton had “greatly amplified the Prime Minister’s position [on the issue]. But even with Bolton, Washington’s Iran Policy wasn’t heading in a direction that Netanyahu wanted.” 

Much like how the attacks at the Saudi Oil Plant happened a few days after Bolton’s dismissal, it is also coincidental that the attack had occurred around the same time as Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to annex more Palestinian land, especially Palestine’s Jordan Valley.

The biggest fear for Israel, is that if the Trump Administration, suddenly favours détente with Iran, Israel may have to stand alone against Iran, something it has never had to do being backed by US   Administrations all along.

So perhaps this whole incident may have been a response to that. Escalation of military tensions, justifying military aggression towards Iran, will not benefit Saudi Arabia and the U.S. but it will benefit Israel’s agenda centring around its perpetual quest for continuous land annexation, expansion of  power and enhanced control over the region. The one country that seeks to counter this parasitic drive for power and control is Iran. Iran’s presence in the region balances Israel’s and the U.S’s . hegemonic expansionism and quest for total dominance. Because the Iranian people have suffered so much from decades old US sanctions and Israeli manipulations, they are determined to protect their sovereignty, independence and dignity at all costs.

Seen from this perspective, the Saudi oil attack may have been an Israeli ploy to draw the US and the Saudi government into a more serious conflict with Iran.  It is a misstep because the ploy has not worked. Both the US and the Saudis are very much aware of the dangers of a military conflict with Iran.

In fact, the whole 14th September episode reveals how complex the geopolitical game in West Asia is. We don’t know how the game will end. We only hope that the theatrics that we have witnessed so far will not culminate in a huge tragedy for the people of West Asia and indeed for the entire human family.

Google announces a new breakthrough for quantum computing

Bryan Dyne

Researchers at Google AI Quantum have announced a successful experiment in which for the first time a quantum computer has performed a task that ordinary computers based on integrated circuits are incapable of doing in a reasonable amount of time. This technical milestone paves the way for far-reaching advances in physics, chemistry, astronomy, materials science, machine learning and a host of other fields.

The results were produced using Google’s quantum computer, dubbed Sycamore. It is the product of a collaboration between 75 scientists led by Frank Arute at Google, NASA, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and more than a dozen other facilities in Germany and the United States. They compared how fast their machine and the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Summit, could produce a random number from a specially designed circuit one million times.

The experiment was then repeated multiple times on increasingly complex algorithms until they could show that while a quantum computer generated a result, a classical computer could not. During their final experiment, Sycamore produced its one million random numbers in 200 seconds. Summit was estimated to need 10,000 years to perform the same calculations.

This exponential increase in computing speed is the first documented instance of so-called quantum supremacy. The term was popularized by John Preskill in 2011 to describe the set of problems that are shown to be intractable for even the best modern computers but that should be relatively straightforward for the quantum computers being developed, thus providing a measure to determine if a given quantum computer had in fact surpassed the computational ability of conventional electronics.

Quantum supremacy also defines certain engineering milestones. While quantum computers have always held the promise of being able to do exponentially more processes per second than conventional machines, they have proven exponentially more difficult to build and maintain. It was not at all clear that quantum computers would in practice ever surpass supercomputers. Nonetheless, Google’s research indicates that there is at least one case where quantum computers are supreme, and suggests that there are many others.

The end goal, however, is not just to produce random numbers. An off-the-shelf laptop can produce a million random numbers in seconds if the algorithms used to produce them are not purposefully made complicated, as were the test cases for Sycamore and Summit. Rather, quantum computers have in theory the capability of solving in minutes problems that even the best supercomputers would likely not solve in the lifespan of our solar system. Two of these include simulating the motion of atomic and subatomic particles and factoring integers of several hundred digits.

To solve them, one must go beyond familiar binary models of computation which are used in today’s personal computers, tablets and phones. These devices store and process information in their memory using distinct physical states, usually some sort of switch being turned off or on, and the data they contain is often described as a sequence of the symbols 0 and 1. One unit of information, a bit, consists of either a 0 or 1 and the number of bits, usually discussed as bytes (where one byte equals eight bits), is the measure of the size of a computer’s memory.

This method of storing and retrieving information takes a small but finite amount of time, an amount which is not noticeable for a single calculation yet can grow large very quickly. High-end modern laptops can perform tens of billions of operations per second while the Summit supercomputer is capable of 148 million billion operations per second. And yet, while Summit could multiply two 300-digit numbers almost instantaneously, it would take the supercomputer—using its most advanced algorithms—billions of years to factor the product. A quantum computer is hypothesized to be able to perform the same operation in minutes.

The original rationale for quantum computers was not to factor large numbers, a key part in certain types of encryption, but to directly simulate rather than approximate quantum mechanics. This field of physics, the study of the motion of matter at its smallest scales, is inherently probabilistic. The position and momentum of a particle are not, as in our everyday life, described as a pair of numbers but as two sets of well-defined probabilities. In the early 1980s, Soviet mathematician Yuri Manin and American physicists Paul Benioff and Richard Feynman realized that if a machine could be devised to perform operations using this property of matter, it would be able to calculate the motion of matter exactly as it occurs in nature.

Instead of switches, Manin, Benioff and Feynman proposed to store information in a fundamental particle such as a photon, the basic unit of light. The value of the “qubit” is stored within the inherent rotation of the photon, which is either positive or negative. The difference between a bit and a qubit, and this is key, is that a qubit initially has both the positive and negative values. Only when the photon interacts with some external particle or wave will it fall into a single state, and it will do so following the probabilistic laws of quantum mechanics. This is known as “state superposition.”

In addition to superposition, quantum computing also takes advantage of a second property of fundamental particles known as “entanglement.” It is possible to take two (or more) particles and force them to interact in such a way that even though separated, each particle acts as part of the same system. What results from this is the ability to act on a single entangled particle, which instantaneously acts on all others within the entangled system.

The combination of state superposition and entanglement is what make quantum computers so much more powerful than classical computers. A computer with 266 bits can store or process 266 pieces of information at a time. A quantum computer with 266 qubits can store or process 2^266 (10^80, a one followed by eighty zeros) pieces of information at a time, a number equivalent to the number of atoms in the observable universe.

