U.S. Foreign Policies Remain Unchanged Since 1948

Eric Zuesse

Ever since 1948, the U.S. Government’s foreign policies have been consistently focused upon breaking up the Soviet Union and turning its Warsaw Pact allies against the Soviet Union; and, then, once that would be (and was) accomplished, turning any remaining allies of Russia against Russia; and, then, once that will have been accomplished, conquering Russia. Since at least 2006, U.S. ‘defense’ policy has been that nuclear war will be an acceptable way to conquer Russia if lesser measures fail to do the job. (Since 2006, the concept that a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia would result in “mutually assured destruction,” or “MAD” —  a war that both parties to it would lose — has been rejected at the highest levels of the U.S. Government, but continues unchanged as being the policy at the highest levels of Russia’s Government, which are terrified of the U.S. Government’s attempts to develop anti-ballistic missiles and other systems that would eliminate Russia’s defenses — i.e., ability to retaliate — against a U.S. nuclear first-strike attack — terrified at the U.S. Government’s preparations to win a nuclear war.)

When the Republican U.S. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on 26 March 2012 that, “Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe”, he was actually stating publicly something that U.S. President Barack Obama secretly agreed with and had been working since day-one of his Presidency to implement — and his State Department had secretly already been drawing up plans since 2011 to overthrow the Moscow-friendly leaders of two nations: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. But Obama (who was the most gifted liar in U.S. Presidential history, and really understood how to use truths to demolish even lies that his own policies were secretly based upon — simultaneously criticising bad polices while secretly implementing them) responded to Romney’s statement of March 26th, by saying on 22 October 2012, “Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaeda. You said Russia … the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.” And Romney replied, “ROMNEY: Excuse me. It’s a geopolitical foe [now he pretended he hadn’t said that Russia is “our number one geopolitical foe”; he knew that what he had said months earlier would lose him votes, and that Obama was now taking advantage of this], and I said in the same — in the same paragraph I said, and Iran is the greatest national security threat we face. [What he had actually said there when the interviewer challenged him on his anti-Russia remark was “Of course, the greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.” He diverted the issue from “number one” to “nuclear,” so as to mislead viewers as to what the issue here was. He recognized right away that he had let slip a belief that was highly controversial to express in 2012.] Russia does continue to battle us in the U.N. time and time again. I have clear eyes on this. I’m not going to wear rose-colored glasses when it comes to Russia, or Mr. Putin. And I’m certainly not going to say to him, I’ll give you more flexibility after the election. After the election, he’ll get more backbone.”

Little did Romney, or the U.S. public — or Vladimir Putin — know that Obama’s own anti-Russia campaign would become publicly unleashed only after Obama’s re-election.

Whereas Democrats lie, when they are not outright deceived, to say that Obama was a progressive; Republicans lie, when they are not outright deceived, to say that Obama wasn’t a conservative. Republicans want a consistently fascist leader, and can’t be satisfied by anything less. Republicans tend to be uncompromising, demanding to conquer the ‘enemy’; Democratic Party voters prefer “bipartisan solutions” — negotiation, instead of confrontation; win-win games, instead of win-lose games; good-faith deals, instead of bad-faith conquests; and so this is how Democratic Party politicians need to present themselves not only to Republican Party voters, but also to their own Democratic Party voters. Republican Party politicians, by contrast, don’t need to appear ‘bipartisan’ in order to retain the support of Republican voters. This is an authentic strategic difference between the two Parties: it stems from the difference — however slight — that exists between conservatism and liberalism. (Each of those two ideologies is both neoliberal and neoconservative — free-market and imperialistic. Progressivism is neither, but Obama and Trump are both. Billionaires want both, and won’t financially back any Presidential candidate who isn’t both.)

In the same TV interview on 26 March 2012 when Romney uttered his charge that Russia is America’s top enemy, he went on to explain: “It is always Russia, typically with China alongside. And — and so in terms of a geopolitical foe, a nation that’s on the Security Council, that has the heft of the Security Council and is, of course, a — a massive nuclear power, Russia is the — the geopolitical foe and — and the — and they’re — the idea that our president is — is planning on doing something with them that he’s not willing to tell the American people before the election is something I find very, very alarming.” Romney actually knew that secret negotiations are going on all the time between nations’ leaders. He was simply trying to appeal to the many voters who don’t know this basic fact. But he wasn’t nearly as gifted a liar as Obama was; so, he lost to Obama.

Romney not only damned Russia’s Government, but he damned China’s Government, and he damned Iran’s Government. That’s the neoconservative trifecta; and the current Republican U.S. President is carrying it out. In order to conquer Russia without a first-strike nuclear blitz attack, the only way would be to eliminate, first, both China’s Government and Iran’s Government, because those are the most powerful Governments remaining still as allies of Russia. And Republicans (such as Romney) even blame Russia for having inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear defense against America’s growing nuclear MADness, which MADness had started with Reagan’s “Star Wars” ABM (also called “BMD” or ballistic-missile defense) dreams.

Romney was there regretting that the U.S. can’t remove and replace the international arrangements that the great American progressive President FDR had instituted at the U.N. with its inclusion of the Soviet Union on the U.N. Security Council. Republicans now damn Russia for having inherited that U.N. seat, too. They want to un-do all of FDR’s great progressive legacy; they’re not satisfied merely to have worked with the post-Reagan Democratic Party (today’s Democratic Party) and so eliminated almost all of it (Glass-Steagall and almost all of the rest). They want war, global conquest. Whereas Democrats on the national level, as exemplified by Obama, want to conquer Russia gradually, Republicans on the national level don’t have the patience, but rush toward World War III: “brinksmanship.” The Democratic Party’s voters are satisfied merely with continued liberal hypocrisy, such as Obama and the Clintons exemplified — it’s a Party that needs to be replaced, because it leaves the country with no progressive alternative, much like the hypocritical Whigs were replaced in 1860. (But, if some assassin’s bullet then quickly ends that new progressive Party, too, such as happened in 1865, the only progressive alternative remaining will, as a consequence, be outright revolution — if World War III doesn’t come before then.)

The turn away from FDR was gradual between 1945 and 1948, but the future American direction was made clear in 1948 when the U.S. CIA became established finally upon the dual basis of hating Russians and of becoming financially addicted to the international narcotics trade so as to have enough money (in addition to the on-the-books type, from the U.S. Treasury) to expand into and take over America’s Deep State and thus the country, on behalf of America’s international corporations, such that even the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy is now very reasonably attributed by many well-informed Americans to JFK’s growing turn away from the CIA’s obsession to destroy Russia. Already, the CIA had brought over into the United States many key German Nazis (a very bad sign that post-FDR America was going to have a rotten core), and the CIA helped other Nazis to become safely established in Argentina and other countries. JFK had become increasingly disillusioned with the U.S. Deep State that he found himself surrounded by, and he was expecting to implement its ouster from power in his second term, which never came.

Then, on the night of 24 February 1990, U.S. President George H.W. Bush secretly established the U.S. policy for the U.S. and its allied governments to adhere to for the future (after the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact and its communism all ended peacefully in 1991), for America’s equivalent of the Soviets’ Warsaw Pact military alliance — NATO — to continue on afterward, against the now lone nation of Russia, and to take into NATO the formerly Russia-allied nations, so as to create the way, by thus expanding America’s military empire, to surround Russia and finally take over ultimately Russia itself. His successors in the U.S. White House have all adhered to this secret policy of surround-and-capture. Obama entered office intending to eliminate Russia’s ally in Syria, Bashar al-Assad; and, even more importantly, Obama started planning in 2011 to eliminate Russia’s neutralist next door to Russia in Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych — thus setting up the basis of lies on which Obama’s sanctions against Russia, and NATO’s massing of troops onto and near Russia’s borders, are ‘justified’.

