Opposition celebrates anti-immigrant New Zealand First’s by-election victory

Tom Peters

Winston Peters, leader of the right-wing populist New Zealand First Party, won a landslide victory in Saturday’s by-election in the northern seat of Northland, which was held by the ruling National Party for more than half a century.

The by-election was prompted by the resignation of National MP Mike Sabin, who is being investigated by police for undisclosed reasons. Sabin was elected in last September’s general election with a majority of 9,000. In a major turnaround, Peters won the by-election with 15,359 votes, compared to National candidate Mark Osborne’s 11,347.

The result means the National government now holds only 59 out of 121 seats in parliament, and will have to rely more heavily on its three support parties: the Maori Party, the far-right ACT Party and United Future, which between them hold four seats. NZ First will have an extra MP, increasing its numbers from 11 to 12.

The result points to a significant shift against Prime Minister John Key’s government, which was initially elected six years ago and has presided over increasing social inequality, attacks on democratic rights and militarism. TheNew Zealand Herald stated that Peters’ “stunning” victory could be “the turning of the tide” against the government. A Dominion Post editorial yesterday said it was a “humiliating blow.”

Northland epitomises the social catastrophe in New Zealand. It has the lowest median income in the country ($23,400 according to the 2013 census) and some of the most run-down infrastructure. There is also widespread opposition to the Key government’s plans to send troops to join the US-led war in Iraq—which was not announced before last year’s election. In addition, the lead-up to the by-election saw further revelations of the Government Communications Security Bureau’s mass surveillance throughout the Asia Pacific region.

Peters’ victory is being celebrated by the opposition Labour Party, its allies the Greens and the Maori nationalist Mana Party, and by “liberal” commentators in the media. These parties boosted Peters’ prospects by promoting him as a “lesser evil” to National. Labour leader Andrew Little basically instructed Labour supporters to vote for Peters, while the Greens did not stand a candidate.

The opposition’s embrace of NZ First reveals the profound shift to the right by the so-called “left” parties. They have united to channel mounting anti-government sentiment in the most reactionary direction.

NZ First is a viciously anti-Asian party. Its members regularly rant against Chinese and Indian immigrants, scapegoating them for every aspect of the country’s social crisis, including low wages, unemployment and the lack of affordable housing. The party has also demonised Muslims as potential terrorists, and pushes for increased military spending and more hard-line “law and order” policies.

Labour, the Greens and Mana have all adapted themselves to NZ First and joined in its anti-Chinese campaigns over the past three years. Last year, Labour and the Greens promised, if elected, to form a coalition government with NZ First. This alignment also feeds into Washington’s push to integrate New Zealand into its strategic “pivot to Asia,” aimed at militarily encircling China.

Much of the corporate media swung behind NZ First, with a Dominion Posteditorial stating that “Peters will make a much better local MP than an unknown National hack.” TV3 and RadioLIVE broadcaster Duncan Garner backed Peters, labelling his opponent Osborne “a numpty.”

Pro-Labour columnist Chris Trotter hailed Peters’ supposed “gravitas and honesty” in the campaign. The Daily Blog, which is funded by five trade unions, campaigned vigorously for Peters, featuring regular columns by NZ First Youth leader Curwen Rolinson.

Revealing his utter contempt for the working class, Daily Blog editor Martyn Bradbury justified his support for NZ First by claiming that the party’s “garden variety racism” would appeal to Northland voters, whom he slandered as “rednecks.”

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei congratulated Peters on his “historic” victory. She stated that “his election is a clear message” that the government is “out of touch” with Northland residents.

The Mana Party’s candidate in Northland, Rueben Taipari Porter, wrote inMana News that he was “proud to have been a part of [the] historical change.” He absurdly declared that the installation of Peters would mark “perhaps the beginnings of a new political strategy to bring the power back to the people.”

Porter received 55 votes in the by-election—fewer than the ultra-right ACT (66 votes) and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party (85 votes) candidates. This result was the outcome of Mana’s “political strategy” to assist the NZ First leader.

The pseudo-left groups Fightback, Socialist Aotearoa and the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) are complicit in the promotion of NZ First. All these middle class outfits campaigned for Mana and its ally, the openly pro-business Internet Party, in last September’s election. They fraudulently portray Mana as “anti-capitalist,” “pro-poor” and anti-racist.

In reality, Mana is a bourgeois party. Like NZ First, it has campaigned against Chinese investment and called for restrictions on foreigners buying houses and discrimination against migrant workers.

The pseudo-lefts have not criticised Mana for embracing NZ First. These groups also work within the Unite trade union, which invited Peters to speak at its November conference, where he blamed poor working conditions on immigration.

In a post by-election attempt to cover its political tracks, an article by the ISO pointed to Peters’ “anti-Asian racism” and said his victory was “no win for workers.” It noted that “some on the left and in the unions have been excited by the prospect of his win” and said this was because of Peters’ nationalist opposition to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks. The article was silent, however, on the promotion of NZ First by Mana and Unite.

The main thrust of the ISO article was to offer friendly advice to the Labour Party, describing its endorsement of Peters as “a mistake.” It stated that Labour “should have fought for Northland with radical policies.” Following Labour’s landslide defeat in last year’s election, the ISO is seeking to revive illusions that the party can be pressured to endorse “radical” changes.

In reality, as masses of working people recognise, Labour is a party of big business and militarism just like National. It abandoned any reformist policies three decades ago and began a wave of privatisations and other attacks on social services and living standards, which continues today under the National government.

The pseudo-lefts, through their support for Labour and Mana—and, indirectly, NZ First—aim to improve their own positions within the political establishment and to prevent the emergence of an independent movement of the working class against the capitalist system.

Los Angeles rail accident exposes decaying state of public transit in the US

Dan Conway

More than twenty people were injured Saturday in a collision between an automobile and a light-rail train operated by the Los Angeles Metro public transit authority.

The automobile driver, Jacob Fadley, a 31-year-old student majoring in film production at the University of Southern California, remains in grave condition, while the train’s driver, identified as Kenneth Gross, a 29-year Metro veteran, is in stable condition and expected to recover.

Fadley had made an improper left turn into the path of the oncoming train. The collision pushed Fadley’s silver Hyundai Sonata into a nearby utility pole, which in turn derailed the first two cars of the train. Fadley’s car was so badly damaged that rescuers had to use hydraulic Jaws of Life to extricate him from the vehicle.

The Metro Expo Line servicing that area resumed operation the following day.

The crash is at least the 18th in the last 12 months between Metro trains and cars. Four of these have taken place on the Expo line, the same line in which the crash occurred, while even more have occurred on Metro’s blue line, which is considered one of the most dangerous light rail lines in the country. One hundred and twenty people have died in pedestrian or driver-related deaths since the blue line began service in 1990.

