Will Leviathan Democracy Blindfold The World?

James Bovard

President Biden triumphantly saved world democracy last week, at least according to the White House scorecard.  Biden co-hosted another Summit for Democracy, a repeat performance after the December 2021 test run.   Biden sounded like a Quaalude Savior as he recycled his “inflection point of history” cliché. But the Summit proved again that politicians are perils to freedom regardless of their prattle.

Biden promised that “we are seeing real indications that we are turning the tide” in favor of democracy around the globe. Practically no one not on Biden’s payroll agrees.  Biden’s boast was like taking a victory lap around the deck of the Titanic.

Democracy last year “declined around the world for the 17th consecutive year,” according to Freedom House. Twice as many nations are veering “toward authoritarianism” as towards democracy, according to the Economist. Most shocking: the U.S. is now categorized as a less free nation than Mongolia, Mauritius, and 56 other nations, according to Freedom House (funded by the U.S. government, so they must be trustworthy).

Team Biden believes a big problem with democracy is that politicians don’t have enough power – “Weak state capacity.” In reality, elected rulers around the globe are turning themselves into dictators who increasingly repress their citizens.   Rather than representative governments, elected regimes have turned into Leviathan Democracies far superior to the citizenry.

Consider Biden’s record in the Oval Office. Federal judges and/or the Supreme Court have struck down Biden’s eviction moratorium for deadbeat renters, his $400 billion cancellation of federal student debt, his “climate change” decree shutting down power plants, his mask mandate for airline passengers, and his edict compelling all employees of large companies and all federal employees to get Covid vaccine injections.  But all of Biden’s decrees are supposedly “pro-democracy” because he won the 2020 election.

“Democracy delivers” was a key talking point for Team Biden at the Summit.  Any increase in government handouts presumably automatically increased government legitimacy. Unfortunately, “leashing politicians” is not on the Biden Bingo Card for Saving Democracy.  The American Bar Association recently warned that “the Rule of Law is in Decline Globally” but it is “not a central focus of the U.S. Government’s approach” on democracy. A top ABA official warned: “Discussing sustainable development in the absence of rule of law, … is at best delusional and at worst dishonest.” Three-quarters of nations representing almost 85% of the world’s population recently “experienced declines in rule of law,” according to the World Justice Project.    In lieu of “government under the law,” Team Biden offers “the People Centered Justice Multistakeholder Cohort’s Declaration and Call to Action.”   Sloshing out more government handouts to activist groups who score media headlines was “close enough for government work” to the Rule of Law.

Rather than a system of informed consent, democracy is degenerating into regimes which blindfold citizens and demand unlimited submission.   At the summit, government officials made it clear that freedom of speech is a luxury that democracy can  no longer afford.  Secretary of Anthony State Blinken declared, “The misuse of technology and the spread of digital authoritarianism must end. We must stand for an affirmative, values-driven, and rights-respecting vision of democracy in the digital era.”   “Affirmative” and “values-driven” become code words to legitimize pervasive government censorship.  Blinken “proposed a ‘delicate balance’ between ‘openness and security,’ ‘protecting speech and preventing incitement,’ and ‘fostering innovation and limiting the power of Big Tech,’” as Tom Parker observed for Reclaim the Net.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas sermonized on a “Countering the Rise of Digital Authoritarianism” panel.  He was joined by YouTube CEO Neil Mohan, who could have boasted of  how Washington censors his channel.  An internal DHS document reveals plans to crack down on “inaccurate” information on “the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”  Any facts which embarrass Team Biden are automatically “inaccurate’ and ripe for suppression.  Federally-funded entities spearheaded the censorship of true information on Covid vaccine side effects to bolster Biden’s effort to inject every American.

Eight governments, including Ukraine and Poland, issued a call for more censorship on the first day of the Summit. They called for tech companies to take action “against disinformation that undermines our peace and stability” and to suppress posts that  “ weaken our support to Ukraine amid Russia’s war of aggression.”  The letter asserted that “hostile foreign powers are using [social media] to spread false narratives that contradict reporting from fact-based news outlets,” especially the endless reports on the glorious victories of the Ukrainian army.  Facebook responded by promising to ramp up its censorship, including relying on “a third-party fact-checking service to determine if posts contain false claims.”  Some “third-party fact checking services” have been government fronts.  As journalist Aaron Maté scoffed, “We are fueling a proxy war in Ukraine in order to defend freedom, such as the freedom to censor dissenting views on our proxy war in Ukraine.”