U.S. President Donald Trump continues this policy, against both Syrians and Ukrainians, with the aim of completing what Obama had only started (but had amplified from his predecessors). First, here, will be discussed Ukraine; then, Syria:

On January 18th, the AP headlined “Ukraine passes bill to get occupied regions back from Russia”, and reported that the Minsk peace accords that Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande, and Vladimir Putin had worked out (contrary to Obama’s intentions), and that had been accepted and signed by both the Ukrainian Government and Russia, as well as by the separatist far-eastern region Donbass, in order to establish a peaceful method for re-integrating into Ukraine the separatist formerly Ukrainian region in Ukraine’s far east, called Donbass, were now officially being reneged-upon and rejected by the Ukrainian Government; and Ukraine also now is committing itself to conquering the Crimean region in the former Ukraine’s far south, which had voted over 90% to rejoin and become again a part of Russia, and Russia did reintegrate Crimea, as the residents there overwhelmingly wanted. Ukraine’s Government has thus now established, as its official policy, that only war and conquest of its former far-eastern portion, and also of its far-southern portion (now again a part of Russia), is acceptable. Ukraine had never complied with the Minsk accords’ requirement for Ukraine to accept the far-eastern region (Donbass) peaceably back into Ukraine. However, the U.S. Government and its allies blamed only Russia and not the Ukrainian Government (which is vastly more to blame) for the failure of the Minsk accords to be implemented, and Obama’s economic sanctions against Russia were constantly being renewed upon that fallacious, clearly counter-factual, anti-Russian, basis. Most of the Minsk accords were simply ignored by Ukraine. For example, here are the final two paragrahs, and they were totally ignored and violated constantly by Ukraine:

• Pullout of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, and also mercenaries from the territory of Ukraine under OSCE supervision. Disarmament of all illegal groups.
• Constitutional reform in Ukraine, with the new Constitution to come into effect by the end of 2015, the key element of which is decentralisation (taking into account peculiarities of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, agreed with representatives of these districts), and also approval of permanent legislation on special status of particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in accordance with the measures spelt out in the footnotes, by the end of 2015.

What caused Ukraine to opt for war against Russia, and to turn away from the Minsk accords, is that U.S. President Trump had decided to sell to Ukraine even weapons that Obama had thought would be too likely to bring about a U.S.-Russia war too quickly; Trump is apparently even more eager for a U.S.-Russia war than Obama was. So, now, the fascist regime that Obama had installed in his 2014 coup in Ukraine will be given even greater sway than it had under Obama. They will go back to doing as they had been doing during the first months after Obama had installed this regime: killing the residents in the areas of Ukraine that had voted over 90% (in Donbass) for the man whom Obama had overthrown, and over 75% (in Crimea) for him. Unless those voters can be either killed or forced to emigrate into Russia, the fascist regime that Obama had installed on Russia’s doorstep would be voted out of power in the next general election. Evidently, Trump is at least as dedicated to continuance of that fascist regime as was his predecessor, who had installed it.

Regarding Syria, the Trump regime is likewise continuing the Obama regime’s policies. Obama supported Al Qaeda (called in Syria “Jabhat al-Nusra”) against Syria’s Government, and so does Trump. Even the leading neoconservative propaganda-sheet, the Washington Post, once goofed and included the scandalous reality that the big hang-up between the U.S. and Russia that was preventing a cease-fire and blocking a stop in the bombing in Syria by both the U.S. and Russia, was: “Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat al-Nusra off-limits to bombing as part of a cease-fire.” Russia insisted upon continuing the bombing of both ISIS-controlled and Al Qaeda-controlled areas, even during the general cease-fire, but America would allow only continuation of the bombing against ISIS-controlled areas. Without Al Qaeda (Nusra), the U.S. invasion of Syria would have had no boots-on-the-ground leadership for the many other jihadist groups that the Sauds had recruited worldwide and financed to fight there. Protecting Syria’s Al Qaeda was crucial to America’s entire war-effort in Syria. And Trump — who had campaigned against “radical Islamic terrorism” — is continuing Obama’s policy there, too: supporting radical Islamic terrorism, against Syria’s Government.

Brett McGurk, who ran Obama’s Syria-policy, is likewise running Trump’s Syria-policy; and he hasn’t had to change the policy at all: it relies upon Al Qaeda in the Arab-majority areas, and upon Kurds in the Kurdish-majority areas. As that WP article, which was dated 19 February 2016, noted “The U.S. team, headed by senior White House adviser Robert Malley and State Department envoy Brett McGurk,” were negotiating with the Russians about the conditions for a cease-fire in Syria while Obama was in power. (They were the people working to protect Al Qaeda in Syria.) And McGurk still is, and hasn’t changed. (As for Malley — co-authoring there at the neoconservative-neoliberal The Atlantic magazine — he’s with the U.S. and NATO billionaires-funded neoconservative International Crisis Group, which pontificates about being kind and humanitarian in wars, so as to be able to sell more of them to liberals around the world. But McGurk has been the real operator, no such mere “front man” for the war-industry.)

Obama himself would probably be surprised at the extent to which Trump is adhering to Obama’s foreign-policy thrust of placing hostility against Russia and Russia’s allies, above hostility against jihadists and jihadists’ allies. On 10 November 2016, just two days after Trump’s election as President, Obama did a sudden about-face, seemingly in order to avoid the embarrassment of having his successor publicly condemn him for having been depending so heavily upon the hated Al Qaeda: the WP bannered “Obama directs Pentagon to target al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria” and reported that, “President Obama has ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria that the administration had largely ignored until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government.” (The clause “at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian government” was yet another rare peep in that neocon newspaper, which enabled a perceptive reader to get a glimpse of the broader reality, that America was in Syria not in order to defeat jihadists, but in order to defeat Syria’s Government.) Nominally, Obama on 9 September 2016 had finally allowed his Secretary of State John Kerry to sign with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov a cease-fire agreement that accepted Russia’s demand that both ISIS and Al Qaeda in Syria continue to be bombed; but, on September 17th, just five days later, Obama’s Air Force bombed Syrian Government troops in the key city of Deir Zor and thus enabled ISIS to take control of that city, which bombing by the U.S. violated and thus ended that same agreement, and finally ended Russia’s trust in anything it might sign with the U.S. Government. Russia promptly set up its own peace-negotiations for ending the Syrian war, and excluded the U.S. Government from it; the process involved instead Russia, Iran, and Turkey, and it made more progress, in much shorter time, than the U.S.-backed peace-process under U.N. auspices ever did; so, when Obama gave that order, on November 10th, finally to start bombing Al Qaeda in Syria, he probably was trying to accommodate the fundamental change-of-policy on Syria, that Trump had campaigned and won on. Perhaps only later did Obama come to recognize that Trump’s promises didn’t mean anything more than Obama’s own promises did.

McGurk likewise has continued Obama’s use of Syria’s Kurds to break off a chunk of Syria, and he is infuriating Turkey’s Government on the hot issue of formation of a Kurdistan, just like McGurk’s comments backing the Kurds against Syria were when the U.S. puppet-leader happened to be Obama. Under Obama, a Turkish newspaper reported on 7 February 2016, that Turkey’s leader Tayyip “Erdoğan directed severe criticism at the visit to the town by Brett McGurk, US President Barack Obama’s special envoy for the anti-Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) coalition,” and this was because of America’s support for the Kurds against Syria. Then, the pro-U.S.-regime Arab newspaper in English, Al Monitor, headlined, now during the Trump era, on 1 August 2017, “Turkey in Uproar Over McGurk” and opened, “Turkey’s scapegoating of US special envoy Brett McGurk over the military partnership between the United States and the Syrian Kurds grew crazier today, with one pro-government newspaper labeling him a murderer.”

On January 22nd, the geostrategic blogger who posts his anonymous reports at his “Moon of Alabama” site, pointed out that the Trump Administration tells contradictory lies to different people, and that it thus assures not only defeat, but embarrassment, to the U.S.