Accident prevention measures on Metro rail lines are minimal. While safety experts have advocated for crossing gates, overpasses and adequate distances between rail lines and roads, such measures are rarely put in place due to woefully inadequate funding at the federal and state level.

After concluding an agreement with electricians last May, the Metropolitan Transit Authority announced that it was projecting a $36 million operating deficit in 2016. It also announced that without additional revenue streams, either through state assistance or the raising of fares, the agency will be $225 million in debt within the ten years.

Responding to press criticism over the weekend, Metro spokesman Marc Littman claimed that measures separating tracks from vehicular and pedestrian traffic are simply cost prohibitive for the agency. Nonetheless, Littman claimed, “All over the world, there are trains operating safely in dense, urban areas. You can’t build a bubble around the rail system.”

Metro officials have touted their public safety awareness campaign involving Metro Trains emblazoned with safety messages such as “Heads up, watch for trains” as an effective accident deterrent.

Investigators are attempting to determine the cause of the crash and suspect that turn signals at the intersection may not have been functioning properly at the time. In addition to street-level turn signals, “train stop” signals are also shown to train operators in cases when a vehicle attempts a dangerous crossing.

Regardless of the investigation’s findings, however, the Expo line itself has been the subject of serious safety concerns since the Metro’s Expo Line had begun utilizing it in April 2012. At the time, transportation experts including USC Viterbi School of Engineering Professor Najmedin Meshkati warned of the dangers of Expo line crossings resulting from insufficient safety precautions.

“I beg USC students to be extra cautious, and take their earphones out when crossing these intersections. They are a major source of hazard,” he said. Meshkati, along with USC colleague Greg Placencia warned that inadequate safety reviews due to staffing cuts at the California Public Utilities Commission made the intersections some of “the most confusing and dangerous intersections in LA county that could pose serious risks of accidents for future motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.”

Saturday’s collision involved approximately 100 Metro passengers, with more than 20 injured and 10 taken to a local hospital for treatment of injuries.

Public rail systems across the United States have been plagued in recent years by a string of accidents and outright catastrophes.

Last March, the driver of a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) elevated train rammed through a barrier at O’Hare International Airport after having worked 69 hours in the seven days prior to the accident. The crash followed a CTA collision a few months prior in which 33 people were injured in a rush hour collision.

Less than seven years ago, a Metro train collided with a Union Pacific freight train in the Los Angeles suburb of Chatsworth, leading to 25 deaths and 135 injuries.

Only last month, the New York City transit authority experienced the deadliest crash in its history, with six people dead and ten seriously injured after a train carrying 650 people crashed into a sport utility vehicle in the Westchester county suburb of Valhalla.

Poland integrates paramilitary groups into the army

Markus Salzmann

The Polish government has integrated paramilitary groups into the army, strengthening right-wing forces within the police and army while intensifying the confrontation with Russia in the process.

On March 21, volunteer militias, citizens’ defence groups, paramilitary associations and schools with so-called defence training classes in the Warsaw region came together to form an association at a conference with over 800 participants.

Poland’s National Security Adviser Stanislaw Koziej explained that the paramilitary militia would work closely with the army. This isn’t about creating an army outside of the army, he stated. The integration of civil defence organisations was an important step in increasing the country’s security.

It remains unclear which tasks these paramilitary groups will take on and where they will be deployed. Military exercises with the reserves and the utilisation of military training grounds were discussed at the Warsaw conference.

According to estimates, there are approximately 120 groups in Poland composed of some 45,000 members carrying out military exercises, shooting practice or tactical training. Almost all are closely aligned with right-wing political parties and groups. Their actions are not only directed against the alleged external threat of Russia, but also domestically against minorities, left-wing forces and homosexuals.

The extreme right-wing Ruch Narodovy, which has close ties to Hungary’s Jobbik party and other right-wing parties in Europe, controls its own paramilitary group. Many groups maintain links to the fascist militias in Ukraine, which are fighting alongside the Ukrainian army against separatists in the east of the country, having played a major role in the Maidan movement.

The association is to be led by General Boguslaw Pacek, who was responsible for improving military training in Ukraine as part of the NATO programme. Pacek spoke of the collaboration between the groups and the defence ministry reaching a “new quality.”

Pacek was also adviser to defence minister Tomasz Siemoniak, who personally attended the conference. In the lead-up to the conference, Siemoniak declared that these organisations would potentially need to be utilized more. He referred to the positive experiences in providing rescue services or disaster protection, in which volunteers had successfully partnered with professionals. The government was considering paying a wage to 2,500 volunteers. These would then serve as the backbone of the volunteer organisations at the local level and be mobilised in the event of war.

In tandem with the creation of the paramilitary association, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz changed the law on involvement in military exercises. While previously only active soldiers and reserves could be called up for duty, now any Pole can be called up in principle. In addition, the government is pushing to reintroduce military service, which was abolished in 2010.

The New York Times wrote on the collaboration between the government and the volunteer groups: “The defence ministry has been trying to entice the groups to join an alliance with the government, offering equipment, uniforms, training and even money in exchange for a clearer idea of who they are—and a chance to assemble a new generation of energized recruits.”

According to Pacek, beyond the roughly 120 paramilitary groups in Poland, there are approximately 1,500 so-called uniform classes in Polish schools in which pupils are taught military techniques. There could be possible joint exercises between these civilian volunteers and the reserves. Already in 2014, the Polish government decided to increase the size of the reserves.

The provoked conflict with Russia is not only being used in Poland to push forward with a military build-up and give right-wing militias a semi-official status. This is also a prominent development in the Baltic states, which together with Poland, have taken the lead in the conflict with Russia.

In Latvia, on March 16, veterans of the German SS held their annual parade under the protection of a massive police escort. Around 1,500 people marched through Riga, according to police estimates, including several parliamentarians. They celebrated the 140,000 Latvians who fought in the Second World War in the uniforms of the SS against the Red Army, and committed unspeakable atrocities, as independence fighters.

In Lithuania, President Dalia Grybauskaite ordered the distribution of a government pamphlet to every household providing advice on what to do in the event of a Russian attack. In this way, a climate of fear is being created, enabling the government to implement planned cuts and increase the military budget.

A component of the growing militarism directed against Russia is the almost 1,800-kilometre-long trip of a US military convoy through Eastern Europe. Two weeks ago, a group of American tanks set off from Estonia to drive through Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic. Two further groups started in Lithuania and Poland. On April 1, all three groups will meet at the Rose barracks in Vilseck, Germany. The convoy is part of a massive rearmament of the US and NATO in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski recently called for a reorientation of NATO’s strategic concept. The Western allies confronted a movement by Russia “away from straightforward cooperation towards one-sided confrontation with the Western world”, he said. The conclusion to be drawn by Poland was that its defence capabilities had to be increased.

Last week, American Patriot missiles were sent to Warsaw from Germany. As part of the “Atlantic Resolve” operation, which is supposed to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank, around 100 US soldiers and 30 vehicles have been stationed there.