Is the “will of the people” so fragile that it can no longer survive exposure to any thoughts that officialdom disapproves?  Does winning an election automatically convert tinhorn politicians into minor deities entitled to control the thoughts of any voter? Nullifying freedom of speech converts citizens into vassals that politicians can use and abuse as they please.

Throughout the Summit proceedings, piety was thicker than hog slop at an Iowa slaughterhouse. Secretary Blinken declared on March 28, “No woman or girl should face harassment and abuse in-person or online.” The State Department’s effort on this score was propelled by its  Global Engagement Center, which previously pressured Twitter to cancel hundreds of thousands of accounts, including vast numbers of hapless Americans. That Center is leading the fight against “gendered disinformation” and whooped up a report on “the need for more research to tackle this scourge.” According to the United Nations, a prime example of this “scourge” is “Zoom Bombing.”  That atrocity occurs when uninvited people crash a Zoom meeting and make rude comments.  Is it an international human rights crisis because boneheaded Zoom organizers fail to require pass codes to attend a meeting?

As part of its Summit festivities, the Biden administration announced new crackdowns to make it “more difficult for corrupt actors to conceal their identities, assets, and criminal activities.”  Despite reform promises at the first Summit, there has been no worldwide progress.  The U.S. ranks #24 on the international corruption index – even worse than France, according to Transparency International.  And that score was calculated before the latest revelations of the Biden family pocketing vast sums from smarmy foreign companies.

  Biden boasted that his administration plans to spend more than $9 billion to support democracy worldwide by the end of next year.  But U.S. foreign aid programs obliterate the anti-corruption initiatives of the U.S. government. An American Economic Review analysis concluded that “increases in [foreign] aid are associated with contemporaneous increases in corruption,” and that “corruption is positively correlated with aid received from the United States.”  As a Brookings Institution analysis observed, “The history of U.S. assistance is littered with tales of corrupt foreign officials using aid to line their own pockets, support military buildups, and pursue vanity projects.” Torrents of U.S. helped make Afghanistan one of the most corrupt places on Earth. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR), observed, “We need to understand how US policies and practices unintentionally aided and abetted corruption.” The U.S. has been “fighting corruption” in Ukraine since the end of the Cold War in the decades when Ukraine became one of the most corrupt nations in Europe.  Biden administration officials helped defeat a congressional proposal to create an Inspector General to audit and oversee the $100 billion the U.S. government has pledged to the government of Ukraine.

But another handout will fix that problem. The Biden administration is bankrolling foreign journalists to fight “kleptocracy” – government of thieves.  There is even an aid program entitled “Empowering the Truth Tellers.” (Julian Assange need not apply.)  The Biden administration claims to support “independent media” by effectively putting foreign journalists on the U.S. payroll.  Those journalists are “independent” because the U.S. government says so, and anyone who disagrees will be labeled an enemy of democracy. Besides, the U.S. is no role model: it ranks a pathetic #42 in the World Press Freedom Index, worse than Moldova and Guyana, according to Reporters Without Borders.

Biden is “saving” democracy” with buckets of goofy new acronyms: SHE PERSISTS   – one of the rallying cries for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, now standing for Supporting Her Empowerment: Political Engagement, Rights, Safety, and Inclusion Strategies to Succeed Investing. And then there was SHE WINS (Support Her Empowerment: Women’s Inclusion for New Security).  The Agency for International Development is whooping up PxP – Powered by the People. Did the White House believe acronyms should look like drug prescriptions? ADD stands for Advancing Digital Democracy but policymakers should have worked in an ‘H’ to reflect their cluelessness. ACRF stands for the Anti-Corruption Response Fund. They should have tweaked that one to make it ARF-ARF, to symbolize officialdom’s cravenness to the Powers That Be.

