Illegal US Nuclear Weapons Handouts

John LaForge

The US military practice of placing nuclear weapons in five other countries (no other nuclear power does this) is a legal and political embarrassment for US diplomacy. That’s why all the governments involved refuse to “confirm or deny” the practice of “nuclear sharing” or the locations of the B61 free-fall gravity bombs in question.

Expert analysts and observers agree that the United States currently deploys 150-to-180 of these nuclear weapons at bases in Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Turkey and Belgium. The authors of the January 2018 report “Building a Safe, Secure, and Credible NATO Nuclear Posture” take for granted the open secret that nuclear sharing is ongoing even though all six countries are signatory parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

In a paper for the journal Science for Democratic Action, German weapons expert Otfried Nassauer, director of Berlin’s Information Center for Transatlantic Security, concluded, “NATO’s program of ‘nuclear sharing’ with five European countries probably violates Articles I and II of the Treaty.”

Article I prohibits nuclear weapon states that are parties to the NPT from sharing their weapons. It says: “Each nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly….” Article II, the corollary commitment, states says: “Each non-nuclear weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly … or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices….”

What nuclear sharing means in practice

The five NATO countries currently hosting US H-bombs on their air bases are officially “non-nuclear weapons states.” But as Nassauer reports, “Under NATO nuclear sharing in times of war, the US would hand control of these nuclear weapons over to the non-nuclear weapon states’ pilots for use with aircraft from non-nuclear weapon states. Once the bomb is loaded aboard, once the correct Permissive Action Link code has been entered by the US soldiers guarding the weapons, and once the aircraft begins its mission, control over the respective weapon(s) has been transferred. That is the operational, technical part of what is called ‘nuclear sharing.’”

This flaunting of the NPT is what peace activists on both sides of the Atlantic refer to when calling the US bombs in Europe “illegal.” Nassauer notes, “The pilots for these aircraft are provided with training specific to use nuclear weapons. The air force units to which these pilots and aircraft belong have the capability to play a part in NATO nuclear planning, including assigning a target, selecting the yield of the warhead for the target, and planning a specific mission for the use of the bombs.”

“NATO nuclear sharing,” Nassauer writes, “was described in 1964 by one member of the US National Security Council … as meaning that ‘the non-nuclear NATO-partners in effect become nuclear powers in time of war.’ The concern is that, at the moment the aircraft loaded with the bomb is on the runway ready to start, the control of the weapon is turned over from the US, a nuclear weapon state, to non-nuclear weapon states. … To my understanding, this is in violation of the spirit if not the text of Articles I and II of the NPT.”

How Do the US and its Allies Explain their Lawlessness?

An undated, 1960s-era letter from then-US Secretary of State Rusk explained the US ‘interpretation’ of the NPT. The pretext for ignoring the treaty’s plain language, the Rusk letter “argues that the NPT does not specify what is allowed, but only what is forbidden. In this view, everything that is not forbidden by the NPT is allowed,” Nassaure explained.

In its most absurd section, Rusk simply denies the treaty’s obvious purpose and intent. “Since the treaty doesn’t explicitly talk about the deployment of nuclear warheads in countries that are non-nuclear weapon states,” Nassaure writes, “such deployments are considered legal under the NPT.”

It is so easy to show that the United States and its nuclear sharing partners are in violation of the NPT, the governments involved work hard pretending there are nothing to worry about, no lawbreaking underway, no reason to demand answers. This is why so many activists across Europe have become nonviolently disobedient at the air bases involved.

The transparent unlawfulness of NATO’s nuclear war planning is also the reason why prosecutors in Germany don’t dare bring serious charges against civil resisters; even those who have cut fences and occupied hot weapons bunkers in broad daylight. Some Air Force witness might testify at trial that US nuclear weapons are on base.

Facebook’s New Propaganda Partners

Alan MacLeod

Media giant Facebook recently announced (Reuters, 9/19/18) it would combat “fake news” by partnering with two propaganda organizations founded and funded by the US government: the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI). The social media platform was already working closely with the NATO-sponsored Atlantic Council think tank (FAIR.org, 5/21/18).

Reuters (9/19/18) described two branches of the National Endowment for Democracy, set up by the Reagan administration during the Cold War to promote US foreign policy objectives, as “two US nonprofits.”

In a previous FAIR article (8/22/18), I noted that the “fake news” issue was being used as a pretext to attack the left and progressive news sites. Changes to Facebook’s algorithm have reduced traffic significantly for progressive outlets like Common Dreams (5/3/18), while the pages of Venezuelan government–backed TeleSur English and the independent Venezuelanalysis were shut down without warning, and only reinstated after a public outcry.

The Washington, DC–based NDI and IRI are staffed with senior Democratic and Republican politicians; the NDI is chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, while the late Sen. John McCain was the longtime IRI chair. Both groups were created in 1983 as arms of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a Cold War enterprise backed by then–CIA director William Casey (Jacobin, 3/7/18). That these two US government creations, along with a NATO offshoot like the Atlantic Council, are used by Facebook to distinguish real from fake news is effectively state censorship.

Facebook’s collaboration with the NED organizations is particularly troubling, as both have aggressively pursued regime change against leftist governments overseas. The NDI undermined the Sandinista government of Nicaragua in the 1980s, and continues to do so to this day, while the IRI claimed a key role in the 2002 coup against leftist President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, announcing that it had served as a bridge between the nation’s political parties and all civil society groups to help Venezuelans forge a new democratic future…. We stand ready to continue our partnership with the courageous Venezuelan people.

The Reuters report (9/19/18) mentioned that Facebook was anxious to better curate what Brazilians saw on their feeds in the run-up to their presidential elections, which pits far-right Jair Bolsonaro against leftist Fernando Haddad. The US government has a long history of undermining democracy in Brazil, from supporting a coup in 1964 against the progressive Goulart administration to continually spying on leftist President Dilma Rousseff (BBC, 7/4/15) in the run-up to the parliamentary coup against her in 2016 (CounterSpin, 6/2/17).

