The international witch-hunt of Julian Assange

Eric London & Thomas Scripps

The prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court is a travesty of justice that will forever stain the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Ecuador, as well as all the individuals involved.

Appearing alongside Assange in court Monday morning, Assange’s attorneys revealed that they had been given only two hours to meet with their client at Belmarsh prison to review what lawyer Gareth Peirce called “volumes” worth of evidence.

Expressing the practiced cynicism of British class justice, District Judge Vanessa Baraitser said this was “not an unreasonable position,” citing a lack of space in the prison interview room. With the bang of her gavel, Baraitser sent Assange back to his dungeon at Belmarsh, where he awaits his February extradition hearing under conditions UN Rapporteur Nils Meltzer has called “torture.”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange [Credit: AP Photo/Matt Dunham]

At this stage in the near decade-long international witch-hunt of Assange, nobody should be surprised by such shameless lawlessness on the part of the world’s most powerful governments. Ever since Swedish, British and American prosecutors conspired in 2010 to issue a warrant for Assange’s arrest in connection with an investigation into bogus sexual misconduct allegations, these “advanced democracies” have trampled on their own laws and traditions, subjecting the journalist to a pseudo-legal process that would have been deemed unfair even by the standards of the Middle Ages.

Monday’s mockery of justice is an escalation of the attack on Assange’s right to counsel. It takes place after the Spanish newspaper El País published a detailed account of how a security firm, UC Global, secretly spied on Assange’s privileged discussions with his lawyers and fed the illegally obtained surveillance to the CIA. UC Global also shared footage from cameras it installed throughout the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where Assange was forced to seek refuge from 2012 to 2019 to avoid US extradition. El País’ reporting showed that UC Global recorded every word Assange spoke and live-streamed these conversations to the CIA.

Despite the support of a criminally compliant media, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the US and British governments to downplay the profoundly anti-democratic precedents they intend to set through the Assange prosecution.

In an opinion article published Monday in the Hill, titled “Will alleged CIA misbehavior set Julian Assange free?” American attorney James Goodale wrote a scathing attack on the CIA’s spying on Assange’s privileged attorney-client communications.

Goodale is among the most prominent and well respected attorneys in the US, best known for representing the New York Times when the newspaper was sued by the Nixon administration for publishing the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Pentagon Papers were leaked by RAND Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who has also called for the release of Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

The Pentagon Papers revealed how the US government for years lied to the public in expanding the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths of 55,000 US soldiers and 3 million Vietnamese people. Their publication triggered an explosion of public anger and fueled anti-war protests.

Goodale wrote: “Can anything be more offensive to a ‘sense of justice’ than an unlimited surveillance, particularly of lawyer-client conversations, livestreamed to the opposing party in a criminal case? The alleged streaming unmasked the strategy of Assange’s lawyers, giving the government an advantage that is impossible to remove. Short of dismissing Assange’s indictment with prejudice, the government will always have an advantage that can never be matched by the defense.”

Goodale explained that “the Daniel Ellsberg case may be instructive.”

Ellsberg, like Assange, was prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking documents to the Times and the Washington Post. During the trial, Nixon’s “plumbers” broke into the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist and wiretapped his phone. In that case, Judge William Matthew Byrne ruled that the surveillance had “incurably infected the prosecution” and dismissed the charges, setting Ellsberg free.

Goodale wrote that “for similar reasons, the case against Assange should be dismissed.”

He added: “The usual remedy for warrantless surveillance is to exclude any illegally obtained information from the trial, but that remedy is inapplicable here. The government’s advantage in surveilling Assange is not the acquisition of tangible evidence but, rather, intangible insights into Assange’s legal strategy. There is no way, therefore, to give Assange a fair trial, since his opponents will know every move he will make.”

Fifty years after the collapse of the prosecution of Ellsberg, there is no faction of the American or British ruling class capable of defending basic democratic principles.

Three decades of permanent war and financial speculation have transformed the capitalist world into the fiefdom of a global oligarchy, protected by garrison states, in which the imperatives of imperialist plunder demand increased repression and censorship worldwide. Assange and Manning, who exposed US war crimes and helped inspire social opposition internationally, are test cases for dictatorial forms of rule that are to be imposed on millions.

It is a grave danger to the rights of all that the British “justice” system is now moving to place Assange in the hands of the very same officials who plotted for months to carry out the murder of Iran’s General Qassem Suleimani.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and the British Extradition Act of 2003 bar the British government from extraditing any individual to a country where the government assassinates its opponents and is incapable of guaranteeing that the individual will not be killed or tortured.

Suleimani’s death underscores that the US is legally incapable of making such a guarantee.

The pseudo-legal process shows that what the British and US governments are attempting to carry out is not an extradition, but an extraordinary rendition, defined by the European Court for Human Rights as detention “outside the normal legal system,” which, “by its deliberate circumvention of due process, is anathema to the rule of law and the values protected by the [Geneva] Convention.”

This travesty of justice has been ignored by the entire spectrum of what passes for the left wing of the imperialist political establishment, including Jeremy Corbyn, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Ilhan Omar and all those associated with the Labour Party in the UK and the Democratic Socialists of America faction of the Democratic Party in the US.

Their silence is not an oversight, it is a class position. The affluent upper-middle class layers on whose behalf these politicians speak have tossed their decades-old anti-war placards in the garbage and enlisted as cheerleaders for US and British imperialism. Behind their sophistic arguments that “humanitarian” considerations justify US-led wars in Libya and Syria, the real motivations reside in their bulging stock portfolios, amplified by imperialist plunder.

There is only one social force capable of leading the fight to free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, defend democratic rights and stop the global drive toward dictatorship and war. The end of 2019 saw the working class, billions strong and more internationally interconnected than ever before, moving into struggle on a scale not seen in decades. It is the urgent task of socialists to endow this movement with a revolutionary socialist perspective to transform the world on an egalitarian basis, free of war and dictatorship.

Plotters behind violent massacre in Philippines convicted after 10 years

Owen Howell

Five members of the Ampatuan family, which governed the southern Philippine province of Maguindanao for decades, have been found guilty of orchestrating a bloody massacre in 2009 that left 58 people dead, the nation’s worst case of election violence.

On December 19, in a special court in Taguig city, the verdict was announced concluding a 10-year-long legal case. In a trial of 107 defendants, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes sentenced a total of 28 people to reclusión perpetua, a 40-year prison term without parole, while 56 others were acquitted. A further 80 suspects, including several dozen police officers and soldiers, remain at large. The powerful Ampatuan family has consistently denied the charges and is expected to appeal the convictions.

The Ampatuan clan allegedly carried out the massacre after the rival Mangudadatu family announced their intention to field a candidate in the gubernatorial election to challenge the dynasty’s long-standing political rule over Maguindanao province. The candidate, Esmael Mangudadatu, having received death threats from the Ampatuans, sent his pregnant wife and two sisters to the provincial capital to file his candidacy papers in his stead. He assumed a convoy of female family members and supporters, accompanied by journalists, would not be attacked.

