BJP Politics and Triple Talaq Bill

Masood Ali Mir

The Narander Modi led BJP govt passed the Muslim women ( Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017.The reworked bill to make triple talaq or instant divorce among Muslims a punishable offence was passed by Lok Sabha on Thursday, 27th of December 2018.

The Triple Talaq Bill states that the offence of pronouncing triple talaq is a cognisable and non-bailable offence( A non-cognisable offence is an offence whereby the police cannot arrest a person without a warrant. Whereas, in cognisable offences, for serious crimes, the police may not have time to get a warrant and hence the police can take cognisance of the offence and arrest the accused immediately). For a non-cognisable offence, the aggrieved person (the wife in this case), must file a complaint seeking the arrest of the accused, then the magistrate will decide whether an arrest warrant should be issued or not. However, by making the offence of triple talaq a cognisable offence, the police can arrest Muslim men without any form of judicial oversight to determine whether a warrant should be issued, and the police can take a Muslim man into custody even if the wife does not file a complaint.

The government has publicly stated that it has not consulted any Muslim organisation before drafting this bill. This indicates very poorly on the drafting procedures adopted by the law ministry. It is essential for any legislation that all stakeholders are consulted before coming to a final position. It is also disturbing to note that the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on the same day it was introduced, raising serious questions about the manner of parliamentary deliberations while dealing with such important legislation.

The Bill is yet to be passed in the Upper House of the Indian Parliament, Rajya Sabha, where it is believed that it may face a tough opposition given the number and position of opposition political parties in this House. The government has indicated that if it failed to get it passed in the Rajya Sabha, it may try for the joint sitting of the both the Houses of Parliament.

Through this Bill the BJP government has tried it’s best to projected itself as the champion of the rights of the Muslim Women but in actual practice which they are not. The Bill is a direct interference in the Muslim faith and hence is a direct violation of so many fundamental rights provided by the Indian Constitution . It has been the core ideology of the BJP to saffronize the political landscape of India and when it failed to saffronize it through Vikass (Development) and good governance it tried the other means like coercing the minorities mainly the Muslims.

The BJP government , since its government formation in 2014, is hellbent on those very issues which are tricky and sensitive only and only for the electoral gains.

Through its younger face, Yogi, it has banned the Namaz in public parks and has changed the names of so many places because of Muslim nature .The ban on beef, cow slaughter, killings of Ikhlaq, Junaid and many more by the right wing supporters and the different slogans like love Jihad, Ghar Wapsi and Hindustan main rehna hai to Hindu bankay rehna hai are the direct indication of the hegemonic vision of this party visa – vis Muslims of India.

Although constitutionally the country has been declared secular and equality has been guaranteed but the current scenario and the post BJP electoral victory of 2014, the political spectrum of the country is mostly fragile and against all those whose forefathers chose India against Pakistan in 1947.By this fragile political scenario the whole Muslim population feels insecure in current political setup of India. Some people have acknowledged this insecurity in the public forums, the recent one being the Naseer-u- din Shah.

On one side every attempt is being made by the current establishment for the promotion and protection of Hindu faith like the proposed construction of Ram Statue at and the Sabarimilla but on the other side other religions are being coerced. The next issue which will help the BJP in next year general elections is the Babri Masjid verdict and it is believed that it too will be in BJP’s favour given the party’s dominance over the Supreme Court. The space for the minorities mainly Muslims in India is shrinking day by day in every aspect be it political, religious, social or economic.

Pakistan declares US-based Gulen’s group a terrorist organization

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Days before Prime Minister Imran Khan’s visit to Turkey, Pakistan has declared US-based Fethullah Gulen’s FETO group a terrorist organization.

The Supreme Court on Friday (Dec 28) directed the Ministry of Interior to declare Pak-Turk International Cag Education Foundation (PTICEF) of Gulen group as a ‘proscribed organization.’

The judgment said the Pak-Turk International Cag Education Foundation is declared a terrorist organization in the light of the decisions of OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) and Asian Parliamentary Assembly, noting that Turkey has also declared the aforementioned organization a terrorist group.

The court decision came in a constitution petition seeking directions to declare PTCIF as a terrorist outfit and handing over custody of Pak-Turk 28 schools to the Turkiye Maarif Foundation (TMF), established in 1999.

The judgment said that the evidence available to the court showed that the PTICEF was found by the investigative and judicial authorities of Turkey to have direct links and nexus with FETO (Gülenist Terror Organisation (Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü; abbreviation: FETÖ).

The order further says the step represents international commitments of the government of Pakistan towards the international community and, more importantly, towards the Republic of Turkey with which the government and the people of Pakistan enjoy close relations.

Gulen movement declared a terrorist group by Turkey

On June 1, 2016, President Erdogan officially designated the Gulen movement a terrorist group and said he would pursue its members whom he accused of trying to topple the government.

Gulen, described by Pape Escobar as a CIA asset, has long been accused by leading Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmakers, President Erdogan and his inner circle of forming and heading a terrorist organization to topple the Turkish government through insiders in the police and other state institutions.

Critics point to a video that emerged in 1999 in which Gulen seemed to suggest that his followers should infiltrate mainstream institutions. “You must move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centres ” You must wait until such time as you have got all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institution in Turkey.”

According to the Diplomat, in May 2015, Tajikistan had become the latest Central Asian country to close schools linked to the Gulen movement. In fact, Tajikistan’s decision to close the schools reflected a wider trend in the region. The Turkish Daily Sabah reported in mid-May 2015 that Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kazakhstan, Somalia, and Japan have all begun procedures to close Gulen-linked schools. In July 2014, Azerbaijan closed Gulen schools on fears of a parallel government. Uzbekistan shut down its Gulen schools in 1999. In Russian Chechnya and Dagestan regions Gulen-backed schools were once banned by President Putin. The Gulen website says that the schools are back in operation.

Turkish court in December 2014 issued an arrest warrant for Gulen. Turkish government has asked for his repatriation.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Tellingly, in 2010, Gulen shocked Turkey when he supported brutal Israeli operation on May 31, 2010 against the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of six ships of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkish led flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (degreesHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking the illegal and inhumane Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip.