U.S. allied Turkish forces invade Syria to kill and “cleanse” U.S. allied Syrian YPG/PKK Kurds in Afrin. The Trump administration immediately steps in to assure the respective allies of its continued support:

• Today the Deputy Secretary General of NATO, the U.S. diplomat Rose Gottemoeller, visited Ankara to tell the Turkish allies that everything is fine. The U.S. will stand with them.
• Today Commander of U.S. Central Command General Votel and U.S. Diplomat Brett McGurk visited Kobane to tell their Syrian YPG/PKK allies that everything is fine. The U.S. will stand with them.

On January 18th, McGurk had already reaffirmed to the Kurds in Iraq, that the U.S. backs them against Iraq’s Government. It’s all being done so as to increase U.S. weapons-sales to America’s ‘allies’: to the aristocracies that are vassals to the imperial one, America’s. When the U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower warned in his 17 January 1960 Farewell Address that “the military-industrial complex” might take over the country, he said it because he knew that it had largely already done so; but, by now, that take-over is long-since a fait accompli.

Not only has this policy destroyed Ukraine, and destroyed Syria, and, before that, destroyed Libya, and destroyed Iraq, and destroyed Afghanistan, etc.; but, the U.S. leaves to Russia’s formerly allied or friendly nations the enormous burdens of repairing the vast harms that the U.S. regime had caused.

For example: At a ‘Defense’ Department press conference, now under President Trump, on 19 May 2017, the “Special Envoy Brett McGurk” said, as he had been saying all along under his former boss, Obama, “We will never work with the Assad regime”; and, “the reconstruction costs of Syria are — are so high in the multiple, multiple billions of dollars” and “the reality in Syria is that so long as — until there’s a credible political horizon, the international community is not going to come to the aid, particularly the areas under the control of the regime.” In other words: the war that the U.S. and Sauds had led and armed and financed against Syria would receive no reconstruction money from the perpetrators unless the given area of Syria where such reconstruction is being done has broken away from Syria’s Government. There is no change, here, too. Even regarding America’s backing the Kurds to grab parts of Syria where they predominate, McGurk-Trump is the same as was McGurk-Obama — and McGurk is infuriating Turkey’s Government on the hot issue of Kurdistan, just like McGurk’s comments backing the Kurds against Syria, and against Iraq, were when the U.S. puppet-leader happened to be Obama.

The reconstruction costs for Syria alone are estimated at upwards of $250 billion.

Trump’s domestic U.S. policies are even more conservative than Obama’s were, but in the field of foreign policies — at least ones that fall under the rubric of ‘national security’ — Trump is continuing Obama’s policies: the neoconservatism continues unchanged, as if ‘U.S. national security’ policies are unaffected by whom the resident in the U.S. White House happens to be. But isn’t that the way it is in any regime? Only the deceit is less skillful now.

India strengthens ties with ASEAN countries

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Late last month Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted leaders from all 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), in a clear move to strengthen Delhi’s geo-strategic and economic ties and counter China’s growing influence in the region.

ASEAN leaders were the chief guests at the Indian Republican Day celebrations on January 26, having attended an India-ASEAN Commemorative Summit a day earlier. Modi also held bilateral talks in New Delhi with each ASEAN country leader—from Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, Brunei, Laos and Cambodia.

Modi’s attempt to boost relations with ASEAN is being encouraged by the US, as part of India’s transformation into a frontline state in Washington’s military-strategic offensive against China.

In an op-ed article published by 27 newspapers in the ASEAN countries, Modi declared: “South-east Asia and ASEAN, our neighbours by land and sea, have been the springboard of our Look East and, since the last three years, the Act East policy.”

Addressing the India-ASEAN summit, which was held under the theme of “Shared Values, Common Destiny,” Modi declared that India shared “ASEAN’s vision of peace and prosperity through the rules-based order for the oceans and seas.… Respect for international law, notably UNCLOS [the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] is critical for this.”

The references to “a rules-based order” meshes with Washington’s stance on the territorial disputes in South China Sea and the US-instigated case in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016 that ruled against China’s maritime claims.

A joint “Delhi Declaration” issued at the conclusion of the summit stressed the “importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, maritime safety and security, freedom of navigation and overflight in the region.” The US repeatedly uses the terms “freedom of navigation” and “overflight” to justify its military provocations against China in the South China Sea.

While many ASEAN members have close connections with Beijing, several have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. The Modi government is clearly attempting to exploit the situation to drive a wedge between China and ASEAN countries so as to expand India’s influence in the region.

In his bilateral talks with ASEAN leaders, Modi called for enhanced defence and maritime security and socio-economic development in the Indo-Pacific region. A press release issued after his separate meetings with Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte noted their “satisfaction” at the growth of bilateral relations with India.

Agreements were signed with the Vietnam premier for “increasing cooperation and information in communications” and “an ASEAN-India Centre of Satellite Tracking and Telemetry Station.” According to Reuters, the satellite centre will give Hanoi access to images from Indian satellites covering China, the South China Sea and other parts of the region.

Modi also used the summit to secure support for the Indian government’s so-called “anti-terror campaign.” The “Delhi Declaration” reiterated a “commitment” and “comprehensive approach to combat terrorism … including by countering cross border movement of terrorism.”

The reference to “cross border movement of terrorism” is directed against Pakistan, which, Delhi insists, supports Kashmir separatist groups fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir. No doubt the Modi government aimed to send a warning to Pakistan and China, which is increasingly emerging as Islamabad’s main international ally.

The declaration called for a further strengthening of ASEAN-India economic relations via “effective implementation of the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area”—an existing deal between India and the 10-member group that covers goods, services and investment.

Modi boasted that ASEAN-India trade “has grown 25 times over 25 years.” However, India still lags far behind China in the region. In 2017, India’s trade with ASEAN countries totalled $US70 billion, compared to China’s $514.8 billion. At the same time, Chinese exports to ASEAN countries were worth $279.1 billion, compared to India’s $30 billion.

Voicing the concern of India’s financial elite, an Indian Express editorial on January 26 commented: “India’s relationship with ASEAN continues to be afflicted by the gap between promise and performance … For India, it is not a question of competing with China, which is not really possible given China’s geographical advantage. The real challenge is meeting India’s own targets. On trade, it is nowhere near reaching the goal of $200 billion by 2020, set five years ago.”

The editorial complained that “connectivity projects with ASEAN, like the trilateral highway to Thailand via Myanmar, are years behind schedule.” It concluded: “Meeting India’s declared objectives at the summit will need a decisive push from the PM [Modi] to overcome bureaucratic and policy inertia.”

China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying responded cautiously to Modi’s meetings with the ASEAN leaders. “We are pleased to see the development of normal relations and cooperation between Indian and ASEAN countries, and we hope to work with others to make positive contributions,” she said on January 25.

An op-ed article entitled “India’s geopolitical bluff baffles China” in the Chinese government’s Global Times, mocked Indian pretensions. Pointing to the disparity in India’s trade with ASEAN compared to China’s, it declared: “Some members of the Indian elite enjoy engaging in geopolitical bluster. But they cannot truly gauge the reality of India’s comprehensive strength and diplomatic experience. They are beginners playing at geopolitics.”

Australian Labor Party parliamentarian resigns over dual citizenship furore

Patrick O’Connor 

Federal Labor Party parliamentarian David Feeney announced his resignation last Thursday, ahead of a pending High Court hearing that was to determine his alleged breach of Australia’s anti-democratic constitution. Feeney is the first Labor parliamentarian to resign over the ongoing dual citizenship furore. A by-election is set to be held in early- or mid-March in his inner-north Melbourne electorate of Batman.

Section 44 (i) of the constitution proscribes anyone from standing for parliament who has “allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power” or is “entitled” to the “rights and privileges of a foreign power.” The clause has triggered a parliamentary crisis. Seven elected representatives were forced to quit last year and six more could face a High Court determination of their eligibility to sit in parliament. Many more remain under media investigation because the birthplaces of their parents and grandparents could automatically “entitle” them to dual citizenship.

Feeney’s case underscores the reactionary character of the witch hunt. The World Socialist Web Site has no brief for Feeney—he is a self-declared “machine man” of the Labor Party right wing. He was among several Labor and trade union US embassy informants revealed by diplomatic cables released by the WikiLeaks. But his forced resignation represents another attack on democratic rights. After being elected by the voters of Batman just 18 months ago, he has been forced out because his father was born in Northern Ireland.

