Trump’s Holy War against Islam

L. Ali Khan

In his inaugural address, President Trump singled out radical Islamic terrorism as the sole enemy. He did not even mention Russia or China as threats to the security or prosperity of the United States.  In terse and clear words, Trump said: “We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth.” In fighting against radical Islamic terrorism, Trump asserted that “We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement. And most importantly, we will be protected by God.”

What Trump Means

There are three points worth consideration to understand Trump’s speech on radical Islamic terrorism. Each point is rooted in history and academic literature, and each point carries serious implications for the peace and security of the United States and the world.

First, radical Islamic terrorism is presented as a threat to “the civilized world.” Historically, the phrase “civilized world” was coined in the era of colonialism to refer primarily to the European nations and by implication to the “uncivilized world” referred to Native Americans in Americas, slaves from Africa, and the colonized populations in Asia. Under contemporary standards of global discourse, the phrase “civilized world” is rarely used by diplomats, heads of states, or academic scholars. There is a new understanding that the world is blessed with numerous diverse civilizations, including the Islamic civilization that spans over centuries in all continents of the world. It is unclear whether President Trump includes fifty-six (56) Muslim countries as part of the civilized world.

Second, the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” was invented to argue that Islamic violence emanates from the religion itself and not from any concrete geopolitical grievances for which Muslim militants are fighting in various parts of the world. The phrase “radical Islamic terrorism “was popular with neoconservatives who wanted to shift the focus from grievances to Islamic psychology. For example, the phrase implies that the Palestinians as Muslims are addicted to violence that has nothing to do with occupation or misery they face as a people. Likewise, the phrase would suggest that the Taliban as Muslims are hooked to religiously-inspired warfare and their violence has little to do with the invasion of Afghanistan.  By adopting the phrase during his campaign and mention it in his inaugural speech, President Trump has bought into the idea that a radical version of Islam is inherently brutal and will find excuses to perpetrate violence throughout the world even after all the problems have been solved.

Third, Trump has added a holy war component to the eradication of radical Islamic terrorism from the face of the Earth.  In addition to seeking protection from “the great men and women of our military,” Trump claims that “we will be protected by God.”  This simply means that God is on the side of the United States in its wars against various nations and populations, particularly radical Islamic terrorism. This understanding of God’s partisanship in human wars is the cardinal principle of the holy war whether the concept is invoked by Catholics, Protestants, Shias, Sunnis, or Shiv Sena.

Understanding Islamic Terrorism

A serious study of Islamic terrorism suggests that Muslim militancy originates in concrete geopolitical causes, including occupations and invasions. Muslim militants desert their families and children, forfeit their lives, and invite the wrath of mighty states because they are fighting occupation of their lands, resources, or way of life.  Unless the grievances factor is honestly included in the counter-terrorism equation, radical Islamic terrorism will not abate.

The phrase radical Islamic terrorism is overly provocative. It is a bad piece of rhetoric that does more harm than good. It implicates the religion of Islam, spawning hatred against ordinary Muslim families living in Western countries. The phrase also discourages peace-loving Muslims all over the world to join the fight against terrorism as they feel their religion is being maligned. As far as Muslim militants are concerned, they do not care whether they are called terrorists, radical Islamists, brutes, uncivilized, or any such phrases.

There are good reasons for all, including Americans, to criticize when Muslim militants openly and deliberately violate the laws of war. Destroying ancient temples, Sufi shrines, ramming trucks into civilian crowds, bombing cities, and threatening nuclear holocaust, all these and other acts are condemnable. Muslims are obligated to openly and unreservedly condemn when Muslim militants commit such atrocities that have nothing to do with any version of Islam.

Finally, bringing God into the fight is ill-advised. For centuries, God is presented as a sponsor of violence and warfare. Trump has ruled out the possibility that God is indifferent to human wars and that God does not condone or take part in cluster bombings, drone attacks, or the use of nuclear weapons against any cities.

Israel political crisis mounts over Netanyahu corruption revelations

Jean Shaoul 

Leaked video tapes have revealed the pervasive and corrupt relations between Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, his family, the media, and billionaire bosses at home and abroad. The tapes are the subject of police investigations.

Notorious for his hobnobbing with the financial elite, it is now clear that “gifts” Netanyahu received from his wealthy friends were down payments for favours.

This latest corruption scandal underscores the degree to which Israeli politicians are in the pocket of media networks and big business. Far from being the Middle East’s “only democracy,” Israel’s political system has more in common with mafia rule.

Given the damning contents of the tapes, it will be difficult for Netanyahu to avoid a criminal prosecution, despite having appointed close associates to the positions of attorney general and police chief. Such a prosecution could precipitate his resignation and early elections this year.

Like almost all of Israel’s prime ministers after the first, David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu and his family have faced numerous allegations of corruption and even preliminary investigations. His immediate predecessor Ehud Olmert received a jail term for bribery offences when he was mayor of Jerusalem prior to becoming prime minister.

But the legal authorities, who have come under continuous attack from successive Netanyahu-led governments, have been reluctant to prosecute him—supposedly due to a lack of evidence that the gifts were actually exchanged for political favours. Now, the police, who have revealed few details of the investigations, have questioned Netanyahu three times “under caution” in relation to two cases.

According to the reports by Ha’aretz and TV Channel 2, the most damaging of the two cases involves tapes that establish that Netanyahu sought to make a deal with Arnon “Noni” Mozes, the boss of Israel’s daily Yediot Aharonot and its online site Ynet, to rescue its falling circulation and advertising revenues.

The recordings—believed to date from between 2014 and early 2015—were apparently found on a phone during a search of the belongings of Netanyahu’s former chief of staff during a separate fraud investigation.

According to the proposed deal, Netanyahu would back a law that would have banned free newspapers, including Israel Hayom, which functions as Netanyahu’s mouthpiece. Israel Hayom was founded and published by US casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson in 2008 at a cost of $261 million, and is a rival of Yediot Aharonot. In return, Yediot Aharonot would tone down its hostile coverage of the prime minister—in part motivated by Netanyahu’s backing for the free newspaper that had hurt its bottom line. Netanyahu would even be free to nominate the journalists.

The police have called in Mozes and his editor-in-chief, Ron Yaron, for questioning. Mozes, who has escaped prosecution in the past for illegal eavesdropping, could now face prosecution over his discussions with Netanyahu.