During the raid, nine activists were killed including eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish American, and many more were wounded. Volunteers had come from over forty countries, united by the simplicity of their mission: to publicly deliver aid to Gaza in order to challenge Israel’s illegal blockade on small, densely populated Gaza strip.

In his 2010 Wall Street Journal interview, Gulen commented on the incident, saying, “It is not easy to say if they [the IHH] are politicized or not”. He continued by insisting that the IHH should have sought permission from Israel before transporting aid to Gaza.

During his interview with Cuneyt zdemir in 2010, Gulen refused to refer to the victims of the Mavi Marmara as ‘martyrs’: “It is out of the question to call these people martyrs. They knew they were going there to get killed and went at their own discretion”.

Moreover, his followers tried to portray the involvement of Mavi Marmara in the Flotilla as a form of “jihadism”, or radical militant Islamist action. Consequently, the stance of Gulen and his movement vis–vis the flotilla has been and still is a subject of criticism in Turkey.

Not surprisingly, Gulen calls for shredding five percent of Islam to make it acceptable to the West. One of his popular mantras is: “Build schools instead of mosques.”

Tellingly, “The Muslim Martin Luther? Fethullah Gulen Attempts an Islamic Reformation,” was the title of Foreign Affairs article of February 2014 on Gulen. “Gulen has tried to make actual contributions as an Islamic intellectual and develop a genuinely modern school of Islam that reconciles the religion with liberal democracy, scientific rationalism, ecumenism, and free enterprise.”

“Where the Brotherhood implies that jihad is necessarily an armed struggle, Gulen emphasized that jihad is a moral and spiritual struggle,” the article added.

FETÖ activities declared forbidden Indonesia

Saying that the ‘heretic’ Fetullah Gülen has deviated from the main pillars of Islam, the Indonesian Ulema have called on all Muslims to stay away from FETÖ, and all Muslim heads of state to ban the group

It is forbidden (haram) to be involved in all the movements and activities of the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) leader Fetullah Gülen and his followers around the world, the Council of Ulema Tariqas of Indonesia said in a fatwa (decree) on Friday (Oct 5) , calling on all Muslims and heads of state of Islamic countries to unite against them.

The Indonesian Ulema decree emphasized: “Fetullah Gülen has deviated a lot in interpreting the verses of the Qur’an, and his teachings and thoughts can damage the Islamic Aqedah (faith) based on the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad.”

Underscoring that the FETÖ is not just a movement or a socio-religious organization, the council further reiterated that it is indeed “more directed to the form of terrorist organizations hiding behind a mask of social and religious movements that have closeness to the Zionists.”

Recommending to the President of Indonesia, all heads of state in Islamic countries and Muslim scholars in every country in the world “to be able to unite and jointly stop all forms of Fetullah Gülen activities in their respective countries, including by prohibiting the circulation of books by Fetullah Gülen,” the body said these measures were important to protect the people from Gülen’s distortion of Islamic teachings.

Land Swap between Ankara and Damascus to Avoid Standoff over Manbij

Nauman Sadiq

The regions currently administered by the Kurds in Syria include the Kurdish-majority Qamishli and al-Hasakah in northeastern Syria, and the Arab-majority towns of Manbij to the west of the Euphrates River in northern Syria and Kobani to the east of the Euphrates River along the Turkish border.

The oil- and natural gas-rich Deir al-Zor governorate in eastern Syria has been contested between the Syrian government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, and it also contains a few pockets of the remnants of the Islamic State militants alongside both eastern and western banks of the Euphrates River.

The Turkish “east of Euphrates” military doctrine basically means that the Turkish armed forces would not tolerate the presence of the Syrian PYD/YPG Kurds – which the Turks regard as “terrorists” allied to the PKK Kurdish separatist group in Turkey – in Manbij and Kobani, in line with the longstanding Turkish policy of denying the Kurds any Syrian territory to the west of the Euphrates River in northern Syria along Turkey’s southern border.

On Friday, the Syrian army said it entered Manbij for the first time in years, after the Syrian Kurds urged Damascus to protect the town from the threat of impending Turkish military offensive, though Turkish President Erdogan has termed the handover a “psyops” by the Kurds.

According to a report by RT: “A high-ranking Turkish delegation arrived in Moscow on Saturday, only a day after international media broke news on Kurdish militias inviting Syrian forces to enter Manbij before the Turks do. Syria’s military proclaimed they ‘raised the flag’ over Manbij, but there have been no independent reports confirming the moving of troops into the city.”

The report notes: “The Saturday Moscow meeting was key to preventing all actors of the Syrian war from locking horns over the Kurdish enclave, Middle East experts believe.”

“Obviously, Turkey will insist that it is their forces that should enter Manbij, Russia will of course insist the city should be handed over to Assad’s forces,” Kirill Semenov, an Islamic studies expert with Russia’s Institute for Innovative Development, told RT.

The report further adds: “Realpolitik, of course, plays a role here as various locations across Syria might be used as a bargaining chip by all parties to the conflict. Semenov suggested the Turks may agree on Syrian forces taking some parts of Idlib province in exchange for Damascus’ consent for a Turkish offensive toward Manbij or Kobani.”

It becomes abundantly clear after reading the RT report that a land swap agreement between Ankara and Damascus under the auspices of Moscow is in the offing to avoid standoff over Manbij.

The agreement would likely stipulate that Damascus would give Ankara free hand to mount offensives in the Kurdish-occupied Manbij and Kobani in northern Syria in return for Ankara withdrawing its militant proxies from Maarat al-Numan, Khan Sheikhoun and Jisr al-Shughour, all of which are strategically located in the south of Idlib governorate.

Just as Ankara cannot tolerate the presence of the Kurds in northern Syria along Turkey’s southern border in line with its “east of Euphrates” military doctrine, similarly even Ankara would acknowledge the fact that Damascus cannot possibly conceive the long-term presence of Ankara’s jihadist proxies in the aforementioned strategic locations in the south of Idlib governorate threatening the Alawite heartland of coastal Latakia.

If such a land swap agreement is concluded between Ankara and Damascus, it would be a win-win for all parties to the Syrian conflict, excluding the Kurds, of course. But the response of Damascus and Moscow to the concerns of the Kurds has been tepid of late.