Comic relief failed to redeem the summit. The State Department wanted Americans to make short videos with the hashtag #SummitForDemocracy whooping up “What has democracy made possible in your own life?” Such as falling living standards, soaring inflation,   sporadic financial panic, and a befuddled commander-in-chief who doesn’t know if he is in Canada or China?  A search on Twitter indicates that almost all the videos made with #SummitforDemocracy hashtags were done by governments or by government-funded entities.  Biden’s democracy spiel can’t compete with cat videos.

Revealing all the levels of hypocrisy at the summit would be on par with peeling an onion. Mexico President López Obrador declared at the Summit: “Many of the great crimes against humanity have been committed in the name of God, or in the name of democracy.”  Many of the nations showcased at the Summit are dutiful U.S. allies, meaning that Washington ignores their abuses.

In his speech last Wednesday, Biden declared that “the power of these summits” is “not just to speak high-minded words.”   But even U.S. government officials feared the summit would be “inconsequential talk shop,” according to the Washington Post. Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass scoffed, “The summit for democracy is a bad idea that won’t go away…. American democracy is hardly a model for others.”

Unfortunately, the Pentagon missed the memo on democracy. Since 2008, foreign soldiers who received training from the U.S. military “attempted at least nine coups (and succeeded in at least eight) across five West African countries,” as journalist Nick Turse reported.  The Pentagon denies responsibility for the debacles. But, as Antiwar.com reported, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) declared at a recent congressional hearing, “I think we should at least know how many countries we train the coup plotters.”

Biden concluded his spiel to the Summit: “The great strength of democracy is that it gives us all the tools we need for self-government and self-improvement.” But the tools are controlled by politicians who equate ever great submission with the triumph of the “will of the people.”
With politicians openly championing censorship, Leviathan Democracy is dropping its mask and no longer pretending to give a damn about freedom.

Pro-war Social Democrat-led government paves way for right-wing victory in Finnish elections

Jordan Shilton

Finland formally joined NATO in a ceremony at its Brussels headquarters Tuesday, marking a massive escalation of the US-NATO war on Russia. The country’s rapid accession to the aggressive military alliance came just two days after the right-wing National Coalition Party triumphed in Sunday’s general election, setting the stage for a potential coalition government with the far-right Finns Party.

Underscoring the dominant role played by American imperialism in bringing the Nordic country into the military alliance, Finland’s outgoing Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, handed his country’s formal commitment to join NATO to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. NATO’s border with Russia has more than doubled in length. Finland’s 1,300-kilometre border is now part of the front in the imperialist powers’ war to subjugate Russia to the status of a semi-colony and seize control of its natural resources.

In a speech at the ceremony, President Sauli Niinistö said, “The era of military nonalignment in our history has come to an end. A new era begins.”

Finland's President Sauli Niinisto addresses the media prior to a flag raising ceremony on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Tuesday, April 4, 2023. [AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert]

It would have been more accurate to have stated that Finland is returning to the position it held in relation to the major imperialist powers in the decades immediately after independence, which was granted by the Bolsheviks shortly after the October Revolution in 1917. Finland first served as a major base of  operations for the counterrevolutionary whites in the civil war, before going on to form an alliance with Nazi Germany during World War II as part of Hitler’s war of annihilation against the Soviet Union. Finland’s military nonalignment was a demand made by the Soviet Union in response to the invasion of Finnish troops alongside Nazi forces and their participation in the siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, which lies just 250 kilometres from the Finnish border. The Stalinist bureaucracy feared that Finland could be used by German or American imperialism to launch military operations against the USSR following 1945.

Niinistö also made the improbable claim, “Finland’s membership is not targeted against anyone. Nor does it change the foundations or objectives of Finland’s foreign and security policy. Finland is a stable and predictable Nordic country that seeks peaceful resolution of disputes.”