Glenn Greenwald (Intercept, 12/30/17) reported that “Facebook has been on a censorship rampage against Palestinian activists who protest the decades-long, illegal Israeli occupation, all directed and determined by Israeli officials.”

Soon after it partnered with the Atlantic Council, Facebook moved to delete accounts and pages connected with Iranian broadcasting channels (CNBC, 8/23/18), while The Intercept(12/30/17) reported that in 2017 the social media platform met with Israeli government officials to discuss which Palestinian voices it should censor. Ninety-five percent of Israeli government requests for deletion were granted. Thus the US government and its allies are effectively using the platform to silence dissenting opinion, both at home and on the world stage, controlling what Facebook‘s 2 billion users see and do not see.

Progressives should be deeply skeptical that these moves have anything to do with their stated objective of promoting democracy. Bloomberg Businessweek (9/29/17) reported that the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party went to Facebook headquarters for discussions with US companies about how it could use the platform for recruitment and micro-targeting in the 2017 elections. AfD tripled its previous vote share, becoming the third-largest party in Germany, the far right’s best showing since World War II.

Public trust in government is at 18 percent—an all-time low (Pew, 12/14/17). There is similar mistrust of Facebook, with only 20 percent of Americans agreeing social media sites do a good job separating fact from fiction. And yet, worldwide, Facebook is a crucial news source. Fifty-two percent of Brazilians, 61 percent of Mexicans, and 51 percent of Italians and Turks use the platform for news; 39 percent of the US gets their news from the site.

This means that, despite the fact that even its own public mistrusts it, the US government has effectively become the arbiter of what the world sees and hears, with the ability to marginalize or simply delete news from organizations or countries that do not share its opinions. This power could be used at sensitive times, like elections. This is not an idle threat. The US created an entire fake social network for Cubans that aimed to stir unrest and overthrow the Cuban government, according to the Guardian(4/3/14).

That a single corporation has such a monopoly over the flow of worldwide news is already problematic, but the increasing meshing of corporate and US government control over the means of communication is particularly worrying. All those who believe in free and open exchange of information should oppose Facebook becoming a tool of US foreign policy.

Augmenting Brains: Google Turns Twenty

Binoy Kampmark

“Eventually you’ll have the implant, where if you think about a fact, it will just tell you an answer.”

Larry Page, co-founder of Google

The Verge starts with a statement that has become commonplace, the compulsory nod to power one has come to expect when engaged with that whole mammoth enterprise known as Google.  “No technology company is arguably more responsible for shaping the modern internet, the modern life, than Google.”

The story of Google is all minted Silicon Valley: the modest research project birthed in computer lingo and networking, the serendipitous meeting of graduate students, and the finding of auspicious and enormously productive garage locations.  The names tell a story: fresh, childish but hopeful.  Alphabet spawned Google, and so forth.  These were the products of, scorned Jonathan Taplin in his sharp Move Fast and Break Things, spoiled, ignorant brats.

In a sense, the Google experiment is all homage to behavioural tendencies writ large, an attempt on the part of the founders less to control than predict. (This distinction, it must be said, has been lost.)  How do people search for what is important?  Who tells them?  The PageRank algorithm of Google is moderate blessing and heavily laden curse, reducing the conduct of human searches to a dimension of repetition and faux enlargement of knowledge.  But the paradox of such behaviour is not so much a broadening of mind as a reconfirmation of its narrowing. You are fed results you expect; in time, you are delivered the results you expect.  Variety is stifled within the very system that supposedly promotes a world of seamless access.

But there it is. The Google search engine commodifies and controls choice, thereby leaving you with little.  The impression of a world with abundance is essential, and draws out the curse of plenty:  your choice is pre-empted, and typing in a search term generates terms you might wish to pursue.  Even the traditional library is hard to retreat to in certain respects given that librarians are becoming allergic to matters of paper, covers and book spines, a catalogue outsourced beyond its walls. The modern library has become the product of such market management fetish as knowledge centres, which is far more in line with Google speak.

Google has also reduced us to phone-reaching idiocy, an impulsive dive into the creature of all knowing answers that lies in the pocket and is procured at a moment’s notice.  Few conversations go by these days without that nasty God of the search engine making its celebrated entry to dispel doubts and right wrongs.  Not knowing a “fact” is intrinsically linked to the rescue of finding out what Google will tell you.

Larry Page has made little secret of its all-conquering, cerebral mission manifested through the all-powerful search engine.  It verges on the creepily totalitarian, but more in the fashion of Brave New World seductiveness than 1984 torture and stomping.  “It will be included in people’s brains,” he explained to a veteran observer of the company, Steven Levy.  “When you think about something and don’t really know much about it, you will automatically get information.”  Similarly for fellow founder Sergey Brin, Google is viewed “as a way to augment your brain with the knowledge of the world.”

There is the other side: company concentration, exquisitely vast power that has wooed critics, and a self-assumed omniscience that crushes competition.  It is such characteristics that determine Google as a sovereign exception that seems to trounce the prerogative of many states: there are regulations made by elected officials, but these can, and will be subverted, if needed. But there is another side of the Google phenomenon: calculated compliance, and collaboration verging on the obsequious.  Business remains business, and having such a concentrated entity exerting dominion over the Internet and the market is the very thing that should trouble anti-trust specialists.

This very fact struck the Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry as relevant. If Google was to be dealt with in any feasible way, it would have to be through the traditional weaponry of the anti-trust suit (think, he reminds us, of Standard Oil 1910).  “This can’t be fixed legislatively,” suggested Landry to Baton Rouge’s The Advocate. “We need to go to court with an antitrust suit.”

The European Union has already taken up the matter, fining Google $5 billion for antitrust violations relating to its Android market dominance, notably its bundling of the search engine and Chrome apps into the operating system while also making “payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators” to exclusively bundle the Google search app on handsets.

The suggestion for some form of antitrust action against Google and other technological giants in the US itself is now being lost in the political opportunism of the Trump Whitehouse.  On Tuesday, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions convened a gathering of various officials to consider “a growing concern” about how certain companies might “be hurting competition an intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms”.