Not only have the Kurds committed the perfidy of acting as the proxies of Washington during the Syrian conflict which abandoned them after Trump’s announcement of withdrawal of American troops from Syria, but we must also recall another momentous event that took place in Deir al-Zor governorate in February.

On February 7, the US B-52 bombers and Apache helicopters struck a contingent of Syrian government troops and allied forces in Deir al-Zor that reportedly killed and wounded scores of Russian military contractors working for the Russian private security firm, the Wagner group.

The survivors described the bombing as an absolute massacre, and Kremlin lost more Russian citizens in one day than it had lost throughout its more than three-year-long military campaign in support of the Syrian government since September 2015.

The reason why Washington struck Russian contractors working in Syria was that the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which is mainly comprised of Kurdish YPG militias – had reportedly handed over the control of some areas east of Euphrates River to Deir al-Zor Military Council (DMC), which is the Arab-led component of SDF, and had relocated several battalions of Kurdish YPG militias to Afrin and along Syria’s northern border with Turkey in order to defend the Kurdish-held areas against the onslaught of the Turkish armed forces and allied Syrian militant proxies during Ankara’s “Operation Olive Branch” in Syria’s northwest that lasted from January to March 2017.

Syrian forces with the backing of Russian contractors took advantage of the opportunity and crossed the Euphrates River to capture an oil refinery located to the east of Euphrates River in the Kurdish-held area of Deir al-Zor.

The US Air Force responded with full force, knowing well the ragtag Arab component of SDF – mainly comprised of local Arab tribesmen and mercenaries to make the Kurdish-led SDF appear more representative and inclusive – was simply not a match for the superior training and arms of Syrian troops and Russian military contractors, consequently causing a carnage in which scores of Russian citizens lost their lives. Clearly, Moscow and Damascus hold the Kurds responsible for the atrocity along with Washington.

Regarding the dominant group of Syrian militants in the Idlib governorate, according to a May 2017 report by CBC Canada, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which was formerly known as al-Nusra Front until July 2016 and then as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) until January 2017, had been removed from the terror watch-list of the US after it merged with fighters from Zenki Brigade and hardline jihadists from Ahrar al-Sham and rebranded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in January 2017.

The US State Department is hesitant to label Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) a terror group, despite the group’s links to al-Qaeda, as the US government had directly funded and armed the Zenki Brigade, one of the constituents of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), with sophisticated weaponry including the US-made antitank missiles.

The purpose behind the rebranding of al-Nusra Front, first as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS) and then as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and purported severing of ties with al-Qaeda, was to legitimize itself and to make it easier for its patrons to send money and arms.

Washington blacklisted al-Nusra Front in December 2012 and persuaded its regional allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey to ban it, too. Although al-Nusra Front’s name has been in the list of proscribed organizations of Saudi Arabia and Turkey since 2014, it kept receiving money and arms from its regional patrons.

Finally, regarding the deep ideological ties between the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front, although the current al-Nusra Front has been led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, he was appointed as the emir of al-Nusra Front by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, in January 2012. In fact, al-Jolani’s Nusra Front is only a splinter group of the Islamic State, which split from its parent organization in April 2013 over a leadership dispute between the two organizations.

Will Kurds Keep American Weapons After Syria Withdrawal?

Nauman Sadiq

The US commanders planning for the withdrawal of the American troops from Syria are recommending that the Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State be allowed to keep the US-supplied weapons, a move that would likely anger NATO-ally Turkey, according to an exclusive report by Reuters.

The report adds: “The proposal to leave the US-supplied weapons with the Kurdish YPG militia, which could include anti-tank missiles, armored vehicles and mortars, would reassure Kurdish allies that they were not being abandoned.”

During the initial years of the Syrian conflict, although the US openly provided the American-made antitank (TOW) weapons to the Syrian militant groups, it strictly forbade its clients from providing anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) to the militants, because Israel frequently flies surveillance aircrafts and drones and occasionally carries out airstrikes in Syria, and had such weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they could have become a long term security threat to the Israeli Air Force.

In the final years of the Syrian proxy war, some anti-aircraft weapons from Gaddafi’s looted arsenal in Libya made their way into the hands of the Syrian militants, but for the initial years of the conflict, there was an absolute prohibition on providing such weapons to the insurgents.

Last year, a report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) on the Islamic State’s weapons found in Iraq and Syria was prominently featured in the mainstream media. Before the story was picked up by the media, it was first published in the Wired News in December 2017, which has a history of spreading dubious stories and working in close collaboration with the Pentagon and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The Britain-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is a relatively unknown company of less than 20 employees. Its one-man Iraq and Syria division was headed by a 31-year-old Belgian researcher Damien Spleeters.

The main theme of Spleeters’ investigation was to discover the Islamic State’s homegrown armaments industry and how the jihadist group’s technicians had adapted the East European munitions to be used in the weapons available to the Islamic State. Spleeters had listed 1,832 weapons and 40,984 pieces of ammunition recovered in Iraq and Syria in the CAR’s database.

But Spleeters had only tangentially touched upon the subject of the Islamic State’s weapons supply chain, documenting only a single PG-9 rocket found at Tal Afar in Iraq bearing a lot number of 9,252 rocket-propelled grenades which were supplied by Romania to the US military, and mentioning only a single shipment of 12 tons of munitions which was diverted from Saudi Arabia to Jordan in his supposedly ‘comprehensive report.’

In fact, the CAR’s report was so misleading that of thousands of pieces of munitions investigated by Spleeters, less than 10% were found to be compatible with NATO’s weapons and more than 90% were found to have originated from Russia, China and the East European countries, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

By comparison, a joint investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) uncovered the Pentagon’s $2.2 billion arms pipeline to the Syrian militants.

It bears mentioning that $2.2 billion were earmarked only by Washington for training and arming the Syrian militants, and tens of billions of dollars that Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states had pumped into Syria’s proxy war have not been documented by anybody so far.

More significantly, a Bulgarian investigative reporter, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, authored a report for Bulgaria’s national newspaper, Trud News, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company, Silk Way Airlines, was regularly transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply militant groups in Syria.