A further point of conflict could be the attempt of the Polish government, five years after the event, to reopen the investigation into the crash of the presidential plane in Smolensk, Russia. Two officers from Russia’s air surveillance service should be held accountable in the courts due to the disaster, state prosecutor Ireneus Szelag said.

On April 10, 2010, then Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and almost 100 high-ranking Polish officials were killed in the plane crash. Russian investigators have rejected Polish claims that Russia was in some way responsible for the crash. Air traffic controllers had followed their procedures and observed international protocol, said Russian spokesman Vladimir Markin in Moscow.

German army expands its submarine fleet

Denis Krasnin

The German navy put its new submarine model U35 into service last week. At a cost of €500 million, it is one of the most modern, non-nuclear submarines owned by the German navy. It is the fifth of six submarines of the class 212 A series ordered by the German army.

The submarine, produced by ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, was launched in Kiel in November 2011. At the time, the navy’s web site stated that this signified “a further step in modernisation and operation planning.” Four years later, the German army is even blunter about its purpose.

In his speech at the celebrations surrounding the U35’s entry into service in Kiel on Monday, rear admiral Hans-Christian Luther, operational leader of the navy commando unit, described the new “protégé” of operation flotilla 1 as a “capacity builder,” which further increases the capabilities of the German navy. He then hailed the smallest of the three components of the German army, placing the navy’s rearmament directly in the context of Germany’s remilitarisation.

As a modern component of a combat force with future capabilities, the navy was prepared to respond to the challenges of the 21st century, said Luther. “Precisely the developments over the past year have shown us all once again that a variety of versatile operational methods for the armed forces are required. Submarines are perfect for fulfilling this need.”

Germany was in the lead in constructing conventional submarines, stated Luther. The submarines of class 212 A had “the most advanced capabilities in the world among conventional submarines. In joint exercises and operations, our partners and allies are always compelled to show their recognition and respect for the capabilities of these units.”

In recent years, the German navy has repeatedly boasted that their new class 212 A submarines had set new diving records and broken through the defence systems of US warships undetected on several occasions during joint exercises. In an article in Die Welt headlined “The German submarine fleet’s records” it is stated, “In the First World War they produced a disaster. In the Second World War they had the highest losses, today they are teaching US carriers to be fearful: Germany’s submarines are ambivalent weapons.”

The German ruling elite intends to use these weapons to defend their economic and strategic interests around the globe. Parliamentary state secretary Markus Grübel, who delivered greetings from defence minister Ursula Von der Leyen (Christian Democratic Union, CDU), commented, according to an official navy report: “how important it was in these times that modern weaponry and systems are introduced to the troops.”

According to an NDR report, the U35 is more capable than its four predecessors and is planned for worldwide operations. It was “equipped for the tropics,” had greater fuel storage for long journeys and can provide military divers and special forces with more equipment. A new type of radio system makes it possible for the submarine to communicate under water anywhere in the world.

In the future, it could also be equipped with a missile system that would make it possible to destroy targets in the air and on nearby coasts. In addition, torpedoes that are difficult to locate are intended as weapons. U35’s sister ship, U36, is set to be declared ready for service by inspectors in the coming months. This would complete the submarine fleet, a secretive and strategically important weapon for the German army.

However, it is to be expected that the navy will be further expanded in connection with the general plan to build up the German army. In recent weeks, the German cabinet agreed to increase the defence budget by at least €8 billion over the coming four years. According to an official strategy paper, more spending is required for “expanded NATO engagement” and “additional spending around the world.” The navy plays a role in both areas, and their leading military figures are already dreaming of their new significance and past grandeur.

In Kiel, the historic centre of the German navy, a conference took place in the city hall titled “Kiel and the navy 1865-2015: 150 years of united history.” In his main speech, Vice Admiral Rainer Brinkmann, the deputy inspector of the navy, spoke about “the growing demands on the navy around the world and, bound up with this, Germany’s dependence on the navy,” according to the German army’s web site. “The once great but now small navy remains at the centre of political events and is also used as a tool in these events,” the admiral declared.

A look at the navy’s official web site reveals that, as in the previous century, the navy is very conscious of its role as the defender of the economic and strategic interests of German imperialism. The web site states bluntly: “The sea is one of Germany’s most important economic fundamentals. For all of the world’s trading nations, the sea is the most important transport route for the exchange of goods. Over 90 percent of total world trade, close to 95 percent of European Union exports and almost 70 percent of Germany’s imports and exports use sea routes. Germany is a highly industrialised export nation, but it lacks raw materials. To be able to act economically and politically, the Federal Republic is especially dependent upon securing the supply of necessary imports.”

The navy’s current strategy paper titled “Imagining the Navy’s goals 2025+,” authored by former navy inspector Wolfgang Nolting, states that the navy is preparing to militarily defend “free and unhindered world trade as the basis for the welfare of Germany and Europe.”

Because Germany “could [have to] confront threats and risks where they emerge,” the navy had to be “capable of long-term and far-off operations, within multinational frameworks and threatened by enemy coastlines.” They had to “therefore focus more on joint combat forces operations and expand their capabilities to support land-based forces from the sea. The further development of the navy into an expeditionary navy is at the forefront of this.”

“Expeditionary navy” is a synonym for a war navy capable of acting globally. The rearming of the submarine fleet, like the deployment of the navy to the Horn of Africa and off the Lebanese coast, and the participation of the navy in NATO exercises aimed at Russia in the Black Sea, is aimed precisely at establishing such a force.

Labour offers itself to business backers to kick off UK election campaign

Julie Hyland

Labour leader Ed Miliband began his party’s official campaign for the General Election with a pitch to prove itself the most business friendly party.

Miliband launched Labour’s “Business Manifesto” as parliament was dissolved to clear the way for the election on May 7. Polls indicate that the outcome is still far too close to call, with Labour and the Conservatives averaging in the low 30s.

According to reports, Labour is taking legal advice as to how to avoid Prime Minister David Cameron “squatting” in Downing Street after May 7.

Cameron would be expected to continue as prime minister until a majority government is formed. However, the Independent reported that Miliband may demand Cameron “proves” he has the right to stay on by surviving a parliamentary vote.

Given the uncertainty as to the election outcome and its implications, it is significant that Miliband’s first major address was before corporate heads at Bloomberg’s HQ in London. Miliband’s main gambit was to insist that Labour could be trusted again with acting on their interests. At the centre of this claim was a declaration that only a Labour government could avert the “clear and present danger” facing the UK economy in the event of a referendum on British membership of the Europe Union.

Prime Minister David Cameron has pledged that the Conservatives will hold an in/out referendum on the issue if he wins power. He has said this would take place by 2017 but with a substantial section of his party opposing EU membership, it could be held even earlier.