The problem here is not the premise Sessions is pursuing.  What matters is the reason he is taking such an interest, pressed by the sledgehammer approach advocated by President Donald J. Trump.  That ever sensitive leader of the confused free world claims that the search engine has developed a bias against him, yet another rigged entity in action.

Trump’s critics also have issues with social media sites and Google’s search engine.  Like Hillary Rodham Clinton, they argue, conversely, that such entities promoted the forces of reaction.  Had they not been so easily susceptible to those wicked Russians in spreading misinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump would never have gotten the keys to the White House.  That proposition has been given some academic ballast with Kathleen Hall Jamieson’s Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President – What We Don’t, Can’t, and Do Know, though it remains qualified at best.

Reaching the age of 20 has certainly brought Google to the summit of criticism and a certain pervasive idolatry. There are those who feel erroneously slighted (Trump and Clinton); there are those who wish their records erased from the search engine in an effort to make their lives anew (the right to forget the foolish error); and then there are those who simply could not be bothered to do a bit more digging for something that is so effortlessly available.  “Google is the oracle of redirection,” claims James Gleick.  In due course, its own influence will, in time, require redirection, and the brats may have to be disciplined accordingly.

Spanish police harass, spy on Catalan separatist party

Alejandro López

The Catalan separatist Candidatures of Popular Unity (CUP) party has publicly denounced a coordinated and overt campaign of police spying directed against it.

At a press conference last Thursday in front of CUP headquarters, National Secretary Núria Gibert and former deputy Mireia Boya explained that the police have been spying on them for over a year, since before last October’s Catalan independence referendum, and are continuing to do so.

Boya said that “the repression is from well before last September [when the crackdown on Catalan secessionists started].” She continued: “To this day, we are suffering police monitoring of our headquarters. There are undercover policemen watching us, watching and monitoring each one of our movement.”

In the course of the press conference, various CUP members showed photos to the media of the alleged spies. According to Boya, the “undercover officers write down notes and take photographs of those who come in and out of the premises.”

It would be unusual if the police carried out physical surveillance without also systematically intercepting phone calls and digital communications.

Boya said the espionage targeting the CUP has been reported to the Interior Department of the Catalan regional government, so that the regional police, the Mossos d’Esquadra, can investigate. They have not yet received a reply, however.

The CUP warned that they intend to find out who has ordered the spying and why, “since this is a serious violation of democratic rights and freedoms.” According to Boya, there are “1,200 people persecuted by the Spanish justice system, with eavesdropping, espionage and monitoring.”

Gibert recalled last year’s siege of CUP headquarters, when police tried to enter the building without a warrant during the September 20 crackdown, in the course of which high-ranking civil servants were arrested for preparing the October 1 independence referendum. When the CUP refused, and crowds of people started a sit-down protest in front of CUP headquarters to keep police from entering, the cops provocatively stood outside the premises for eight hours in full anti-riot gear (See video).

This action was part of Madrid’s strategy to provoke violence. A clash would have allowed the judiciary to frame the Catalan referendum as an act of “rebellion,” which, under the law, must involve a public show of violence. The intervention of hundreds of protestors to peacefully defend the headquarters thwarted this attempt. However, it did not prevent Madrid from charging Catalan nationalist leaders with rebellion after the referendum, even though they had constantly appealed for the protests to be peaceful.

Gibert said their complaint filed last year had been rejected by the judge, but that they have appealed the decision.

Boya announced that the CUP will undertake “new legal measures” against “the Spanish state over serious violation of fundamental rights.”

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) opposes and denounces the police spying and repression of the CUP and the Catalan nationalists. The ICFI has unbridgeable and well documented political differences with the CUP. Its bourgeois separatist programme and promotion of nationalism divide working people on the Iberian peninsula, and its support for Catalan pro-austerity governments underscores its hostility to the working class. However, police spying and threats against the CUP violate democratic principles and basic democratic rights, and establish a precedent that will be turned most savagely against the working class.

Claims that the CUP is a terrorist group and an instigator of violent attempts to overthrow the state are a political fraud. Over the past year, the CUP’s activities against Madrid’s repression of the Catalan nationalist movement has consisted of peaceful protests, strikes, blockades of roads via sit-ins and the display of yellow ribbons throughout major cities and towns.

Madrid’s violence is well documented, however. Under the previous right-wing Popular Party government, supported by the Socialist Party, the state sent 16,000 policemen to storm polling stations, assault peaceful voters and confiscate ballot boxes and voting papers to try to halt the October 1 referendum. This left over 1,000 injured, including children and elderly people.

In the weeks before the referendum, over 100 websites were closed, ballots were confiscated, millions of posters and leaflets were seized, newspapers were searched and meetings were banned.

Madrid-based media overwhelmingly endorsed these anti-democratic and repressive measures. Official chauvinism reached levels not seen since the fascist dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco.

The media hailed far-right protestors gathering in front of police stations and calling for Spanish police to “go for them” [the Catalans]. The press depicted them as concerned citizens defending Spanish unity.

Spain’s right-wing ABC even called for the banning of the CUP and its youth wing, Arran. In an editorial, it stated: “The law of political parties allows the banning of a party once it has been demonstrated that it engages in antidemocratic and unconstitutional behavior, without the need to charge it with a specific crime.”

Soon after the referendum, Madrid dissolved the Catalan regional government, imposed an unelected regional government, and moved to arrest the main secessionist leaders. Apart from those such as former Catalan premier Carles Puigdemont who fled to Belgium, the rest are still in jail.

Anna Gabriel, a CUP leader and former MP, fled to Switzerland, having left the country believing she could not get a fair trial from the Spanish judiciary.

Her suspicion was confirmed last week when eldiario.org posted leaked messages from several Spanish judges’ corporate email accounts. One October 6 email read: “As a Spaniard, a Catalan and a judge, what happened on September 6 and October 1 was a coup d’état… You can’t negotiate with those who carry out a coup, nor engage in dialogue with them.”