Gaytandzhieva documented 350 such ‘diplomatic flights’ and was subsequently fired from her job for uncovering the story. Not surprisingly, both these well-researched and groundbreaking reports didn’t even merit a passing mention in any mainstream news outlet.

It’s worth noting, moreover, that the Syrian militant groups, including the Islamic State, were no ordinary bands of ragtag jihadist outfits. They were trained and armed to the teeth by their patrons in the security agencies of Washington, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the training camps located in Syria’s border regions with Turkey and Jordan.

Along with Saddam’s and Egypt’s armies, the Syrian Baathist armed forces are one of the most capable fighting forces in the Arab world. But the onslaught of militant groups during the first three years of the proxy war was such that had it not been for the Russian intervention in September 2015, the Syrian defenses would have collapsed.

The only feature that distinguished the Syrian militants from the rest of regional jihadist groups was not their ideology but their weapons arsenals that were bankrolled by the Gulf’s petro-dollars and provided by the CIA in collaboration with regional security agencies of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East.

Fact of the matter is that the distinction between Islamic jihadists and purported ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria was more illusory than real. Before it turned rogue and overran Mosul in Iraq in June 2014, Islamic State used to be an integral part of the Syrian opposition and enjoyed close ideological and operational ties with other militant groups in Syria.

It bears mentioning that although turf wars were common not just between the Islamic State and other militant groups operating in Syria but also among rebel groups themselves, the ultimate objective of the Islamic State and the rest of militant outfits operating in Syria was the same: to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Regarding the Syrian opposition, a small fraction of it was comprised of defected Syrian soldiers who go by the name of Free Syria Army, but the vast majority was comprised of Islamic jihadists and armed tribesmen who were generously funded, trained, armed and internationally legitimized by their regional and global patrons.

Islamic State was nothing more than one of numerous Syrian militant outfits, others being: al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al Islam etc. All the militant groups that were operating in Syria were just as fanatical and brutal as the Islamic State. The only feature that differentiated the Islamic State from the rest was that it was more ideological and independent-minded.

The reason why the US turned against the Islamic State was that all other Syrian militant outfits only had local ambitions that were limited to fighting the Syrian government, while the Islamic State established a global network of transnational terrorists that included hundreds of Western citizens who became a national security risk to the Western countries.

Notwithstanding, Damien Spleeters of the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) has authored another report last month in which he has stated that South Sudan’s neighbors, Uganda in particular, have breached an arms embargo by funneling East European weapons to the South Sudan conflict.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest nation which gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The United States is often said to have midwifed South Sudan by leading the negotiations for its independence from Sudan, because it is an oil-rich country producing about half a million barrels crude oil per day.

But a civil war began in 2013 between Dinka tribal group of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Nuer rebels led by warlord Riek Machar, and has triggered one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies. Millions of South Sudanese have sought refuge in displacement camps in the country or in neighboring countries.

The Conflict Armament Research’s report on the weapons found in South Sudan notes: “One of the most astonishing findings is that 99 percent of the ammunition tracked by CAR is of Chinese origin. Some of it was legally transferred to South Sudan, but much of it was delivered secretly to the opposition via Sudan in 2015 and is still being used.”

Unsurprisingly, the Britain-based monitoring group has implicated China, East Europeans and South Sudan’s neighbors for defying the embargo and providing weapons to the belligerents, and has once again given a free pass to the Western powers in its supposedly ‘comprehensive and credible’ report.

Justice for Julian Assange, Test of Western Democracy

Nozomi Hayase

This has been the 7th year that WikiLeaksfounder Julian Assange spent Christmas in confinement inside Ecuador’s London embassy. For nearly a decade, the US government’s aggressive witch-hunt of truthtellers has trapped him in the UK.

Assange claimed political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 to mitigate the risk of extradition to the US, relating to his publishing activities. He has been unlawfully held by the UK government without charge, being denied access to medical treatment, fresh air, sunlight and adequate space to exercise. In December 2015, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Assange was being “arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released”. Yet the UK government’s refusal to comply with the UN finding has allowed this unlawful detention to continue.

This cruel persecution of Assange represents a deep crisis of Western democracy. As injustice against this Western journalist prevails, the legitimacy of traditional institutions has weakened. The benevolent Democracy that many were taught to believe in has been shown to be an illusion. It has been revealed as a system of control, lacking enforcement mechanisms in law to deal with real offenders of human rights violations, who for example illegally invade countries under the pretext of fighting terrorism. Under this managed democracy, the premise of ‘no person is above laws’ is made into a pretense that elites use to escape democratic accountability. Media has become the ‘Guardian’ of ruling elites that engage in propaganda to distort truth.

Dictatorship of the West

Assange’s plight, his struggle for freedom revealed a dictatorship in the West. There have been changes in Ecuador’s treatment of Assange ever since a new President Lenin Moreno took office in May 2017. Contrary to the former President Rafael Correa, who courageously granted the publisher asylum, Moreno has shown total disregard for this Australian journalist who has become a political refugee and also a citizen of Ecuador since December 2017.

This Ecuadorian government’s shift in attitude had to do with Western governments’ bullying this small nation of South America. It was reported that the US has pressured Ecuador over loans, making it act illegallyin violation of international laws as well as its own constitution. At the end of March, one day after a high level US military visit to Ecuador, this new Ecuadorian president unilaterally cut off Assange from the outside world, by denying his access to internet, prohibiting him from having visitors and communicating with the press. Assange has been put into isolation, which Human Rights Watch general counsel described as being similar to solitary confinement.

In mid October, in the guise of restoring his internet access, Ecuador issued a “Special Protocol” that perpetuates this silencing of Assange. By further restricting his freedom of expression and requiring him to pay for medical bills and phone calls, Moreno government seeks to break Assange. He is forcing him to leave the embassy on his own accord and get arrested by UK authorities, who are refusing to give him assurances to not extradite him to the US.

US imperialism

Assange has met the fury of empire by exposing US government war crimes having the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people dripping from its hands. He has become a political prisoner, being treated as an enemy by the most powerful government in the world. Last month, US prosecutors mistakenly revealed secret criminal charges against Assange under file in the Eastern District of Virginia.