Yet qubits are incredibly difficult to operate on. The particles that are storing information react with their surroundings, either nearby matter or the so-called vacuum of spacetime, which is not “nothing” but in fact a constant creation and annihilation of particles. This can cause unknown but definite interactions—called quantum decoherence—with one particle which translates to each other particle with which it is entangled, forcing researchers to reset the entire system. Each particle serving as a qubit must be isolated as much as possible from these unwanted connections, typically by physically isolating them and cooling their surroundings to temperatures close absolute zero.

While it is impossible to suppress all quantum decoherence, for that would involve stopping the motion of matter, an impossibility, a great deal of research from groups around the world has gone into eliminating most of the extraneous motion. This effort is what has allowed Arute’s team to successfully align and operate Sycamore, which consists of 53 working qubits, outperforming the world’s most powerful supercomputer, which consists of many trillions of bits.

This technology is expected to herald advances in a variety of fields. Quantum computers, when they are more capable of surpassing supercomputers in all problems, not just one, will be able to more quickly and accurately find exoplanets, determine the properties of new materials, study the outcome of chemical reactions, and produce more advanced forms of artificial intelligence. They are at the same time a striking confirmation of humanity’s ability to understand and master nature.

Quantum computers under capitalism, however, have the capacity for reinforcing oppression. Standard encryption schemes will be broken in minutes or seconds, giving nations or corporations the ability to spy on their rivals and the working class, as well as infiltrate, control and destroy the electronic systems of whole countries. Employees at their workplace can be tracked with even greater efficiency and forced to work longer and harder. Immigrants can be hunted down with facial recognition and other forms of tracking with increased ease. And the algorithms used by Google, Facebook and other tech companies in conjunction with the US military and intelligence agencies will have an unparalleled ability to censor the internet, particularly left-wing, anti-capitalist and socialist publications.

While Google’s Sycamore quantum computer is nowhere near capable of such feats, the social and political consequences of a private company or a capitalist government having control of such a machine must be understood. At the same time, this must galvanize struggle against capitalism and for the establishment of a society where such vast and fundamental advances can be changed from tools of violence and repression to instruments for securing a prosperous and fulfilling life for all people.

More evidence of cover-up of Australian war crimes in Afghanistan

Mike Head

Further examples are emerging of the official whitewash of illegal killings and other abuses committed by Australian Special Forces units as part of the US-led invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Among the latest reports is one that soldiers shot dead at least five civilian protesters and injured six demonstrating outside an Australian base in 2010.

This evidence, the latest in a long series of damning disclosures, underscores why the Australian government is intensifying its efforts to suppress media freedom by threatening and prosecuting whistleblowers and journalists in order to prevent the exposure of war crimes and other abuses.

An Australian light armored vehicle in Afghanistan

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported this week that documents and video footage it had obtained from the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) showed that protesters were gunned down near Australia’s Forward Operating Base Mirwais in the Chora Valley on September 17, 2010.

The incident at the base, 20 kilometres northeast of the Uruzgan provincial capital Tarin Kot, typified both the hostility of most Afghans toward the occupying forces and the brutal character of the military occupation itself.

The ABC said a three-minute video showed hundreds of men and boys approaching the base, some carrying sticks and flags, before dozens of rocks were thrown at the roof of the base. Australian soldiers are heard shouting in alarm before reporting that smoke grenades would be used to disperse the crowd. The video ended before the soldiers began opening fire on the demonstrators.

The AIHRC files contradict official claims, issued shortly after the incident, that a soldier shot only one protester who had “aimed an AK-47” at troops. A Defence Department spokesperson this week still insisted it was a legitimate act of self-defence in response to “rioters.” He stated: “An investigation by the Commanding Officer into the incident found that Australian and Coalition soldiers acted appropriately and in accordance with their Rules of Engagement.”

The ABC reported that the latest material was among more than 90 investigation files it had obtained from the Uruzgan office of the AIHRC. Uruzgan was the operational area for Australia’s Special Operations Task Group, which consisted of about 320 commandos. The ABC has chosen not to release the material but instead reported only selected cases.

In one, a 2012 operation, Australian troops killed two villagers and left others maimed in Sarkhume, a small farming community. Residents complained to local authorities but an internal Australian investigation classified the victims as combatants and ruled that the raid was justified.

In a 2013 incident, Australian Special Air Service (SAS) forces entered a house in the village of Ala Balogh, on the fringes of Tarin Kot, and killed Bismillah Jan Acadi and his son Sadiqullah, 6, who were both sleeping and unarmed. This contradicted the findings of a military investigation that the man had pointed a gun at a SAS trooper.

These are only the most recent documents, leaked or obtained from official sources, disclosing illegal killings—including of captured detainees—torture, desecration of bodies and other war crimes committed by Australian units. By all indications, this is only the tip of an iceberg.

In 2017, the ABC published, also in a redacted form, what it called the “Afghan Files.” They covered at least 10 incidents between 2009 and 2013 in which military investigators summarily cleared Special Forces soldiers of killing civilians, including children, and other war crimes, such as severing the hands of dead alleged Taliban fighters.

The accumulating evidence points to systemic abuses, clearly authorised and shielded at the highest levels. This cannot be explained, as the corporate media has claimed, as the conduct of isolated “bad apples” or “poor culture” among the troops. These barbarities underscore the inherently criminal character of the wars of occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq to secure US control over the strategic and resource-rich Middle East and Central Asian region.

As a consequence, the military units involved treat the entire populations as the enemy. Moreover, their rules of engagement permit such killings, and military inquiries invariably find that soldiers acted within these rules.

The Special Forces have been the primary ground force in Australian military operations since the Vietnam War. That is precisely because they specialise in secretive targeted killings and assaults. They are also the frontline units that would be called out within Australia, with “shoot-to-kill” powers, to deal with “domestic violence”—civil unrest—under expanded military call-out legislation passed by parliament last year.