Another judge said that “a coup has winners and losers,” and stated that “the bloodshed that [pro-independence leaders] aimed for can’t go unpunished.” Several messages slandered the Catalan nationalists as Nazis. “It’s the same that occurred in Germany long ago,” reads one comment.

Another judge hailed king Felipe VI and the police agencies, writing, “Long live the Spanish police, long live the Guardia Civil, long live Spain and long live the colleagues who truly look after our legal system.”

The repression has continued under the Socialist Party (PSOE) government, backed by the pseudo-left Podemos party. While calling for “dialogue” with the Catalan separatists, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has threatened to re-invoke article 155 and dissolve the Catalan regional government. He has ordered the new attorney general to continue prosecuting Catalan nationalists under fraudulent rebellion charges.

Within Catalonia there is mass opposition to the ongoing repression. Up to one million protestors joined a mass march in the streets of Barcelona on September 11, Catalonia’s National Day, calling for the release of those in jail and return of those exiled.

The operation against the CUP is a transparent attempt to step up the state terror campaign targeting any and all opposition to Madrid under conditions of a growing radicalization of the working class against social inequality, militarism and police repression.

Auto manufacturers in UK cut production, threaten jobs as Brexit crisis deepens

Margot Miller 

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is to move around 1,000 workers at its Castle Bromwich plant in Birmingham—almost half—onto a three-day week from October until Christmas due to uncertainties over Brexit.

JLR, which is owned by India Tata and employs 40,000 workers in the UK, is considered the principal force behind what is described as a “resurgent” British auto industry. In 2016, car production in the UK was at its highest this century and JLR its biggest manufacturer, turning out one-third of the 1.7 million vehicles produced in total.

JLR’s decision speaks to the acute concerns of the majority faction of the UK bourgeoisie, which is opposed to a hard Brexit and loss of access to the European Union (EU) Single Market and Custom’s Union in a situation of burgeoning international trade war.

The UK car industry faces massive disruption if the government fails to agree unfettered access to the EU. Over half of UK car exports are destined for the EU and two-thirds of car imports come from the EU.

Speaking recently at the Conservative government’s electric vehicle summit in Birmingham, JLR boss Ralph Speth warned Prime Minister Theresa May that tens of thousands of jobs are under threat and that a “no deal” Brexit undermines the interests of the auto industry.

“Like many British companies our supply chains reach deep into Europe,” he said, adding, “[W]e will not be able to build cars, if the motorway to and from Dover becomes a car park, where the vehicle carrying parts—vital to our processes—is stationary”.

Speth said that unfettered access to the European Union’s single market “is as important a part to our business, as wheels are to our cars.” Without access, he threatened that JLR would reconsider its proposed £80 billion investment and pull out of the UK. He warned that other companies would also take measures “that cannot be reversed”.

Before the summit, JLR had already announced that the Land Rover Discovery sport utility vehicle would be totally produced at its new plant in Slovakia, rather than in both the UK and Slovakia as previously planned.

Speth has warned elsewhere about the impact of a hard Brexit in apocalyptic tones. The 1,000 JLR jobs already lost due to falling sales of diesel vehicles in the UK, he has previously said, “will be counted in the tens of thousands if we do not get the right Brexit deal”.

Production could be halted entirely on March 30, 2019. “Brexit is due to happen on the 29th of March next year. Currently, I do not even know, if any of our manufacturing facilities in the UK will be able to function on the 30th”, said Speth.

On behalf of the pro-Brexit faction, Conservative MP Bernard Jenkins accused Speth of hyperbole, saying he was “scaremongering” and “making it up.”

However, JLR’s moves are not simply propaganda. They are borne of major concerns that Brexit will decimate the car industry, with untold consequences for the profitability or even continued existence for many firms that rely on unfettered access to the single market.

German carmaker BMW, which employs 8,000 workers at four plants in the UK, is also taking aggressive action. It announced just days after JLR’s decision, “As a responsible organisation, we have scheduled next year’s annual maintenance period at Mini Plant Oxford to start on April 1, when the UK exits the EU, to minimise the risk of any possible short-term parts-supply disruption in the event of a no-deal Brexit”.

BMW previously warned that it would not be able to function without the free movement of car components from the continent. With the globalisation and international integration of production, components may cross national borders several times before final assembly.

Honda UK Manufacturing, which employs 8,000, has also said that the import of components could be delayed for up to nine days if the UK leaves the customs union, while Aston Martin fears the delays could stop its assembly lines.

The UK auto industry employs 186,000 with 856,000 linked jobs and its business executives and directors were among the most prominent advocates of the Remain camp in the 2016 referendum on leaving the EU. Japanese multinational Nissan urged its workforce to vote to stay.

Following the JLR decision, Labour MP Jack Dromey, whose constituency includes the Castle Bromwich JLR plant, declared that, “Brexit now threatens the jewel in the crown of British manufacturing excellence. Ministers must get it right or the future is bleak”.

Dromey, married to leading Blairite and ex-Labour deputy leader Harriet Harmen, was a former top trade union bureaucrat in the Transport and General Workers Union trade union—the forerunner of Unite.

The Unite union echoed Dromey’s condemnation of May’s handling of the Brexit negotiations and the way it was creating uncertainty for big business and “our automotive industry”.

Assistant general secretary Tony Burke declared, “This is the continuing effect of the chaotic mismanagement of the Brexit negotiations by the government, which has created uncertainty across the UK’s automotive industry and the manufacturing sector generally”.

He added, “It is also the result of the mishandling of how the UK makes a just transition from diesel and combustion engines to electric vehicles. Both issues have damaged the ‘jewel in the crown’ of UK manufacturing—our automotive industry”.

The Blairite wing of the Labour Party and the trade unions represent the concerns of these corporations and are working to reverse Brexit or for a deal that continues to guarantee access to the customs union. Both are committed to making the corporations competitive in the global market, which can only mean greater exploitation of the working class.