James Goodale, First Amendment lawyer and former general counsel of the New York Times, commented on the danger of US government’s efforts to charge a journalist possibly under espionage who is not American and did not publish in the US:

“A charge against Assange for ‘conspiring’ with a source is the most dangerous charge that I can think of with respect to the First Amendment in almost all my years representing media organizations.”

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a US federal law, created after World War I to prosecute spies during wartime. This law is still in effect today and can be used to go after even those outside of US territory, due to a later amendment that removed this wording from the act: “within the jurisdiction of the United States, on the high seas, and within the United States”.

Obama’s Justice Department was eager to prosecute Assange and WikiLeaks for publishing classified documents, but chose not to do so, due to concerns that it would set a precedent which could strip away the First Amendment protection for the press. After WikiLeaks’ Vault 7 publication in March 2017 detailing CIA capabilities to perform electronic surveillance, the US government showed its appetite to abuse this outdated law to criminalize journalism.

In April 2017, the then Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that the arrest of Assange is a priority. This threat on press freedom increased in the following months, as he showed his determination to prosecute media outlets publishing classified information.Trump’s Secretary of State and the former CIA director, Mike Pompeo called WikiLeaks “a non-state hostile intelligence service”, claiming that the organization tries to subvert American values and it needs to be shut down. As the Trump administration tries to claim that it has a right to prosecute anyone in the world in their assault on free press, top Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill showed their bipartisan support. They signed a letter demanding Pompeo urges Ecuador to evict Assange.

Contagious act of resistance

The secret indictment against Assange opened a sad era for democracy. Barry Pollack, WikiLeaks founder’s Washington D.C. based attorney noted that this Trump administration’s attempt to prosecute “someone for publishing truth is a dangerous path for democracy to take”. David Kaye, UN special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression stated that “prosecuting Assange would be dangerously problematic from the perspective of press freedom” and should be resisted.

Top human rights organizations have been showing strong opposition against the extradition of Assange. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the UK government not to extradite him to the US. More than 30 Parliamentarians of the German Parliament and EU Parliament wrote to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, asking the UN to intervene so that Assange can travel to a safe third country.

Now, significant support for Assange has emerged from one of the European nations. On December 20, two German parliamentarians came to London to visit Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy. Germany that once suffered the suppression of civil liberty under a terrifyingly totalitarian state, has in recent years become a safe haven for Western dissidents who were forced to flee their countries against their governments’ persecution. In the aftermath of Snowden revelations of the ‘United Stasi of America’, support for the safety of whistleblowers and journalists who report on government surveillance has increasingly grown.

WikiLeaks investigative editor Sarah Harrison, who helped to secure asylum for the NSA whistleblower found her refuge for her exile from the UK in Berlin. Germany’s major centre-left political party, SPD recognized her political courage, demonstrated in her work with WikiLeaks and the organization’s extraordinary source protection. Harrison was given an award, named after a journalist and the former West German chancellor Willy Brant who escaped the Nazis and was exiled before returning to Germany.

Last week, two German politicians who traveled to visit Assange, carried out an act of urgent diplomacy to represent this country’s commitment to the value of freedom of speech. At the press conference outside of the embassy after their visit, the pair who has been eager to see Assange for months, but were not allowed to do so until now, stood with Assange’s father and called for an international solution to Western government’s persecution of Assange. Sevim Dagdelen, member of the Left Party, emphasized that Assange’s injustice is an exceptional case, noting how “there is no other publisher or editor in the Western world who has been arbitrarily detained” and this is a betrayal of Western values about human rights. Heike Hansel, vice-chairman of the Left parliamentary group, urged people to resist US government’ extraterritorial prosecution of Assange.

The courage of individuals inside democratic institutions, striving to uphold civil liberties, became contagious. Just before Christmas Eve this year, UN experts reiterated their demand for the UK to honor its international obligations and allow Assange to leave the embassy without fear of arrest and extradition. Chris Williamson, a sitting UK Member of Parliament has endorsed the UN’s statement that Assange should be compensated and be made free.While elected officials are standing up for the principle of democracy, concerned citizens around the world day and night stand watch over Assange outside of the embassy in London.

Restoring rule of law

As 2018 comes to an end, the legitimacy of the West and its entire fabric of institutions is now being tested. Democracy birthed in ancient Athens, was people’s aspiration to organize a society through their direct participation in power. In modern times, it got uprooted from the original imagination and quickly degenerated into a form of ‘elective despotism’ that Thomas Jefferson once predicted.

In the institutional hierarchy of Western liberal democracy, what was regarded as the force for progress began to decay, from inside out. A system of representation that is purported to make those who are capable and intelligent to use their skills for public service, has been abused. Now, the rich and powerful began to inflict harm on those whom they are supposed to represent.

WikiLeaks, the world’s first global Fourth Estate, has come to existence as response to this crisis of democracy. With a pristine record of accuracy in its publications, the whistleblowing site brought a way for citizens around the world to transform this hollow democracy that has devoured ideals that once inspired the hearts of ordinary people.

From the 2007 release of the Kroll report on official corruption in Kenyathat affected the outcome of the national election, to the exposing of the moral bankruptcy of Iceland’s largest bank in 2009, WikiLeaks publications helped awaken the power of citizenry in many countries. Released documents sparked global uprisings, transforming pervasive defeatism and despair into collective action on the streets. US diplomatic cables leak shared through social media in 2010 unleashed a powerful force that finally topped the corrupt Tunisian dictator Ben Ali.

Months after the Arab Spring, informed by WikiLeaks cables, people in Mexico launched a peaceful youth movement against the political corruption of the media. Revelations of Cablegate also affected the course of a presidential election in Peru, and transformed the media in Brazil. In 2016, the DNC leaks and publication of Podesta emails educated American people about how their political system works.

Julian Assange, through his work with WikiLeaks, engaged in that type of vibrant journalism that revitalized the impulse for real democracy. By publishing vital information in the public interest, he defended public’s right to know, empowering ordinary people to actively participate in history.