The reality is that Finland’s accession to NATO is being accompanied by a massive military buildup throughout the Nordic and Baltic regions. In March, the US provocatively flew a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber close to the Russian island of Gogland just 40 kilometres off the Finnish coast. NATO troops will massively expand their presence in the region, and the US is seeking its own bilateral defence agreement to provide it with more latitude for military operations on Finnish territory. Helsinki has also started constructing a border fence with Russia, citing the alleged threat of “hybrid warfare” from immigrants crossing into the country. The ongoing push to bring Sweden into NATO will mean Russia is entirely surrounded by hostile adversaries in the strategically important Baltic Sea.

Finland’s NATO accession was the culmination of the pro-war legacy of the outgoing Social Democratic-led coalition government, which went down to defeat at the elections. Although the Social Democrats under the leadership of Prime Minister Sanna Marin gained three seats in parliament and improved slightly their share of the vote, their coalition partners saw their support plummet. This was particularly true of the Green League, whose representation fell from 20 to 13 deputies, and the ex-Stalinist Left Alliance, which saw its representation fall from 16 to 11. The rural-based Center Party, another coalition partner, also lost ground, dropping from 31 seats to 23.

The main winners were the conservative National Coalition Party, which gained 10 seats to finish with 48, and the far-right Finns Party with an increase of seven to 46 deputies. Since a majority of 101 is required to govern in the 200-seat parliament, the NCP will have to secure backing from a number of parties in order to finalize a new coalition government. Options include a coalition involving the Social Democrats or the Finns Party, which appears most likely. However, some smaller parties, including the Swedish People’s party, have previously indicated their refusal to enter government with the far right, who have ties to right-wing extremist and fascistic forces across Europe.

Whatever the composition of the new government, it will be one of austerity at home for the working class and war as Finland cements its status as a frontline state in NATO’s war with Russia. NCP leader and incoming Prime Minister Petteri Orpo is committed to finding €6 billion in public spending cuts during the next four-year parliamentary term. Orpo argues the savings can be made through public sector “enhancements” and forcing those out of work back into a job.

All of the established parties fully support Finland’s integration into NATO, a move that subordinates the country to the predatory interests of American and European imperialism. While the Social Democrats under Marin intensified the party’s long-standing support for NATO membership, the Finns are no less enthusiastic. In a policy paper released in August 2022, the party advocated a closer alliance with US imperialism to confront Russia and China in the Arctic. The paper also explicitly declared the party’s support for NATO membership.

The fact that the most likely outcome of government talks is a coalition involving the far-right Finns Party is a devastating indictment of the “progressive” politics of the Social Democrats and their allies in the Green League and misnamed Left Alliance. Marin, widely hailed as one of the youngest prime ministers in the world and held up as a symbol of diversity because she was raised by lesbian parents, headed a government that imposed attacks on the working class while arming Finland to the teeth and bringing it into NATO.

Marin and the Social Democrats used the election campaign to underscore their support for the US-NATO war in Ukraine. During a visit to Kiev in early March, Marin indicated that Finland would consider supplying Ukraine with its fleet of F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets, which are being replaced by over 60 F-35 fighters built by American company Lockheed Martin. She subsequently backtracked after government officials expressed concern about the impact on Finland’s ability to defend itself. While in Kiev, Marin attended a funeral alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a Ukrainian military commander killed in Bakhmut.

Marin’s pro-war programme was supported by the Greens, who held the position of Foreign Minister in her government, and the Left Alliance, the successor organisation to the Finnish Communist Party. The ex-Stalinists presented themselves as opponents of war and NATO, going so far in June 2019 as to declare that they would only join the Social Democrat-led coalition if it promised not to join NATO during the next four years. The Left Alliance quickly abandoned this position following the US-instigated Russian invasion of Ukraine. The party leadership voted overwhelmingly to remain in government if a NATO application was filed.

The trade unions were also instrumental in creating the conditions for the right-wing parties to emerge from the election victorious by ensuring that the vote went ahead without the interference of major working-class struggles. Over recent months, militant strikes by different sections of workers, driven by rampant inflation, have erupted. However, all the struggles were suppressed within the framework of the collective bargaining system and kept separated from each other. A two-day nationwide rail strike by train drivers began on 20 March but was sold out when the rail union RAU agreed to a new contract for the next two years with a mere 6 percent wage increase. Earlier in March, a national strike by bus drivers initially scheduled to last 10 days was shut down by the public transport union AKT on the third day on the basis of a miserable 6 percent pay increase as part of a contract running to January 2025.