The wrangling between the UK government and EU over exit terms takes place within the context of burgeoning trade war internationally. During a joint press conference on September 18 with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, US President Donald Trump threatened the world’s nations with more tariff barriers than the onerous ones placed on China. “We’ve been ripped off by China”, he said, “We’ve been ripped off by the European Union and we’ve been ripped off by everybody. We’re not being ripped off anymore”. Trump has already threatened EU automobile exports to America.

In a sign of how the developing global trade war has exacerbated the Brexit crisis, last year marked the first decrease in vehicle production in the UK for eight years. Investment fell by half in the first six months of 2018 compared to last year. Car production fell 11 per cent in July and the number of vehicles built for the UK market dropped by more than a third year on year.

The auto conglomerates now raising concerns over jobs are not concerned about the livelihoods of workers but only their own profitability. These same corporations have slashed hundreds of thousands throughout the industry in prior decades in the name of competitiveness. The unions have entirely collaborated in the job cutting and concessions.

Earlier this year Nissan announced hundreds of job losses at its Sunderland plant. As is standard, the unions have not lifted a finger to oppose this. Last week, Nissan announced hundreds more job losses at its plants in Europe, including at its Sunderland operation, saying, “These plans are designed to drive future growth and competitiveness for Nissan”.

The working class must oppose all factions of the ruling elite and reject their nationalist programmes. What is needed is a unified struggle by car workers internationally to defend jobs, wages and conditions. The World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter calls on workers to build rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade unions, to link their struggles against the global corporations.

US sells arms to Taiwan, confronts China

Peter Symonds

The US announced on Monday that it has approved another large arms sale to Taiwan in a move that will further inflame tensions between Washington and Beijing. The arms sale worth $330 million comes as the Trump administration is intensifying the US confrontation with China on all fronts—diplomatic and military, as well as a battery of trade war measures.

The proposed arms deal, which is yet to be finalised, covers parts for Taiwan’s F-16, C-130, F-5, Indigenous Defence Fighter and other military aircraft. A Pentagon statement declared that the sale would contribute to US national security by boosting Taiwan’s military capacities. It hailed Taiwan as “an important force for political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region.”

In fact, the reverse is the case. Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, has always been one of the world’s most volatile flashpoints. The Trump administration is provocatively strengthening diplomatic and military ties with Taiwan as part of its broader efforts to undermine and encircle China and prepare for war.

The arms deal is the second since Trump took office last year. In June 2017, the US agreed to the sale of $1.4 billion worth of arms, including MK-48 torpedoes, high-speed anti-radiation missiles and early-warning radar surveillance technical support, which will significantly enhance Taiwan’s military.

The US is also providing assistance to Taiwan as it seeks to develop its own diesel-powered submarines. In April, the US granted military contractors licences to sell submarine technology to Taiwan, including a submarine combat management system. A separate technical assistance agreement provides for the sale of sonar, modern periscopes, and weapon systems.

As he assumed office last year, Trump threatened to abrogate the so-called One China policy that has formed the basis of US diplomatic relations with China for three decades. Under the arrangement, Washington effectively recognises Beijing as the government of all China including Taiwan, while opposing any attempt by China to forcibly take control of the island.

The US has also boosted ties with Taiwan through the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act in March that authorises visits and contact between top level Taiwanese and US diplomatic and military officials. It also opened a new building and compound this year for the American Institute in Taiwan, which functions as a de-facto embassy in Taipei.

On Monday, Taiwan backed away from a suggestion that it would send its defence minister to attend the annual US-Taiwan Defence Industry Conference in Maryland, amid concerns that upgrading its presence at the meeting could further raise tensions with China.

China criticised the latest arms sale, declaring that it undermined Chinese sovereignty and security. Foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang urged the US to “immediately withdraw the arms sales plan and stop military to military relations between the United States and Taiwan so as to avoid further damage to Chinese-US relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

The Trump administration, however, has no intention of backing off. Trump used his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to denounce China and to hail the tariffs imposed by his administration on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods. Washington has already foreshadowed a further escalation of the economic war on China with threats to not only raise existing tariffs but extend them to the remaining $267 billion of Chinese exports.

Yesterday Trump against lashed out at China, accusing it of interfering in the US mid-term elections in November. The outburst was all the more remarkable as it was while he was chairing a session of the UN Security Council that was meant to be addressing weapons proliferation.

Referring to China, Trump declared: “They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level. We don’t want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.”

Trump has been under siege himself from the Democrats and sections of the US military/intelligence apparatus over unsubstantiated allegation of collusion with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election campaign. Yet he had no qualms about using the same deceitful methods, providing no evidence for any of the allegations in his 10-minute address.

Later Trump tweeted: “China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.” China, however, is far from being the only government that buys advertisements in the media in the US and other countries in order to promote their wares. Like the allegations of “Russian meddling,” the evidence of “Chinese interference” is threadbare.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi told the UN Security Council: “We did not and will not interfere in any country’s domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.”

Nevertheless, Trump’s remarks are no accident, but rather signal the start of a propaganda offensive to poison relations with China as the US instigates trade war and prepares for military conflict. A senior Trump official told the media that Vice President Mike Pence plans to make a speech next week detailing allegations that China uses political, economic, military and other means to influence US public opinion.

At the same time, the US is ramping up its military provocations against China in the South China Sea. According to the Business Insider, the Pentagon flew four nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers across the contested waters on Monday. “The United States military will continue to fly sail and operate wherever international law allows at a times and places of our choosing,” Pentagon spokesman Dave Eastburn declared.

While the US military claims that such operations are routine, the presence of US warplanes and warships close to the Chinese mainland is part of the US military build-up in the Indo-Pacific region, begun under the Obama administration and continued under Trump.

Separately Pentagon spokesman Eastman told the media that US B-52s had also flown over the East China Sea on Tuesday as part of a “regularly scheduled, combined operation.” Japan and China have a longstanding and tense territorial dispute over uninhabited rocky outcrops in the East China Sea, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.