Now, it is our responsibility to respond to this crisis of democracy through solidarity. Can each of us step up to the challenge to solve the problems that our leaders have created? Efforts to free Assange urge us all to claim and exercise the power inherent within that can restore justice to end this prosecution of free speech.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor Takes a Military Turn?

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

New York Times says Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the United States has deepened and some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.

In a report about Pakistan’s deepening ties with China, the paper pointed out that under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor [CPEC] Pakistan is cooperating with China on distinctly defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets while Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to China’s Beidou satellite navigation system.

Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions — and confirming the concerns of a host of nations who suspect the infrastructure initiative is really about helping China project armed might, the New York Times report said adding:

“As China’s strategically located and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan has been the leading example of how the Chinese projects are being used to give Beijing both favor and leverage among its clients. Since the beginning of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Pakistan has been the program’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.

Some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan, such as Gwadar port and access to Beidou satellite navigation system, had clear strategic implications, according to the New York Times:

“A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.

“Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its navy’s global reach.

“A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.

“The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.”
Space Silk Road

China’s own satellite navigation system, Beidou, has won a stamp of approval in 2014 from an international maritime body, an important step toward its goal of global acceptance for its answer to the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS).

The Maritime Safety Committee of the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations body that sets standards for international shipping, formally included Beidou in the World-Wide Radio navigation System during its Nov. 17-21 2014 meeting. This means that the Chinese system has become the third system, after GPS and Russia’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), recognized by the United Nations body for operations at sea.

Named after the Chinese word for the Big Dipper or Plough constellation [Ursa Major], Beidou has been in the works for over two decades but only became operational within China in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific region in 2012.

When complete in 2020, it will have a constellation of 35 satellites to provide global coverage. During 2018 alone, there have been more than 10 Beidou satellite launches.

By the end of 2018, it covers countries along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a massive China-led infrastructure and trade program, part of what it calls the “Space Silk Road”, according to BBC. Beidou already covers 30 countries involved with the BRI, including Pakistan, Laos and Indonesia.

A global navigation system that can rival GPS is a big part of China’s ambition to be a global leader in space, Alexandra Stickings, from the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies, tells the BBC.

“The main advantage of having your own system is security of access, in the sense that you are not relying on another country to provide it. The US could deny users access over certain areas, for example in times of conflict.”

It could also serve as a back-up if GPS were to go down entirely.

Domestic phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi and OnePlus are now Beidou-compatible, although Apple did not add the Chinese system to its new line-up of iPhones announced in September 2018.

For China, Pakistan could become a showcase for other countries seeking to shift their militaries away from American equipment and toward Chinese arms, New York Times quoted Western diplomats as saying. And because China is not averse to selling such advanced weaponry as ballistic missiles the deal with Pakistan could be a steppingstone to a bigger market for Chinese weapons in the Muslim world.

Best film and television of 2018

David Walsh & Joanne Laurier 

The film world in 2018 can be viewed and judged in different ways and by distinct standards.

“Global box office revenue for 2018 is expected to hit an all-time high of $41.7 billion … revenue looks to be up 2.7 percent over 2017, when combined worldwide ticket sales landed at a record $40.6 billion,” notes the Hollywood Reporter.

China continues to be a major contributor to this growth. According to government statistics, the country’s box-office earnings in February, 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion), set a global monthly record. The Indian entertainment website, Showsha, notes the February 2018 figure was “a significant milestone in box-office history and comes at a time when China—the world’s second-largest movie market—is inching towards its target of overtaking North America (the United States of America and Canada) as the world’s largest film market by early 2019.”

It was a relatively good year, after several very bad ones, in terms of North American box office revenue. That total is predicted to reach $11.5 billion for the first time, on some 1.3 billion tickets sold, an increase from $11.07 billion in 2017.

A number of large-budget films contributed to the financial success, including, according to Variety, “Disney’s Avengers: Infinity War, Universal’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and Fox’s Deadpool 2, as well as sleeper hits like Paramount’s A Quiet Place and Warner Bros.’ A Star Is Born .” None of these, except perhaps the last, even deserves serious treatment.

The only movie in the top 10 “highest-grossing films of 2018” (the sole measuring stick that interests the American media these days) not a bloated superhero or comic book movie and such is Bohemian Rhapsody, the film biography of Queen lead vocalist Freddie Mercury.

Variety also pointed out that Black Panther (which the WSWS review noted, apart “from its racialist theme … is nothing more than a conventional Hollywood ‘blockbuster’”) “was the big winner in North America, becoming one of three movies to ever hit $700 million at the domestic box office and the third-highest grossing film of all time in the States. The barrier-breaking film became the must-see cultural event at theaters, driving its global haul past $1.3 billion. Is Oscar gold the next stop on Marvel’s road to glory?”

The Geeks of Color website noted March 12 that the previous weekend “was a historical one at the box office for Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler. The two filmmakers took the top two spots at the weekend’s box office with Black Panther and A Wrinkle in Time, marking the first time that African-American directors have held the number one and number two positions.” That the two films were inconsequential at best and did not speak to the conditions and problems of wide layers of the African-American population or anyone else concerns no one in Hollywood or identity politics circles. We have recently commented on the spate of “women’s films” and the generally unimpressive results on that score too.

Generally speaking, crassness and crudity prevail in the American commercial film industry. Things simply get worse and worse.

There were, nonetheless, some critical and observant films and television series made or released this year, including a number produced in Hollywood.

UK: Cross-party moves escalate to prevent Brexit and secure second referendum

Robert Stevens 

Hostilities continued during parliamentary recess over Britain’s scheduled exit from the European Union (EU) at the end of March.

A vote is to be held the week of January 14 on Prime Minister Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal. She refused to hold a vote earlier this month as she knew it would be voted down. In an attempt to placate opposition to the deal from both Remain and Leave factions in her own party, May said she would seek further concessions, particularly on the post-Brexit arrangements regarding the Northern Ireland border with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member.

But May has secured no further concessions ahead of the January vote, with European Council President Donald Tusk stating that there is “no mandate to organise further negotiations” on a deal that took over two years to finalise. The Financial Times reported Sunday, “There have been no formal EU-UK Brexit negotiations since the [EU] summit ended in acrimony on December 13, with EU diplomats on holiday over the Christmas and New Year break.”