These settlements followed hot on the heels of the ending of a two-week dock workers’ strike with an agreement to increase wages by 6.3 percent over two years and pay a premium of €1,100 to each worker. A two-year deal for workers in the industrial sector was struck in early February containing total wage increases of 7 percent, including a one-off €800 bonus. The agreement averted strikes planned for the middle of the month.

What the merger of CP Rail and Kansas City Southern means for North American rail workers

Steve Hill

A Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive in Calgary, Alberta. [Photo by Jason Corbett) / CC BY 4.0]

The US Surface Transportation Board (STB) gave final approval to the Canadian Pacific (CP) Rail and Kansas City Southern (KCS) joint merger application to combine the two railways to form Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) on March 15. The new railway combines the two smallest of the seven Class I railways in the United States, and will still be the smallest of the now six Class Is. However, it is the first single-line railway connecting the US, Mexico and Canada.

The merger must be viewed in the context of the intensified push to establish a North American protectionist trade bloc dominated by American and Canadian imperialism. With this policy, which is underpinned by the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)—finalized as an upgrade to NAFTA during the Trump administration—the continent’s twin imperialist powers aim to consolidate their economic power to wage trade war and military conflict against their geostrategic rivals, above all Russia and China.

During last year’s contract negotiations for rail workers, when over 120,000 rail workers were on the verge of strike action, national security specialists explicitly drew attention to the importance of preventing disruption to the rail network under conditions of war with Russia. Todd Rosenblum, writing on the FreightWaves website, declared that the convening of the Presidential Emergency Board to impose a sellout contract on rail workers was “essential for preserving the nation’s readiness for conflict in this period of heightened uncertainty.” Imposing a concessions-filled settlement without a strike would “signal to adversaries that our readiness to respond to provocation is high, and our supply chain is becoming more resilient, not less.”

A critical element in the North American ruling elites’ protectionist plans is the concentration of key supply chains within the continent so as to reduce dependency on rivals for the supply of critical minerals and other raw materials. From the standpoint of the ruling class, this requires a reliable rail network capable of transporting goods from Canada to Mexico, while suppressing opposition to horrendous working conditions by rail workers.

The investing website Seeking Alphaexplained last September how CP, and North American railroads more broadly, were set to benefit from global supply chain “re-shoring.” The website explained, “The merger with Kansas City Southern will allow the company to service Canada, the United States, and Mexico. This means benefiting from higher industrial production and the ability to connect major grain, automotive, chemical, energy, and other supply chains.”

The consolidation of supply chains in the North American continent has been the subject of extensive consultations at the highest levels of government. In a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the North American leaders’ summit in January, US President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to intensify efforts to source raw materials necessary for EV production and other “clean energy” projects from Canada.

With a network of close to 33,000 kilometres of rail and approximately 20,000 employees, CPKC will play an important role in transporting raw materials and finished goods across one of the world’s largest free-trade zones under the USMCA. Its first cross-border trains are expected to carry Midwestern meat products to Mexico and Mexican-grown fruits and vegetables north to Chicago.

From mid-2020, KCS rejected 11 offers from investment firms attracted by US/Mexico cross-border trade until Canadian National (CN) and CP engaged in a bidding war to acquire the railway. KCS originally accepted a $33 billion proposal from CN but that was rejected by the STB over the structure of the voting trust. Ultimately, Canadian Pacific secured a deal in September 2021 which provided $1.4 billion to cover merger-termination fees owed to Canadian National. Since that time the railroads have operated independently, pending the STB’s final review.

The support of the STB for CP’s offer underscores how a rail network encompassing North America’s three main economies was desired at the highest levels of the state. In justifying its decision to allow the merger, the STB stated that the combined operation would present a stronger competitor to BNSF and Canadian National. A major factor in this consideration is, no doubt, that CPKC would be in a better position than CP Rail and KCS were individually to pick up the slack from a strike at either of the major two railroads.