In November 2009, the convoy of 58 unarmed men and women, travelling in six buses on the road from Buluan to Shariff Aguak, was reportedly ambushed by more than a 100 armed men and diverted towards a hilltop where three mass graves had already been dug by a government-owned excavator. They were then beaten and shot, their bodies dismembered and tossed into the prepared graves. The victims included 32 journalists and 22 women, many of whom were raped and sexually mutilated.

A text message secretly sent from one of the victims brought the intervention of armed forces before the excavator could complete the burial of the remaining body parts. The armed men fled, shooting the operator of the backhoe as they left. Had the concealment gone to plan, the convoy would have simply vanished.

Due to the intense public outrage at the slaughter, the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, seeking to distance herself from her close allies the Ampatuans, ordered multiple murder charges to be filed against prime suspect Andal Ampatuan Jnr, a town mayor and successor to patriarch Andal Snr. His brother Zaldy and their father Andal Snr were also arrested, along with some 200 suspects.

The Quezon City Regional Trial Court in Metro Manila embarked on a case that would last 10 years, accumulating 238 case folders and involving 357 witnesses.

Throughout the case, victims’ families and media groups reported harassment and threats. At least four witnesses testifying against the Ampatuans were killed by unidentified gunmen. Nena Santos, lawyer for Esmael Mangudadatu, told Associated Press she had received a hundred death threats over the past decade and was once offered a large sum of money to withdraw from the proceedings. She also raised concerns for the victims’ families, who fear for their lives as many of the suspected killers were acquitted.

The protracted case was representative of the notoriously sluggish Philippine courts, which are especially vulnerable to pressure from the Manila-based political elite. Added to this was the fact that numerous witnesses recanted their testimony, apparently due to intimidation or bribes from the Ampatuans. Further delay was caused by many of the accused changing their legal counsels, with Andal Jnr changing his counsel five times, in a clear attempt to push back the deadline for the court’s decision.

In 2014, Salvador Panelo, a lawyer who would go on to serve as spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, joined the legal team of Andal Jnr. According to the Philippine Star, Panelo argued that the Ampatuans did not commit the massacre but had been “framed” by another rival clan, the Sangkis, in a bid to seize political power.

Judge Solis-Reyes shocked onlookers at one stage by granting bail to 16 accused police officers, when it was publicly known that senior level police officers and army officials at checkpoints along the highway had turned a blind eye to the Ampatuans’ thugs stalking the Mangudadatu convoy.

Last year public anger over the slow court proceedings was reignited when Zaldy Ampatuan was permitted to leave jail to attend his daughter’s wedding. As the Daily Inquirer explained, growing pressure from frustrated Philippine workers and farmers, seen in the increased presence of large rallies in the major cities, ultimately compelled the trial to reach a conclusion.

In the lead-up to the final verdict, the prosecution relied particularly upon the witness Sukarno Badal, who admitted to being a commander of the Ampatuans’ private army. Badal revealed that meetings planning the massacre commenced as early as four months prior. Andal Jnr allegedly told his father at one of these meetings, “Father, whoever attempts to wrest power from us, we’ll kill them all, especially the Mangudadatus.” Badal also claimed he saw Andal Jnr ordering his men to stop the Mangudadatu convoy and afterwards shooting some of the victims himself.

The verdict is being hailed by civil liberties groups around the world as a triumph of the Philippine judiciary and a hopeful sign for future democracy. Phil Robertson, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, said the court’s decision was momentous and should “prompt the country’s political leaders to finally act to end state support for ‘private armies’ and militias that promote the political warlordism that gave rise to the Ampatuans.”

In reality, successive governments have directly benefited from the existence of familial dynasties that control rural areas, from Arroyo to Duterte. The Ampatuans proved effective agents in Arroyo’s 2004 presidential campaign, rigging the Maguindanao vote in her favour. And Duterte, through his long run as mayor of Davao City, relied on the same culture of corruption, crony politics, and election violence that enabled the Ampatuans and Mangudadatus to retain their rule.

In a complete turnaround from his previous defence of the Ampatuans, Salvador Panelo issued a statement from Malacañang Palace, in his current role as Presidential spokesperson, applauding the convictions. “This savage affront to human rights should never have a duplication in this country’s history,” he said.

The killing of political candidates and their family members, journalists and activists is, however, a routine occurrence in the Philippines during election season. The press, meanwhile, both in the Philippines and internationally, generally fail to report on these atrocities. As the WSWS wrote in 2009 , “Had the 57 murders of Maguindanao been committed in groups of three or four over the space of several weeks, no comment would have been made.”

UK Flybe airline reaches bailout deal with government

Thomas Scripps

UK airline Flybe has secured a promise from the government to review air passenger duty—a tax paid on each flight taking off from the UK—prompting shareholders to pledge more investment in the company. The deal allows the airline to defer the payment of a £106 million tax bill.

Flybe, Europe’s largest regional airline, had been facing collapse, threatening the jobs of its 2,400 employees and potentially more in regional airports highly dependent on its 8.5 million passengers annually. The loss of the airline’s UK domestic connections would have a negative effect across the whole economy, especially outside the capital, London.

While a crisis has been averted for now, the carrier remains in a fragile position.

A Flybe aircraft (Source: Wikipedia)

Emergency discussions with the government followed a decade of deep financial trouble for Flybe, which has suffered under the pressure of intensifying competition in the airline industry. Publicly floated for £215 million in December 2010, Flybe was sold to Connect Airways—a joint venture between Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Air and hedge fund Cyrus Capital — for just £2.8 million in January 2019.

Peter Morris, an aviation economist with FlightGlobal, told the BBC in 2017 that Flybe was “sandwiched” between the business model of budget airlines such as Ryanair, and network carriers like British Airways that use short-haul flights to connect with long-haul services. “For example, it might fly from Southampton to Amsterdam, but it’s not a major trunk route, so it doesn’t have enough corporate flyers. But if it gets to a critical mass, then low cost airlines will join in and fly those routes at lower costs,” Morris said. “If you are successful, either group will come after you.”

The company was also sharply affected by the 2008-2009 recession, which had a disproportionate effect on the UK’s regional economies, where most of the carrier’s business is located. Domestic air traffic fell 20 percent between 2007 and 2017.

Flybe reported losses of £41.1 million in 2012-2013 and began a £65 million savings agenda in 2013. After a brief period of profitability in 2013-2014, the company’s shares slumped 23 percent in January 2015 on the announcement it would only just break even that year. A drop in passenger revenue and the drain of maintaining surplus aircraft—nine extra Embraer jets, at a cost of £26 million—were cited as the main causes.

The situation worsened dramatically from 2017. Between then and now, nine European airlines have gone out of business. Attempts by major European carriers to dominate the market led to a price war, which crashed fellow UK airline Monarch in 2017, making 1,900 workers redundant. Flybe announced a full-year pre-tax loss of £19.9 million in June 2017. Shares fell another 20 percent in October when first-half profits were reported to be some £5 million to £10 million less than expected, already a decline on the previous year’s total. Flybe made a loss of £20 million in the year 2017-2018.