As it turned out, the proposed deal came to nothing, and Netanyahu tried for months to block the bill on Israel Hayom’s behalf. To no avail. The Knesset introduced the bill, despite opposition from Netanyahu and most of the Likud legislators. That left him with no alternative but to dissolve parliament and call another election just two years after the previous one in 2013.

Netanyahu recently admitted on his Facebook page that he had “dissolved the government and went to elections, among other things because of the subversion from within the government to pass the law. Everyone also knows that with the establishment of the new government after the election, I inserted an explicit clause into the governing coalition agreements to prevent the recurrence of such legislation.”

In other words, he called an early election in 2015, at a cost of $500 million, because of legislation that would have curbed the power of Israel Hayom, and made it a condition for joining his coalition that there would be no further attempts to enact a similar ban.

The other case under investigation, apparently the lesser of the two, involves the receipt of substantial gifts and benefits from several wealthy businesspeople. There is plenty of evidence, including detailed testimony from Netanyahu’s well-known benefactor Arnon Milchan, together with receipts and invoices. Milchan, an Israeli billionaire and Hollywood producer, gave Netanyahu more than $100,000 worth of cigars and liquor. He reportedly asked Netanyahu to press his case with US Secretary of State John Kerry for a 10-year visa, which was ultimately successful.

Netanyahu is also known to have received lavish gifts from Ronald Lauder, an American businessman whose family founded the cosmetics giant Estee Lauder and who has himself been questioned by the police.

Another benefactor is the Australian billionaire James Packer, who is reported to have given the Netanyahu family lavish gifts. This included extended stays at luxury hotels in Tel Aviv, New York and Aspen, Colorado, for Netanyahu’s son, Yair, as well as the use of his private jet and dozens of tickets for concerts by Packer’s former fiancée, Mariah Carey. The police have now questioned Yair in connection with the affair. The purpose of Packer’s largesse is believed to be his desire to obtain Israeli citizenship or permanent-resident status for tax purposes.

Netanyahu’s cousin and personal attorney represented a German company involved in a controversial $1.5 billion sale of submarines to Israel.

Netanyahu has denied any impropriety and hit back against his opponents, saying they were mounting a witch-hunt against him. He claimed he had done nothing wrong and that “nothing” could come of the accusations because “I repeat and say there will not be anything because there is nothing.”

Nevertheless, he is clearly coming under increasing pressure. Last week, he suddenly cancelled his trip to the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland, and did not attend President Donald Trump’s inauguration, despite reports that he was invited.

He is urging his supporters to introduce a bill making it impossible to investigate a sitting prime minister for fraud, bribery and breach of trust, although it would not be applied retrospectively.

Leading members of his Likud party, while publicly remaining supportive, are quietly lining up to put themselves in contest for the leadership position.

Netanyahu’s coalition partners have indicated that they will not allow him to continue as prime minister if he is indicted. Nor would they continue in the coalition, thereby precipitating an election. Likud currently holds 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Jewish Home, the right wing settler party led by Naftali Bennett currently has eight seats, but is expected to makes gains at Likud’s expense. This would make Bennett the king-maker if not the king.

Israel’s so-called left and centrist parties have done nothing to challenge Netanyahu. They have not even attempted to get 40 signatures—out of a possible 54 opposition legislators—that would force the prime minister to answer questions on the bribery allegations. The last time they used the 40 signature procedure was in March last year, contrasting sharply with their frequent use of the rule during the tenure of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, under investigation for corruption in 2007-8.

Both Yair Lapid of Yesh Atid and Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union (formerly the Labour party) are implicated. Lapid, a former journalist, worked for Milchan and Mozes at Yediot Ahronot. His wife still works there and they all remain friends. Herzog is the subject of alleged election offences, and he too is a personal friend of Milchan. Yediot Aharonot backed him in the 2015 elections.

The mounting crisis surrounding Netanyahu makes it all the more likely that he will seek to distract public attention by escalating tensions with the Palestinians. He can count on strong support from the Trump administration.

French prime minister beaten into second place in Socialist Party presidential primary

Alex Lantier 

French President François Hollande’s government suffered another humiliating setback last night in the presidential primary of his Socialist Party (PS), as former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, who resigned his position to run for president, was beaten into second place by Benoît Hamon.

Hamon, a former education minister, took 36.21 percent of the vote, Valls 31.19 percent, former Economy Minister Arnaud Montebourg 17.62 percent, and Vincent Peillon 6.48 percent. The remaining candidates each won less than 5 percent.

The primary took place amid a general atmosphere of popular indifference. Some two million voters participated in the PS primary, after over 4 million voters participated in the primary elections that selected François Fillon as the right-wing The Republicans’ (LR) candidate. While Fillon was broadly expected to win the presidency after the LR primary, neither Hamon nor Valls is currently expected to survive to the second round of the presidential elections.

The latest Ipsos poll showed that they would receive 8 and 9 percent of the vote, respectively, setting up a second round between Fillon and Marine Le Pen of the neo-fascist National Front (FN).

The vote is set to intensify the deep crisis in the PS, one of the French bourgeoisie’s two major parties of government, whose survival itself is at stake. After five years of a deeply unpopular presidency, the PS is deeply divided and threatened with a split as it faces a wipe-out in the April-May 2017 elections. Now, however, broad sections of the PS closer to the government may back investment banker and former Hollande advisor Emmanuel Macron rather than backing Hamon, should Hamon beat Valls in the run-off and become the PS candidate.

Hamon, who ran based on appeals to discontent with Hollande’s austerity policies and a demagogic promise to institute a minimum universal income for everyone in France, called for his voters to again vote in the second round of the PS primary this coming Sunday. “Left-wing voters, this is my conviction, voted by conviction and not by resignation,” he said in a press conference after the vote. He added, “Now we must broaden the mobilization in the first round, to give it more strength.”

Hamon also thanked Montebourg, who left the race with an appeal to his voters to vote for Hamon in the second round of the primaries.

Valls, who in the days preceding the vote had been expected to take first place but then lose in the second round to Hamon, tried to put the best face on his surprise second-place finish and claimed to be the only viable candidate to oppose Donald Trump, Russia, and the National Front. “A new campaign is starting from this evening,” he said. “A very clear choice is presenting itself to us now, and to you. The choice between certain defeat and possible victory, the choice between unrealizable and unaffordable promises and a credible left wing that takes responsibility for our country.”