Keith Creel, the current CEO of CP and future CEO of CPKC, declared that the new rail network would “create a truly unique single-line network connecting three nations and instantly injecting new competition into the North American rail industry when our supply chains have never needed it more.”

Last year, he vowed that a major target of the new railroad will be the two-person-crew rule in the US, which he said was short-sighted, and that once technology and components allow safe, efficient and reliable service, railroads should be allowed to operate trains with one person in the cab. Creel is advocating running a 3 kilometre long train at high speed with potentially hazardous freight in every conceivable condition, with a single operator to manage it safely. Even with a minimum of two crew members today, derailments occur at a rate of more than 1,000 per year across the US.

Both CP and KCS utilize Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). PSR is universally despised by workers because it imposes a dehumanizing attendance policy that forces them to be on-call virtually 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to satisfy efficiency targets. The demand to run longer trains at higher speeds with less down-time, even for vital safety inspections, can be cited as a contributing factor in the tragic deaths of three CP workers in British Columbia in 2019. CP continues to deny any responsibility for the incident and boasts that its rapid growth since PSR was introduced proves that PSR works.

The financial oligarchy that stands behind the railway companies is determined to entrench PSR across the continent no matter what the cost to working conditions and lives.

These conditions of ruthless exploitation are made all the more necessary by the economic impact of the US-NATO war on Russia. Key agricultural products, like fertilizer, grain, oil and gas, are required from Canada in greater quantities due to the sanctions imposed on Russia and the destruction of the Ukrainian economy. When 3,000 CP Rail workers were locked out by management in March 2022, Creel asserted that avoiding a prolonged strike by means of a lockout was necessary to ensure “Canadian resources” could reach the “world market.”

North America’s railroads have profited handsomely from the war and the growth of economic protectionism, which is why Creel and co. are so confident that the merger will prove highly lucrative. As the American Railroad Association notes on its website, “Railroads continue to move huge amounts of cargo, despite current supply chain challenges. In the first 11 months of 2022, railroads moved more carloads of chemicals than in any comparable period in history; more carloads of food products than any year since 2012; the fourth-highest carloads of grain since 2009; and the second-highest carloads of iron and steel scrap since 2014.”

CPKC will offer a direct route for Alberta’s bitumen to the gulf coast of Texas, where most of the world’s heavy oil refineries are located. Shipping crude oil by rail is not the most cost-effective method. However, since the Biden administration canceled the highly controversial Keystone XL pipeline in 2021, a direct rail route has acquired heightened importance.

CPKC will also offer a direct route for Canadian grain as far south as Mexico City. Wheat is one of Canada’s largest agricultural exports, coming in at over $7 billion per year. Another is fertilizer, with exports reaching $8.3 billion in 2021, prior to the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. Canada exports fully one-third of the world’s traded potash, a key fertilizer ingredient.

The fact that Canadian Pacific was so easily able to seal the transaction by stumping up the additional $1.4 billion, to cover the merger-termination fees owed by KCS to CN, shows just how much cash is washing around the industry. In the middle of a global pandemic, CP was forcing its workers to work long hours in unsafe conditions, while it splashed cash around to fulfill its desire to become a serious continental player. CP’s union accomplices in the Teamsters and Unifor happily played along with the corporation’s pleas of poverty throughout the various contract negotiations before and after the merger deal, jointly imposing concessions at every turn. The combined workforce of the new entity will now be subject to restructuring and intensified exploitation, with the prospect of significant job losses.

The nationalist and bureaucratic unions long ago gave up representing the interests of the membership and have been fully integrated into the management structure of the corporations as the brokers of labour power. Almost 120,000 railroad workers in the US laboured under an expired contract for more than two years before giving their Union executives near unanimous strike mandates that the unions opposed carrying out. Eventually, the White House, with the support of Congress and the unions, imposed a dictatorial concessions-laden settlement on workers across the system.

In both the US and Canada, the unions are subservient to the interests of their “own” corporate elites and capitalist states. In Canada, Unifor and the Teamsters are key props of the federal Liberal government, while in the US all the unions have worked closely with the Biden administration to enforce miserable contracts across every economic sector. Faced with a multi-national railroad that will scour the continent from the Canadian Arctic to tropical Mexico to secure the cheapest labour and biggest profits, rail workers cannot take a single step forward in the fight for better conditions and wages by entrusting their fate to such nationalist and pro-capitalist organizations.