When it was reported in October 2018 that losses were expected to worsen in 2018-2019, Flybe’s shares fell 40 percent and the company was put up for sale. The falling value of the pound—fuel and aircraft leases are paid for in dollars—a 39 percent increase in fuel prices over a year ago and continuing problems of excess capacity all contributed.

Connect Airways acquired the company in January 2019 with plans to inject £100 million into the airline. However, serious problems have gone unaddressed. The delay to a planned rebranding of Flybe as “Virgin Connect,” the extension of the company’s accounting period and its recent reports of slow winter trading were enough to spook credit card companies, which gated customer payments to the airline, causing a massive cash flow problem.

Flybe’s long-term decline has been accompanied by a massive attack on its workforce, facilitated by the trade unions. The company shed 1,100 jobs in 2013-2014 as part of an attempted turnaround. Last summer, jet bases were closed at Cardiff and Doncaster, with the loss of 60 jobs in Cardiff, and jet flights ended from Norwich and Exeter airports. Many staff handed in their notices ahead of the closures.

In 2013, Unite and the British Airlines Pilots Association (Balpa) unions worked merely to “to avoid compulsory redundancies.” Balpa’s then general secretary, Jim McAuslan, admitted in 2014, “Pilots have made huge sacrifices to help Flybe turn a corner.”

Over the last four days, Unite has appealed to Boris Johnson’s pro-business Conservative government to “demonstrate that it has learned the lessons from the collapse of Monarch, which it failed to apply during the collapse of Thomas Cook” calling on the company and government to “stop hiding and talk to us.” The Prospect union tried to seek “immediate talks with the company to clarify the situation.” Balpa has uncritically welcomed the deal.

A Flybe collapse would have far-reaching consequences beyond the redundancy of Flybe’s 2,400 employees. The airline plays a central role in domestic air travel and linking the UK’s regional cities to the continent. Two out of every five UK domestic flights are run by Flybe—more than half of internal flights outside London.

At Southampton airport 95 percent of seat capacity is taken up by Flybe, 74 percent at Newquay airport, 79.5 percent at Belfast City airport, 78 percent at Exeter airport, 51 percent at Cardiff, 39.6 percent at Humberside, 36.2 percent at Aberdeen and 20.7 percent at Birmingham, while 100 percent of flights from Anglesey airport are run by the company. The airline transports 17,000 patients a year from the Isle of Man to Liverpool for hospital treatment.

These connections would likely be permanently damaged by the company’s collapse. Mark Simpson, an aviation analyst at Goodbody Investment, told the Financial Times that other carriers would be unlikely to seek Flybe’s slots at regional hubs in the event they were up for sale. John Strickland, an aviation consultant, told the newspaper that Flybe’s collapse would have “a significant impact in certain communities.” He added, “At a market level, it doesn’t look like very much. But if you look at the regions [Flybe serves], it’s dramatic.”

Flybe is a case study in the anarchy of capitalist production and its social consequences. Profit-seeking competition between private corporations throws thousands of workers out of productive employment and tends to the destruction of vital but relatively unprofitable services like Flybe’s regional connections.

Where the government decides a service must be maintained, it provides public subsidies—as it does for Flybe’s Newquay-London route—or tax cuts and deferrals, allowing wealthy shareholders to profit. Richard Branson’s Virgin has form when it comes to this practice. If the government’s review orders cuts to air passenger duty, an industry-wide bonanza will follow with grave climate implications.

The close interconnection of the economy and society by air travel is a progressive process but is beset with problems produced by capitalism. Billions must be expropriated from the bank accounts of competing CEOs and their shareholders, and poured into research and implementation of new, green flight technologies, and the coordinated provision of a comprehensive and fully staffed transport system.

The only social force capable of achieving this transformation is the international working class. The past year has seen a groundswell of strikes and protests by airline workers across Europe and internationally. These actions demonstrate the absolute necessity for a break with the bankrupt, nationally based trade unions and a turn to an international socialist perspective—to fight for the ownership and management of humanity’s immense technological resources by the working class for public good, not private profit.

Catastrophic floods hit Indonesian capital

Owen Howell

A torrential downpour in Jakarta and the surrounding provinces of West Java and Banten on New Year’s Eve caused a catastrophic flood that has killed 67 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Rivers burst their banks, overturning cars and completely submerging single-storey houses. It is Jakarta’s deadliest flood since the 2007 deluge, which killed 80 people.

According to the Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency (BMKG), an estimated 377 millimetres of rain fell in one day, Jakarta’s heaviest rainfall since records began in 1866. Within hours of the downpour, the water had risen nearly eight metres in some areas. The state weather agency has forecasted more extreme rainfall later in the month and until the rainy season ends in April.

Floodwaters submerged 74 districts across the city’s metropolitan area, including 12 districts of inner-city Jakarta, many of which had never previously been affected by flooding. More than 1,300 homes in poorer neighbourhoods have been devastated, and thousands more heavily damaged. Residents have drowned, some died of hypothermia or were electrocuted. Hundreds of thousands have abandoned their homes and sought refuge in damp overcrowded emergency shelters.

The heavy rain caused mudslides in hilly areas on the capital’s outskirts that buried dozens of people. On Sunday the search for buried victims of a massive landslide in the impoverished rural district of Sukajaya in West Java was ended after two weeks. The mudslides destroyed over 400 houses, displaced 4,000 farmers and workers, and claimed six lives. Several remain missing.

Across Jakarta, 724 power stations were shut down by the state-owned electricity company PLN as a precaution, after a 16-year-old boy was electrocuted by a power line. Public transport operations were disrupted, and the Halim Perdanakusuma Airport was temporarily closed due to submerged runways.

Blackouts and lack of telecommunications hampered search efforts. Water and electricity supplies were still cut long after the floods receded. Residents had to use rafts to navigate through waterlogged roads and floating debris. One Jakarta resident, Pudji, said she had to wait 22 hours on her roof before she was rescued, the Economist reported.

In response, the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) dispatched relief items, deployed personnel, and established evacuation centres for victims. The Indonesian Red Cross deployed volunteers and staff to the affected areas, and is also providing first aid and health services. More than 1,000 soldiers and health workers have sprayed Jakarta to fend off possible waterborne diseases such as dengue and leptospirosis, which could spread from the floodwaters that have pooled around the capital.

President Joko Widodo visited a number of the hardest-hit villages, including in Lebak regency in Banten where 19 schools were damaged. He had planned to meet with the residents of the buried hamlets in Sukajaya, but the ground was too unstable for his helicopter to land.