On Monday, Labour took out a full-page advert in the Financial Timesfeaturing quotes from the heads of six of the largest corporations in Britain over the dangers of leaving the EU. They included a statement by Siemens UK chief executive Juergen Maier that the prospect of a referendum was “profoundly worrying” and Jonathan Myers, head of Kellogg’s EU operations, that, “The biggest short term risk to Manchester’s competitiveness in the EU is a simple one. It is the risk the UK could leave it.”

Under the headline, “The biggest risk to British business is the threat of an EU exit,” the advert pledged, “Labour will put the national interest first. We will deliver reform not exit.”

The advert sparked criticisms by some of the companies represented that the quotes should not have been included in a party political statement, with a spokeswoman for Siemens UK saying that Labour had “overstepped the line.” But Miliband is desperate to prove he has support in the City of London. Responding to the complaints, he said Britain’s place in the EU was “absolutely at stake in this general election. Are we going to be reforming the EU from the inside or threatening exit? That is something that the vast majority of business people would share Labour’s position on.”

At the manifesto launch, Miliband accused Cameron of “playing political games with our membership of the EU.”

“If you care about prosperity, then Britain must be a committed member of a reformed European Union,” he said, promising that there would no in/out referendum under a Labour government.

Miliband has not specified what he means by a “reformed” EU. He made no mention of the situation in Greece, which the EU is threatening with bankruptcy unless it imposes even greater economic and social devastation. Instead he pledged greater immigration controls over workers from the EU.

Labour would argue for “stronger transitional controls” to “control the flows of workers for longer when new countries join” the EU, he said. It would also “restrict access to benefits for two years for those coming from the EU.”

A crackdown on immigration is one of Labour’s five election pledges, as the party seeks to compete with the Tories and the UK Independence Party to prove which is tougher on migrants. The party has even designed a mug for the election, outlining its promise for “controls on immigration” as a reason for voting Labour.

Miliband presented his demands as part of Labour’s plan to improve British competitiveness. “For every hour worked, we produce nearly 20 percent less than our main competitors in the G7,” he complained. “Our productivity gap is at its highest level for nearly a quarter of a century.”

But he had little that was concrete to propose outside of calls for business to work with government in creating apprenticeships. Labour would create a British Investment Bank, Miliband said, supporting a network of regional banks. This would help create a “competitive” banking system in which all businesses could succeed, from the multinational and FTSE100 to the “family firm.”

Labour had pledged “to keep corporation tax at the lowest rate in the G7,” he reiterated.

Miliband was also at pains to stress that any government he led would be committed to spending cuts and so-called “deficit reduction.” The “Business Manifesto” sets out repeatedly that Labour will “balance the books” and “cut the deficit every year.”

“Outside of a few protected areas departmental spending will need to fall until we balance the books,” it states, boasting that the Institute for Fiscal Studies “has identified Labour as ‘the most cautious’ of the three main Parties, and the only one that has not announced an overall net giveaway.”

At the launch of the “Business Manifesto,” Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls rejected suggestions that a Miliband-led government would borrow money for investment programmes.

At the weekend, Labour’s vice election chair Lucy Powell had told the “Sunday Politics” show that there could be “some investment borrowing” under its fiscal rules, which would not contradict its plan to balance the books. Balls repudiated Powell’s claim, reiterating that there could be no extra borrowing to fund anything.

“We have said very clearly we are going to get the current budget not only into balance but surplus in the next parliament,” he said. There were “no proposals in our manifesto which will involve any additional spending,” he stressed.

Last week the BBC leaked documents revealing Conservative plans to further slash welfare spending, as part of its intention to eliminate a further £12 billion from the welfare budget. This is on top of the £20 billion it has already cut from welfare so far.

The Conservatives have refused to spell out exactly where the axe will fall, although the documents, prepared by the Department for Work and Pensions, includes proposals to slash payments to carers, the disabled and families with children.

Labour has previously floated plans to cap social security spending. The Business Manifesto states that a Miliband-led government will take “tough decisions” on welfare, including restricting child benefit rises for two years and means testing winter fuel payments to pensioners. It will make “difficult choices about priorities” as to public spending on services, to ensure “maximum value for every pound of taxpayer money it spends.”

As for Miliband’s claims that “growing” British business will lead to higher wages, the manifesto speaks vaguely about a five-year plan to raise the minimum wage to £8 an hour and for an end to “exploitative” zero hour contracts.

Labour’s “tough choices” for workers are in contrast to its approach to the top 1 percent of earners, on incomes of over £150,000, who it proposes only to “ask to pay a little more to help get the deficit down by reversing the cut to the top rate of tax.”

South Korea joins Chinese-led investment bank

Ben McGrath

South Korea announced on Thursday that it would join China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), making it the latest United States ally to do so in recent weeks. The debate over joining the AIIB is an indication of the divisions within the South Korean ruling class over whether to move closer to China or strengthen its traditional ties to the United States.

Major economic considerations were at the center of Seoul’s decision to become a founding member of the AIIB, along with more than 40 other countries. On Saturday, Australia, Russia and the Netherlands also announced they would join the Chinese-led bank, with today the deadline to sign up as a founding member. The other major US ally in northeast Asia, Japan, has still not decided to join. China’s Finance Ministry released a short statement saying: “The Chinese side welcomed South Korea’s decision.”

Demand in the Asian infrastructure market, according to the Asian Development Bank, will be $730 billion annually over the next several years. Seoul’s deputy minister of international affairs at the Finance Ministry, Choi Hui-nam said on Friday: “Once the AIIB starts its operations, Asia’s largest infrastructure market will be opened up to us. Korean companies with ample experience in the construction, transportation and information communications sectors are expected to win business opportunities.”

South Korea is now seeking to secure a stake, and voting rights, in the AIIB equivalent to its economic size. The bank’s basic guidelines allocate these stakes based on a country’s gross domestic product (GDP). Excluding China, South Korea currently ranks third in GDP among the Asian nations that have indicated their intentions to join, behind India and Australia.

Stakes are also to be divided differently between regional and non-regional countries. Seoul hopes that factors such as gross national income, foreign reserves size and trade volume, may play favorably for South Korea.

A Finance Ministry official, speaking to Yonhap News Agency last week, stated: “Joining the organization is just the start, with the real challenge coming when the country has to secure voting rights that directly impact its role in the bank.”

South Korea’s decision to join the AIIB was opposed by the United States, fearing that Seoul would be drawn closer to China. In fact, Seoul only signed up after the UK announced its move to join the bank on March 12, followed by other European powers. Before that, Washington exerted a great deal of pressure on South Korea, Japan and Australia not to become AIIB members.

Washington was clearly perturbed by South Korea’s move. US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said on Thursday: “I am not going to react or comment on their (South Korea’s) decision. I would say in general we’ve seen a number of countries make decisions to join the bank. That is their decision.”