Amid rising tensions with the US, China recently denied a request for a US warship to visit Hong Kong. China also summoned the US ambassador to Beijing last weekend to protest a US decision to sanction a Chinese military agency for its purchase of Russian fighters and surface-to-air missiles.

The US decision to authorise another arms sale to Taiwan can only further fuel a dangerous confrontation with China that has the potential to escalate from trade war to war.

Federal Reserve lifts interest rates and indicates further hikes

Nick Beams

The US Federal Reserve has lifted its base interest rate for the third time this year and indicated that it plans a further increase in December.

The base rate was set at a range between 2 and 2.25 percent, the first time it has gone above 2 percent since 2008. The rise was the eighth in the current cycle after the Fed began to lift its rates in 2015.

In its statement accompanying the announcement, the Fed dropped the word “accommodative” from its outlook, a move which Chairman Jerome Powell said did not signal a change in the policy path but that the term had lost its usefulness as the US economy strengthened.

The decision brought criticism from President Trump who told a press conference in New York he was “not happy” about the decision. Trump, who criticised an earlier decision to raise rates, said he would rather see the paying down of debt.

Asked about the criticism at his press conference, Powell brushed it aside. “We don’t consider political factors or things like that,” he said.

Outlining the decision, Powell said the economy was “strong.” Unemployment was down, wages were up, while inflation remained low.

For the first time since the Fed began its low-interest rate regime following the financial crisis of 2008, its base rate is now above the level of inflation.

The Fed’s statement made no reference to the growing tensions with China and the impact of Trump’s tariff measures. Powell said that while there had been a “rising chorus” from companies concerned over trade and it was possible tariffs could be passed on through increased prices there was no evidence of that so far in the data.

However, he did express concerns over the growth of tariffs and the shift to a more protectionist world, saying it would be “bad” for the American economy and the Fed was “watching it very closely.”

The Fed’s forward projections of interest rate rises indicated that in addition to a likely rise at the end of the year there would be three increases in 2019. This is despite the fact that inflation continues to remain below 2 percent and there is no sign that it will increase in the immediate future.

In the past the Fed has indicated that the inflation rate is its main indicator in determining rate rise. But in conditions of low price rises its main concern is the increase in wages and the fall in the official unemployment rate. Wages have risen by the highest levels in nine years but the year-on-year growth of 2.9 percent is still well below levels experienced in previous “recoveries.”

Stagnant and even declining wage rates, a result of the restructuring of the US economy in the years following 2008, have been a key factor in sustaining the growth of corporate profits and the stock market surge and the Fed is clearly determined that downward pressure on wages needs to be maintained. As Financial Times commentator John Authers noted in a recent article, “[W]age inflation is central to the Fed’s reaction function.”

While the interest rate increase is unlikely to have an immediate significant impact on the US economy, it has implications for the world economy as a whole, particularly in so-called emerging markets with high levels of dollar-denominated loans. The rise in US rates and the consequent upward movement of the US dollar increases the debt and interest payment burdens in these countries, with Argentina and Turkey experiencing significant currency turmoil in the past months.

The International Monetary Fund yesterday increased its lending to Argentina by $7.1 billion on top of the $50 billion bailout program previously announced. IMF director Christine Lagarde said the revised plan would be “instrumental” in seeking to restore market confidence in Argentina as it goes ahead with “reform” plans involving cuts to its budget.

The growing problems in emerging markets was the main theme of a press briefing by Claudio Borio, the Head of the Monetary and Economic Department at the Bank for International Settlements, as he released its latest quarterly review on Sunday.

Divergence, he said, is the “name of the game” and that while “US financial markets powered ahead, emerging markets faced mounting pressures.” While “on average” financial markets continued to improve that average was not particularly meaningful, likening it to a person whose temperature on average was fine, “except that their head was on fire and their feet freezing.”

He noted that since the global financial crisis US dollar lending to non-bank emerging market entities had more than doubled, rising to some $3.7 trillion and this figure did not include dollar borrowings through foreign exchange swaps which could be of a similar order.

He said the growing turbulence in emerging markets, recalling the so-called “taper tantrum” of 2013, when the Fed first indicated it was going to start to pull back on its “quantitative easing” program, and the disturbances caused by the fall in the Chinese currency in 2015, could be attributed to three factors.

The first was the combination of a tightening US monetary policy and US dollar appreciation. The second was the escalation of trade tensions which have hit equity markets in emerging economies. The third was signs that the Chinese economy could be weakening, with China having become “critically important” for commodity producers and emerging market economies.

According to Borio, the volatility in emerging markets is the symptom of a “broader malaise.” The “highly unbalanced” post financial crisis recovery had overburdened central banks. While the “powerful medicine” of unusually and persistently low interest rates had boosted economic activity, side effects were inevitable and the “financial vulnerabilities that we now see are… an example.”

He warned that financial markets in advanced countries were “overstretched” and, above all, there was too much debt in the world economy with its overall level in relation to gross domestic product “considerably higher” than before the financial crisis.

With central bank balance sheets “still bloated as never before”—as a result of their asset purchasing programs—there was “little medicine left in the chest” in case of a relapse.

Chilean president praises armed forces amid new convictions of military assassins

Cesar Uco

Chile’s right-wing President Sebastián Piñera hailed the role of the country’s armed forces in a speech delivered to some 9,000 massed troops and Carabinero military police on September 18, the country’s independence day.

The speech came just one week after thousands marched through Santiago, the Chilean capital, to mark the 45th anniversary of the US-backed coup that brought the fascist military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power, leading to the murder, disappearance, torture, imprisonment and exile of tens of thousands of Chilean workers, students and leftists.

As in previous years, the march wound its way through central Santiago to the city’s General Cemetery, ending a at the foot of a memorial inscribed with the names of the dictatorship’s victims.

The crowds carried photographs of the murdered and disappeared and chanted “No to impunity!” The demand has taken on renewed force after the Supreme Court last July approved a request for the provisional release of seven former officials of the dictatorship convicted of crimes against humanity, including a former colonel convicted for the murder of three Uruguayan leftists.