Java was not the only region to be inundated by heavy rain. Throughout the Indonesian archipelago at least 169 areas were affected by floods. In the weeks leading up to the New Year’s Eve downpour, flash floods destroyed bridges and damaged villages in several provinces on the island of Sumatra. A family of five people went missing in Labuhan Batu regency, North Sumatra, apparently swept away on the river along with their house, in a flood that wrecked 229 homes. Floods in West Sumatra, Bengkulu, and Central Sulawesi have resulted in fatalities and left thousands homeless.

President Widodo did not hesitate to blame the poorest sections of the Indonesian working class for the disaster. He stated that flooding was brought on by workers converting land into residential areas and not disposing of rubbish properly, according to local newspaper Kompas .

For years Widodo has promised to improve Jakarta’s flood defences by building two dams and beginning construction work on the walls of the Ciliwung River. Those projects, however, have been plagued by delays. On January 2, he told reporters, “The most important thing at the moment is that evacuation of victims, safety, and security of the community take precedence. Later on, flood infrastructure will be handled after the evacuation handling is complete.”

As in other countries, Indonesian workers and the rural masses are furious at the indifference of the government and ruling elites to their plight in times of natural disaster. After the 2007 disaster, a flood in 2013 killed 47 people and submerged much of the city’s less developed districts when canals overflowed. And yet the response of successive governments has been characterised by insufficient investment in flood prevention infrastructure or, at worst, criminal negligence.

Indonesia is undergoing a historic transformation from a largely rural to urban society, with over 68 percent of the population expected to be living in cities within the next five years, according to the World Bank. The country’s rapid urbanisation, however, is regulated by private interests, as seen in the prioritisation of clean drinking water for residents in Jakarta’s wealthy districts, whose use of groundwater has led to the sinking of the megacity. Delik Hudalah, a researcher at the Institute of Technology in Bandung, found that governments had been so negligent that the current character of the city has been shaped almost entirely by the private business sector.

The floods have ignited discussion in Indonesian news outlets and social media about growing social inequality. Elisa Sutanudjaja, director of the Jakarta-based Rujak Centre for Urban Studies, said: “The rich are able to save themselves at the expense of other neighbourhoods… In a climate crisis, [the poor] are the first victims, and the last ones to get help.”

An aerial photo posted on Twitter showed the pristine grounds of Jakarta’s Shangri-La Hotel unaffected by the downpour, while the adjacent poor kampung (neighbourhood) was submerged in muddy floodwaters. The photo generated much conversation on how the floods had laid the country’s inequality bare.

Last Friday, Tempo reported on an ominous new development. Jakarta Police Chief Nana Sudjana announced the formation of a new task force designed to “deal with” extreme weather catastrophes, consisting of “police, armed forces, and related agencies.”

The government’s fear is that the widespread anger stirred up by the flood disaster could develop into a mass movement against social inequality, poverty and the Indonesian ruling class that presides over it. Jakarta, a sinking megacity of 35 million people faced with growing congestion and air pollution, is a social explosion waiting to happen.

However, the problems of Jakarta are simply a concentrated expression of the grotesque levels of social inequality across Indonesia and throughout the region. Faced with further demonstrations and public outrage, the Widodo administration is preparing police-state measures, as it has done in the brutal state repression of demonstrations in West Papua over the past four months.

Social Democrat Milanović wins presidential election in Croatia

Markus Salzmann

Social Democrat Zoran Milanović won a run-off vote for the presidency in Croatia on Sunday. He unexpectedly won against the incumbent Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, who ran for the right-wing Croatian Democratic Community (HDZ).

With 52.7 percent of the votes, Milanović’s lead over Grabar-Kitarović (47.3 percent) was quite clear. The Social Democrat had already won the first round in December. Turnout in the run-off, at 55 percent, was higher than in the first round. Although the office of president is largely ceremonial, the election in the newest EU member state is regarded as an indicator of the likely results in the parliamentary elections set for October of this this year.

Milanović’s victory is above all a rejection of the HDZ’s right-wing, ultranationalist policies. In the run-off election, the incumbent had hoped to receive the votes of those supporting the extreme right-wing singer Miroslav Škoro who received 24 percent of the votes in the first round. Former HDZ member Škoro openly advocated pardoning convicted Croatian war criminals.

Grabar-Kitarović directed her entire campaign towards right-wing extremist and openly fascist elements. The band Thompson, which regularly chants the slogans of the fascist Ustasha at concerts, called for her election to “stop the communists”.

A few days before the election, the HDZ published a video in which Julienne Busic called for the election of Grabar-Kitarović. In 1976, Julienne Busic, together with her husband Zvonko Busic and two other accomplices, had hijacked a passenger plane on a flight from New York to Chicago in order to advocate for Croatia’s independence from Tito’s Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. HDZ deputy chairman Milijan Brkic declared Busic a “Croatian heroine”.

Moreover, the election campaign was marked by the ugly witch-hunting of refugees. In recent months, the HDZ has intensified its measures against refugees on the border with Bosnia-Herzegovina. Nationalist rhetoric towards Serbia has also increased. It has become increasingly clear that the HDZ—contrary to all assertions—has never abandoned its arch-reactionary, nationalist roots and continues to pursue the policies that led to the civil war of the 1990s.

Political analyst Davor Gjenero told the news agency BIRN that many had voted for Milanović in protest against the HDZ candidate’s “deeply nationalist campaign”. The biggest loser of the election was the right wing of the HDZ, he said.

The election could trigger fierce conflicts within the HDZ. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković is controversial, and the party is deeply divided on EU issues. There are signs that the party’s ultra-right wing could try to wrest power from Plenković. One potential candidate is Miro Kovač, close confidante of the first Croatian president Franjo Tudjman. Kovač worked in Tudjman’s notorious secret service and has close contacts with open fascists.

Under these circumstances, Milanović was perceived as a lesser evil. He won by a wide margin in all major cities: Zagreb, Split, Osijek and Rijeka. More than 60 percent of the inhabitants of the capital voted for him; in Istria it was over 80 percent. His opponent could only win a majority of votes in rural areas and among Croats living abroad.

From 2011 to 2016, Milanović himself had headed the Croatian government, which took the country into the EU in 2013. Previously, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and HDZ had pushed through brutal cuts and privatisations, fuelling unemployment and social misery. During this period, the government took harsh action against refugees on the Balkan route. Milanović had the border sealed off and deported refugees to Hungary, knowing full well that the right-wing Orban government had set up concentration camps in the border area.

During the presidential election campaign, Milanović promised “normality”. He tried to present himself as a moderate candidate who stood against nationalism. Croatia must finally leave behind the war against Serbia, which had brought death and devastation to the country from 1991 to 1995, but also independence, he said.

In fact, Milanović does not stand for a fundamentally different policy than the HDZ. In 2015, he had called Serbs “barbarians” and declared that Croatia was “older and wiser”. Before the last parliamentary elections, he had held a big military parade in Zagreb on the anniversary of the conquest of Serbian Krajina.