He continued: “We certainly hope that as we stress the importance of international standards and transparency, that there will also be voices for those same values.” In other words, US allies like South Korea will now be expected to act in Washington’s interests within the AIIB.

For Washington to speak of transparency and the “high standards” of international financial institutions, and of protecting workers’ rights and the environment—its given reasons for opposing the AIIB—is a transparent fraud. The US has long ruthlessly exploited its grip over institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the Obama administration has spearheaded the slashing of American workers’ wages and conditions. In reality, the US is concerned that the AIIB may cut across its interests in Asia, while expanding China’s influence.

To offset Washington’s concerns, the South Korean political establishment is debating whether to allow the United States to station a Thermal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile system in South Korea. Until now, Seoul has struck a position on the THAAD known as “strategic ambiguity”—neither supporting the system nor rejecting it.

Beijing is rightly concerned that the missile system would be used to target China in the event of a war between it and the US. Were Washington to stage a first strike on China, the THAAD would be used to knock out any possible counter attack. With 28,500 US troops stationed in South Korea, the country would quickly be drawn into such a conflict.

The THAAD system is falsely billed as a defense measure against a potential attack by North Korea. Ruling Saenuri Party chairman Kim Mu-seong caused a stir last week when he called North Korea a nuclear power while speaking to university students in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city. This went against both the policy of the US and the South not to recognize the North as such.

Kim made the comments in support of bringing a THAAD battery to South Korea, changing his past position of not issuing a statement on the matter. Since this month’s attack by a lone assailant on the US ambassador to Seoul, Mark Lippert, the Saenuri Party has thrown its weight behind the missile system and whipped up an anti-North Korean atmosphere.

President Park Geun-hye’s government is attempting to treat joining the AIIB and the THAAD system as two separate and distinct issues, but it is quite clear that there is a tradeoff between the two. Saenuri Party floor leader Yu Seung-min stated bluntly on March 9 that bringing the THAAD system to the South was an issue of choosing between the US and China.

On the other hand, the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) has spoken out against the THAAD, concerned that it could damage the economic relationship between China and the South Korean companies that the NPAD represents.

Until South Korea makes a decision on the missile system, the US will continue to exert pressure on the issue. US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey was in Seoul last week on a three-day trip, meeting with his South Korean counterpart Admiral Choi Yun-hui and Defense Minister Han Min-gu.

No talks on the THAAD were publically announced, but the Pentagon stated in February that the two sides were holding “constant discussions” on the matter. US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is also planning a trip to Seoul in early April. In response to its diplomatic, strategic and economic setback on the AIIB, Washington is stepping up its drive to encircle China militarily.

EU, demanding deeper cuts, rejects Syriza’s austerity list

Robert Stevens

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras addressed the parliament last night, once again making clear his readiness to implement austerity measures dictated by the country’s international creditors.

Tsipras told parliament that the debt Syriza inherited from the New Democracy/PASOK government was larger than had been presented. It was now time to face the truth, he declared.

Syriza, he said, was ready to make an “honest compromise” with creditors, without acting simply as their “mouthpiece.”

Tsipras’s bluster notwithstanding, he could not say anything of substance about the state of negotiations with Greece’s creditors from the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) earlier that day—the ostensible purpose of the parliamentary session. To do so would be to make clear not only the attacks on the working class he had offered to carry out, but also the even deeper attacks being demanded of him by Europe’s rulers.

New Democracy leader Antonis Samaras mocked Tsipras, saying he had imagined he'd get money without terms and instead had obtained terms without money.

On Friday, Syriza submitted a further list of austerity proposals, as stipulated in its February 20 agreement to extend by four months the austerity programme of the previous governing coalition. On Sunday evening, the cabinet approved the list.

Athens needs the measures to be accepted by what is now known as the Brussels Group in order to access any of the €7 billion of outstanding loans being withheld. Without access to these funds, it will be unable to repay any more of its €315 billion debt.

However, despite intensive negotiations over the weekend, including a ten-hour session on Saturday, no agreement was reached.

Among the main austerity measures being demanded of Syriza by the Brussels Group are changes to Greece’s labour laws to make it easier for employers to fire workers, as well as further cuts to pensions. The Financial Times reported that these are “two areas that monitors have insisted are essential to finalising the bailout programme.”

However, Tsipras said in an interview with the RealNews Sunday newspaper, “There’s no prospect of taking any recessionary measures, whether it’s cutting wages and pensions or liberalising regulations on mass dismissals.”

According to a Bloomberg News report, Greece submitted a 15-page list that “relies on taxing capital transfers and fighting tax evasion.” The document states that privatisations currently in place would raise €1.5 billion this year, down from €2.2 billion projected in the 2015 budget prepared by the previous government. It forecasts a primary budget surplus of at least 1.2 percent of gross domestic product.

But such proposals are of little interest to the European ruling elite, who are demanding that Syriza go much further and specify cuts that will further decimate the living standards of the working class and poor.

Reuters cited a senior euro zone official who said, “Greece did not submit a reform list on Friday.” The official added that Syriza’s proposals “lack detail, and much more technical work will be needed for them to flesh them out into something sufficiently comprehensive and credible to be put to the Eurogroup.”

An unnamed EU diplomat said, “The list is much too vague, not credible and not verifiable.”

On Monday, the German Finance Ministry said the government would not sign off on further loans to Greece unless the Greek parliament passed concrete austerity measures. Spokesman Martin Jaeger said, "We need to wait for the Greek side to present us with a comprehensive list of reform measures that is suitable for discussion with the institutions, and then later in the Eurogroup." He cautioned that any progress “depends on the quality of the Greek list and how far they cover the elements that are already mentioned in the [extended austerity] memorandum.”

A Greek newspaper report said Syriza included specific privatisations in the proposals. Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis, who has just returned from a trip to China, stated on his return that the sale of a 67 percent stake in the Piraeus Port Authority would be completed in a matter of weeks, raising around €500 million. China’s Cosco Group, which already controls two piers at the strategic port, is among five preferred bidders. Also set for completion is the sale of 14 regional airports.

The Brussels group meeting ended with no agreement. According to sources, there are no plans to meet again this week—leaving Syriza to draw up yet another austerity list for sometime in April, while Greece’s financial crisis intensifies. German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the media that Greece’s proposals must “add up.”

Syriza has made a concerted effort to deepen its ties with China and Russia, both of which have geostrategic interests in the region. Senior Syriza representatives, as well as Defence Minister Panos Kammenos of Syriza’s right-wing coalition partner, the Independent Greeks, have warned that one or both countries could be approached as alternative sources of funding for Greece. The leader of Syriza’s “Left Platform”, Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, is in Moscow. On April 9, Tsipras will visit for talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, the rating agency Fitch downgraded Greece’s unsecured currency bonds. Fitch said progress since February’s agreement “has been slow” and it remained “unclear when the earliest disbursement could take place and what will be required for this to happen.”