On December 5, Feeney completed a statement for the newly-created parliamentary “Citizenship Register,” which requires all MPs to produce documents, going back to the birth of their grandparents, to prove their sole Australian citizenship. He provided documentation showing that the Labor Party’s legal unit advised him, before his entry to parliament in 2007, that as a result of his father having been born in Belfast in 1942, he was automatically entitled to British citizenship and potentially Irish also. (People born in Northern Ireland are entitled to citizenship of the Republic of Ireland.) Feeney issued a signed statement explaining that he then “signed documents prepared for me in accordance with that advice as to the steps that I needed to take to renounce any inherited British and Irish citizenships.”

Announcing his resignation on Thursday, Feeney said the evidence concerning his renunciation of Irish citizenship was intact, but he had been unable to locate documents proving his British renunciation. “The fact is that, after 10 years, most records have not been retained,” he stated. “I have taken legal advice indicating that the material that has been located to date is insufficient to satisfy the High Court that I did, indeed, renounce my rights 10 years ago.”

No one within the political or media establishment has raised any issue of democratic and legal principle in the Feeney affair. An estimated half of Australia’s increasingly diverse population would be barred from standing for parliament by section 44(i).

The Labor Party threw him to the wolves because it hopes that its quickly handpicked candidate Ged Kearney will prove a stronger campaigner against the Greens, who are vying to win the Batman seat for the first time. Labor leader Bill Shorten welcomed Feeney’s resignation, saying: “This decision is the right one and spares the valuable time and resources of the High Court.”

Greens’ leader Richard Di Natale demanded to know why Feeney had not stepped down earlier. The Greens have been the most vociferous advocates of the nationalist witch hunt, spearheading last year’s calls for an “audit” of all 226 members of parliament. Last November, Di Natale wrote a letter to the governor-general, the appointed representative of the British Queen, asking “to know what all the options are available to us in terms of bringing this issue to an urgent resolution.”

The Greens’ leader publicly raised the prospect of a constitutional coup like that of 1975, which saw the anti-democratic ousting of Gough Whitlam’s Labor government. “We know the governor-general, when it comes to a constitutional crisis, has played a role in the past,” Di Natale declared.

What is unfolding bears out the Socialist Equality Party’s analysis of the dual citizenship furore: “Under conditions of immense war tensions internationally, tremendous economic uncertainty and rising class antagonisms, it is being used to amplify a decades-long effort to divert and disorientate the population through nationalism and xenophobia. The demand for unquestioned ‘allegiance’ on the part of the parliamentary servants of the capitalist state is intended as a benchmark for implementation throughout society. Anyone who opposes the policies of the government will be labelled ‘un-Australian,’ a servant of foreign interests, or, under conditions of war, downright treasonous”.

The Greens hope that the Batman by-election will deliver their second seat in the House of Representatives. Previously regarded as a “safe” Labor seat, parts of Batman have undergone significant gentrification in recent years, with professional upper-middle class layers moving in. The Greens won the state electorate of Northcote, which comprises the southern part of the federal Batman electorate, from Labor in a by-election last November.

Batman’s northern suburbs are more working class, but the Labor Party is widely despised for its right-wing, pro-business record in Victoria and nationally. Labor’s primary vote in Batman plunged from 57 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2016.

Labor candidate Ged Kearney has been president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) since 2010. She is responsible for numerous sell outs of workers’ industrial campaigns, continuing decades of the suppression of the working class by the ACTU and its affiliates.

Kearney is being promoted by sections of the media as a “star candidate” and a “left.” According to journalist Michelle Grattan she plans to “strongly prosecute progressive and cost-of-living issues.” Yet the unions, working closely with the Labor Party, have been responsible for driving down industrial action and wages growth to record low levels.

The Greens, who propped up the last Labor government, will run a no less bogus campaign, expected to focus on climate change and the proposed Adani mega-coal mine in Queensland. It can be safely predicted that neither Labor nor the Greens will, during the by-election campaign, even mention the growing danger of global war as a result of the aggressive operations of US imperialism and its allies, including Australia.

Pope preaches dogma of reaction in Latin America

Cesar Uco

Pope Francis carried out a weeklong tour of Chile and Peru last week that exposed the deeply reactionary character of the Catholic Church that he heads, even as he attempted to defuse mounting popular anger against the two countries’ ruling elites.

Since he assumed the papacy in 2013, the former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Berguglio has struck a posture of public humility and sympathy for the poor, attempting to give the decaying institution of Catholicism something of a “left” face, even as he and the Vatican maneuver with the most reactionary regimes on the planet.

It was noteworthy that Berguglio made no stop in neighboring Argentina during his Latin American visit. He has not set foot in his home country in the five years since being elevated to the position of the Catholic Church’s “supreme pontiff.”

He undoubtedly has good reason to stay away. He was accused by priests and lay workers of collaborating with the military dictatorship as part of a common effort to “cleanse” the Church of “leftists” during Argentina’s “dirty war.”

This collaboration was not merely a personal issue, but was carried out by the entire Argentine church hierarchy, which provided priests cover to bless the military’s torturers and assassins, assuring them they were doing “God’s work.”

The week-long visit by Pope Francis to Latin America has underscored that he has not strayed far from the ideology that guided him and the Argentine Church in aiding the bloody work of the junta.

In Chile, he was dogged by continuous protests, including by those who as children were sexually abused by priests whose actions were covered up by the Church hierarchy. Among the most prominent were parishioners from the town of Osorno, about 500 miles north of Santiago, where the Church installed Juan Barros Madrid, accused of playing a key role in the cover-up, as bishop.

Pope Francis, echoing the rhetoric of Argentina’s “dirty war,” dismissed those who protested the installation of Barros as “fools manipulated by leftists.”

Barros’ case is intimately bound up with that of his mentor, the Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty by the Vatican of wholesale sexual abuse of minors, but was merely instructed to do “penance.” Karadima was acquitted in a criminal trial, where he was defended by lawyers with intimate connections to Chile’s extreme right and the former Pinochet dictatorship.

The Pope held a brief meeting, in private, with two individuals who had been abused by priests, but on his return flight to the Vatican denounced the charges against Barros as “slander.”

After Chile, Pope Francis spent three days in Peru. There, he refused to meet with the relatives of the victims who died in the massacres conducted by the paramilitary group Colina, under the direction of then-President Alberto Fujimori. The massacres took place in the early 1990s at the teachers’ university La Cantuta and at a social gathering in the densely populated working class neighborhood of Barrios Altos.

The relatives of the victims sent a letter to the Pope asking to meet with him to discuss the pardon recently granted to Fujimori by current President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK). In the early 2000s, Fujimori was found guilty of crimes against humanity and had been serving a 25 year sentence before his release in December.

Kuczynski granted the pardon as part of a corrupt deal to win the votes needed to avoid impeachment by Congress for his participation in the vast corruption scandal involving Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

In meetings with the bishops of Peru, Francis cynically declared that he didn’t understand why Peruvian presidents “wind up in jail.” It is an astonishing remark, given that former “presidents” whom he had supported in Argentina—the senior military officers like Videla, Viola and Massera—were all jailed, at least briefly—for their roles in the reign of terror unleashed by the dictatorship in the 1970s.

The former dictator Jorge Videla claimed in an interview that “he had received the blessing of the country’s top clergymen for the actions of his regime.”

Pope Francis visited Peru in the context rampant corruption engulfing the entire ruling elite. Last year saw two presidents in jail, another becoming a fugitive under the protection of the US government, and two others investigated by the Lava Jato Commission of the Peruvian Congress for receiving multimillion-dollar bribes from the corrupt Brazilian mega construction company, Odebrecht.

The highpoint of the Pope’s visit to Lima was the open mass held on Sunday, January 21, in Las Palmas, the Peruvian Air Force Academy, where the airfield served to accommodate the more than 1.5 million people that turned out for the event.