Milanović combines the right-wing policies with a pro-European course, so his election was mostly well received in European capitals. At the turn of the year, Croatia took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union for six months. This period will probably include the withdrawal of Britain from the EU. “It is ironic that the newest member state has to deal with the [UK] withdrawal,” said Irena Andrassy, Croatia’s permanent representative to the EU, at a recent event in Brussels.

At the same time, preparations for the EU’s future financial framework (MFF) are on the agenda, over which there are already fierce conflicts between member states. The government in Zagreb is in favour of an increase in contributions from EU states, which many strictly reject.

Milanović’s victory will fuel political conflicts until the parliamentary elections in autumn. Both Milanović and Plenković have already pointed to various sources of conflict, above all tensions over foreign policy. “Conflicts between the prime minister and the president on foreign policy issues are likely,” noted analyst Gjenero. For example, there are different views on military engagement in Afghanistan, where Milanović advocates the withdrawal of Croatian troops, while Plenković rejects this.

At the same time, the representatives of HDZ and SDP agree on opposing the growing protest in the working class with all their strength. Recently, there was a nationwide teachers’ strike, in which tens of thousands protested against low wages and the precarious conditions in schools.

Meanwhile, economic tensions in the country are growing. Parts of the arms manufacturer Djuro Djakovic face insolvency proceedings, with several hundred workers going on strike in recent months to obtain outstanding wages. Financiers and the government are currently negotiating a restructuring plan for the company, which is partly under public ownership. Many jobs are at stake there, as well as at the state-owned airline Croatia Airlines, where preparations are being made for privatisation.

Britain’s royal family torn by factional conflict

Chris Marsden

The split between the palace on the one side and Prince Harry and his wife Meghan on the other is a degrading spectacle.

The media is awash in largely hostile commentary on how a couple whose marriage—involving an American of “dual heritage”—could have catapulted the monarchy into the 21st century, turned out to be a match between selfish ingrates who have placed the queen in a terrible situation.

Monday’s meeting at Sandringham between Harry, the queen, Prince Charles and Prince William ended with an announcement that the monarch was “supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life,” and that a “period of transition” would now begin.

This statement will resolve nothing fundamental. The royal family remains so bitterly divided that the future survival of the monarchy has been placed in question.

Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry (London, England, UK)

Harry and Meghan have presented a catalogue of grievances, some overt and some hinted, to justify their decision to “step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family.” These are centred on their treatment by a venal media, both intrusive and covertly racist towards Meghan Markle, and suggestions that relations with Prince William, Kate and other family members are “toxic.”

After declaring earlier that he would not see his wife treated like his mother, Harry has decided he is no longer prepared to continue in his assigned role. This appears to be based on calculations that the financial rewards for doing so pale in comparison with the money to be made free from the restraints placed on the commercial activities of “senior royals.”

The couple’s website, sussexroyal.com, features an explanation of their supposed efforts to “carve out a progressive new role within this institution,” which stresses a determination “to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.”

What this means in practice is to partly privatise their royal role to cash in on the “Sussex Royal” brand.

Harry’s and Meghan’s assets for potential employers/investors are listed as promoting “communities in all forms—of people, geographies, ethnicity, gender and varied socio-economic groups,” with Meghan having the added mission of the “Empowerment of Women and Girls.”

On funding, the couple will “work to become financially independent,” by which they specify only ceasing to make claims on the “Sovereign Grant”—money from the state they complain “covers just five percent of costs for The Duke and Duchess.” They will retain their monies from Prince Charles’s £1 billion Duchy of Cornwall private estate, which funds the other 95 percent of their activities, at a cost of £5 million.

They also want to retain access to Frogmore Cottage in Windsor as their UK base, renovated last year at a cost to the taxpayer of £2.4 million, and for the state to continue to provide security in the UK and their new adoptive home, Canada. International travel will also be paid by the state—a package worth well over £1 million per annum.

This nominal “financial independence” leaves the Sussexes free to spread their commercial wings. The couple patented “Sussex Royal” in the UK last June, across 100 items including books, calendars, notepads, clothing, charitable fundraising and campaigning.

They are now seeking to register the brand as a global trademark. Estimates of what can be earned vary widely, from £500,000 a year to £500 million. US speaking engagements alone can bring in $500,000 at a time. Meghan can renew her endorsements of clothing lines and has already agreed to a voice-over for a Disney cartoon, initially for charity.

Comparisons have been made between Harry and Edward VIII and between Meghan and Wallis Simpson. On its face, the present crisis does not measure up to the gravity of the 1936 abdication crisis. Harry is only sixth in line to the throne and would always have had to accept the role of “spare” to the “heir,” William. Meghan may, like Wallis Simpson, be an American divorcee, but she was baptised into the Church of England by the Archbishop of Canterbury and married Harry at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle.

Most importantly, Simpson was a Nazi spy who played to Edward’s own sympathies for Hitler, threatening to discredit a monarchy that had expressed support for the Nazis throughout the 1930s and forcing his replacement by his younger brother, George VI.

Nevertheless, however mundane the immediate issues involved appear, the decision by the Sussexes brings to a head long-standing and unresolved tensions stretching back to the death of Harry’s mother, Diana, in August 1997 in Paris. She died in a car crash while being chased by the press following her bitter divorce from Charles. These tensions almost tore “the firm” apart. Today they re-emerge amid a more general crisis, not only of the royal family, but of every major institution of the British state.

After her marriage to Charles in 1981, Diana was meant to provide a touch of glamour to the tired institution of the monarchy in a bid to appeal to the Thatcherite “yuppie” climate of the time. In return, she was supposed to stay silent as the Prince of Wales continued his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles.

This plan backfired because Diana was able to exploit her connections with the newly dominant super-rich layers associated with globalisation to challenge the power of the monarchy as the embodiment of hereditary privilege, which the nouveau riche viewed with disdain. She also used the media to cultivate popular support by exploiting confused hostility towards “the establishment.”

Diana’s death heralded a protracted political rescue operation that began under Labour’s Tony Blair, but which seemed truly effective only when Diana’s eldest son, William, married the “commoner” Kate Middleton in 2011 and then produced an heir, George, in 2013.

The more problematic Harry was recast as a global philanthropist after earlier disgracing himself by dressing up as a Nazi while partying, and making racist comments during service in the armed forces. His marriage to Markle was meant to bury this troubled past and allow the monarchy to proceed as a popular entity. This would hopefully enable the queen, now 93, to give way to her 71-year-old son Charles for a brief interlude before William assumed the throne.

These plans were already in trouble before Harry sought to break free from the House of Windsor using his and Meghan’s contacts with the global elite, including the Obamas and Oprah Winfrey in the US. Their recent announcement came only months after Harry’s uncle, Prince Andrew, was forced to step down from official duties over his links to billionaire sex offender and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The American financier allegedly procured underage girls for the Prince and other celebrities before his suspicious death in a New York prison cell in August last year.