In August, the Liberal-National Coalition government announced extra funding of $3 billion over 20 years to upgrade their weapons and resources. Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisted that the “wonderful” commandos had “an impeccable record” in “Afghanistan in particular.” He effectively pre-empted a long-delayed inquiry by Paul Brereton, a judge and Army Reserve major-general, who reportedly has interviewed more than 200 witnesses of the killings, torture and abuses.

This week’s revelations will fuel the widespread opposition to the mounting persecution of whistleblowers and journalists. An ex-military lawyer, David McBride, is currently in the first stages of a trial, behind closed doors in Canberra, for allegedly leaking information to journalists about the Afghan war crimes coverup.

An unprecedented police raid on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in June seized documents related to the “Afghan Files,” acting on a warrant against reporter Dan Oakes, producer Sam Clark and director of news Gaven Morris. A day earlier, police spent hours ransacking the Canberra home of a News Corp political editor, Annika Smethurst for reporting on secretive government plans to expand the domestic surveillance powers of the intelligence agencies.

Despite public outrage, the government has refused to rule out prosecuting these journalists. This blatant attack on journalism is a warning of how far governments in Australia and globally will go to block the truth about war crimes and mass surveillance.

While the establishment media outlets this week launched a prominent “right to know” campaign against aspects of this assault on press freedom, none have come to the defence of Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange. Yet, it was the arrest of the WikiLeaks founder in London on April 11 that gave the global green light for such repression.

Assange’s imprisonment was rapidly followed by the Trump administration’s application for his extradition to face jail for life, if not execution, on US Espionage Act charges. Assange’s only “crime” has been to expose the killings, regime-change operations and global spying committed by the US and its allies, including Australia.

As the WSWS has warned, these developments are directly related to covering up, not just the past crimes of the US and its allies, but preparing for even greater ones as social and political unrest grows and Washington escalates its economic war and military confrontation with China.

Euro area heads for slump as Draghi steps down as central bank chief

Nick Beams

The governing council of the European Central Bank (ECB), meeting in Frankfurt on Thursday, has reaffirmed its controversial decision in September to lower the base interest rate further into negative territory and resume its asset purchasing program to the tune of €20 billion a month.

The decision will further expand the ECB’s holdings of €2.6 trillion worth of financial assets. It sparked considerable criticism both from within the governing council, leading to the resignation of the German representative, and also from several European central bankers past and present.

Speaking at his final press conference before former International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde takes over next month, outgoing ECB president Mario Draghi noted the support for the policy shift at the governing council meeting, saying there was a “general call” for unity. But it is not clear whether the critics have shifted their position or whether they will resume their opposition when Lagarde takes the reins.

Addressing the decision at the press conference, Draghi said that “unfortunately” everything that had happened since the September meeting showed the need for the ECB to act in the way it had.

In his introductory remarks, he said: “Incoming data since the last governing council meeting in early September confirm our previous assessment of a protracted weakness in euro area growth dynamics, the persistence of prominent downside risks and muted inflation pressures.”

The slowdown in growth mainly reflected “the ongoing weakness of international trade in an environment of persistent global uncertainties, which continue to weigh on the euro area manufacturing sector and are dampening investment.”

In response to questions, he noted the ECB had been preparing to exit from its expansionary monetary policy in 2017 but conditions had changed since then and the central bank had to shift course.

Draghi was referring to the pronounced downward shift in global economic conditions over the past 18 months. In 2017 the world economy was experiencing an upturn, prompting the view that the world economy was finally recovering from the 2008 financial crisis and central banks could start to “normalise” monetary policy.

The “recovery” proved to be short-lived and by the middle of last year the global economy had entered what the IMF called at its meeting earlier this month a “synchronised” slowdown.

Draghi said the main take-out from the IMF meeting was what he called a shift in the “paradigm of reference.” Previously the view had been that interest rates were low and would remain low for some time but that they would go up.

Now the sense was that interest rates would stay low and remain there for a long time.

Commenting directly on the situation in the euro area, he said the latest purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for manufacturing—an indicator of future activity—was at its lowest level since 2012. The services sector had continued to hold up but now there were indications that PMIs in this area were starting to turn down.

Data released in advance of the ECB meeting pointed to the worsening economic outlook for Europe. Eurozone inflation fell to its lowest level in almost three years. Prices rose by only 0.8 percent in September from a year earlier, compared to 1 percent for August, and below estimates of a 0.9 percent rise.

The mandate of the ECB is that it should conduct monetary policy with the aim of maintaining inflation at close to 2 percent.

However, as one financial analyst commented to the Financial Times: “Almost every time Eurostat has published inflation data so far this year, the result has been disappointing for the ECB.”

France, at 1.1 percent, was the only country among the larger member states to record an inflation rate above 1 percent, while in Germany the inflation rate dropped from 2.2 percent a year ago to 0.9 percent.

The euro area is being heavily impacted by the slowdown in global trade. Figures released on Wednesday showed eurozone exports to the rest of the world fell in August by 2.2 percent compared to a year ago, while intra-eurozone exports were down by 5.5 percent. International trade was hit by the 5.7 percent fall in exports of machinery and transport equipment, reflecting the contraction of global investment.

Earlier this week, Germany’s central bank warned that the country’s economy may have contracted in the third quarter, following a decline of 0.1 percent in the June, putting it at risk of a technical recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

The Bundesbank said while a recession “in the sense of a clear broad-based decline” with underutilised capacity “had not yet been apparent,” the export-oriented manufacturing industry “continued to weaken” in the third quarter. Car production was “greatly reduced” in July and August while production of intermediate and consumer goods “fell sharply.”

Other reports on the German and eurozone economy indicate the same trends.

A report from the survey firm IHS Markit said that, according to its composite index covering manufacturing and services, employment levels in Germany had contracted this month for the first time in six years.

Speaking on the overall situation in the eurozone, the firm’s chief business economist, Chris Williamson, said the composite index showed the eurozone economy grew by only 0.1 percent in the September quarter, down from the 0.2 percent in the second quarter and well below trend levels.

“The eurozone economy started the fourth quarter mired close to stagnation, with the flash PMI pointing to a quarterly GDP growth rate of just under 1 percent. The manufacturing downturn remains the fiercest since 2012 and continues to infect the service sector, where October saw the smallest increase in new work for almost five years,” he said.