Members of leading parties in government, Keiko Fujimori (Frente Popular) and President Kuczynski (Peruanos por el Kambio) attended the mass at Las Palmas airfield. Prime Minister Mercedes Aráoz, took advantage of the moment to say that when Peruvians are united, “everything comes out better.”

The bourgeois left party Nuevo Peru, led by the former presidential candidate Veronika Mendoza, sent a public letter to the Pope in which she praised the Pope, the head of the most reactionary anti-working class institution on the planet. Mendoza wrote: “Because I know that your voice is heard by an important part of the Peruvian people, I ask you” to speak out against poverty, inequality, sexual abuse by the priests, the pardon of Fujimori, corruption and other subjects.

The promotion of illusions in the Pope and the Catholic Church on the part of Mendoza is the surest indication of her party’s complete subordination to the Peruvian bourgeoisie and its determination to oppose any independent political movement of the working class.

Mendoza was merely adding her small contributions to the efforts of the ruling establishment and the media to use the Pope’s visit to divert popular consciousness from the intense crisis gripping Peruvian capitalist society and the corruption-riddled government.

All the old symbols used for centuries to enslave the minds of the people were trotted out once again. Behind the altar at the open-air mass at the Las Palmas airfield was an enormous figure of Peru’s “El Señor de los Milagros” (The Lord of Miracles), also known as the “Black Christ.” The Peruvian clergy brought out all of their treasured icons. Statues of the Virgin, saints and patrons—some shipped in from distant parts, like Cusco, Huanca and Sicuani—were paraded through the streets of downtown Lima.

What defines daily life in Peru is inequality, hundreds of unresolved social conflicts and the unpopularity and discrediting of virtually every politician and political party. There is also a growing crime and drug epidemic affecting mainly working class youth, Lima airport becoming a main hub for drug trafficking. After two years of economic stagnation, 100,000 construction workers lost their jobs in 2017 in Lima alone.

A climatic point during Sunday’s mass came when Francis spoke in words that were emblazoned on the headline of the daily La Republica: “Que no les roben la esperanza” (“Don’t let them rob you of hope”).

Such “hope” is cold comfort for a population whose majority confronts intense social misery.

In a rare moment of earthly sanity, La Republica contrasted Francis’s injunction that “Hope does not disappoint,” to the reality that in Peru “reconstruction has still not come together after the El Niño Costero.”

The reference was to heavy rains, floods and avalanches that destroyed thousands of agricultural hectares and devastated the northern region of Peru a year ago, leaving 97 dead, an estimated 115,000 homes destroyed and over 100 bridges washed out.

There are reasons for the Pope to be concerned about the future of his church in Peru. Between 1996 and 2013 it lost 14.5 percent of its membership. There is a growing disenchantment with all religions, especially among the youth.

This decline goes hand-in-hand with students’ and workers’ interest in advances in science, and the massive use of social networks with the potential of uniting in action the 6 billion human beings that share the planet in a common struggle against the oppression, war and inequality created by capitalism and the obscurantism promoted by the Catholic Church—and religion in general—to justify these intolerable conditions.

Political in-fighting escalates as Cape Town, South Africa approaches “Day Zero” water shutoff

Genevieve Leigh

The mayor of Cape Town, South Africa, Patricia de Lille, has come under vicious attack from members of her own party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), against the backdrop of one of the most severe water crises in modern history.

Over the past three weeks the DA has laid multiple charges against de Lille, which include bringing the party into disrepute, refusing to comply with party decisions, undue interference, and failing to perform duties and responsibilities. The DA escalated the attack late Friday afternoon when criminal charges were laid against the mayor for bribery and corruption.

The latest charges stem from claims laid by a Vanderbijlpark, Gauteng businessman, Anthony Faul, that the mayor asked for a payment in relation to a potential deal involving fire extinguishers. De Lille allegedly sought R5 million ($415,000) in exchange for her support of a contract with Faul’s company to supply fire extinguishers to Cape Town’s informal settlements.

That Faul’s complaint dates to 2012, but is only now being brought to light, underscores the deeply rooted corruption of the entire DA leadership who have clearly only made an issue of the bribery as it became politically useful.

In addition to the legal charges, the party has also passed a motion of no confidence in de Lille which will be debated in the City Council on February 15. In another highly controversial move the city council also opted to remove the mayor’s powers to handle the water crisis, handing responsibility over to party leader Mmusi Maimane.

The DA’s attack on de Lille has nothing to do with genuine concern over corruption for which both the DA and the ruling ANC themselves are infamous. The expulsion of de Lille is instead a desperate attempt at damage control amid growing social unrest in the city. The DA fears their inability to address the water crisis will lead to a loss in support ahead of the 2019 elections, if not total loss of political and social control if the city water shutoff becomes a reality. De Lille is being sacrificed as the scapegoat for the historic water crisis for which the entire DA leadership along with South Africa’s current ruling party, the ANC, are responsible.

The immediate source of the water crisis in Cape Town is a historic three-year drought, combined with significant population growth in the city causing the dam levels to drop to dangerously low levels. Despite knowledge of the possibility of such a crisis for years, no viable or practical measures were taken by the local or federal government to address the impending life and death crisis in the city of nearly four million residents.

An animated image showing the depletion of the Theewaterskloof Dam reservoir since 2014. It provides half of Cape Town's water

By the time the full-scale reality of the crisis was acknowledged in January the city government was positioned to do little more than issue contemptuous condemnation of “irresponsible” water usage by the working class and poor.

Officials have placed the burden of the water crisis squarely on the backs of the working class in Cape Town with relentless demands that residents consume just 50 liters of water per day—less than one-sixth of what the average American uses. In what can only be described as a deliberate effort to incite a lynch mob mentality among the population, the local government recently made public the identities of all customers who paid admission-of-guilt fines or who appeared in court regarding contravention of water restrictions, as well as an interactive online  map showing water usage by household.

Without a drastic drop in consumption the city will confront what officials are calling “Day Zero,” the day that the majority of city taps will be turned off and residents will have to queue for hours to receive their daily ration of 25 liters of water from one of 200 water distribution points around the city.

Health officials say that 25 liters is the bare minimum amount of water needed to maintain basic hygiene. It is less than typically used in four minutes of showering.

The logistics required to carry out such a large-scale distribution effort are incredibly complex and would require months of planning and massive resources—neither of which has been undertaken by the local or national government. There are about 3.74 million people living in Cape Town. To service all the residents of the city through the 200 water collection points would mean that the 25 liters of water would need to be dispensed every 20 seconds, 24 hours a day.

For the working class, a daily collection of 25 liters of water is a near impossibility. The cost of transporting oneself to and from the collection point and carrying a 25 kg canister is completely unreasonable. When will those who remain employed through the water shutoff have time to stand in such lines? Where will children be kept if the schools are shut down? What if there is a leak, a spill, a medical emergency, or a fire?

The class character of the water crisis in Cape Town is most openly expressed in the preparation efforts. The ruling class is actively arranging the local police and South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to violently suppress opposition to the impending dystopian life post-“Day Zero.”

Additionally, the ration plans will not affect those who can afford to leave the city, nor those who choose to stay who can afford to invest in expensive alternatives, such as boreholes to extract ground water.

However, for the vast majority of the population these are not options. Instead, the working class is left to endure obscene price gouging of bottled water and water containers, placing an enormous strain on the most vulnerable layers of the population. A run on bottled water last month has caused supermarkets to introduce limits for each customer. Hardware shops have sold out of water tanks. Even dehumidifiers—which are being marketed as “water from air” devices—are out of stock.

To add insult to injury, the city government has recently floated the idea of a “drought charge” to fund desalination projects and to go towards making up for lost water revenue. It is estimated that 460,216 households would be affected by the charge.

The proposition to extract lost revenue from the water crisis from the working class must be rejected with the contempt it deserves. South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, with eight billionaires owning a collective $26.6 billion. Mirroring the global trend, Oxfam reports that the three richest of these South African billionaires own as much wealth as the bottom half of the country combined.