The essential function of the royal family as the representative of UK state power has made its grasping members particularly susceptible to the siren call of a global elite whose wealth dwarfs their own. In the latest Sunday Times Rich List of the wealthiest 1,000 UK residents, for example, the queen is ranked at just 356. But the far-reaching economic and social changes associated with globalisation have also torn the ground from beneath many other state institutions.

Not for nothing has the pun “Megxit” been coined in the media. Amid the raging conflict between rival imperialist powers for control of global markets and resources, Britain has been plunged into an historic crisis of class rule over leaving the European Union and orienting, like Harry and Meghan, to the United States. In the process, the United Kingdom over which the queen supposedly reigns also faces breakup, with Scottish nationalism threatening the Act of Union and a return to civil war for Irish unification a real possibility. The Labour Party, that other great mechanism for safeguarding capitalism, is facing collapse.

The more fundamental threat to the royal family’s survival at present finds no political expression: a growing social polarisation that is fueling an eruption of class struggle that can sweep away not only the monarchy, but also the entire apparatus of bourgeois rule it embodies.

Support for the monarchy is already tenuous and might not long survive the throne’s present occupant. The obscene money-grubbing of Harry and Meghan and the mudslinging on all sides will only feed the growing alienation of millions towards the parasitic elite that dictates social life, including those who dress themselves in ermine cloaks, toytown military uniforms, crowns and tiaras.

Berlin, London and Paris threaten Iran over 2015 nuclear treaty

Alex Lantier

After the US assassination in Baghdad of Iranian General Qassem Suleimani, Berlin, London and Paris issued a fraudulent joint letter Sunday, denouncing Iran as a threat to peace and demanding it respect the 2015 nuclear treaty Washington repudiated in 2018.

The statement, reeking of hypocrisy, serves as a warning amid the danger of all-out war in the Middle East. One cannot halt the spiral of imperialist demands, threats, provocations and murder by appealing to the conscience of capitalist governments like Washington’s European allies. Anti-war sentiment in the working class, rising hand in hand with growing strikes and social protests against austerity and police repression, must take a politically independent form.

In their letter, the European powers pass over in total silence the extrajudicial murder of Suleimani in gross violation of international law, mass protests in the Middle East against his killing and the three decades of US-European wars in the Middle East since the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. These wars killed or wounded millions and turned tens of millions into refugees.

Instead, they denounce Iran for “destabilising” the Middle East. They write, “Recent events have highlighted Iran’s destabilising role in the region, including through the IRGC and Al-Qods force. Our commitment to the security of our allies and partners in the region is unwavering. We must address—through diplomacy and in a meaningful way—shared concerns about Iran’s destabilising regional activities, including those linked to its missile programme.”

After the murder of Suleimani, the Iranian regime announced that it would increase the number of centrifuges it operates to enrich uranium. It did not, however, take any overt action to build nuclear weapons—it neither expelled International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors present in Iran, nor repudiated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it has signed.

Nonetheless, the letter of Berlin, London and Paris portrays Iran as a nuclear threat, while merely expressing “regret” that Washington scrapped the 2015 treaty. It claims the treaty “plays a key role” in keeping Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. It demands Iran “reverse all measures inconsistent with the treaty; we call on Iran to refrain from further violent action or proliferation; and we remain ready to engage with Iran in order to preserve the stability of the region.”

This letter is a political fraud. As EU foreign ministers held an emergency Middle East summit Friday in Brussels, they made off-the-record statements directly contradicting the arguments in the letter Berlin, London and Paris issued two days later. EU officials know that, in the conflict with Tehran that Washington has orchestrated since Trump repudiated the 2015 nuclear deal, it is not Tehran that seeks escalation.

A “senior EU diplomat” told Reuters that Iran aims to calm the crisis: “Iran’s desire to prevent the crisis from escalating has bought us some time, it has the effect of cooling this down just a little.”

Another “EU diplomat” said Iranian nuclear weapons are not an imminent danger: “Iran has not set any targets or deadlines when it comes to uranium enrichment targets, so that gives us time.”

Finally, an unnamed French diplomat said Paris is at least as worried about US as about Iranian actions: “We need to coordinate and maximise the effect everybody has in trying to de-escalate what the Iranians do, but it’s the same for the Americans.”

That is to say, European claims that Iran is destabilising the Middle East, and that it is urgent to confront Iran’s nuclear weapons program, are a pack of lies. One must ask why European officials are issuing empty denunciations of Iran that they know to be false, and staying silent on the danger of war posed by Washington, the world’s most heavily-armed nuclear power?

It is not ties of unbreakable friendship that bind the European powers to Washington’s propaganda on Iran. In fact, the Middle East has been the scene of rising conflict between Washington and its European “allies” ever since the Stalinist regime’s dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 deprived them of a common enemy. While EU powers joined US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria when it suited their imperialist interests, they clashed with Washington over post-Gulf War sanctions on Iraq, the illegal 2003 US invasion of Iraq, and now US sanctions on Iran.

These inter-imperialist conflicts are not subsiding, but mounting. Berlin and Paris reacted to Brexit and the current US president’s statements that the NATO alliance is obsolete by moving to build an EU army independent of Washington. Both Washington and the EU have imposed multiple, multi-billion-dollar trade war tariffs against each others’ corporations. Now, even as EU officials recite lying war propaganda against Iran, the danger of overt EU conflict with Washington is growing.

While US military superiority and economic threats doubtless play a significant role in getting Europe in line, these are not enough to explain their decision, for now at least, to endorse US accusations against Iran. Behind these developments lie profound shifts in class relations—above all, the ruling elite’s fear and hatred of the emerging international movement in the working class.

It must be recalled that in 2003, European officials defied Washington, publicly refuting US lies about Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction” that Washington was using to justify a planned, illegal invasion of Iraq. France’s right-wing prime minister, Dominique de Villepin, publicly stated his government’s opposition to this policy at the United Nations.

Calling for “unity” in the UN Security Council, Villepin said: “In this temple of the United Nations, we are the guardians of an ideal and of a conscience. The great responsibility and immense honour we have must lead us to give priority to disarmament in peace. It is an old country, France, from an old continent like mine, Europe, that today tells you this—after experiencing war, occupation, and barbarism. It does not forget and knows what it owes to those from America and elsewhere who fought for freedom. But it has never stopped facing history and humanity.”

One need not be a supporter of Villepin’s government, its austerity policies and its wars in Ivory Coast and other former French colonies, to recognize that a profound shift has taken place in the European bourgeoisie. In 2003, despite his indubitable hypocrisy, Villepin could justify opposition to US aggression by reference to popular opposition, historically rooted in the working class, to war, fascist barbarism and the bourgeoisie’s collaboration with the Nazi Occupation of France.

Today, President Emmanuel Macron takes a different line. A global resurgence of strikes and protests spans every continent—from “yellow vests” and mass strikes against pension cuts in France, to the Indian general strike, mass anti-government protests in Algeria and Iraq, and strikes last year of US autoworkers and teachers. In 2018, as Macron launched attacks against the “yellow vests,” the largest wave of mass arrests in France since the Occupation, he hailed Philippe Pétain, the fascist leader of the collaboration with the Nazi occupation, as a “great soldier.”