Fitch added that it was “likely that the Eurogroup will want the Greek government to demonstrate they have implemented some part of this list before funds are disbursed. This pushes back the probable disbursement date well into April at the earliest.”

Since it was elected on an anti-austerity ticket, Syriza and the country’s banks have been systematically cut off from normal funding streams by the ECB. When bank and company debt is factored in, total debt levels are now at around half a trillion euros.

With Greece’s banks all but insolvent, the Syriza government’s projection of a budget surplus has been dismissed as fantasy. Holger Schmieding, chief economist at London-based Berenberg Bank, said, “After capital flight of €50 billion within three months, it is difficult to see how Greece could muster any growth at all this year. And after the plunge in tax revenues in January and February, Greece is on track for a primary deficit, not a surplus.”

Since 2010, Greece has been used as the test case for imposing mass austerity throughout Europe. The continent’s ruling elite now insists that the pauperisation of Greece’s population be stepped up. Syriza’s perspective, based on the interests of sections of the Greek ruling elite and the affluent upper-middle class, of an amicable restructuring of Greece’s debt within the EU is in tatters.

Middle East engulfed by war

Bill Van Auken

With the launching of the US-backed military intervention in Yemen, virtually the entire Middle East is engulfed by military conflict, a state of affairs that has no precedent, with the possible exception of the two world wars fought in the 20th century.

Washington’s pursuit of policies from one conflict to the next that are seemingly at odds with one another has provoked mounting expressions of concern from major US think tanks and editorial boards—not to mention nominal allies in Europe—over “strategic incoherence.”

To describe as glaring the contradictions that riddle US foreign policy in the Middle East does not do them justice.

In Yemen, the Obama administration has announced its full backing, with the provision of logistical assistance, arms (including cluster bombs) and targeting intelligence, to an intervention spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, the other Sunni oil monarchies and the Egyptian regime of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

This coalition of dictatorships and crowned tyrants is waging a war against the most impoverished country in the Arab world. Their aim in bombing cities and killing civilians is to contain the influence of Iran, which has provided support to the Zaydi Shiite Houthi rebels who overthrew President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, a puppet installed by Washington and Riyadh.

In Iraq, US warplanes have been bombing Tikrit, the hometown of the ousted and murdered Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, which is now controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This operation is providing air support to a besieging force comprised overwhelmingly of Shiite militias operating with Iranian support and advisors.

While the Pentagon had conditioned the air strikes on the withdrawal of these militias, some of which had resisted the eight-year US occupation of Iraq, it is widely acknowledged that this was strictly for the sake of appearances. The Shiite forces remain the principal fighting force on the ground.

Meanwhile, across the border in Syria, Washington is pursuing a policy seemingly at odds with itself, on the one hand pledging to arm and train militias seeking to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad, whose closest ally is Iran, and, on the other, carrying out air strikes against both ISIS and the Al Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, which together are the principal armed opponents of the Assad regime.

At the same time, negotiations led by US Secretary of State John Kerry in Switzerland are going down to the wire in a bid to secure an agreement with Iran that would curtail its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting (or partial lifting) of punishing economic sanctions imposed by Washington and its European allies. Failure to achieve such a deal could spell a turn toward more direct US military aggression against Iran. Success could well prove to be a tactical preparation for the same thing.

It is now 12 years since the Bush administration launched its war against Iraq. At the time, it claimed that its war of aggression was being waged to eliminate “weapons of mass destruction” and the threat posed by ties between the government of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Both claims were lies. There were neither weapons nor any connections, outside of mutual hostility, between the secular regime in Baghdad and the Islamist group.

At the same time, Bush portrayed the US intervention as a liberating mission that would bring “democracy” to Iraq and beyond. “The establishment of a free Iraq in the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution,” he proclaimed in the early stages of the US military occupation.

That the US invasion was a “watershed event” no one can deny. It ushered in a period of wholesale carnage that claimed over 1 million Iraqi lives, destroyed the country’s economic and social infrastructure, and provoked bitter sectarian struggles between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds as part of a deliberate policy of divide and rule.

For Iraq, the war was a catastrophe. For the US, it proved to be a debacle. Costing the lives of 4,500 American soldiers, injuring tens of thousands more, and consuming trillions of dollars in military expenditures, it succeeded only in creating the social and political conditions for ISIS (an offshoot of Al Qaeda) to overrun more than one third of the country—a country that had had no serious Islamist presence prior to the 2003 invasion.

The war in Iraq profoundly destabilized the entire region, a process that was accelerated by Washington’s launching of proxy wars in both Libya and Syria, backing Islamist militias linked to Al Qaeda in an effort to bring down the secular regimes of Gaddafi and Assad and replace them with American puppets. These efforts likewise turned into bloody debacles, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and ravaging both societies.

There is nothing left of the pretexts used by the Bush administration to justify war 12 years ago. The Obama administration cannot credibly claim that its aggressive operations in the Middle East—linked as they are to Islamists and other sectarian militias, as well as to autocrats and military dictators—are part of a global “war on terrorism” or a crusade for democracy.

The White House makes little or no attempt to explain these operations to the American people, much less win their support for them. In the case of Washington’s backing for the war in Yemen, the sum total of its explanation consists of a “readout” of a phone conversation between Obama and King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, in which the US president affirmed his “strong friendship” with the despotic monarchy, his “support” for its intervention, and his “commitment to Saudi Arabia’s security.”

Behind the reckless, ad hoc and seemingly disconnected policies pursued by US imperialism in the Middle East, there remains one constant: the aggressive pursuit of US hegemony over the Middle East and its vast energy reserves.

The strategy elaborated from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 onward, that Washington could freely employ its unrivaled military power to pursue its global interests, has only become more entrenched as American capitalism’s relative economic weight and influence have continued to decline.

The result of this policy can be seen in the involvement of virtually every country of the Middle East in one or another war and the palpable threat that these conflicts will coalesce into a region-wide conflagration that could, in turn, provoke World War III.

The Imploding Middle East, Saudi Kingdom And Pakistan

Haris Khurshid

In latest turn of the events in Middle East now Pakistan is at crossroads to get embroiled in a distant conflict involving its Muslim benefactor Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or extricate itself from an avoidable war looming on the horizon of Yemen. The region is experiencing new wave of violence and disintegration in less stable parts mainly drawn by Shia Sunni sectarian and ethnic prejudice.

This is no secret that after popular spring offensive and US second invasion of Iraq the Sunni-Shia divide has deepened in the Arab world not only fermenting deep distrust between two sects of Islam who have shared common habitat for centuries but also brought traditional rivals Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran close to a covert proxy war in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and now in Yemen. For Iran, American withdrawal from Iraq was a new breather as a post-Saddam Shia dispensation in Baghdad was ideologically more closer to it than any other neighbor. Subsequent biased policies of Iraqi prime minister Noor-Kamal Al Maliki sanctioned unwarranted influence to Tehran in policy making and allowing it to exercise clout well beyond its borders. Besides, marginalization of Sunni population brewed anger and created disparity which ultimately ended into re-organization of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) cashing on desperate youth which was deprived of development and mainstreaming.