Williamson said the labour market was being hit as firms retrenched amid signs of excess capacity and a continued decline in jobs growth. This would add to risks that the trade-led downturn could spread to the household sector and further dampen growth by the end of the year.

“The survey indicates that Mario Draghi’s tenure at the helm of the ECB ends on a note of near-stalled GDP, slower jobs growth, near-stagnant prices and growing pessimism about the outlook, piling pressure on Christine Lagarde to drive new solutions to the eurozone’s renewed malaise.”

Draghi, once described by New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman as arguably the “greatest central banker of modern times,” is leaving his presidency of the ECB hailed as the man who “saved the euro” with his pledge in 2012 to do “whatever it takes.” What that meant in practice was a massive bailout of the banks, paid for through austerity policies imposed on the European working class, above all in Greece, where living standards and social conditions were reduced to levels not seen since the 1930s.

As for the so-called “unconventional monetary policies” he espoused and implemented, together with other major central bankers, the record shows that they have failed to bring any real economic revival and only created the conditions for a renewed economic and financial crisis.

Lebanese protestors keep up demands for the government’s resignation

Jean Shaoul

Workers and students throughout Lebanon have kept up their protests—despite torrential rain—against Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s government. The protests now span eight days, rejecting his so-called economic reforms and demanding the resignation of his entire government.

The protests erupted last week, bringing a quarter of the country’s six million people out onto the streets after the government sought to impose yet another tax aimed at making the country’s deeply impoverished working class pay for a deepening economic crisis—a $6-a-month tax on WhatsApp messages. Attempts to use the army and the police to break up protests only served to inflame popular anger and were largely abandoned.

Anti-government protesters in Beirut, Lebanon [Source: AP Photo/Hassan Ammar]

The mass protests were fuelled by deep-seated anger oversocial inequality that has soared since the end of the civil war in 1990. The richest one percent monopolize 58 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the poorest 50 percent own less than one percent, in a country that functions as a tax haven and playground for the region’s kleptocrats.

The protests have united workers and youth across the sectarian and national divide, with Palestinian and Syrian refugees, against whom the Lebanese ruling elite have long stirred up xenophobic tensions as a means of deflecting united class action, taking part. There are some 1.5 million Syrians who have fled the vicious US-driven proxy war engulfing their country, to whom Lebanon has refused to grant refugee or asylum status, as well as hundreds of thousands of longstanding Palestinian refugees who have very limited rights in the country.

Hariri, taken aback by the scale of the protests, backtracked. He abandoned the tax and, threatening to resign if they did not, forced his fractious coalition partners to agree a budget for 2020 that imposed no additional taxes on the working class.

While the budget makes token gestures such as halving current and former politicians’ salaries and benefits and requires the central bank and private banks to contribute $3.3 billion to a “near-zero deficit” for the 2020 budget, it opens up Lebanon’s economy to private investors, more privatisations and debt, all impacting adversely on living standards. With a national debt of $86 billion, recently reduced to junk-bond status by the credit ratings agencies, the government must satisfy onerous economic and fiscal conditions for accessing the $11 billion in loans pledged at last year’s international conference in support of Lebanon development and reforms (CEDRE) in Paris.

But Hariri’s budget only served to infuriate the masses on the streets, who dismissed his cynical measures against the politicians and the banks with contempt. Why, they asked, had such measures—and more—not been taken years ago?

Protestors demanded an end to the corruption that pervades every pore of economic and social life in the country, the resignation of the entire government and free and fair elections not based on the divisive sectarian framework of previous elections. They shouted slogans such as, “We are one people united against the state. We want it to fall” and “Revolution, revolution!”

Not one political party has been spared their wrath. In southern Lebanon, a predominantly Shi’ite region, protesters denounce both Nabil Berri, speaker of Lebanon’s parliament and head of the Hezbollah-allied Amal Movement, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. While Hezbollah’s earlier support was based largely on its social welfare organisations that provided education and healthcare services, US sanctions on the group have limited its resources.

Despite the government’s call for schools and universities to re-open, they—along with the banks—have remained closed, bringing much of economic life to a standstill, with roads blocked by protestors and long lines of vehicles at the gas stations as fuel runs out. There are fears that when the banks do reopen, they will limit withdrawals.

On Thursday, television stations broadcast a poorly edited and pre-recorded statement by President Michel Aoun, who had remained silent throughout the crisis. He appealed to the masses with a pledge of support for the lifting of bank secrecy and politicians’ legal immunity from prosecution, declaring that those who had stolen public money would be held to account.

The public prosecutor announced that he has begun legal proceedings against the former billionaire prime minister Najib Mikati, his brother and son and Bank Audi on corruption charges. Aoun said, “I am ready to meet your representatives who carry your concerns, to listen to your specific demands.”

While he added that there was “a need to review the current government,” hinting at a reshuffle, he warned protesters that he would not tolerate continuing unrest. He said, “We will discuss what we can do together to achieve your objectives without causing collapse and chaos, open a constructive dialogue that can lead to a constructive result, and define options that will lead to the best results.”

Hariri’s coalition partners are the warlords and beneficiaries of the sectarian power-sharing system ushered in by the 1990 Taif Accords that ended the 15-year civil war and incorporated into the Lebanese Constitution the same year. He said that any reshuffle would be in line with the “constitutional mechanisms”—aka Lebanon’s sectarian political order from which the political dynasties, including the billionaire Hariri, benefit.

The major imperialist powers—the US, France and Britain—remained silent for days, before nervously urging Lebanon to heed the protestors’ “legitimate frustrations” and rein in corruption.

But President Aoun failed to impress the masses. “We have heard it all before,” and “We are here till the government falls,” they said.

Like its counterparts in Sudan and elsewhere, the protest has something of a carnival and nationalistic atmosphere. The overwhelmingly young and predominantly working-class demonstrators lack a clear and worked-out political perspective, articulating opposition to imperialism and all factions of the Lebanese bourgeoisie, leaving them at the mercy of those bourgeois forces that are organized.