These policies underscore that European capitalism has reached a historical dead end. It is viciously hostile to mass opposition to a US war with Iran. Its main concern is not the danger of war, but crushing opposition from below. It is useless to appeal to Macron or his colleagues in Berlin and London to stop war or austerity. As calls multiply for strikers to bring down Macron’s government, it is critical to turn the emerging movement against Macron into an international, socialist and anti-war movement of the working class.

European Commission STARTS Prize (€20,000 plus funded to Award programs in Europe) 2020

Application Deadline: 2nd March 2020

Eligible Countries: All

About the Award: STARTS is an initiative of the European Commission to foster alliances of technology and artistic practice. As part of this initiative, the STARTS Prize awards the most pioneering collaborations and results in the field of creativity and innovation at the crossings of science and technology with the arts. The STARTS Prize of the European Commission is launched by Ars Electronica, BOZAR and Waag.

Science, Technology and Arts (=STARTS) form a nexus with an extraordinarily high potential for creative innovation. And such innovation is considered to be precisely what’s called for if we’re to master the social, ecological and economic challenges that Europe will be facing in the near future. The role of artists thus is no longer seen to be just about propagating scientific and technological knowledge and skills among the general public but much more as a kind of catalyst that can inspire and trigger innovative processes. The artistic practice of creative exploration and experimental appropriation of new technologies has a wide reaching potential to contribute to the development of new products and new economic, social and business models. Accordingly, the STARTS Prize focuses on artistic works that influence or change the way we look at technology, and on innovative forms of collaboration between the ICT sector and the world of art and culture.

Type: Contest

Eligibility:

Who can enter?

• Artists / creative professionals or the researchers / companies involved from throughout the world; STARTS is not limited to citizens of EU-member states.

What can be submitted?

• groundbreaking collaborations and projects driven by both technology and the arts. Purely artistic or technologically driven projects are not the focus of this competition.
• all forms of artistic works and practices with a strong link to innovation in technology, business and/or society; furthermore, STARTS is not restricted to a particular genre such as media art and digital art.
• all types of technological and scientific research and development that has been inspired by art or involves artists as catalysts of novel thinking.
• The jury is looking forward to receiving submissions from a broad variety of fields and disciplines. Among others, projects from the areas of new media applications, human computer interaction, machine learning, biotechnology, art & science, green technologies, material research, smart cities and citizen empowerment, robotics, quantum technology and many more are very welcome to apply.
• For inspiration, have a look at our broad range of winners, honorary mentions and nominations of the past years

Selection Criteria: 

• Quality of the artistic research and its potential influence on technology
• Quality and success of the collaboration between art and technology
• Quality and intensity of the connection to innovation, education, social inclusion or sustainability
• General criteria such as aesthetics, originality, convincing concept, innovation and the technique and quality of the presentation

Number of Awards: 2

Value of Award: Two prizes, each with €20,000 prize money, are offered to honor innovative projects at the intersection of science, technology and the arts: one for artistic exploration, and thus projects with the potential to influence or change the way technology is deployed, developed or perceived, and one for innovative collaboration between industry/technology and art/culture in ways that open up new paths for innovation.

• Grand Prize – Artistic Exploration Awarded for artistic exploration and art works where appropriation by the arts has a strong potential to influence or alter the use, deployment or perception of technology.
• Grand Prize – Innovative Collaboration Awarded for innovative collaboration between industry or technology and the arts that opens new pathways for innovation.

Duration of Program: The jury convenes at the beginning of May, 2020. All STARTS Prize 2020 winners will be notified by Mid-June 2020 at the latest.

How to Apply:

• A video documentary (approximately 3 minutes in length)
• Images (JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG) at the highest possible resolution; compressed files (such as .zip or .lzh files) are unacceptable.
• A clear, detailed description of the artistic concept, the form of interaction and technical implementation; since specific prerequisites have to be fulfilled for an onsite presentation to take place (e.g. in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival), the project’s specifications as to hardware & software and spatial requirements should be as detailed as possible. Moreover, the entrant must specify what he/she can provide on his/her own in order to stage such an onsite presentation, and what must necessarily be furnished by Ars Electronica Linz.
• A printable portrait photo and a biography of the artist
• At the entrant’s option, additional material such as images, documents and drawings (as PNG or PDF) can also be submitted.

 SUBMIT NOW!

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

KAAD Germany Fellowship Programme 2020/2021 (Masters & PhD) for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 30th June 2020 for the September academic session.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America. Countries in Africa include: Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya (with Uganda and Tanzania) and Zimbabwe.

To be taken at (country): Germany.  There is also the possibility for Master-scholarships at local universities.

Eligible Field of Study: There is no specific subject-preference. However, the selection board has often given preference to courses and subjects that they felt to be of significance for the home country of the applicant. This holds true especially for subjects of PhD-theses. There is therefore a certain leaning towards “development oriented” studies – this does however not mean that other fields (cultural, philosophic, linguistic, etc.) can not be of significance for a country and are ruled out.

About the Award: The KAAD Scholarship Program is addressed to post-graduates and to academics living in their home countries who already gained professional experience and who are interested in postgraduate studies (or research stays) in Germany. This program is administered by regional partner committees, staffed by university professors and church representatives. Normally documents are submitted to the committee of the applicant’s home country.

Type: Postgraduate(Masters and PhD) scholarship

Eligibility: To be eligible for the KAAD Fellowship, candidates must:

• come from a developing or emerging country in Africa, Asia, the Middle East or Latin America and are currently living there
• have a university degree and professional experience from their home country
• want to acquire a master’s degree or a PhD at a German university or do a post-doctoral research project (2-6 months for established university lecturers) at a German university
• be Catholic Christian (or generally belong to a Christian denomination). Candidates from other religions can apply if they are proposed by Catholic partners and can prove their commitment to interreligious dialogue
• possess German language skills before starting the studies (KAAD can provide a language course of max. 6 months in Germany)

Selection Criteria: 

• KAAD’s mission is to give scholarships mainly to lay members of the Catholic Church. This means, that – There is a preference for Catholic applicants.
• However, among the scholars, there is a limited number of: Protestant Christians, Orthodox Christians (especially from Ethiopia)and Muslims.
• Catholic priests and religious people are eligible only in very rare cases.

Expectations from KAAD: 

• Above-average performance in studies and research
• The orientation of your studies or research towards permanent reintegration in your home region (otherwise the scholarship is turned into a loan),
• Religious and social commitment (activities) and willingness to inter-religious dialogue.

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Scholarship:  Applicants who are awarded scholarships for Germany under S1 are helped by KAAD with their Visa-modalities, paid for the flights to Germany and back, provided with language training in Germany prior to their studies, etc.