He continued, “I refuse to abandon the French people to its fate in the face with the far right that would destroy our country, or the right wing led by François Fillon, hard and free-market as never before, and conservative in its policy faced with Donald Trump’s America and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”

PS First Secretary Jean-Christophe Cambadélis hailed the vote as “successful” and proof that the PS and its voters could “resist the spirit of the times” and avoid a complete collapse of his party. Nonetheless, he could not avoid striking a pessimistic tone as he described the PS’ future prospects.

“I am convinced that this democratic exercise will hold the left together,” Cambadélis declared. “I am persuaded that a new alliance is being born, forged by today’s vote. … I am persuaded that the presidential election is not yet over.”

The crisis that is engulfing the PS points to the broad, international character of the collapse and discrediting of the political institutions of the post-World War II period. The PS played a central role in pressing for the construction of the European Union (EU) and the euro under President François Mitterrand in the 1980s and 1990s. Compared to Le Pen’s party and LR, it still takes the least hostile stance towards the EU of any major party in the French presidential elections.

However, after the Socialist Party disappointed expectations of the population in successive governments—Mitterrand’s presidency, the 1997-2002 Plural Left government led by Mitterrand’s top aide Lionel Jospin, and now with Hollande’s presidency—it is politically disintegrating. Hollande is currently at 4 percent in polls.

Like other European social-democratic parties that have imposed a ruthless austerity diktat since the 2008 Wall Street crash, like Greece’s Pasok or the Spanish Socialist Party, the PS now faces the prospect of collapse or even electoral annihilation. The geo-strategic stakes of such a collapse are all the greater, in that a dissolution of the PS would deal a further blow to the EU, which is already reeling from Brexit and from Trump’s expression of overt hostility to the EU and Germany before his inauguration.

In this context, the emergence of Valls and Hamon as the PS’ two main candidates points to the bankruptcy of the PS and the EU more broadly.

Valls personifies like no one else the socially regressive character of the PS. A politician who has called for the PS to simply abandon the name “socialist,” he is directly associated with the most reactionary policies of Hollande’s presidency. He defends the state of emergency, austerity measures like the labor law and the Responsibility Pact, and the ever-closer integration of the PS and the police and intelligence apparatus, based on law-and-order and anti-Muslim appeals.

Should Valls fail to defeat Hamon, powerful sections of the bourgeoisie will intensify pressure on his allies within PS to rally behind Macron, effectively liquidating itself into the personal electoral movement of an investment banker with close ties to the nationalist far right, such as Philippe de Villiers. In other words, Valls’ posturing as an anti-FN force is a hypocritical and empty fraud.

The decision to run Hamon as a candidate points to broad awareness in sections of the ruling class and the media of the deep social opposition and anger over economic inequality developing in the working class in France and internationally.

Nonetheless, Hamon’s proposals offer little to workers and, above all, are not seriously intended. His plans for a €600 [$US645]-800 [$US859] per month universal wage would barely lift the unemployed out of poverty, but would cost hundreds of billions of euros, under conditions where the bourgeoisie itself is hostile to any new social spending.

And, as the Hollande presidency has made very clear, not only will the PS implement the bourgeoisie’s austerity diktat, but its so-called “rebel” faction, from which Hamon hails, will not mount any effective opposition—citing the need to keep the right wing out of power.

Under these conditions, Hamon’s plans are simply dust which he hopes to throw into the eyes of those remaining sections of the electorate still willing to vote for the PS.

Trump scraps TPP and outlines trade war agenda

Mike Head 

Just as he vowed he would, US President Donald Trump effectively killed off the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade bloc on his first day in office, as part of his aggressive “America First” agenda to boost the US economy at the expense of the rest of the world.

Within hours of assuming power, Trump’s White House web site not only affirmed his intention to withdraw from the TPP. It placed that decision side-by-side with a demand for the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico, adding to the consternation in capitals around the Asia-Pacific, especially in Tokyo, Mexico City, Ottawa and Canberra.

As one of the Trump administration’s six highest priorities, alongside “An America First Foreign Policy” and “Making Our Military Strong Again,” the web site declared that the United States government would pursue a course of “rejecting and reworking failed trade deals” that had allegedly produced “a mounting trade deficit and a devastated manufacturing base.”

“This strategy starts by withdrawing from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and making certain that any new trade deals are in the interests of American workers. President Trump is committed to renegotiating NAFTA. If our partners refuse a renegotiation that gives American workers a fair deal, then the President will give notice of the United States’ intent to withdraw from NAFTA.”

While cynically couched in terms of a “fair deal” for American workers, this is a nakedly nationalist and protectionist agenda that seeks to halt the protracted decline of US capitalism, bolster corporate profits and further enrich the American financial elite. It goes hand in hand with threats of crippling tariffs, such as 45 percent penalties on Chinese imports that could trigger a global trade war, with devastating results for workers in America and all around the world.

This is not a retreat into US isolationism but a dramatic ramping up of the offensive, already commenced by the Obama administration, to reassert US hegemony throughout the Asia-Pacific over its economic and strategic rivals, notably China and Japan. The 12-country TPP itself was never a free trade agreement. It was a US-led economic bloc directed especially at undermining China, which was excluded from the TPP, and ensuring the unrestricted plundering of the region’s resources and markets by US financial, media, pharmaceutical and other transnational giants.

The TPP was a key aspect of Obama’s “pivot to Asia”—a concerted military, diplomatic and economic drive to encircle and dominate over China. As Obama stated repeatedly, the purpose was to ensure that the US, not China, “writes the rules of the road for trade in the 21st century.” As part of this quest, the TPP sought to cement alliances across the region, particularly with Japan and Australia, Washington’s two key military allies, both of which hoped to gain greater access to US and other TPP markets.

By jettisoning the TPP and targeting the two decade-old NAFTA, Trump has made it clear his administration will not work within the old, post-war framework that sought to avoid the outright trade wars that erupted during the 1930s, collapsed world trade and set the stage for World War II.

The TPP agreement states that it can go ahead only if at least six of its 12 original members ratify the deal, and if those six countries represent 85 percent of the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of all 12 countries. That means the deal cannot come into force if the US fails to ratify it, because the US accounts for more than 55 percent of the total GDP.

There was dismay in ruling circles throughout the region, especially in Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has banked on the TPP as a major pillar of his “Abenomics” program to end the country’s prolonged stagnation. Japan’s auto and corporate giants have also used NAFTA to establish low-wage operations in Mexico as means of gaining entry to US markets. About 1,000 Japanese companies operate in Mexico today, spearheaded by Toyota, Nissan and Honda, which utilise their factories in Mexico as exporting hubs to the US and Canada.