Piñera subsequently welcomed the Supreme Court justices who granted the release of the military assassins to the La Moneda palace, signaling his support for those convicted of the dictatorship’s crimes.

This followed the pardon granted in April by President Piñera to former colonel René Cardemil, who was serving a 10-year sentence for the murder of six people in 1973, one of them an IMF official. Cardemil died of cancer shortly after the pardon was issued.

The September 11 demonstration saw clashes in which riot police attacked protesters with tear gas and batons.

Chile is still sharply polarized, including along class lines, in relation to the coup of 45 years ago. A poll by the Cadem agency found that 95 percent of the population believes that the country is still divided by the coup that overthrew and killed the elected Socialist Party president, Salvador Allende.

The same poll found that 85 percent of those polled believed that the military maintained vows of silence to cover up evidence of those involved in the crimes of the dictatorship, while 66 percent said that justice has still not been done in relation to these crimes.

There are still more than 1,300 human rights violation cases before the Chilean courts stemming from the dictatorship.

Just two months ago, nine soldiers were convicted in connection with the brutal murder and torture of the popular singer-songwriter—the leading representative of Chile’s “Nueva Canción” movement and member of the Chilean Communist Party (PCCh in Spanish)—Victor Jara, and the director of prisons under the Allende government, Littré Quiroga, in September of 1973.

Eight soldiers were given 15-year prison sentences for the murders, and their officer more than five years, for covering up the abduction and murder of the two men.

Soldiers first smashed Jara’s fingers with their rifle butts and then shot him 44 times, while Quiroga received 23 bullet wounds. Afterwards, their bodies were taken from the Chile Stadium and dumped on a public highway, along with the bodies of others executed there.

In his September 18 speech to the massed troops, Piñera glossed over this hideous record, declaring: “These are your Armed Forces, of each and every one of our compatriots, whatever your political ideas, your religious beliefs, your social condition and your ethnic origin. Chileans, these are your soldiers.”

Piñera, a multimillionaire who made his fortune during the 1970s as the dictatorship plunged the working class and the Chilean people into poverty and terror for almost two decades, has gone further, attempting to justify the bloody 1973 coup.

In a September 11 speech at La Moneda, which had been bombed by the military exactly 45 years earlier, Piñera declared that Chilean democracy had been “very sick and for a long time” before the coup, adding that it “did not die suddenly.” He pointedly referred to Pinochet’s junta as a “government” and “regime”—not as a dictatorship.

According to Piñera, “democratic values” had begun to “erode” in the late 1960s under the impact of “intolerant, dogmatic and confrontational attitudes” and “ideological projects.”

His historical reference was to the rise of a militant mass movement of the Chilean working class, which led to the election in 1970 of the Popular Unity (UP or Unidad Popular) government, a coalition that included Allende’s Socialist Party, the Stalinist PCCh and the Christian Democrats.

Washington responded to the limited reforms and nationalizations enacted by Allende with a CIA campaign to destabilize his government and a series of measures designed, as then President Richard Nixon put it, to “make the economy scream.”

The movement of the Chilean working class had assumed revolutionary proportions, with workers seizing factories and seeking to arm themselves. Their leadership, however, particularly the Stalinist Communist Party, aided by Pabloite revisionist groups, worked to keep the working class subordinated to the UP government of Allende. It, in turn, sought, in close collaboration with the Chilean officer corps, to create “social peace,” restoring the factories to their capitalist owners and forcibly disarming the workers.

Allende went so far as to bring Pinochet into his cabinet to better coordinate the suppression of the workers, thereby creating conditions for the horrific defeat of 1973 and the 17 years of killing and repression that followed.

If Piñera is now seeking to refurbish the image of Chile’s bloodstained military and justify the coup of 1973 and Pinochet’s dictatorship, it is out of fear within the Chilean ruling class that the global economic crisis is creating the conditions for a resurgence of revolutionary struggle in which the armed forces may be called out once again.

Despite the much-touted Chilean “economic miracle,” the country’s economy remains dependent upon a single mineral, copper, which makes up 52 percent of its exports, leaving it dependent upon the increasingly volatile fluctuations of the commodities markets.

There have been continuous mass protests over what Chileans refer to as a form of social “apartheid” in the country’s education system, as well as the failure of the country’s private pension funds (AFPs), developed as the main engine of domestic private investment, to provide a livable income for retirees—60 percent of them receive monthly payments of $292 or less, that is, less than the minimum wage.

The return to power of Piñera and the Chilean right was prepared by the reactionary policies pursued by the former ruling coalition, the “Nueva Mayoría,” led by Michelle Bachelet of Chile’s Socialist Party, who defended the interests of domestic and foreign capital, and left office in the midst of a family corruption scandal involving millions of dollars and a dismal 23 percent approval rating.

The attempt by Piñera to rehabilitate and cultivate the Chilean military is of a piece with developments across Latin America. In Argentina, the armed forces have been given the power to carry out domestic law enforcement for the first time since the dictatorship, while in Brazil, the generals are advancing the military as the arbiter of political and social stability in the run-up to next month’s crisis-ridden national elections.

In each case, the return of Latin America’s military to the center of political life, with its record of mass killings, torture and criminality, is a harbinger of an eruption of class struggle throughout the continent.

Wave of strikes, protests in Dutch public sector

Harm Zonderland & Dietmar Henning 

Anger is building in the Netherlands over the anti-social policies of the major political parties and the trade unions. More strikes have taken place since the beginning of the year than throughout the whole of 2017, which, with 32 walkouts, recorded the highest number of work stoppages since 1989. Primary school teachers have led the protests.

Thousands of teachers have repeatedly gone on strike over the past year to protest low wages and increased workloads. The largest protest took place on October 5 last year, when 60,000 teachers demonstrated in Den Haag, the seat of the government and parliament.

Next Tuesday, October 2, teachers plan to protest in Den Haag once again, but this time together with other public-sector workers.