Duration of Scholarship: Duration of program

How to Apply: Interested graduates can fill an online questionnaire, which they find on the application webpage www.kaad-application.de. For detailed information about application requirements and procedures, we recommend to read the FAQs.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

A Call to Catholics: Let Us End Our Complicity in War

Thomas Gumbleton

Once again, information has surfaced regarding United States governmental efforts to mislead and misinform people about disgraceful, cruel destruction caused by a United States war of choice against people who meant the U.S. no harm. In the Afghanistan Papers, the United States government officials acknowledged, privately, their own uncertainty about why they were going to war against Afghanistan in 2001. The trove of newly released documents about the 18-year war unmasked years of high-level deceit and deliberate efforts to obfuscate realities on the ground in Afghanistan.

The United States War on Terrorism began in 2001. A decade earlier, the U.S. invaded and bombed Iraq, following the aerial attacks with an economic war which cost the lives, through sanctions, of hundreds of thousands of children. In 2002, the U.S. invaded Iraq under false pretenses, sparking a vicious civil war, destroying the country’s infrastructure, harrowing the ground for Al-Qaeda in Iraq and the rise of ISIS, and turning the country into a bloodbath which continues to this day.

United States wars have literally set the Middle East on fire. Several million people in the Middle East and North Africa have been killed, and tens of millions maimed, traumatized, and made into refugees.

Over the last 19 years United States forces have detained tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries. Prisoners  have suffered ghastly torture, and some will remain at Guantanamo Bay without trial until they die.

The U.S. has killed untold numbers of civilians by unmanned aerial drones, bombing raids, cruise missile attacks, and special operations missions in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia—also in Syria and Yemen. The U.S.  toppled the Libyan government leading to years of violent chaos. In all of these places, United States war-making has helped cause humanitarian catastrophes.

Rather than follow the lead of the Vatican and other states that have signed and ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,  the U.S. now exacerbates a new nuclear arms race by upgrading every warhead and delivery system, along with every production and command and control site in the nuclear weapons complex.

This tragic pattern of killing and destroying begs the question of our responsibility as Catholic followers of Christ. The endless War on Terrorism has fallen short of the Church’s Just War requirements on multiple fronts. Likewise, United States nuclear weapons policy, which targets the world’s children, falls short of Just War requirements. I call on Catholics in the military, including chaplains, as well as all who work for the military or any branch of the armaments industry to heed Pope Francis’s call to set aside the futility of war. All Catholics should refuse to kill and should refuse cooperation with United States wars. Catholic taxpayers should make every effort to avoid paying for war and weapons. Rather, embrace Jesus, who calls us to love our enemies, put up the sword, and take up the cross.

Iraq – Why Doesn’t the US Move Out Despite the Iraqi Parliament’s Decision?

Peter Koenig

Why doesn’t the U.S. respect the decision made by the Iraqi Parliament and move out of Iraqi territory? – The short answer is, because the US doesn’t respect anybody’s – any country’s – decision or sovereignty, as long as it doesn’t meet their objectives.

Now, the US is steadfast and will not leave the region. Already President Assad has requested that the US leave Syrian territory. They didn’t. The stakes are too immense for the US. It has all to do with their move towards world hegemony by territory and by finance – meaning by the US dollar.

The conflict with Iran is not over. By any means. We are just experiencing a respite for regrouping – and subsequently continuing and escalating the conflict. US bases in Iraq and military presence, at present more than 5,000 troops, are the most convenient means of force against Iran.

Other than controlling the rich and highly strategic territory of the Middle-East as an important step towards world hegemony, the US continuous presence in the region also has to do with profits for the war industry and with the price and control of hydrocarbons, especially gas.

We have seen, soon after the cowardly murder of General Qassem Suleimani, the share values of the war industry jumped up, of course in anticipation of a hot war – and huge weapons sales. The war industry profits insanely from killing. Wars and conflicts are increasingly what drives the western economies. Already in the US the war industry and related industries and services make up for about half of the country’s GDP. The US economy without war is unthinkable. Therefore, the Middle-East is a perfect eternal battle ground – a sine qua non for the west. War is addictive. The western economy is already addicted to it. But most people haven’t realized that – yet. Revolving and renewed conflicts and wars is a must. Imagine, if the US were to leave the Middle-East, PEACE might break out. This is not admissible. Soon, your job my depend on war – if you live in the west.

Then there is the Iranian gas. Daily 20% to 25% of all the energy consumed to drive the world’s economy – including wars – transits through the Golf of Hormuz which is controlled by Iran. Immediately after the heinous murder on General Suleimani, the oil and gas prices spiked by about 4%, later declining again. This, in anticipation of a major conflict which could have Iran reduce her gas production, or block the passage of Hormuz. In either case a collapse of the world economy could not be excluded.

As a parenthesis – it is so absolutely necessary that the world frees itself from this nefarious source of energy – hydrocarbons – and converts to other, cheaper, cleaner and FREER sources of power to drive our industries and activities. Like solar energy of which Mother Earth receives every day more than 10,000 time what it needs for all her industrial and creative activities on every Continent.

The US, with a flailing multi-trillion fracking industry which just failed the European market, due Russian gas via Nord Stream2, and just inaugurated Turkstream, would like to control the price of hydrocarbon, so as to revive the highly indebted fracking industry. What better way than to control Iran, and her enormous reserves of gas, shared with Qatar?

Then there is the close alliance between Iran and China – China being Iran’s largest customer of gas. China is perceived by Washington as a deadly competitor, and barring her from the energy that makes China’s economy thrive, is one of those devilish objectives of the United States. They are unable to compete on an even playing field. Cheating, lying and manipulating has become part of their, and the western life style. It is deeply ingrained in western history and culture.

Of, course there are other ways of supplying China with the hydrocarbons she needs. Russia with the world’s largest gas reserves, could easily increase her supplies.

In brief, the US is unlikely to leave the Middle-East, although some generals – and even some high-ranking Pentagon brass – believe this would be the smartest thing to do – they see the light, and the light is not war, but PEACE.

What could Iraq do to get the US out of Iraq and eventually out of the Region? After all, the Iraqi Parliament has taken a majority decision to regain Iraq’s sovereignty and autonomy, without foreign troops. Most countries with troops stationed in Iraq respect that decision. Denmark, Australia, Poland and Germany are preparing to move their troops out of Iraq. Only the UK with her 800 military men and women decided for now to stay alongside the US.

Iraq may want to strengthened her alliance with Russia and China, hereby increasing the pressure on the US to honor Iraq’s sovereign request for the US to leave. How much that would take to materialize, if at all, is a difficult question to answer. Maybe ‘never’. Except, if the US-dollar hegemony over western economies can be broken. And at the moment, a strong down-turn of the dollar’s role in the world economy is showing, as the western world is increasingly seeking ways to de-dollarize her economy and to associate with the East, led by China and Russia, where de-dollarization is advancing rapidly.

When that happens, chances are that the US of A’s dictates over the nations of the world will be mute, will not be listened to anymore, and that Washington will have to rethink its future – and very likely a US presence in the Middle-East will be history.