In a last-ditch effort to avert a TPP pull-out by Trump, Abe last month secured the Japanese parliament’s formal ratification of the treaty, even though Trump had made his intentions very clear. Last week, Abe also conducted a quick-fire trip to the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia and Vietnam in an effort to shore up Japan’s position.

While in Australia, Abe and his Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull reaffirmed their support for the TPP, issuing a joint statement that it remained an indispensable priority because of its “significant economic and strategic benefits.” Even though Abe and Turnbull also pledged their commitment to their respective military alliances with the United States, Trump has bluntly dashed their plea to retain the TPP.

According to yesterday’s Yomiuri Shimbun, the Japanese government now has been forced to review its trade policy. Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Akio Mimura released a statement condemning Trump’s “America first” policy, saying it would promote the spread of protectionism, “significantly disrupting the system of open trade that has supported the growth of the global economy.”

The nervousness is also palpable in Australia’s corporate and media elite, for whom Trump’s inauguration message that “the whole world must be made to fear us” not only points to trade wars but escalates the danger of military conflict between the US, on which Canberra depends militarily, and China, Australia’s largest export market.

Today’s Australian Financial Review editorial described Trump’s declarations as “chilling for the future of world trade.” Turnbull’s government is still saying it will go “flat out” to rescue the TPP, or try to concoct a “Plan B” treaty without the US. Trade Minister Steve Ciobo met officials from Japan, Canada, Mexico, Singapore and New Zealand last week in Switzerland to discuss ways to “take the TPP forward” without the US.

The Chinese regime’s reaction to Trump’s statements was muted. The normally strident Global Times, a state-owned media outlet, said negotiations around China’s rival to the TPP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), “could finally see some momentum” but “no one is celebrating yet as countries, including China, still try to grasp specific policies and actions the US might take going forward.”

The 16-nation RCEP would include countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, but not the US. High-ranking Japanese and Chinese trade officials met in Tokyo last month to advance RCEP. If these moves continue, China will not be the only country in Trump’s sights. Japan could find itself increasingly at odds with Washington.

Divisions in UK ruling elite widen over post-Brexit orientation to Trump

Chris Marsden

UK Prime Minister Theresa May is to be the first foreign leader to meet US President Donald Trump in Washington DC, Friday.

With a Supreme Court ruling Tuesday expected to rule that her government must secure parliamentary approval for triggering the two year process of the UK leaving the European Union (EU), the days leading up to the meeting will see escalating political conflict in ruling circles.

May has made Trump’s election the cornerstone of her post-Brexit strategy, adapting to a yet more open embrace of Trump by the anti-EU right-wing of her party, as well as the UK Independence Party and the largely pro-Brexit press.

Last week May gave a speech at Lancaster House threatening the EU states with trade war measures that all concerned knew were underscored by a belief that the Trump administration stood behind her in supporting Brexit—as confirmed by Trump’s earlier interview with the Sunday Times in which he said Brexit “is going to end up being a great thing” because the EU is “basically a vehicle for Germany.”

Even so, May hopes the threat of a “hard Brexit,” with the UK leaving the Single Market and Customs Union, will act as a bargaining chip ensuring that the UK is able to continue the favourable trade terms with Europe on which the UK economy relies. To this end, May used an interview with the Financial Times to explain that she did not share Trump’s relish at the prospect of the break-up of the EU. “I want the EU to continue to be strong and I want to continue to have a close and strategic partnership with the EU,” she said. She was sure that Trump “recognises the importance and significance of NATO” and “will recognise the importance of the co-operation we have in Europe to ensure our collective defence and collective security.”

This is a mixture of wishful thinking and overt dissembling.

The impact of Trump on Europe and the UK’s relations with the continent is indicated by the talks on a new trade deal conducted prior to May’s visit by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Bloomberg reported that the January 8 talks had the specific aim of encouraging May “to be more aggressive in exiting the union.”

They were held between Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trump’s chief strategy adviser Steve Bannon, alongside separate talks with National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and UK defence and intelligence leaders.

An ecstatic article by Freddy Gray in the right-wing Tory magazine, the Spectator, described the fascistic Bannon as “a true Brexit believer and an EU hater. ... It is Bannon who brought [UKIP leader Nigel] Farage into Trump’s orbit” and was thought to have “arranged for the Eurosceptic Marine Le Pen [of the fascist National Front] to visit Trump Tower last week.”

Gray boasts that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU “can either fall in with Trump’s new world order—or fall out with the world’s greatest superpower.” The EU project, he continued, “has always been nurtured with American backing. ... America used trade and NATO to make the continent a bulwark against the East. That often meant sacrificing America’s short-term economic gains in the interests of security and world peace. Trump has no time for that.”

These are the political and geostrategic calculations on which the Tory right bases itself—of an escalating conflict between the US and Europe that will force the European powers to once again “know their place” in the New World Order, while Britain can benefit from its alliance with the thuggish bully in the White House. Hence the Daily Telegraph urging, “Mr. Trump is now the most powerful man in the world—and the UK has to work with him. If he offers the hand of friendship, we would be fools not to accept it.” And Rupert Murdoch’s the Sun claiming that Trump “could spell great things for UK too ... with apologies to JFK—ask not what Trump can do for his country, ask what he can do for ours.”

Even such positive comments are tinged with concern that Trump’s “America First” doctrine will militate against achieving a partnership that serves Britain’s interests. But outside these circles, the reaction to Trump’s inauguration speech, on the official right and left of politics, was one of barely concealed dread.

The Financial Times editorialised that his address “was perhaps the most xenophobic in US history. The rest of the world should be on notice. Mr. Trump intends to rip up the US-created global order. His address will go down as a turning point in America’s post-war role—and quite possibly its death knell.”

The Observer, Sunday sister paper of the politically liberal Guardian, stated baldly that “it is not too much to say Trump’s ranting scream of ‘America first, America first!’ carries an echo of the ‘Sieg Heil’ (hail victory) of another, not-forgotten era of brutish nationalist triumphalism.” US protectionism, it continued, would “plunge a blunt knife into Theresa May’s hopes of a post-Brexit sweetheart trade deal.”

The newspaper urged a European alliance against Trump, insisting, “If he is inclined to meddle, which is entirely possible, Europe’s members must be ready to repulse him.”