In the Netherlands, primary schools account for the first eight years of schooling. Children go to school from the age of four and attend a so-called “basis” school until the age of 12. According to a national study carried out by the central statistics agency (CBS), between 2011 and 2015, 20 percent of all primary school teachers suffer from symptoms of burnout. No other professional group has such a high level of chronically overworked workers.

Pay for primary school teachers is well below average. With a monthly wage of €2,346, they earn 30 percent less than an average academic. This has resulted in a decline in the number of new teachers. It is predicted that in 10 years there will be a shortfall of 11,000 primary school teachers.

The sustained protests have failed to bring about any improvement in the situation. The trade unions negotiated a new collective agreement for teachers that took effect this month, which includes a mere 2.5 percent pay increase and a one-time payment of €750. The Dutch government indicated that it will invest a further €270 million in teachers’ pay. However, primary school teachers had demanded an additional €1.4 billion.

The strikes and protests gained momentum once again after the government revealed a plan to abolish the dividend tax for financial firms and large corporations. This will result in between €1.4 billion and €2 billion being handed over to big business annually. This in a country that is already considered a tax haven.

At the same time, the sales tax rate, which applies to items such as medicines and groceries, will be increased by six percent to nine percent. The general rate of sales tax already stands at 22 percent.

The government coalition ruling the country of 17 million is composed of four parties—the neo-liberal VVD of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Christian Democrats (CDA), the formerly left liberal party D66, and the small Christian Conservatives (CU).

Social inequality has been rising for years. Of the 4.8 million households with two or more people, 112,000 are millionaire families. The richest 10 percent of the population controls 68 percent of the social wealth, or €726 billion, while the poorest 10 percent is €65 billion in debt.

More than 1 million people officially live in poverty. In 2017, the Food Bank, a social programme for the most impoverished sections of the population, distributed almost 40,000 food parcels to needy individuals per week. Around 113,500 people were dependent on this programme.

Real wages are either stagnant or in decline. Almost one in five people (19 percent) is employed in a sector where the average purchasing power was lower in 2017 than it was in the year 2000.

This year, consumer prices will more than consume most nominal wage increases—by 2.1 percent according to a recent projection by the Central Statistics Agency. A major reason, as in other countries, is the sharp rise in housing and rent prices in large cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht. House prices rose in the second quarter of this year in these cities as compared to last year by between 11.9 percent and 14.4 percent.

In addition, 80,000 too few apartments have been built annually over the past decade. Interior Minister Kajsa Ollongren of D66 has pledged to build 70,000 apartments per year over the next decade, but this will not resolve the fundamental problem.

In the meantime, large providers of social housing are selling big chunks of their housing stock to finance investments in the stock market or the high salaries of their top managers and board members.

Young adults and workers in part-time or temporary jobs find it increasingly difficult to obtain a property loan. The number of temporary contracts via job agencies has risen sharply, with an ever-growing percentage of the workforce holding down two or three part-time jobs. No other country has seen such a dramatic rise in the number of low-paid, temporary jobs as the Netherlands.

These trends, which accelerated following the 2008 global financial crisis, resulted in the collapse of the social democratic PVDA and the trade unions. These organisations, which for decades preached the social compromise laid down in the Wassenaar agreement of 1982 and the so-called Polder Model, and led the way in decimating social services, have almost completely collapsed. Whereas in 1960 nearly four out of ten workers were trade union members, only two in ten were union members in 2017.

In the Dutch elections in March 2017, the PVDA lost 29 of its 38 parliamentary representatives, leaving it with only nine deputies in the current parliament. In municipal elections held a week later, the PVDA received around 7 percent of the vote.

While the working class is searching for a way out of the protracted social decline, the ruling elite is moving ever further to the right. This includes the ex-Maoists of the Socialist Party (SP), which embraced nationalist and xenophobic policies during the election.

Since December 2017, the 32-year-old daughter of long-standing SP leader Jan Marijnssen has led the party’s parliamentary group. Lilian Marijnssen explicitly declared that she wants to win back voters of Geerd Wilders’ far-right PVV with a right-wing campaign. Addressing herself to immigrants, Marijnssen wrote, “If you live here, you have to respect Dutch cultural norms. We make no compromises on that.” SP leader Ron Meyer stated that the party would become more activist, more oppositional and more national.

Under these conditions, action committees to organise the strikes and protests have emerged.

The first initiative was “PO in Actie,” which is now made up of some 44,000 primary school teachers. Teachers in secondary schools have formed “VO in Actie,” those in middle and technical schools have established “MBO in Actie,” college teachers have founded “HBO in Actie,” and university professors have set up “WO in Actie.” They are all demanding more staff, a reduction in workloads and higher pay.

However, the means to achieve these demands is the subject of intense debate on social media. The primary school teachers’ “PO in Actie” recently announced a united front—“PO Front”—with the Christian Democratic and social democratic trade union associations CNV and FNV, the teachers’ union Aob, and the schoolmasters’ organization.

For the protest on October 2, a coalition of 21 organisations, including action committees and trade unions, has called for the participation of members and other public-sector workers, including health care workers, police officers and soldiers.

The police have no intention of taking part. They will be on the other side on October 2. Nor are members of the military the allies of teachers. While teachers have been handed a miserly 2.5 percent wage increase, military personnel will receive a 4 percent pay increase from the beginning of the year. The military is to receive further funding of €1.5 billion, which will be primarily invested in modernising equipment and expanding the size of the force. Some 2,500 new positions are to be created.

No party has yet supported the protests. However, at protests in Den Haag last June, the widely despised political parties were invited to participate. This not only gave the social democratic PVDA the opportunity to posture with its dishonest demands, but also the far-right PVV of Wilders.

To achieve the demands of teachers and all workers in the Netherlands for decent pay, pensions and social benefits, action committees that are entirely independent of the establishment parties and trade unions must be founded. They must discuss the necessary political and social orientation to wage their struggle. The entirely justified demands can be realised only if the control over society exercised by big business and the capitalist state is challenged by means of a socialist programme.