The right-wing forces of the Christian parties, the Lebanese Forces Party, whose four cabinet members resigned from Hariri’s cabinet last weekend, the Free Patriotic Movement and the fascistic Kata’ib party, have taken part in the protests, calling for the cabinet’s resignation and early elections in the hope of better positioning themselves later. They will no doubt also encourage protesters into precipitous attacks on government property and security forces.

At the same time, numerous other groups, including professionals, are forming their own organisations to pursue their own agendas. There have been calls for a technocratic government to take over, while others have called for the army to take control if the protests and unrest continue.

The bourgeois and petty-bourgeois layers, regardless of their opposition to the Hariri government, offer no way forward for the workers and poor in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s struggle takes place amid a growing wave of working-class militancy throughout the Middle East and North Africa, exemplified by the strikes and demonstrations in Algeria, Sudan, Egypt and most recently, Iraq. It is to these forces and workers internationally that Lebanese workers must turn.

The only way to establish a democratic regime in Lebanon that satisfies the basic economic and social aspirations of the masses is through a struggle led by the working class, independently of and in opposition to the liberal and pseudo-left forces in the middle class, to take power, expropriating the regime’s ill-gotten wealth in the context of a broad international struggle of the working class, uniting Arab, Jewish, Kurdish, Turkish and Iranian workers against capitalism and for the building of socialism.

Millions march for social equality across Chile

Eric London

Millions of people protesting social inequality and state violence poured into the streets across Chile yesterday in the largest demonstrations in the country’s history.

Stunned Chilean television commenters described the scene as a “human sea,” an “interminable column” and a “carnival of people,” though few were watching the reports because half the adult population of the country was already in the streets. Over one million people descended on Santiago’s Plaza Italia while protestors filled every city in the country.

People gather during an anti-government protest in Santiago, Chile (AP Photo Rodrigo/Abd)

With yesterday’s demonstrations, the floodtide of international working class struggle rose higher amid a week of explosive social protest. Across the world, workers and youth of all races are demonstrating with the same basic demand: social equality.

In Iraq, the government killed at least 30 people yesterday as protests swelled in Baghdad and in the industrial south. In the African nation of Guinea, one million people marched Thursday against an extension of the president’s term in office. Protests are ongoing in Lebanon, and Haiti while last week saw mass turnouts in Barcelona, Spain and Ecuador.

The working class stood at the head of yesterday’s protests in Chile, with overwhelming participation reported among teachers, miners, dockworkers and other critical sectors.

Truck drivers and taxi drivers blocked the country’s highways and toll roads yesterday and bus drivers walked off the job in Santiago after police murdered a protesting bus driver. Middle school, high school and university youth marched under their school banners across the country. A mile-long caravan of motorcyclists drove through Santiago. Hackers claimed to have published the personal information of every member of the hated Carabinero police.

The demonstrations were not called by any political party and Chilean reporters noted the absence of any party flags or banners in the crowds. The trade union bureaucracies had no visible presence. As El País worried earlier this week, “No political force with representation in congress has been able to channel the social unease.”

The massive turnout came hours after President Sebastían Piñera attempted to placate protestors by announcing an increase in pension fundings. Earlier this week, Piñera rescinded the hated hike of metro fees that initially sparked demonstrations.

As protests swelled, the federal legislature abandoned the congress building in Valparaiso in the afternoon while Piñera maintained a panicked silence. The head of the lower house declared, “This is a high risk situation. I have called for the suspension of legislative activities and I am assuming responsibility for getting everyone out of the building.”

The 20,000 police and military deployed to the streets in the ongoing state of emergency initially pulled back to guard critical government buildings, but began attacking protestors in front of the presidential palace La Moneda in mid-evening. Soon after, the military began deploying to enforce the curfew and were confronted in some locations by angry demonstrators.

Reports are emerging of horrific torture at the hands of the Chilean police and military. Yesterday, the Chilean National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) reported that police have arrested 5,500 people in more than a week of ongoing protest.

A legal complaint filed by the INDH shows that in a working class suburb of Santiago four people “were ‘crucified’ on a metal antenna at the police station, hanged by their handcuffs” and beaten. There are widespread reports of rape, sexual abuse and violent beatings. There are 19 dead and hundreds injured, 123 people by police and military gunshot alone.

The police and military are preparing for a massive crackdown. Yesterday, the military called up reservists from the country’s provinces to perform administrative duties that will facilitate the deployment of 15,000 more soldiers to the streets.

Just 46 years ago after the coup of September 11, 1973, the Chilean armed forces drowned the workers’ movement in blood, killing thousands and torturing thousands more. Thousands of children of murdered left-wing militants were adopted to overseas couples. Tens of thousands more were brutally beaten in prison.

The size of yesterday’s demonstration in Chile, in which many family members of Pinochet’s victims participated, shows the masses of working people want a reckoning with the historical crimes of the Chilean ruling class and military, for which no one has ever been held to account. Pinochet himself died in freedom after the British Labour Party twenty years ago blocked his extradition to Spain for prosecution.

The demonstrators’ chant—“This isn’t about 30 pesos, it’s about 30 years”—testifies to the desire on the part of millions to fight the whole political establishment responsible for papering over the crimes of the dictatorship, preserving the power of the Chilean military and maintaining capitalist rule in the so-called transition to democracy that began in the late 1980s.

To prevent another September 11, the working class must not allow itself to become trapped in another popular front, in which its independent class interests will be subordinated to a faction of the Chilean ruling class presenting itself as “left.” This strategy, advanced by murdered Chilean President Salvador Allende, his Socialist Party, the Stalinist Communist Party and supported by the Pabloite MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left), paved the way for the coup by suppressing the class struggle and advancing the lie that the military represented “the people in uniform.”

Today, those seeking to keep the working class upheaval within the confines of the capitalist system include the Broad Front and Stalinist Communist Party, both of which are calling for “new elections” and denounced the protests as “violent.”

The US-based Jacobin Magazine published a translated article by the Chilean pseudo-left Convergencia Social asserting that “a new social bloc that includes trade unions, student, feminist and environmental groupings have proposed a set of demands that is ‘transversal’ (non-sectoral) and extends across the whole nation.” This “social bloc” explicitly excludes the working class and calls for demands that will appeal to the “whole nation”—i.e., the capitalist class. The article includes no references to “socialism,” “capitalism,” “revolution” or the “working class.”