Further civil war in Syria was complicated as external influence was at the core of conflict where moderate and secular rebel forces like Free Syrian Army (FSA) were backed by US, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and western as well as gulf allies while Iran and Hezbollah openly supported Assad regime militarily. The callousness increased further when rebel forces like FSA were downgraded by addition of more religious extremist groups to the equation i.e. Al Nusra Front and ISIS or ISIL. Inspired from Al-Qaida’s ideology, this new breed of Jihadis was more orthodox and fanatic than its predecessors adding new sectarian dimension to the conflict. Then came the phenomenal rise of ISIS in the summer of 2014 after capturing Syrian city of Raqqa and then pushing back Iraqi security forces to take over Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.

There onward Iran directly intervened at the behest of Baghdad government to help organize shattered Iraqi army against Islamic state threat with the help of Al Quds force, the external arm of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) under the command of General Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians exploited widespread barbaric anti-Shia reputation of Islamic State as precursor to align host of extremist Shia militias and groups of volunteers purely on sectarian basis against it.

Later this month, the counter offensive of these militias alongside Iraqi Army and air cover of US bombers against IS and local Sunni population in Baghdadi and Tikrit has been widely reported as brutal in fashion as is the hallmark of IS. Meanwhile, Iran was engaging P5+1 group in resolving its longstanding diplomatic backlog concerning its nuclear program which over the years have not only inflicted heavy dent to its economy but also bestowed pariah status on it. United States, the erstwhile opponent of Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions is leading the course to decrease opaqueness of its nuclear program while ensuring it is meant for peaceful purposes. Though both sides have not reached to the climax yet, even the practice of engaging Iran has irked its regional antagonists Israel and Saudi Arabia and both have publically expressed their resentment with the United States. Besides, in a possible agreement with western negotiators over its nuclear program, Iran will be successful to reap the dividends followed by easing of harsh economic sanctions tailored by US since last two decades hence giving it further room to assert more confidently.

In a dramatic escalation of events over the last years, Iranian position in the Middle East has strengthened as it now exercises considerable control in Beirut through Hezbollah, keeping proxies or direct presence in Baghdad and supporting beleaguered Assad regime in Damascus through Al-Quds force and Hezbollah which now holds firm ground against divided rebellion.

Saudi Arabia was occupied to stem chaos in the north where it supported Bahrain’s ruling family against rebellious Iran-backed majority Shia population struggling to overthrow Sunni monarchy, lending hand to post Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and securing 900 km border with Iraq through multilayer fencing against possible Islamic State’s incursion.

Here comes the final breaking point for Kingdom to react proactively to new geostrategic dynamics when looming civil war in its backyard threatened its own territory in the south. Now it is Yemen, the most poorest in the Arab fraternity marred by pervasive political instability, mix of inter-tribal, ethnic, sectarian rivalries and home to most violent branch of transnational Jihadists, Al Qaida in Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and also local affiliates of ISIS. The Arab spring has plunged Yemen into chaos when swelling protests in capital forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh to resign in November 2011 after 33 years of rule. The new Sunni president Abdul Rabbuh Mansur Hadi was elected in February 2012 as president of the Yemen. However unlike his wily predecessor, the new president was weak who faced multifaceted challenges i.e. fighting AQAP, Piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Iran backed Shia Zaidis also known as “Houthis” mounting rebellion against central government in the north.

As the US with support of Sana’s government was at the forefront of fight against Al Qaida through relentless drone campaign targeting its key leaders like Anwar al Awlaki, inept government was ravaged by diverse and violent political forces further weakening the central authority. Among the dissidents was ferocious faction of Houthis which was named after Shia cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi who previously led uprising against Yemeni government in 2004 in Sa’dah governorate.

This time the Houthis were supported by ex-president Saleh and most notably Iran. Their rise to prominence was not surprising as they were making inroads to the political center stage soon after Saleh’s departure through violent clashes with government friendly tribes. In last year August they staged series of demonstrations against increase in fuel prices and later took control of the capital forcing Prime Minister Muhammad Basindawa to resign. In the beginning of this year the group stepped up campaign and attacked presidential palace eventually leading to government seizure by Houthis and dissolution of the parliament. The raging conflict at the doorstep mainly fueled by its ideological adversary rattled the Saudi government and prompted tough military response.

The southern oil rich region of Saudi Arabia bordering Yemen is inhabited by dissident Shia minority roughly 15% of its population. To pre-empt possible spillover of Shia influence from Houthis and Iranian proxies The Kingdom has launched operation “Decisive Storm” with its Sunni allies i.e. Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Jordan Sudan, Morocco, and Kuwait. Endorsed by US, the Saudis have employed 100 fighter jets and amassed 150,000 troops to launch strikes against Houthis across the border.

News is that the custodian of two holy mosques has in principal asked Pakistan to join force against Houthis rebels. While Pakistan Army is stretched in its own war against local Taliban insurgency and other transnational terrorist groups besides guarding eastern border against venomous arch rival in the east, the government has pledged to “defend” its Arab friend. Pakistani leaders will have to consider ground realities before making any move of joining gulf coalition which is born of their local geopolitical intricacies as well as sectarian prejudice.

Pakistan cannot afford all out involvement in a distant war which may disturb its own delicate sectarian balance as well as relation with immediate neighbor in the south. Though sending military advisors or providing Air support capabilities may be on the cards to oblige the Kingdom but fate of more than two thousand Pakistanis living at the mercy of Houthis must be kept in mind.

We Are Losing The Oceans

Paul Craig Roberts

I am an admirer of Dahr Jamail’s reporting. In this article, Oceans In Crisis, Jamail tells us that we are losing the oceans.http://truth-out.org/news/item/29930-oceans-in-crisis-one-woman-will-cross-the-pacific-to-raise-awareness He reports on the human destruction of the oceans. It is a real destruction with far-reaching consequences.

That fact is indisputable.

From my perspective the human destruction of the oceans is yet more evidence of the ruinous nature of private capitalism. In capitalism there is no thought for the future of the planet and humanity, only for short-term profits and bonuses. Consequently, social costs are ignored.

Capitalism can work if social or external costs can be included in the costs of production. However, the powerful corporations are able to block a socially functioning capitalism with their political campaign contributions.

Consequently, capitalists themselves make the capitalist system dysfunctional. We may have reached the point where the external costs of production are larger than the value of capitalist output. Economist Herman Daly makes a convincing case that this is the fact.

While the powerful capitalists use the environment for themselves as a cost-free dumping ground, the accumulating costs threaten everyone’s life. It appears that nothing can be done, because the oceans are “common property.” No one owns them, so no one can protect them and their contents.