Furthermore, the claim that this disaster is purely the result of a natural phenomenon that cannot be dealt with is a lie. The technology, science, and resources needed to address this crisis exist, but are monopolized by and subordinated to the capitalist profit system. Ensuring basic human rights such as access to water requires the unleashing of all the scientific tools and resources from the stranglehold of the capitalist system and putting them under the democratic control of the international working class.

French president Macron to end lifetime job guarantee for public sector workers

Francis Dubois 

On Thursday, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and Public Finances Minister Gerald Darmanin announced a sweeping attack on public sector workers aimed at scrapping the legal statute of public sector workers’ rights established after the liberation from Nazi occupation.

“This plan aims to shatter to pieces the last taboos surrounding public sector workers and also marks the end of the dogma of life-time employment guarantees, upon hiring, for all public sector workers,” wrote the right-wing daily Le Figaro. The two ministers stated that the attacks would not apply to the police and intelligence forces, the military or the top ranks of the state bureaucracy, but to the mass of public sector workers.

They are directly targeting the roughly 4 million workers who have public sector status in France. Though eroded by attacks under Socialist Party and right-wing governments alike, the “statute” governing their working conditions has still formally guaranteed fundamental rights including lifetime employment, guaranteed base pay, regular promotion and regular wage increases.

It also grants vacations and easier conditions for retirement or early retirement without penalties. Only 10 years ago, public sector workers still retired three years earlier than private sector workers. They also had a guaranteed right to strike and to join political and trade union organizations.

The measures announced by Philippe and Darmanin include a massive resort to “contract workers,” who will replace public sector workers but be denied the rights of the public service. At the same time, a plan for an essentially unlimited number of “voluntary departures” aims to sack tens of thousands of workers who will have to find jobs in the private sector. This will allow the state to cut public-sector wages by €4.5 billion ($5.6 billion) by 2020.

No economic sector is to be left untouched. Particularly heavily hit will be services earmarked for “reorganization,” including teachers, health care workers, and local services. Until now, public sector job cuts had always been limited to attrition, i.e., to not replacing workers as they retired.

The government also aims to introduce “merit pay,” a poison pill that would eliminate the right to a fixed salary for a specified duration of work. It is to be used as a financial whip against the public-sector workers, to break solidarity among them. For public administrations, including the schools and the hospitals, the government is demanding “indicators of results,” thanks to which it will be possible to measure the “return” produced by the workers (and so, ultimately, their pay), who are thus to be placed under constant pressure.

Another measure that is not widely discussed but actively prepared is the privatization of work carried out by public sector workers and various public enterprises and administrations. These privatizations should occur “wherever the private sector can find its place,” former government spokesman Christophe Castaner said last May. Thursday, from Tunis, Macron stressed that the public service should “reorganize itself faster, as companies do.”

It is not only the statute of the rail workers that is to be suppressed, for example, but also their retirement plan. Since September, Macron has insisted that the change to the statute of the rail workers should include the suppression of their special pension system.

A wide swath of the social gains introduced after World War II are targeted for destruction. Macron stated Thursday that the statute had to be reformed since “elements of business practice … cannot be implemented due to rigidities.”

This confirms the analysis of the WSWS during the brutal attacks of the European Union (EU) in Greece: the European financial aristocracy was taking aim at the basic social gains that workers obtained after the defeat of Nazism in 1945, and that went back ultimately to the 1917 revolution in Russia.

Macron’s attack is part of a broad confrontation of the continent’s ruling elites with the European working class. In Germany, the largest EU economy, a “Grand Coalition” government is being prepared that will carry out massive attacks on the working class to finance the re-militarization of Germany and its return to great-power politics.

Powerful strikes of German metal and auto workers in recent days are for now effectively blocking the installation of a new coalition government of social-democratic and conservative parties, which have presided for years over a vast transfer of wealth from the workers to the super rich. On Saturday, tens of thousands of people protested in London against the attack on the National Health Service by the right-wing, pro-Brexit government. The NHS is another fundamental gain of the working class in Britain, obtained after World War II.

Just as the German unions are aiming mainly to let off steam to avoid a mass movement against the ruling parties, the French unions have no intention of damaging Macron by defending the public-sector workers. The union leaders are aware of the historic magnitude of the attacks, and their reactions of surprise and indignation are utterly hypocritical. They called for a vote for Macron last year, well aware of his plans for an attack on the public sector, which they have been discussing with him since September, just as they had also negotiated with him the attack on the Labor Code.

Their nationalist program of defense of the competitiveness of their “own” bourgeoisie on the world market, sacrificing the workers to this aim, is essentially the same as that of Macron. They are organically opposed to uniting the struggles of the working class internationally.

The statute of the public sector was, with Social Security, one of the major reforms at the Liberation, introduced by the French Communist Party, which used them to justify Stalin’s policy of strangling proletarian revolution against the discredited fascist bourgeoisies across Europe. Now, the Stalinists, the social democrats and the trade unions are trying, by capitulating to a reactionary governmental cabal led by a free-market president, to definitively destroy it.

A struggle to defend every gain of the working class requires drawing a balance sheet of the bankruptcy of nationally based perspectives, which all lead in the final analysis to collaboration with the capitalist class, and organizing the struggles internationally across Europe independently of the trade unions. The basis of this struggle is a truly socialist and internationalist program for the taking of power of the working class and the building of the United Socialist States of Europe.

German grand coalition parties negotiate over rearmament and war

Johannes Stern

A third edition of the grand coalition will not simply continue the policies of the current one. It will massively upgrade the military, initiate a new round of social attacks and establish a police state in close cooperation with the far-right AfD. This is becoming increasingly clear with the approaching agreement between the SPD and the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union (both parties known as the Union).

While the media reported “breakthroughs” in health and housing policies on Sunday evening, initial information on the coalition paper shows what it is really about.

The Handelsblatt reported that the Bundeswehr should get combat drones “as soon as possible.” That is what the Union and the SPD had agreed on in the foreign policy and defense negotiating group. The purchase is part of a broader push for a joint European military and major power policy. The draft of the Foreign and Defense Policy chapter states: “We will continue the development of the Euro-drone in the framework of the European Defense Union.” As a “temporary solution” is “the Heron TP drone leased.” It should serve the Bundeswehr “until the Euro drone to be developed is ready.”

Comments and strategy papers by influential military strategists leave no doubt as to what is being prepared behind closed doors. “The coalition negotiations are not just about the usual machinations,” write Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the speechwriter of former German president Joachim Gauck, and Jan Techau, the director of the Richard C. Holbrooke Forum at the American Academy in Berlin, in a contribution for the German daily Die Welt. “In the midst of increasingly threatening times, it is about decisions of strategic importance: Will the Federal Republic in future [...] entertain modern, combat-ready and coalition-able armed forces?”

The entire comment makes clear what the next federal government is planning: “It wants to invest €130 billion in new material within 15 years and to increase troop strength by a few thousand men. The defense budget should approach two percent of gross domestic product by 2024. The German government—with support from the ministers of the grand coalition—has already pledged this to its NATO partners in 2014 and 2016.”

Claudia Major, a representative of the government-affiliated think-tank German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), goes even further in a comment entitled “Germany’s dangerous nuclear sleepwalking.” She writes, “The next German government will have to tackle several controversial security issues, from arms exports to meeting NATO’s target of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. But the one item that is particularly difficult for Berlin—and that it is ill-prepared to deal with—is nuclear weapons.”

The Socialist Equality Party (SGP) has already warned during the federal election campaign last summer that the policy of the next government will be determined not by the electoral promises of the parties, but by the international crisis of capitalism and the reaction of the ruling class. This is now being confirmed in a dangerous way.

Major writes, “In February, the United States wants to publish its Nuclear Posture Review. North Korea wants to stay high on Washington’s security agenda. The Iran deal is fragile. As for NATO, nuclear policies remain at issue; the alliance has voiced its concern on Russia’s alleged violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. All this will affect the German debate, whether it is prepared for it or not.”