Efforts to consolidate such an alternative EU-based foreign policy for British imperialism are being stepped up. The Guardian Saturday reported that a “cross-party group of MPs is plotting to thwart Theresa May’s attempts to drive through a hard Brexit amid rising fears that UK businesses could soon have to pay huge export tariffs on goods they sell to the EU.”

Encompassing Labour, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Tories, the move is accompanied by an open letter to May, signed by 43 Labour MPs as a public declaration of opposition to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for being “soft on Brexit.” Led by Blairites such as Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, the letter was used by the Observer to solicit comments by Former Tory Chancellor Kenneth Clarke that it is time for all pro-EU MPs to “abandon a bit of the tribalism in British politics.”

With Trump making clear that the US is set on confrontation with any country deemed to be a threat or challenge to its interests, Germany has made clear it intends to respond in kind. The reconsolidating of the UK’s relations with the EU is therefore only an alternative path towards trade and military war.

Corbyn’s own response to Trump has been typically flaccid moralising bordering on caricature. He noted that he previously gave Barack Obama a copy of “What Would Keir Hardie Say?”—a collection of essays on the founder of the Labour Party.

“I think the whole world needs to learn the lesson of Keir Hardie,” Corbyn said. “He came up from the most appalling poverty and circumstances and gave himself an education, filled his home with learning and books and filled his heart with love and humanity.”

“Let’s hope,” he went on, “that he reaches out to communities across the United States. Let’s hope he [Trump] is prepared to engage with people to maintain the Iran Nuclear Deal ... that he doesn’t go ahead with his proposal to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and that he promotes engagement, critical engagement but engagement with Russia and others.”

Let’s hope, as the old saw goes, for pie in the sky.

Australian state premier’s sudden resignation highlights political instability

Mike Head

Mike Baird, the Liberal-National Coalition premier of New South Wales, the country’s largest state by population and economic size, abruptly announced on Thursday that he was quitting parliament next week, after less than three years in office.

His likely successor, state Treasurer Gladys Berejiklian, is set to become the seventh premier in just 12 years—none of whom lasted more than three years. Baird’s sudden departure underscores the brittleness of the political establishment nationally, adding to a long list of state premiers and federal prime ministers who have suddenly left office over the past decade, often via electoral defeats or backroom coups.

Baird’s resignation is another indication of the deepening political crisis produced by a deteriorating economic situation—both globally and in Australia—and the intensifying geo-strategic tensions, especially between the US and China. There is already widespread popular hostility to the entire political establishment after decades of austerity measures, cuts to jobs, wages and working conditions, and soaring social inequality.

Baird, a former investment banker, is getting out before the full deluge hits. He claimed to be resigning for family reasons, but sent a barbed message to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, combined with a warning of a looming “cliff” in funding for health care.

Baird said his biggest regret was the Turnbull government’s retreat on “tax reform.” In 2015, Baird, together with his South Australian Labor Party counterpart Jay Weatherill, advocated lifting the regressive federal goods and services tax (GST) rate from 10 percent to 15 percent.

Above all, this represented the demands of the financial elite for a further shifting of the taxation burden away from business and the wealthy, and onto the working class, via the consumption tax. At the same time, the state premiers feared the public outrage they would incur when their governments had to further slash public health and education because the federal Coalition government, in its 2014 budget, cut $80 billion from federal health and education funding over 10 years.

Baird and Weatherill argued for lifting the GST, the revenue from which is earmarked for the states and territories, as a means of offsetting the $80 billion hole. The looming funding crunch became more stark as a result of last year’s federal election campaign, during which the federal Labor Party dropped its show of opposition to the $80 billion cut—$25.5 billion of which will come from New South Wales hospitals and schools.

However, after Turnbull ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister in September 2015, Turnbull eventually backed away from lifting the GST, fearing public opposition to the resulting hike in the cost of living.

The Australian Financial Review editorial yesterday accused the Turnbull government of leaving Baird “hanging out to dry” on the GST, and declared: “We need more Mike Bairds.”

In a thinly-veiled swipe at Turnbull on Thursday, Baird said: “I think there was a big opportunity there to do something very significant in terms of the competitiveness of the economy and the sustainability of funding services in the long term, and that’s something I’m disappointed [about].”

Baird was already facing mounting public opposition to his government. It imposed the dictates of finance capital, especially by privatising the state’s electricity network, major ports and other facilities. This sell-off has delivered a bonanza to banks, finance houses and corporate consultants, and boosted the state’s coffers to pay for pro-corporate infrastructure, at the expense of thousands of jobs of power and public sector workers.

Baird’s government also forcibly amalgamated many municipal councils last year, destroying more jobs, as a means of cost-cutting and removing constraints on property developers. Then it announced the privatisation of five large hospitals in regional areas, threatening further jobs and essential services.

As a means of cleaning up the state’s image for investors, the Coalition imposed late-night “lockout” laws in Kings Cross, Sydney’s nightclub precinct, and legislated to ban greyhound racing throughout the state. To suppress dissent, the Baird government passed draconian anti-protest laws that reverse a range of fundamental democratic rights.

Only last year, Baird was still being touted in the media as Australia’s most popular and successful political leader, precisely because of his delivery of the corporate agenda. He was declared “charismatic” and dubbed “Magic Mike.” But the seething discontent in working class and rural areas erupted to the surface last November in a by-election for the electorate of Orange, a regional city.

In an unprecedented 34 percent swing against the government, the seat, held for seven decades by the rural-based National Party, fell to the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party, a right-wing populist formation that calls for economic protectionist measures.

This electoral disaster forced Police Minister Troy Grant to resign as National Party leader and deputy premier. It also raised fears throughout the political establishment of the rise of the anti-immigrant Pauline Hanson’s One Nation and other populist oufits seeking to emulate US President Donald Trump in exploiting the growing social discontent.

Apart from more than $20 billion raised via privatisations, the Baird government’s revenues were enhanced by tax revenues derived from a debt-fuelled property bubble that has driven housing prices sky-high in Sydney, the country’s primary financial centre. Baird’s hasty departure came amid signs of an impending implosion of this boom.

Baird was installed as premier in 2014, when his predecessor, Barry O’Farrell, was forced to resign, supposedly for misleading a corruption inquiry about receiving a bottle of wine. Despite axing some 25,000 public sector jobs since taking office in 2011, O’Farrell was increasingly criticised by the media for not going far enough in cutting social spending and implementing the free market agenda required by the financial elites.