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn denounced May for delaying a vote until the last minute to bounce parliament into supporting her Brexit deal as the only option to avoiding a chaotic and economically damaging no-deal Brexit. Corbyn, who was an opponent of EU membership for decades, supported Remain in the 2016 referendum. He has made a series of concessions to the party’s pro-EU wing ever since, but this has done nothing to placate the Blairites who are seeking a reversal of the 2016 Leave vote through a second referendum, or “People’s Vote.”

Tensions within Labour escalated again following an op-ed piece Corbyn published in the Guardian, as parliament went into the Christmas recess. He reiterated that Labour, if it won a snap general election in the New Year under his leadership, would honour the 2016 referendum and seek a Brexit based on protecting “jobs”, i.e., by securing continuing access to the EU’s Single Market and a Customs Union preserving tariff-free trade. He said if Labour won an election, “You’d have to go back and negotiate, and see what the timetable would be.”

Asked his view of what Labour under his leadership would advocate in the event of a referendum, Corbyn again refused to call for a Remain vote, stating, “It would be a matter for the party to decide what the policy would be; but my proposal at this moment is that we go forward, trying to get a customs union with the EU, in which we would be able to be proper trading partners.”

Corbyn was repeating the policy adopted by the Labour Party at its conference in October, but his intervention provoked an immediate backlash from the Blairites and their allies in the Liberal Democrats, Scottish National Party and pro-Remain Tories.

Corbyn’s stated aim is to force a general election and only if that fails to consider other options, including a second referendum. But he has refused to move a vote of no confidence in the government, which is the only means of possibly securing a general election—suggesting that he will do so only after the vote on May’s deal when the chance of success is most likely. In reality there is no reason to believe that pro-Brexit Tories or the Democratic Unionist Party would support such a no confidence motion.

Corbyn is delaying a vote for two reasons: above all to make clear to the ruling class that he is not threatening political stability and wants to come to power bearing their imprimatur, but also because he knows that a failed no confidence motion will mean bringing an end to the policy of “constructive ambiguity” on Brexit.

The Blairites have spent most of the last several months seeking to commit Corbyn to a second referendum. Last week Tony Blair’s former Foreign Minister David Miliband denounced Corbyn in a Guardian op-ed, saying his position was “not much better” than that of the hard Brexit faction around Tory Boris Johnson. Miliband stated, “Jeremy Corbyn’s Guardian interview has rightly caused a furore. He makes clear that his difference with the government lies in tactics not goals, personnel not principles.”

Cross-party backing for a second referendum had to be mobilised, Miliband said as, “It is reported that five [Tory] cabinet members can now see their way to supporting a people’s vote. They need to insist that preparations begin now.”

Blairite Guardian commentator Jonathan Freedland warned of the “coming catastrophe” and said there should be no “working out whether this or that move will boost [Labour’s] electoral prospects. None of that matters when a national emergency is looming. The only purpose of politics at this moment is averting it.” It was “unconscionable that Jeremy Corbyn keeps playing his own games, avoiding the formal vote of no confidence in this horror show of a government which, once done, would compel Labour to pursue other ways out of this quagmire.”

Further pressure was heaped on Corbyn this weekend with demands by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) that Article 50—the legislation governing the UK’s exit from the EU—be suspended. The only purpose of a suspension would be to prepare the way for a second referendum. TUC General Secretary Francis O’Grady said of May in a New Year message, “Her Brexit deal doesn’t command a parliamentary majority and that there’s no majority for no deal either.”

The Observer, the Guardian’s Sunday sister publication, reported that cross-party talks aimed at extending Article 50 “have been under way for several weeks to ensure the 29 March date is put back—probably until July at the latest—if the government does not push for a delay itself. It is also understood that cabinet ministers have discussed the option of a delay with senior backbench MPs in both the main parties and that Downing Street is considering scenarios in which a delay might have to be requested from Brussels.”

Labour’s Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer warned that the UK would be just nine weeks away from leaving the EU by the time of the January vote in parliament on May’s Brexit deal, and “If the deal is rejected, parliament will need to have a very serious debate about how to protect the economy from a no-deal scenario and at this stage nothing should be ruled out.”

With an unprecedented crisis of rule in the UK, Corbyn’s major concern is to preserve the unity of the Labour Party’s “broad church” on the basis that only a Labour government can rescue British imperialism.

There is not a single issue of political principle in Corbyn’s politics of constant manoeuvre and concessions to the Blairites. The one option this bourgeois politician will never take is to take a stand on political principles reflecting independent interests of the working class.

Corbyn is vehemently opposed to any struggle for socialism based on a common offensive by all European workers against the EU and all its constituent governments, which is the only means of opposing the dangers of austerity, repression and militarism. His preaching of party unity, social peace and a “patriotic” commitment to the national interest disarms workers even as the repressive arms of the state are preparing for social unrest as Brexit approaches. With an eye on the Yellow Vest protests in France, nearly 10,000 soldiers have been placed on standby to be deployed to deal with any contingency, with the suppression of an escalation of industrial action topping the list.

FCC to launch investigation of CenturyLink following US-wide 911 outage

Jacob Crosse

Beginning in the early morning Thursday, December 27 and continuing throughout Saturday evening, hundreds of thousands of people were unable to reach 911 emergency phone services in the United States.

CenturyLink, the third largest telecommunications company operating in the US, behind AT&T and Verizon, respectively, admitted its phone and internet services were experiencing technical difficulties, but had hoped to have recovered within “a few hours.” After a few hours passed and services remained down into Friday morning, CenturyLink acknowledged the problem was more widespread and would take additional time to fix. This prompted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai to announce an investigation into CenturyLink for its role in the outage.

Emergency phone service outages, ATM disconnections, and disrupted internet service was reported in multiple states, including Texas, California, Oregon, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Missouri, Arizona and Massachusetts.

Chairman Pai, a former Verizon lawyer, Obama appointee, and erstwhile advocate of “free market” solutions and staunch opponent of “net neutrality,” released a statement on Friday in which he called the outage “completely unacceptable.” CenturyLink has yet to release a public statement as to the cause of the outage. On Friday, CenturyLink spokesperson Nikki Wheeler advised people unable to reach 911 on their landline to “...use their wireless phones to call 911 or drive to their nearest fire station or emergency facility.”