What is instead required is to unleash the immense power of the independent international working class. This struggle can be developed through the establishment of popular assemblies and workers’ committees in all the factories, mines and workplaces throughout the country, aimed at mobilizing the independent strength of the working class in a struggle against the world capitalist system.

Typhoon wreaks havoc in Japan

Robert Campion

Japan is reeling from the devastation wrought by Typhoon Hagibis earlier this month, which caused landslides and mass flooding. The official death toll has climbed to 84. Another 9 people are missing and 356 suffered injuries. While the typhoon dissipated October 20, further storms are expected over the coming days.

Last Sunday, the Fire and Disaster Management Agency reported that 56,753 homes were flooded or damaged by the typhoon, surpassing the 51,000 that were hit by last year’s torrential rains in western Japan, which killed more than 200. Over 370,000 homes suffered power outages as a result of the latest typhoon, according to the Tokyo Electric Power Company.

The government also announced that around 4,000 people have taken refuge in evacuation shelters. Some 78,000 homes are without water supply.

The storm was the most powerful to hit Japan in decades and is part of an uptick in natural disasters in the region influenced by warming seas. It has caused an estimated $9 billion in insured losses, meaning that of the 10 most expensive Japanese typhoons since 1950, four will have occurred in the past two years alone.

One of these storms, “Typhoon Faxai,” hit Chiba Prefecture only a month ago, killing three and injuring 147 others. Around 30,000 homes were either destroyed or damaged, 900,000 were left without power, and $7 billion in damages were incurred.

The same region was battered by the latest typhoon with many houses still covered in blue tarps undergoing repair when Hagibis struck.

The speed of the storm’s build-up was also significant. Dubbed “Hagibis,” meaning “swiftness” in Filipino, the National Weather Service reported that its initial formation took place south of Japan near Guam, accelerating from a tropical storm into a Category 5 in a matter of six hours. Wind speeds increased from 63km/h to over 250km/h, in one of the fastest typhoon intensification rates on record in the Western Pacific.

It also made an unusually rapid move northwest through the Mariana Islands, travelling at speeds of up to 34km/h before being downgraded to a Category 2 storm as it approached Japan.

The storm made landfall on the evening of October 12, triggering a tornado in Ichihara City that killed one and injured five others. A freak 5.7 magnitude earthquake also hit the Kanto region half an hour before the storm arrived. While no damage to buildings was recorded, it made the area increasingly prone to landslides.

Damage was also by excacerbated by poor preparations for extreme weather events. Following “Typhoon Faxai,” the Japanese government was widely criticised for failing to hold a meeting of relevant ministers before or after its landfall.

Similar concerns have been raised about the response to Hagibis. Evacuation and disaster prevention measures were not initiated until October 10, when a disaster management meeting was held involving ministers and state agencies. Over 12,600 officials were called up in Chiba to distribute free sandbags, prepare and serve in evacuation shelters as well as to assist public health nurses.

On October 11, Yasushi Kajihara, director of the Japan Meteorological Agency’s Forecast Division, announced the first evacuation warnings at a news conference. By midday, around 3.25 million people were given non-mandatory evacuation orders.

The director of the Japan Riverfront Research Centre, Nobuyuki Tsuchiya, warned that the capital was especially prone to damage from storm surges, as 1.5 million people live below sea level.

Not until the afternoon of October 12, when record breaking rains and high winds battered Tokyo, were over 432,000 residents in the Edogawa Ward told to move to emergency shelters, with 214,000 houses in the area susceptible to flooding. The government was also forced to issue its highest level of emergency rainfall warnings, advising another 8 million people to evacuate their homes due to avoid flooding.

Yukihiro Shimatani, a watershed management expert at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, said that far more people were ordered to leave their homes than poorly-equipped shelters had room for.

An evacuation center in Taito Ward, Tokyo, turned away two homeless people on the day the storm hit, prompting widespread criticism. Staff told them the shelter was reserved for ward residents only.

“The wind was strong and it was raining, and I wanted them to let me in,” a 64-year-old homeless man told the Asahi Shimbun. He was forced to spend the night outside in lashing wind and rain protected only by a plastic umbrella.

In Chiba, over 13,500 took refuge in makeshift shelters in temples, schools and municipal buildings. Norio Fukuhara, a Kyonan town official running a shelter at an elementary school, was overwhelmed with 90 people taking shelter, after expecting only 30.

“I think people really have a sense of crisis,” he said. “After the last typhoon, that’s natural. We hadn’t had such an experience before. We used to say, ‘Oh, a typhoon is coming. That’s dangerous,’ and that was all.”

The storm unleashed torrential rain as it tore northwards through Honshu with some areas experiencing more than 939.5mm of rain in 24 hours. There was widespread river flooding and flash floods, with levees breaking at 55 locations. According to weather officials, some areas received 40 per cent of their annual rainfall in just two days.

Floodwaters also rose in northern Fukushima, raising concerns over radioactive contamination from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

“There’s never been this much damage before,” Moe Kaneda, a teacher in the area told the Independent. “This is the first time ever.”

In the midst of the rising death toll on October 13, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe issued a tweet celebrating the victory of the national rugby team over Scotland, equating the “power” of the national sports team to the Great East Japan earthquake in 2011. “To those affected by the typhoon,” he said, “I think that it is very energetic and courageous.”

More than 110,000 personnel, including 31,000 troops, were involved in rescue efforts throughout the disaster as well as providing power supply vehicles. Abe promised “all-out efforts” this week to intensify search and relief efforts, pledging some 500 billion yen ($US4.6 billion) to the effort.

Meanwhile, two more storms threaten the southern end of Japan. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said Tuesday that over 300mm of rain is expected from tropical storm Neoguri, leading to further possible flooding and landslides. Another storm, Typhoon Buolai, is expected to pass by Japan’s eastern coast later this week, setting the stage for more flooding.