The Murdoch-owned Daily Telegraph had demanded that the state government “stop dithering” and privatise the remainder of the state’s electricity system, Baird quickly took up this call, and still managed to retain office at the next election, in 2015, despite losing at least 16 seats in the 93-seat lower house of parliament.

Both Baird and O’Farrell were beneficiaries of the landslide defeat of the previous Labor government in 2011. After 16 years in office, Labor’s vote plunged to just 25.5 percent, as a result of the disgust in the working class generated by Labor’s own pro-business record, which included numerous moves to sell-off the electricity infrastructure, and a string of corruption scandals. It recovered to just 34.4 percent in 2015.

Underlining the essential unity between the two traditional ruling parties, former state Labor premier Bob Carr on Thursday praised Baird’s record, saying he should be congratulated for privatising the electricity assets—a policy that Carr had unsuccessfully sought to implement. Carr, who held office from 1995 to 2005, said: “Barry O’Farrell hesitated over that decision: Mike Baird to his credit made the decision and got on with it.”

Likewise, the current state Labor Party leader Luke Foley, who had claimed to oppose the power sell-off, thanked Baird for his “service” to the state. Baird’s rapid exit is another indication of the political convulsions to come.

Additional 37 Crown Post Offices to close in Britain

Richard Tyler

The demise of the UK’s Post Office moves one step closer with the planned closure of a further 37 Crown post offices, threatening over 400 jobs, some 12.5 percent of the existing 3,344 workforce in these facilities.

Crown Post Offices are mainly larger branches, usually found on the high street of most towns or populous conurbations that provide an extensive range of services. Notwithstanding the tremendous developments in technology and global integration, the offices continue to provide an important function in many aspects of life.

For the powers-that-be, however, the post offices are just another lucrative source of profiteering, and the jobs, livelihoods and services it supplies are of no consequence. That is why postal services globally have been a target for privatisation and outsourcing and Britain is no exception.

At its highpoint in 1975, nearly one-half million people worked for the Post Office, making it one of the UK’s largest employers, with 177,625 in the postal service alone. The Post Office Annual Report for 2016 records a total of just 6,605 employees.

The breakup and privatisation of the Post Office began under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Legislation passed in 1984 lifting the previous state monopoly over telecommunications accompanied the sale of 50 percent of the shares in the newly-created British Telecommunications, which had been hived off from the Post Office. In 1990, the Post Office’s banking arm, Giro Bank, was sold off to the Alliance and Leicester.

The process of dismantling and selling off what remained of the Post Office continued under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In 2004, the second daily delivery of mail was abolished, and in 2006, Royal Mail lost its 350-year monopoly. The postal market was opened up completely to private sector competitors, who were now permitted to collect and sort mail, which was then passed over to Royal Mail for delivery.

Under Labour, in 2007, 85 Crown post offices were closed, 70 of which were sold to the private retailer WH Smith.

The growth of the Internet and online communications technology, such as email, saw a significant drop in the volume of letters being sent. In 2008, the Labour government sought a partial privatisation of Royal Mail. Although the legislation passed in the House of Lords, it was blocked by a number of backbench Labour MPs in the House of Commons.

Following the 2010 general election, the incoming Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition moved quickly to revive the privatisation plans developed under Labour. New legislation was passed allowing the privatisation of up to 90 percent of Royal Mail. Liabilities for the company’s pension scheme were transferred to the Treasury, and in 2012, the Post Office was split away from Royal Mail, to make the latter more attractive to prospective buyers.

This left the Post Office as a rump, responsible just for running the network of Crown post offices and sub post offices. In 2013, the Post Office announced plans to franchise another 70 Crown post offices by moving the operations into shops, further reducing the Crown network to around 300 branches.

Changes in the payment of pensions and benefits removed one of the crucial services provided by the Post Office.

As part of the floatation of Royal Mail on the stock market, it had to sign up to a 10-year inter-business contract to use the services of the Post Office. However, the growth of private collection and delivery companies, such as Hermes and Yodel, makes clear that the most likely outcome will be a further reduction in business for the Post Office once this contract expires.

Workers in the Post Office/Royal Mail have seen one assault on their jobs and conditions after another under both Tory and Labour governments. The sale of Royal Mail in 2012 at far below the market price saw shareholders reaping a bonanza. This was paid for through the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs in the drive to turn a vital public service into a source of private profit.

At the same time, many functions have been transferred into the private sector, where workers are paid the minimum wage, or are super-exploited on the basis of phony “self-employment” contracts—denying them even the minimum of protections and benefits still afforded an employee.

Those workers remaining in the Post Office face a situation in which the government is systematically removing its functions and starving it of investment as a prelude to its ultimate closure.

In a cost-cutting move and further attack on conditions, the Post Office and Royal Mail have implemented changes to their “final salary” pension schemes affecting some 100,000 workers.

Royal Mail has already closed its defined benefits pension scheme to new entrants—which links the pension to a worker’s earnings history, length of service and age. Now it wants to close the scheme to “future accrual,” drastically lowering the benefits that would be received on retirement. Under the changes, for example, a manager in their 40s would see their expected pension slashed from £38,000 to just £18,000 a year. A similar level of cuts would affect all grades.

The Post Office has begun a phony “consultation” process that will inevitably lead to it carrying out the same attacks on pension rights. This, according to the Communication Workers Union (CWU), is despite the pension fund being in a healthy surplus.

Not only does this mean that Post Office workers who have yet to retire will receive smaller pensions—those who have already retired could also see their benefits reduced. The employers have justified their slash and burn approach by claiming previous pension schemes were “simply unaffordable,” and so workers must be willing to accept lower benefits when they retire.

This stands in contrast to the generous treatment of former Royal Mail/Post Office chief executive Adam Crozier. When he left in 2007, after having received a 25 percent salary bump taking his remuneration to £1.25 million, he was awarded £158,000 in annual pension and benefits.

At the end of 2016, CWU members in the Post Office took strike action against the attacks on jobs and pensions. This struggle was sabotaged and undermined by the union from the start.

The strike was limited to just a few days involving the Crown Post Offices, with no action organised to include the far larger workforce at Royal Mail, who face the same attacks.

The CWU has done nothing to oppose the privatisation of Royal Mail/Post Office. It has functioned as a junior partner to management in imposing the speed-ups and deterioration of workers’ pay and conditions demanded to make the business “profitable” in face of the competition.

The New Year message from CWU Deputy General Secretary Terry Pullinger made clear that union is motivated not by a genuine desire to protect its members and their conditions, but by its own interests, to uphold its own role as co-manager.