Comments such as these expose the promises of the SPD and the Union to spend more on education and social issues as bold lies. In fact, the next federal government will make the working class pay in every respect for its militarism and imperialist power politics—as cannon fodder in war and in the form of massive welfare cuts to finance rearmament. Leading business representatives, such as Siemens boss Joe Kaeser, are demanding multibillion-dollar tax cuts à la Trump also for the local companies in order to make German capital competitive internationally.

Domestically, the Union parties and the SPD are planning the establishment of a police state. According to media reports, both want to strip alleged terrorists with dual nationality of their German passports and expand DNA analysis. So far, it was only allowed to analyze the genetic material in criminal proceedings to determine a person’s ancestry and gender. In the future, the analysis should include the age and external characteristics such as eyes, hair and skin color. Also, the video surveillance at so-called “focal points” should be “effectively expanded.” The judiciary is to create 6,000 new jobs, one-third of them in the penal system alone. Union and SPD are seeking 15,000 additional jobs from federal and state security agencies.

The ruling class is reacting to the growing resistance to their anti-social and militarist policies. In Germany and many other countries anger is brewing below the surface. The strikes of more than a million workers in the metal and electrical industry last week are part of a revival of the international class struggle. Previous mass protests have already taken place in Iran and Tunisia, tens of thousands protested in Greece against the austerity policies of the Syriza government, and in Romania, Ford workers were striking against the company-controlled union.

Under conditions of growing class struggle and sharp international conflicts, the ruling class, as in the 1930s, is relying on right-wing forces. Domestically, it became apparent in the past few days that the grand coalition will essentially take over the program of the AfD.

After the Union parties and the SPD had already taken up the demand of the extreme right for an upper limit (“Obergrenze”) for refugees, they decided on Thursday to abolish the right to family reunification for refugees. At the same time, they made three representatives of the extreme-right-wing of the AfD chairmen of important Bundestag committees.

This decision was also supported by the Left Party. “I think the AfD is entitled to these functions. That is parliamentary custom. And she [the AfD] is elected, and insofar she has the right to these functions,” stated Sahra Wagenknecht, the leader of the Left party faction, on a television talk show.

The SPG is the only party that fights the right-wing conspiracy in Berlin on the basis of a socialist program and demands new elections. For the establishment of the most right-wing German government since the fall of the Nazi regime, the ruling class has no mandate at all. Already in the elections in September, the Union and the SPD had their worst results in the postwar period and lost a total of 14 percent of the vote. Now, according to a recent survey, the SPD stands at its all-time low of 17.5 percent. Another recent poll showed that not even one in three (32 percent) support the formation of a grand coalition government.

UK unions and Labour suppress struggle to defend National Health Service

Robert Stevens

Around 40,000 to 60,000 people demonstrated in London Saturday in defence of the National Health Service (NHS).

The demonstration, headlined, “NHS in crisis—Fix it Now,” was organised by the People’s Assembly and the Health Campaigns Together coalition.

A section of the march to defend the NHS

The march assembled in Gower Street, with protesters marching through central London to Downing Street where a rally was held.

The People’s Assembly is backed by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the UK’s two largest trade unions—Unite and Unison—the Green Party and an assortment of Stalinist and pseudo-left groups.

Health Campaigns Together unites various local initiatives in defence of the NHS.

The march was significantly smaller than a demonstration called last March by the same organisations, which attracted up to 250,000 people. The lower participation does not represent any lessening of hostility to the government’s ongoing destruction of public health care. The march was held under conditions of an ongoing “winter crisis,” which has seen many people denied basic health care and scores of people dying due to a lack of basic funding and resources. Many who attended brought their own homemade banners in protest at the cuts and demanded more funding for the NHS and an end to its privatisation.

The main reason for the decline in numbers was twofold.

Despite the pledges by the trade union bureaucracy to organise a “fight” in defence of the NHS, they have not lifted a finger as the government has intensified its attacks. Many workers did not attend as they have concluded that the unions will not mobilise to defend anything. In 2016, the British Medical Association, agreed a sell-out deal imposing an inferior contract on tens of thousands of striking junior doctors. The doctors had widespread support among other health workers and the working class for their struggle, but the betrayal of the BMA allowed the Tories to go on the offensive against the NHS.

The unions did virtually nothing to mobilise their membership in support of Saturday’s demonstration. Unison has around 500,000 members employed in the NHS, while Unite boasts of having has 100,000 members “across the health sector.”

The main demands of the organisers were based on pleas to the Conservative government, which has slashed tens of billions from the NHS budget since 2010, to fund the NHS properly. The call for the demonstration stated, “The Tories must heed the call of the public, staff and patients alike who demand that #ourNHS is not only funded properly but brought back into public hands away from the waste and demands of shareholders and bankers’ bonuses.”

In place of any recognisable national figures, the unions sent people to speak on their behalf who few will have heard of. Speaking on behalf of the Trades Union Congress was Paul Nowak, apparently the organisation’s deputy general secretary and before that its assistant general secretary. Speaking on behalf of Unison was one Helga Pile and for Unite, its “national officer” Sarah Carpenter.

Speaking on behalf of the Labour Party was Shadow Health Secretary, Jon Ashworth, who has held the position for just 15 months. He was sent because Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his advisers took the decision that he should absent himself from the protest. Corbyn was featured at last year’s demonstration as the keynote speaker and told the hundreds of thousands who attended, “We’ve got the faith, we’ve got the fight and we are up for it!”

This rhetoric was in reference to the statement of Anuerin Bevan, who inaugurated the NHS in 1948, that “The NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it.”

The People’s Assembly and Health Campaigns Together maintain that the NHS can only be defended by the health unions, while the election of a Corbyn-led Labour government offers the only political road forward. On this basis, Ashworth was introduced as the representative of “the government in waiting.”

In reality, the NHS has been brought to the brink of destruction by decades of attacks by successive Labour and Tory governments. The large-scale introduction of the Conservatives Private Finance Initiative (PFI) into the NHS—which pioneered its ongoing privatisation—was carried out by the 1997-2010 Labour government. In 2012, the Tories introduced the Health and Social Act—which removed the responsibility from the Health Secretary to provide a universal healthcare system in England. This has now been in place for six years.

A general election is not scheduled to be held until 2022, by which time there will be little left of the NHS to “fight” for, with more than £20 billion in additional “efficiency saving,” i.e., savage cuts, set to be imposed.

Labour have no intention of lifting a finger in defence of the NHS. Rather, the prospect of a Labour government that will reverse all the attacks on the NHS is being used by Corbyn and his backers among the pseudo-left groups to dampen down and suppress any fightback based on the class struggle and a mass mobilisation of the working class.

Last year, Corbyn and his main ally, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, were greeted with genuine enthusiasm by workers who saw his rise to leadership as proof that a genuine fightback was being prepared after years in which Labour was dominated by the Blair and Brownite advocates of the market and privatisation.

A year on, Corbyn decided it was more important to address a meeting of party bureaucrats instead of the NHS rally. Instead of fight, workers have been told to wait until Corbyn is comfortably ensconced in Number 10.

Corbyn sent a brief video statement to protesters that was meant to be shown on the big screen at the rally’s climax, but the organisers—who said it would be the only fitting end to the rally—could not get their act together in order to show it.

Had the protesters been given the opportunity to watch the video—which lasted just 90 seconds—they would have seen Corbyn offer a message that everyone was doing a grand job in protesting on a “cold winter’s day.”

Corbyn declared, “It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that the NHS is in crisis,” but offered nothing other than the prospect of an end to Tory rule in 2022. Declaring that Labour would fight for the NHS, he added that in government the party would “end the Tories’ privatisation” and give the “NHS and its amazing staff the resources they need.” Everyone should apparently “celebrate our wonderful National Health Service.”