Mass protests spread to Bolivia after a disruption in electoral broadcasts

Andrea Lobo

Protests and strikes are shaking Bolivia after the vote tally for President Evo Morales jumped significantly during a 23-hour disruption in the broadcast of electoral results. Morales has deployed anti-riot police and declared a “state of emergency.”

After 7:50 p.m. Sunday, the day of Bolivia’s presidential elections, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) stopped reporting its preliminary results. With 83.85 percent of polling stations counted, Morales had a 7.87 percent lead over Carlos Mesa, short of the 10 percent needed to avoid a second round. Then, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, the reporting resumed, showing a 9.36 percent lead and 94.7 percent of stations. Yesterday morning, Morales proclaimed himself winner, denouncing the continued protests as “an internal and external coup.”

The latest count, including 99.58 percent of polling stations, showed a 10.48 percent Morales lead, while the TSE said it would repeat the vote at four stations in Beni due to irregularities. The turnout—which is obligatory and enforced—was about 90 percent.

The demonstrations have remained largely led by the right-wing and US-backed opposition in support of the candidate Carlos Mesa, a former vice president and president who oversaw a deadly military crackdown against mass protests led by Morales between 2002 and 2005.

However, the current protests have seen sections of workers and youth participate across Bolivia. Mass anger against Morales and his Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party from below has been brewing for several years as social and labor conditions worsen. Doctors struck for 47 days last year and several times this year, while the San Cristobal mine, the largest in the country, struck for 20 days last month. Moreover, results show Morales lost over 400,000 votes since the last election in 2014 despite hundreds of thousands of new voters.

The Trump administration has exploited the suspicions of fraud, which grew further after the vice president of the TSE resigned Tuesday, to favor Washington’s preferred candidate, Mesa. On Wednesday, the US ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) declared outright that La Paz “shut down the results so that they could steal the election.”

Under this pressure from Washington and citing “high political and social tensions,” the OAS electoral mission in Bolivia called for a second round Wednesday. This call was seconded by the European Union. Despite these neo-colonial efforts to directly manage the electoral result before the final count, Morales has continued to appeal to the OAS to legitimize the elections—the same imperialist body that provided a cover for the 2017 electoral fraud in Honduras and has aided the ongoing US coup operation in Venezuela.

The response of MAS and Morales further exposes their class character and underlines that, whatever the outcome of the elections, any future capitalist government in Bolivia will act at the behest of the local financial and land oligarchy and their imperialist bosses.

The objective basis for MAS’s popularity has quickly been erased by the crisis of global capitalism, leading it to attack democratic rights and turn increasingly to imperialism.

In 2016, Morales repudiated a referendum in which a 51.3 percent majority voted against reforming the 2009 Constitution that his own government introduced to allow a third consecutive term. The following year, the Constitutional Court ruled that a president can be reelected indefinitely.

A boom in gas, oil and other commodity prices allowed Morales to partially nationalize gas in 2006, while massive profits continued to flow to foreign corporations. State income grew 10-fold and led to a limited expansion of social spending. This was the price paid by capitalism to secure bourgeois rule after mass upheavals against water privatization and for the nationalization of gas between 2000 and 2005, which were channeled behind the election of Morales.

However, the stagnation of the global economy and geopolitical competition are pushing global finance to demand social austerity to pay back Bolivia’s debt and to regain total control and re-divide its strategic resources, from gas to silver and lithium.

Poverty continues to be among the highest in South America and has been bouncing back since 2014, encompassing 35 percent of households. Malnourishment affects one-fifth of the population. Precarious labor, which is informal and largely violates the minimum wage and basic protections, affects 80 to 85 percent of workers.

The 2019 MAS campaign was based on appeals to the ruling class that it can continue to suppress the class struggle to facilitate its right-wing agenda.

At a mass rally in late August, Morales boasted, “a group of private business-people has joined us, and what do they tell me? ‘I’m not a MAS member nor in the process of becoming one, but I’m profiting more from it than with my own party.’ They say that sincerely.”

MAS Senate president Adriana Salvatierra told the Financial Times that MAS “ha[s] shown we can run a country,” while Vice President Álvaro García Linera assured the Economist, “The absence of Evo would generate a kind of social dismemberment and convulsions that are characteristic of Bolivia’s history.”

Such warnings about the eruption of the class struggle by the western media have acquired an increasingly hysterical tone. Before the elections, the Economist warned: “After 13 years of his rule, voters are getting restless.” And, on Wednesday, the New York Times carried the headline: “‘There could be a war’: Protests over elections roil Bolivia.”

In this context, Morales’s “state of emergency” is another show of force to the ruling class that he will not hesitate in crushing social opposition. While sidelining the Constitution, which only refers to a “state of exception” that requires congressional approval, he stated ominously: “The Armed Forces have the duty to guarantee the unity of the national territory.”

After a meeting with Morales, the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB) trade union, which constitutes an essential backbone of MAS’s bourgeois government, also declared a “state of emergency” on Wednesday to secure the “social and economic stability of the country” in open coordination with the police and intelligence services.

In fact, according to a diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks, in his first meeting with the US ambassador after entering power in 2006, Morales “claimed he had demonstrated his commitment for negotiation over confrontation and that the violence in Bolivia’s immediate past had flowed either from the absence of dialogue or a lack of good faith efforts during negotiations.” He added that “the syndicates [trade unions] he led had an unparalleled track record in keeping their promises and meeting their side of the various bargains they had entered.”

NATO defense ministers meet in Brussels to call for new Middle East wars

Alex Lantier

NATO defense ministers began a two-day summit yesterday in Brussels, calling for new military escalation in the Middle East amid the debacle of their eight-year proxy war in Syria.

Since Trump withdrew 1,000 US troops deployed with US-backed Kurdish militias in northeastern Syria two weeks ago, green-lighting a Turkish attack on the Kurdish forces, the situation in Syria has shifted sharply against Washington and its European imperialist allies. Russia, Turkey and the Syrian regime have agreed to a return to the pre-war borders, while allowing Turkey to mount cross-border raids on Kurdish militias. Syrian troops are also massing to attack Al Qaeda-linked militias in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, the last holdout of NATO-backed “rebel” forces.