Pullinger highlighted the fact that privatisation only went ahead with the cooperation of the union, and included a legally-binding agreement protecting the “industrial relations framework.” In other words, the deal safeguards the right of the CWU bureaucracy to sit alongside management when it comes to imposing further cuts, while continuing to receive its members’ dues through the check-off system.

Workers cannot look to the union to defend their jobs and conditions. The CWU shares the same pro-capitalist outlook as the management. It is not a vehicle for fighting back against the bosses and the government, but a mechanism to ensure such a fight does not succeed.

British Supreme Court rules claimants can pursue action against UK for torture

Jean Shaoul 

The Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision granting Libyan Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Bouchar the right to sue British officials and institutions for their alleged roles in the couple’s kidnapping, rendition and torture.

The government had sought to prevent the former Labour Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior officer in Britain’s spy agency MI6, having to account for their actions.

The Supreme Court ruled that rights enshrined in the Magna Carta had to be put before an English court. Furthermore, the judges argued that ministers cannot claim “state immunity” or escape trial on the grounds of the legal doctrine of “foreign acts of state.” They added, “The principle that there is no general defence of state necessity to a claim of wrongdoing by state officials has been established since the 18th century.”

The judgement relates to one of three linked cases regarding legal issues involved in claiming damages for the British armed forces’ actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which UK officials were said to be complicit, which could pave the way for hundreds of other victims to bring their cases against the Ministry of Defence before a court.

The court’s decision is a blow for the British political establishment, which has fought for years to keep secret the torture and other foul operations of Britain’s spy agencies and Special Forces that operate outside the law and without public scrutiny. The government is now likely to demand that any subsequent judicial proceedings are heard in secret.

The case is doubly politically damaging because it was brought by right-wing Islamist opponents of the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, whose fate between the years 2004 and 2011 exposes the filthy manoeuvres undertaken by successive Labour and Conservative/Liberal Democrat governments.

The government had sought to prevent the Belhajs from pursuing a civil action for damages for the British government and its intelligence services’ complicity in their abduction by the CIA in 2004 to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, a British dependency and one of the agency’s global network of “dark sites.”

Detainees at these sites were subject to internment for years under the most inhumane conditions, torture, water boarding, sexual assault, sleep deprivation, forcing inmates to stand on broken limbs, and murder, for which no officials have stood trial. The Belhajs were subsequently rendered to Libya where they were imprisoned and tortured at a time when the US and UK were cultivating more friendly relations with Gaddafi.

Belhaj claims that during his six years in a Libyan jail, he was in fact interrogated by US and British intelligence agents. His pregnant wife claims she was chained to a wall for five days, then taped to a stretcher for the 17-hour flight to Libya where she was detained in prison until just before the delivery of her son, who was born weighing just four pounds.

Belhaj had previously fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. With close relations with al-Qaeda and later the Taliban, he went on to set up the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in the mid-1990s, with the aim of overthrowing the Gaddafi regime and establishing an Islamic state based upon Sharia law.

In the 1990s, the British government allowed numerous Islamist groups to operate in London, which became known as “Londonistan.” The Libyan dissidents and the LIFG were allowed to develop a base of logistical support and fund raising because of Libya’s alleged involvement in the Lockerbie bombing in 1988.

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

All that changed in 2004, when the Labour government of Tony Blair brought Colonel Gaddafi in from the cold—ostensibly to help prosecute the so-called war on terror, but in reality to secure lucrative contracts for British oil companies.

As part of the deal, the authorities rounded up opponents of the Libyan regime in London and elsewhere, and sent them back to Libya. Belhaj and his wife were part of the deal as papers belonging to Libya’s intelligence chief Moussa Koussa, discovered after the ouster of the Gaddafi regime by NATO-led forces in 2011, revealed.

Sir Mark Allen, who was head of MI6’s counter-terrorism unit, had taken the credit for the kidnapping of the families in a letter to Koussa in which he wrote, “Most importantly, I congratulate you on the safe arrival of Abu Abd Allah Sadiq [Abdul-Hakim Belhaj]. This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years. I am so glad. I was grateful to you for helping the officer we sent out last week.”

After his abrupt resignation in 2004, Sir Mark Allen subsequently went on to work for as a special advisor to oil giant BP on Libyan oil contracts.

Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Britain’s role in extraordinary rendition, calling it a “conspiracy theory.” The intelligence services, however, flatly contradicted him, saying that it was a “ministerially-authorised government policy.”

Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 at the time, said, “It was a political decision, having very significantly disarmed Libya, for the government to cooperate with Libya on Islamist terrorism.”

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which has refused to press charges against anyone, has acknowledged that “the suspect,” meaning Sir Mark Allen, knew about the renditions of the Belhaj and Saadi families, and had “sought political authority for some of his actions.”

This was nothing short of an admission of Britain’s illegal and secret involvement at the very highest level in the extraordinary rendition programme organised by Washington. It blew apart the government’s mendacious attempts to keep its criminal role in renditions and torture under wraps via multi-million out-of-court settlements to its victims. Belhaj was determined to get an apology and admission of liability for what was done to him and his wife, which led to the government seeking to get the Supreme Court to block his case—citing arguments of “state immunity” and the involvement of foreign intelligence agencies.

He was in a position to do so because, in a further switch in foreign policy, during the 2011 NATO-led invasion of Libya, the UK and US worked with Belhaj.

Belhaj was released from prison as one of 170 Islamists as part of an attempted deal between Gaddafi and the LIFG in 2009. During the NATO invasion, he worked as part of the LIFG together with al-Qaeda-linked forces as US proxies to topple Gaddafi—just seven years after the Blair government had befriended him.

The same Islamist militias, along with large quantities of Libyan arms, were then shipped off to take part in the next US-sponsored regime-change operation in Syria, before more recently being rebranded as “terrorists” when the growth of Islamic State became a threat to US interests in both Iraq and Syria.

The close ties between Britain and various Islamist groups is one of the reasons behind its determination to prevent any court hearings that might expose the extent of its collaboration, which exposes the lies surrounding official policy at home and abroad.

Furthermore, there is every indication that Britain intends to resume practices such as abduction and torture overseas, as it aligns yet more closely with Washington under President Donald Trump.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has repeatedly refused to rule out helping the incoming Trump administration in future rendition programs despite Trump stating that he favoured “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” No official has publicly condemned Trump’s approval of torture, while the 2016 Investigative Powers Act has abolished the Intelligence Services Commission that oversees its overseas agents’ compliance with Britain’s own vague rules on torture.