Brian Krebs, a former Washington Post reporter, tweeted Saturday morning a statement released by CenturyLink that was only sent to “core customers.” In the statement CenturyLink blamed their extended outage on a faulty network management card in Denver, Colorado that was “propagating invalid frame packets across devices.” The release didn’t specify how one card could have negatively impacted so much of the network across multiple systems and states. CenturyLink acknowledged in the letter that engineer teams had to be dispatched to Atlanta, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles and New Orleans to reset equipment on site that had been affected.

While service has now been restored it is unclear how many people were affected by the multi-state network outage and if any lives were lost as people were unable to access emergency services. Banner Health Services, which operates 28 hospitals, and utilizes CenturyLink and Verizon networks, reported that four of its hospitals had internment phone and internet connections. The North Colorado Medical Center, located in Greeley, seemed to have suffered the worst of it, with internet and phone outages that lasted for 24 hours, leaving doctors and nurses unable to access patients’ electronic medical records.

Meanwhile, in Boston a man was forced to use one of the city’s 176-year-old street-side boxes to report a building fire after he was unable to reach emergency services on his cellphone. The fire box system was built in 1852 using copper wires to transmit in Morse code to the fire department. The firefighters were able to respond before any injuries occurred. However, as Boston Fire spokesman Brian Sanders told NBC News, “It was a small fire that we were able to put out, but it could have been much worse.”

As America’s infrastructure continues to deteriorate, these dangerous outages are becoming more common. The FCC concluded a similar investigation into AT&T last year for two nationwide emergency service outages that occurred in March and May 2017. The two blackout incidents lasted for approximately six hours and resulted in 15,200 failed 911 calls. AT&T, which had an operating revenue of $190 billion in 2017, paid a paltry $5.25 million dollar fine at the conclusion of the investigation. Meanwhile, according to opensecrets.org, AT&T spent over $7 million dollars that same year contributing to political campaigns, including the Republican and Democratic party, with outgoing Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke receiving $126,204 dollars from the company, the most of any candidate.

Notably, CenturyLink was recently fined by the FCC for an emergency service outage in April 2014 that left 11 million people in six states without 911 service. The FCC statement estimated that 6,600 911 calls were left unanswered for over six hours as the network was down. CenturyLink was forced to pay a $16 million dollar settlement and agreed to a compliance plan to prevent future outages from occurring. As for the latest outage and pending FCC investigation, it seems to have had little effect on CenturyLink shareholders; at the close of the stock market on Friday, CenturyLink’s stock price remained unchanged.

The latest CenturyLink outage is another objective example that despite petty fines from a complicit government and assurances from corporate public relations departments these reckless incidents will continue to occur, leaving people without access to emergency help at precisely the time they need it most. Telling people to “drive themselves” to the hospital while suffering from a medical emergency is as absurd as it is dangerous.

The irrationality of the capitalist system expresses itself in all of facets of society and imperils humanity needlessly. Only through the working class consciously taking ownership of public utilities, including telephone and fiber lines, can they be operated for the benefit of all, instead of private profit.

Facing possible liquidation, Sears to close 80 more stores in March

Kevin Martinez

Sears Holdings has announced plans to close 80 more Sears and Kmart stores across the US in March, in addition to the nearly 200 stores already set for closure. In October, the retailer filed for bankruptcy and was operating nearly 700 stores, saying it would close only 142 unprofitable stores. The next month, it was announced that 40 additional stores would be closed.

Workers at the stores in the latest round of closures were told that liquidation sales would begin in two weeks and that adjacent Sears Auto Centers would also be shut down.

Sears Chairman and former CEO Eddie Lampert has offered to buy Kmart and Sears out of bankruptcy through his hedge fund ESL Investments. Transform Holdco LLC, an affiliate of ESL, submitted a last-minute bid on Friday to purchase all the assets of Sears Holding, with 425 stores valued at $4.4 billion. This includes a $1.3 billion financing commitment from three financial groups.

The company and its advisers now have until January 4 to determine whether the bid is “qualified.” Transform said that if the bid is successful the company that emerges will employ up to 50,000 people, of the existing 68,000 employees.

Lampert had made a $4.6 billion proposal to buy the company on December 6. The deal included 500 stores, the Kenmore appliance and DieHard Tool brands, 50,000 employees, key real estate and the company’s inventory and receivables.

Sears faces liquidation if the latest offer is not approved by a bankruptcy judge. Recently, US Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Drain allowed the company to sell its home-improvement service business to Service.com for $60 million. The company, once an icon of American capitalism, has been suffering for years as it faces competition from online retailers like Amazon.com.

For much of the 20th century Sears was not only the nation’s largest retailer, but also its largest private-sector employer. With hundreds of stores across the country as well as a catalog which sold countless items, it was the mainstay of many communities and towns.

In 2005, Lampert used Kmart, which he bought out of bankruptcy two years before, to purchase Sears for $11 billion and then merged the two. He later resigned as CEO but remained on as chairman.

The fate of Sears follows a long line of mergers and acquisitions in recent years which have decimated the retail industry. The buyouts are a desperate attempt to avoid bankruptcy and outright liquidation by corporate sharks. In May it was announced that the retail industry was responsible for one third of all job cuts last year alone.

The stagnation of workers’ wages and declining working conditions means fewer purchases of goods and services from retailers like Sears, who face monopoly competition from Amazon and other retailers. The loss of Sears stores will hit the poorest communities the hardest, as the last avenues of employment dry up.

Since 2011, Sears lost over $11 billion, including $5.8 billion in the last five years. More than 1,000 stores have closed in the last decade, 700 stores just in the last two years.

Lampert’s bid to buy Sears follows the trend of the growing financialization of US capitalism. ESL Investments, Lampert’s hedge fund, already holds around 40 percent of Sears Holding’s debt—$1.1 billion in loans.

Should Sears survive outright liquidation, its “rescue” will come at the expense of the remaining workers who will be forced to work harder and longer for less pay to ensure company profits.