Reeling from this defeat, the NATO defense ministers could only restate their commitment to waging war across Eurasia, and issue conflicting proposals for further military escalation. While US Defense Secretary Mark Esper proposed further deployments against Iran and China, there was also discussion of German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s call to deploy a European “peacekeeping” force to occupy northeastern Syria, consisting of 30,000 to 40,000 troops.

In a brief public statement before talks began, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hailed “all NATO’s missions and operations, from the Balkans to Afghanistan.” He also pledged that he would today press Europe to boost its military spending: “I will once again highlight the importance of burden-sharing, both when it comes to spending, but also contributions and capabilities, and I will prepare a report for the Heads of State and Government when they meet in London in December.”

Asked about Kramp-Karrenbauer’s proposal, the first German government proposal for aggressive overseas military action since the fall of the Nazi regime, Stoltenberg endorsed it: “I have discussed this proposal with Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. It is positive that NATO allies, in this case Germany, have proposals and ideas of how we can move forward.”

Stoltenberg underlined NATO’s preparations for large-scale military action, including the Defender 2020 exercise to test the Pentagon’s ability to rapidly transport tens of thousands of US troops from America to Europe and participate in all-out NATO mobilization for war with Russia. The exercise will also have a Pacific component, with provocative naval maneuvers off the Chinese coast, in the South China Sea. However, Stoltenberg declined to immediately speculate about a NATO or European invasion of Syria as proposed by Kramp-Karrenbauer.

Stoltenberg added, “If I started now to speculate about all possible and impossible options, I would only add to the uncertainty… There has been no call for a NATO mission in northeastern Syria.”

After yesterday’s meeting, Stoltenberg again appeared in the evening to make a terse statement to the press. He noted that there were “differing views” among the countries in the NATO alliance, adding that these were in line with conflicts that are “publicly known.” While calling the situation in northeastern Syria “very serious,” he said he recognized that “Turkey has legitimate security concerns” in the region and evaded a question from the press whether Turkey would agree to German or European troop deployments to Syria.

While he said that Kramp-Karrenbauer had briefed her fellow NATO defense ministers on Berlin’s proposal, Stoltenberg said it would be “wrong” for him to try to summarize it himself.

The military debacle in the Middle East and the deep discrediting of war among workers in the Middle East and in the NATO countries has staggered the alliance. Beyond criticisms voiced by both Washington and the European imperialist powers of Turkey, there are clearly conflicts between the ruling elites of America and Europe, related to the foreign policy conflicts in the US ruling class underlying the drive to impeach Trump. All the various factions are proposing strategies for military escalation against nuclear-armed powers, however, with disastrous consequences for workers.

While Kramp-Karrenbauer’s plan entails NATO launching a confrontation with Russia in Syria, Esper spoke for factions of the American bourgeoisie focused on preparing war firstly with China. “The National Defense Strategy prioritizes China first and Russia second, as we transition our primary focus to great power competition,” the US defense secretary said yesterday at a speech to the German Marshall Fund in Brussels.

On this basis, Esper did not mention further wars in Syria, instead calling for the European powers to join the Trump administration’s escalation against Iran. Raising the plans to send thousands of US troops to Saudi Arabia as part of a military buildup against Iran, he added: “We urge our allies in Europe to follow our lead and contribute their own support to help deter Iranian aggression, promote stability in the region, and defend the international rules-based order.”

In a further sign of the Trump administration’s disinterest in waging further war in defense of the Kurds in northeastern Syria, moreover, Trump canceled Wednesday sanctions he had briefly imposed on Turkey for attacking the Kurdish militias.

Kramp-Karrenbauer continued to push ahead with her plan to confront Russia over Syria, however. After she left the defense ministers meeting, she said the support for her plan inside NATO is “very encouraging.” However, she added, “It will still be a longer process, and a difficult path.”

In the German media, who have campaigned aggressively for German remilitarization for six years, several outlets also wrote that Kramp-Karrenbauer’s plan would require time to develop. Her plan, Merkur wrote, “did not trigger international enthusiasm—the reactions were restrained. In Brussels she received recognition for her initiative at a NATO defense ministers’ meeting. But none of the countries promised definite support.”

Munich Security Council president Wolfgang Ischinger told Der Spiegel that her plan “presupposes however that all sides pull together on militarily relevant issues. After this, it does not look like it is the situation at the moment.”

Indeed, examining Kramp-Karrenbauer’s proposal, it appears to be more a call for a military buildup and to whip up a militarist atmosphere inside Germany than a plan for immediate military action. It is a warning as to the direction of the policy of the European bourgeoisie. Berlin is planning a vast escalation of European and German military capabilities, which would in turn entail massive military spending increases and correspondingly massive attacks on workers across Europe.

Given that deploying NATO troops to wars in Afghanistan or Iraq cost on the order of $1 million per soldier per year, deploying 40,000 European troops would require an expansion of European military budgets by tens of billions of euros per year. However, whether or not the European powers are capable of independently deploying such a force to Syria and resupply it amid a US retreat from the country, it is unclear what such a force would do.

The coalition that defeated the NATO proxy militias in Syria—allied to Russia and provided with Russian air cover and antiaircraft missiles—is a formidable force that would decisively outnumber the European force. It includes not only the 200,000 surviving soldiers of the Syrian army and 80,000 allied Syrian irregulars, but approximately 40,000 Iranian troops who have served in Syria, tens of thousands of fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, and around 20,000 members of pro-Iranian Afghan, Iraqi or Pakistani militias such as the Liwa Fatemiyoun serving in Syria.

To this must be added not only thousands of Russian troops and associated warplanes and warships, but also Chinese “Night Tiger” special forces who have deployed to Syria to fight Uighur Islamist “rebels” allied to NATO, amid growing military collaboration between China and Syria.

Yesterday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov again restated Russia’s opposition to the deployment of more foreign troops to Syria. He said, “As for the presence of American soldiers in Syria, our position is well known—only the Russian units are present in Syria legitimately at the invitation of the Syrian leadership. Of course, the final goal is a full withdrawal of any foreign armed forces, foreign military from the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic.”

The decision of Washington and Berlin to call for military operations to confront such forces is yet another warning of the escalating danger of world war.