US house fire deaths totaled 2,290 in 2016

Steve Filips 

Three hundred thirty people were killed in house fires during the month of December, up nearly 50 percent from the previous year. In total, 2,290 people were killed in house fires throughout the United States last year. These figures do not include the thousands that were physically injured and the incalculable impact on the survivors and their loved ones.

To underline the national nature of the problem, these fires are common in all regions of the US. Tennessee had the highest number of people killed in house fires in December, at 20. Nineteen people were killed in California, 17 in Michigan, 15 in Ohio, and 14 in Texas.

Two of the nation’s poorest states, Alabama and Mississippi, had 12 and 13 deaths respectively in December. Nationally, 59 children were among those killed in resident fires last month.

For all of 2016, Texas had the highest number of fire deaths at 132, followed by New York with 120, Pennsylvania with 113, Georgia with 111, and California with 106. When the size of the state is considered, West Virginia had the highest rate of fire deaths, followed by Alaska, Vermont, Alabama and Arkansas. Only Hawaii did not report any deaths.

The numbers killed are undoubtedly higher, as the US Fire Administration gathers the figures from news reports and many are never reported. Also, fires like the tragic warehouse fire in Oakland, California, where 36 people were killed on December 2, are not counted since the building wasn’t considered a home.

Basic information such as cause of the fire, name and age of victims, type and age of home, homeowner or renter, and whether smoke detectors and other safety equipment were present is not reported in most cases.

A common thread in these fires, however, is that loss of life is largely preventable. In any rational society, a yearly death toll from fires of more than 2,000 people would be considered a national tragedy and measures would be taken to prevent such a disaster. However, under capitalism the steps necessary to ensure safety cut across the profits of the utilities, construction companies, landlords and investors.

Most fire deaths could be prevented with long-established fire suppression and early detection technologies. Most building codes don’t require sprinkler systems or hardwired smoke detectors. Many slum landlords don’t even ensure that there are proper fire escapes and battery-operated smoke detectors are present and operating.

One of the frequent causes of home fires is the use of supplemental heating sources, i.e., space heaters, wood stoves and fireplaces. Families often turn to these measures to offset the high cost of heat, poorly insulated buildings or when utilities are shut off for overdue bills.

Families and friends are often forced to live together in overcrowded conditions to afford rent and utilities. Since the 2008 housing crisis there has been an explosion of investment firms and banks buying up foreclosed homes and turning them into rental properties, doing little if any needed repairs.

The blame for these deaths lies at the doorstep of the for-profit system, which wrings its gains from the working class and their vulnerable children, who often pay a steep price for living in inadequate conditions with the loss of their lives.

An Akron, Ohio house fire at 266 E. Tallmadge Avenue killed four people on Saturday, December 3, including long-time companions Omar Riley, 36, and Shirley Wallis, 33, along with their children, eight-year-old Shanice and nine-year-old Anilya. Also critically injured was Shaniya, Riley’s 12-year-old daughter, who jumped from the second floor to escape the flames.

Jennifer Koval was also a tenant, living in the attic converted to living quarters of the two-and-a-half story home. Her only escape was blocked by flames, which engulfed the stairway in what appears to have been the only safe egress from her apartment.

With no fire escape, she crawled out a window and slid down to a second floor porch roof and then made the jump to the ground, sustaining injuries. Jennifer’s son and her fiancée Glen Parker were not home at the time.

The American Red Cross reported that many renters were picking up free smoke alarms as demand surged after the fire, from 20-50 units a week to 150 units, indicating that many people are in the same life-threatening situation.

Akron is known as the rubber city, headquarters for Goodyear but no longer for Firestone, which moved to Nashville after a merger with Bridgestone. The poverty rate for the 44310 ZIP code, where the December 3 house first took place, is nearly 19 percent and just over 30 percent for those under age 18.

Two fires in Baltimore took the lives of four children and physically injured at least one other. The first blaze was in a row house on North Clinton Street in East Baltimore and broke out at approximately 9:00 p.m. on December 7.

There were five people inside, a mother and her four children. The fire claimed the lives of a nine-month-old boy and three-year-old sibling, Nigel and Exekial Ramirez respectively. The mother suffered injuries requiring hospitalization, while a two- and five-year-old managed to escape.

Neighbor Nicole Carter spoke with Channel 2 WMAR about what she witnessed on the night of the fire. She said that firefighters approached the mother, who was trying to save the children in the house and begging for help. “She just was like, ‘The babies! The babies!’ and then they went in there and they brought the babies out,” Carter said.

Also in Baltimore, a house fire on Dorton Court December 10 took the lives of Tylynn McDuffie, 10, and one-year-old Kamarl Ferrell. With no fire escape, a 27-year-old woman, identified only as the children’s mother, dropped her four-year-old to the ground from a window and then leapt out, retreating from the blaze, unable to save the other children while sustaining injuries.

Neighbor Aisha Wright spoke with WBAL Radio and said, “They were good kids. She’s a nice lady and everything. No family deserves to go through that.”

Once again revealing the frequency of tragic home fires in Baltimore due to the poor housing conditions, a house fire on January 12 claimed the lives of six children. (See Six Children dead in Baltimore house fire)

On December 30, a mobile trailer fire killed three members of a family in Lafayette, Tennessee. Those who perished were Wanda Rush Ray, 69, and her sons, Jimmy Lane Ray, 52, and Ronald Earl Ray, 51. According to the coroner, the cause of death for all was smoke inhalation.

Twin Brothers Brenton and Braeson Fortson with their sister BreChelle [Credit: Benjamin Fortson's Facebook page]

In the Watts section of Los Angeles, twin boys lost their lives to a house fire on December 28. The brothers who perished were Brenton and Braeson Fortson, two-years-old. Benjamin Fortson, their father, risked all in an effort to save them, fighting thick smoke and flames and ultimately suffering burns to his face. Firefighters pulled all three from the blaze, with the father currently in the hospital listed in critical condition. Firefighters could not locate any smoke detectors in the residence.

According to media reports, there were up to 12 people living in the three-bedroom house, which far exceeds the federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guideline of two persons per bedroom. According to US Census figures, the 2015 poverty rate in Watts was 37.1 percent, with nearly 50 percent of children living in poverty.

These figures serve to highlight growing social inequality, where the relegation of a growing segment of the population to poverty and unsafe housing conditions is leading to a increasing loss of life in house fires.