Downing of Russian fighter in Syria threatens wider war

Peter Symonds

The shooting down of a Russian warplane over northern Syria on Saturday threatens to dramatically escalate the confrontation between Washington and Moscow over the US-backed proxy war to oust the Russian-supported regime of President Bashir al-Assad. The Russian media and senior political figures are already accusing the United States of involvement.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported that a Sukhoi Su-25 was struck by a portable surface-to-air missile, or MANPAD, in the northern Syrian province of Idlib. The pilot, who has not been named, ejected from the plane but was killed on the ground during “a fight with terrorists.” The Su-25 is a low-flying, ground attack aircraft.

The Al Qaeda-aligned Tharir al-Sham claimed responsibility, saying one of its fighters scored a direct hit with a shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missile. The Russian Defence Ministry announced that retaliatory strikes against anti-Assad forces in the area killed more than 30 fighters.

Russian senator Frants Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council Defence and Security Committee, blamed the US for the downing. “I am absolutely convinced... that today the militants have MANPADs, and they were supplied by the Americans through third countries,” he said.

Klintsevich called for a thorough investigation to determine the type of MANPADs that have been supplied and the “circumstances of the downing of the Su-25.” He warned “the loss of one aircraft is nothing, but it has great significance and far-reaching consequences.”

Russian parliamentarian Dmitry Sablin blamed an unnamed country, neighbouring Syria, for supplying the MANPAD used to shoot down the plane. “Countries from whose territory weapons arrive, that are then used against Russian servicemen, must understand that this will not go unpunished,” he said.

The Pentagon quickly denied supplying MANPADs to US-backed militias and reiterated the lie that its combat operations are solely focussed on the now-defeated Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). “The US has not equipped any partner forces in Syria with surface-to-air weapons and has no intent to do so in the future,” Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told the Russian media on Saturday.

The denial does not stand up to serious examination. The US announced just last month that it would arm and equip a 30,000-strong “border force” made up predominantly of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to carve out, in effect, an American-aligned enclave in northern Syria from which to launch attacks on the Assad regime.

The US plans are rapidly unravelling. Turkey, which brands the YPG as terrorists aligned to the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party in Turkey, launched a full-scale offensive in the Kurdish enclave. At the same time, Syrian government forces, backed by Russia, began their own attacks on Western-aligned militias seeking to cling onto what remains of opposition-controlled territory.

A lengthy editorial in the New York Times last Wednesday entitled, “As US allies clash, the fight against ISIS falters,” reviewed Washington’s incoherent and contradictory policy that has led to all-out fighting between NATO ally Turkey and the US proxy forces in Syria. Desperate to square the circle, the US gave the green light for the Turkish offensive but drew a line at the Syrian town of Manbij, where hundreds of American troops are based, along with Kurdish militias.

In concluding, the New York Times bitterly attacked Russia and Iran for manoeuvring “to ensure they will have a permanent presence and influence” and accused the United States, effectively President Donald Trump, of “shirking its responsibility for Syria’s political future.” The editorial can be read only as a call for action to rein in Russia and Iran so as to prevent the US from being further marginalised in the Syrian quagmire that it created. Days later, the apparent response came in the form of the downing of a Russian warplane that was attacking US-aligned forces.

In the murky world of Syrian oppositional intrigues, where right-wing Al Qaeda-aligned militias collaborate with openly pro-Western groups and the CIA and US Special Forces, it is impossible to know exactly who supplied the MANPAD and who gave the decision to fire it, or even which militia did the firing.

The Debkafile, which has close ties to Israeli intelligence, reported last month that the Pentagon was “sending the YPG [Kurdish militia] man-portable air defence systems—MANPADs—which are especially effective against low-flying jets and helicopters.”

In an article entitled “Who pulled trigger on Russian jet in war zone bristling with arms?” Al Arabiya pointed out that a number of Syrian opposition militias have access to anti-aircraft missiles. It said US FIM-92 Stingers, one type of MANPAD, were manufactured under licence in Turkey by the Roketsan corporation, and, according to US-based analyst Theodore Karasik, had been delivered to “many Syrian opposition forces, like the [Western-aligned] Free Syrian Army, around Idlib.”

Regardless of who precisely pulled the trigger, the latest incident underscores the extremely tense situation in which Russian and American military forces face off at close quarters on opposing sides of Syria’s disastrous civil war.

The danger of a conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers has been greatly exacerbated by the Trump administration’s release of a new National Defence Strategy in January, which declared that “inter-state strategic competition,” not terrorism, was “now the primary concern.” It branded China and Russia as “revisionist powers” and said the US must “prioritise preparedness for war.”

That was further reinforced last Friday with the release of the latest US Nuclear Posture Review. It names Russia, along with China, North Korea and Iran, as potential threats and calls for an expansion of the US nuclear arsenal. It recommends the development of a range of new weapons that could be used in situations other than full-scale nuclear war, effectively undermining agreements to wind back nuclear arsenals.

The Syrian civil war is just one of the dangerous flashpoints in the Middle East and around the world that could set off a catastrophic conflict as all sides manoeuvre and intrigue to boost their presence and influence. The chief responsibility, however, lies with US imperialism. For the past quarter century, it has waged one war of aggression after another, turning Syria, Yemen, Iraq and the entire region into a volatile powder keg.

Orange Knowledge Programme (OKP) Fellowships for Students in Developing Countries to Study in The Netherlands 2018

Application Deadlines: Deadlines vary by choice of institution

Offered Annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Armenia, Bangladesh, Benin , Bhutan, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Colombia Cuba, , DR Congo, Egypt Ethiopia Ghana Georgia, Guatemala India, Indonesia Kenya  Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia Macedonia, Mali, Mozambique Myanmar Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories Peru, Philippines, Rwanda Senegal, Sierra Leone Somalia, Sri Lanka, South Africa South Sudan, Sri Lanka Sudan, Suriname, Tanzania Uganda Thailand, Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe.

To Be Taken At (Country): The Netherlands

About the Award: On 1 July 2017 the Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP) entered a new phase as a new programme under the name Kennisontwikkelings programma (KOP). KOP aims to advance the development of the capacity, knowledge and quality of both individuals and institutions in higher and vocational education.

Type: Fellowship, Masters, Short Courses/Training

Eligibility: One must be a professional and a national of, and working and living in one of the countries on the OKP Country list valid at the time of application;

• One must have a current employer’s statement that complies with the formal Nuffic has provided. All information must be provided and all commitments that are included in the formal must be endorsed in the statement;
• One must not be employed by an organisation which can be expected to have their own funds for staff development, e.g.: a multinational corporation (e.g. Shell, Unilever, Microsoft) a large national and/or a large commercial organisation; a bilateral donor organisation (e.g. USAID, DFID, Danida, Sida, Dutch ministry of Foreign affairs, FinAid, AusAid, ADC, SwissAid); a multilateral donor organisation (e.g. a UN organisation, the World Bank, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, IADB); an international NGO (e.g. Oxfam, Plan, Care).
• One must have a current employer’s statement which complies with the format Nuffic has provided. All information must be provided and all commitments, which are included in the format, must be endorsed in the statement;
• One must have a government statement that meets the requirements of the country in which the employer is established (if applicable);
• One must have an official passport valid at least three months after the submission date of the registration form by the candidate

Selection Criteria: The fellowships are awarded in a very competitive selection to highly motivated professionals who are in a position to introduce the newly-acquired skills and knowledge into their employing organisation.

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: A KOP NFP fellowship is intended to supplement the salary that you should continue to receive during the study period in the Netherlands. The allowance is a contribution towards your costs of living, the costs of tuition fees, visas, travel, insurance and thesis research. If applicable, the fellowship holder is expected to cover the difference between the actual costs and the amount of the personal KOP NFP allowances.

Duration of Program: 

How to Apply:

• Before you apply, make sure you review the eligibility criteria carefully and check whether your employer is willing to nominate you for the scholarship.
• When you are certain that you are eligible for a KOP NFP scholarship, you can start making the necessary preparations for your application.
• It is important to read thoroughly about the application process on the Program Webpage before applying.

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: OKP NFP is initiated and fully funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the budget for development cooperation.