What we are faced with is the most destructive force in history: the short-sightedness of humans. Humans are willing to destroy the environment that sustains them, the law that sustains them, the truth that sustains them. Indeed, humans will destroy everything that sustains life if they can raise their incomes for another quarter or another year.

I have a friend who regales me with stories that humans are aliens on planet earth, exiled here by an intergalactic government that unwittingly disposed of its criminal wastes on a planet teeming with life. The in-humans, not humans, have been busy at work ever since their arrival exterminating one another, other species, and the life of the planet itself.

In the Western World truth is dying. Corporate and government money has purchased many scientists along with the media and politicians. The independent scientists who remain have great difficulty obtaining funds for their research, but the corporate scientists have unlimited funds with which to lie.

Scientists, like journalists, advance their careers by lying for the Establishment.

Truth-tellers and whistle-blowers are defined as “domestic extremists,” “terrorists,” and are on watch lists. Some have been arrested on suspicion that they might commit a crime in the future. Here in the US we have Jeremy Bentham’s policy of arresting “suspects” before they commit a crime on the basis that they might in the future commit a crime.

All the while the US and UK, Australian and Canadian, governments are committing heinous crimes against other countries in the world whose peoples, like those of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine don’t count. These peoples are disposable, unexceptional, like the Vietnamese, Laotians, Cherokees, Sioux, Apaches . . .

These peoples don’t matter. It is we Americans who matter. We are “exceptional.” We are “indispensable.”

A Middle East Holocaust

Paul Craig Roberts

I have been around for a long time and have experienced more than most. The current situation in my experience is the most dangerous time of all for humanity.

Nuclear weapons are no longer restrained by the Cold War MAD doctrine. Washington has released them into pre-emptive first strike form.

The targets of these pre-emptive strikes–Russia and China–know it, because Washington proudly proclaims its immorality in public documents describing its war doctrine.

The result is to maximize the chance of nuclear war. If you were Russia and China, and you knew that Washington had a war doctrine that permits a surprise nuclear attack, would you sit there waiting while Washington cranks up its anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda machine, demonizing both countries as a threat to “freedom and democracy”?

The fools in Washington are playing with nuclear fire. Noam Chomsky points out that in a less dangerous time than currently exists, we came very close to nuclear war.https://philosophynow.org/issues/107/Noam_Chomsky_on_Institutional_Stupidity

Harold Pinter, one of the last Western intellects, understood the danger in Western arrogance. He denounced the West’s crimes and called for the crimes to be subject to established law before it is too late for humanity.

“We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.” Harold Pinter, 2005 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech.

“An Iraqi Holocaust” by Gideon Polya and “Genocide In Iraq” provide abundant evidence for convicting Bush and Blair.

Dr. Gideon Polya is a professor of science in one of Australia’s leading universities. He has a moral conscience, something increasingly rare in the Western world.

His articles are based largely on the just published by Clarity Press two volume heavily documented Genocide in Iraq by Abdul-Haq Al-Ani and Tarik Al-Ani. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani is a British-educated lawyer with a Ph.D. in International Law and a Ph.D. in electronics engineering. Tarik Al-Ani, is an architect, translator, and researcher.

Currently I am reading the two-volume work and intended to review it. But Professor Polya’s articles suffice as an introduction to Genocide in Iraq. Washington has committed a terrible crime in our name. Washington not only murdered Iraq, Washington has murdered the Middle East. Washington and its despicable vassals–”the Coalition of the Willing”–are responsible for a Middle East Holocaust.

For people in the Anglo-American world who have a moral conscience, the facts are soul-wrenching. The populations of the countries whose governments comprised “the Coalition of the Willing” are contaminated with war crimes committed by their governments in the Iraq Genocide. A progressive modern state was obliterated, and 2.7 million Iraqi people were murdered.

The crime was covered up with propaganda that demonized Saddam Hussein and created fear of nonexistent weapons of mass destruction.

The Iraqi genocide was based on a lie, and both Bush and Blair knew it. The two satanic leaders simply decided to destroy a people who they first demonized and marginalized.

Cheney and the neocons continue to justify the genocide and the illegal torture regime that they created in order to produce fake “terrorists” as a justification for their war crimes. The Western media, especially the New York Times, is also complicit in the Iraqi Genocide as are the insouciant Western peoples themselves who stood by cheering while millions of people were destroyed on the basis of a blatant and transparent lie.

What does the West represent? Greed? Lies? War? Torture? War Crimes? Selfishness, Intolerance? Destruction of life on earth?

The “Christian” West is a master at propaganda and self-deception. Look at the evangelical churches. They support a criminal, inhumane regime while professing to be followers of Christ.

Look at American “conservatives.” They support the militarized police state. They support the routine police murders of dark-skinned American citizens. They support every war Washington dreams up and even more. Indeed, there are not enough wars for the satisfaction of Congressional Republicans who now want war with Russia and with Iran.

Look at the Republicans in Congress and in state governments. They hate the environment. They love polluters. They worship Israel and Israel’s destruction of the Palestinians and the ongoing theft of the Palestinians’ country, a 60-year old activity. Just look at the map of shrinking Palestine. More is stolen each day.

Washington has supported this theft of an entire country. Yet, Washington is able to masquerade as a great defender of human rights. Whose rights? Washington’s and Israel’s. No one else’s rights count.

How does the world survive the American-Israeli aggression? Probably it will not. The evil is now directed at Iran, Russia, and China. These countries cannot be bombed year after year after year with no consequences to the bombers.

Iran is limited in its destructive ability. But Iran could destroy Saudi Arabia and Israel. Russia and China can destroy the US and all of Washington’s vassal states. The intensity of Washington’s propaganda war is driving the world to destruction.

How can it be stopped when Putin himself says over and over that Washington continually ignores every thing that the Russian government says. Putin is the peacemaker. Every peace proposal he brings is ignored by Washington whose response is to beat the drums of war louder.

Unless European governments recognize the danger in Washington’s aggression and dissolve NATO, planet earth hasn’t long to live.

The American public needs to understand the consequences of Washington’s illegality and criminality. On the one hand it means that those subject to Washington’s aggression have to endure war crimes, but on the other hand it means a growing hatred for America. As Washington’s easy targets are used up, Washington engages countries that can reply to force with force.

Unless the neoconservatives are ejected from the Obama regime and banned from inclusion in any future American government, mushroom clouds will go up over Washington, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago. The American mid-west, which hosts the ICBM silos, will become uninhabitable except by cockroaches.

Americans, and the populations of the American puppet states, desperately need to understand that Washington is incapable of speaking the truth about anything. Washington is an evil force. Washington is Sauron. Washington is Satan.

Look at Iraq. Look at Afghanistan. Look at Libya. Look at Syria. Look at Somalia. Look at Ukraine. Nothing but destruction comes from Washington. Will life on earth be Washington’s next victim?