US provided India real-time military intelligence in China border clash

Rohantha De Silva & Keith Jones

In what represents a new stage in US-Indian collaboration in preparing for war with China, the Pentagon supplied India with real-time military intelligence, enabling it to repel People’s Liberation Army forces in a December 2022 border clash, claims the US News & World Report. 

Last Dec. 9, hundreds of Indian and Chinese troops clashed along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the largely undemarcated 3,400 km border that separates the world’s two most populous countries. While there were no fatalities, the confrontation reportedly lasted for several hours, with the two sides engaging in hand-to hand combat and attacking each other with batons and canes.

Soon after, New Delhi boasted it had repelled a Chinese incursion into the Twang sector of the northeast Indian state of Arunchal Pradesh. Beijing, meanwhile, accused Indian troops of blocking the PLA from reconnoitering territory on its side of the LAC.

Tanks on the banks of Pangong Tso lake region, in Ladakh along the India-China border on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2021. [AP Photo/India Army via AP]

According to a March 20 US News report, Indian forces had been forewarned of the impending PLA incursion by “actionable” US satellite intelligence supplied in “real-time,” and were consequently ready to repel it. The intelligence was reportedly more detailed—providing information about Chinese positions, movements and force strength—and delivered faster than anything the US had previously shared with India’s military.

Indian troops “were waiting,” a US government source told US News. “And that’s because the US had given India everything to be fully prepared for this. It demonstrates a test case of the success of how the two militaries are now cooperating and sharing intelligence.”

US News said multiple government sources familiar with a secret US intelligence review of the Dec. 9 Himalayan border clash had confirmed this account, and viewed it as marking a new stage in Indo-US military cooperation. “This will definitely rattle the Chinese because they will have not experienced this before,” a high-placed source told the US News. “This time they did not hold the advantage like they did before.”

The framework for “real-time” intelligence sharing between the US and Indian government and militaries was established under the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA), which New Delhi and Washington signed in the fall of 2020. Washington had long pressed India to do so, over the objections of sections of India’s military establishment who feared the agreement could compromise the security of India’s own intelligence and military operations.    

The BECA enables the transfer of real-time geospatial intelligence, as well as the supply of high-end surveillance and communications technology and weapons that make use of them. Its adoption by India means New Delhi has signed all three of the agreements the Pentagon considers “foundational” in developing interoperability for joint operations with foreign militaries. The agreements cover access to Indian ports and military bases for resupply and repair, communications and other compatibility, and intelligence-sharing.

The White House refused to confirm the March 20 US News and World Report article, which asserted that the Dec. 9 events were the first confirmation that the real-time sharing of geospatial intelligence provided for under the BECA is now operational. However, John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for Strategic Communications, did not refute it. He simply said, “I can’t confirm that.” 

The “leak” was clearly aimed at demonstrating that the Indo-US military-strategic alliance is providing New Delhi with tangible benefits in the border dispute and India’s strategic conflict with China more broadly and was quickly promoted by India’s corporate media as such.

As part of its ever escalating all-sided economic, diplomatic, and military-strategic offensive against China, Washington—first under the Republican would be-dictator Trump, and now the Democrat Joe Biden—is playing an ever more conspicuous and provocative role in the India-China border dispute.

When the dispute flared up in May 2020, the US encouraged New Delhi to take a hard line and make it a major international issue. A month later, a clash in the Galwan Valley, which transects Indian-held Ladakh and Chinese-held Aksai Chin, resulted in the deaths of at least 20 Indian troops and four PLA personnel and brought the two nuclear-armed states closer to all-out war than at any time since they fought a short border war in 1962.

Nearly three years on, each side has well over 50,000 troops forward deployed along the LAC, as well as artillery, tanks and fighter jets. Both sides have also embarked on massive military infrastructure building campaigns, erecting new fortifications, and airstrips and road and rail links to move troops and supplies swiftly.

Washington, in marked contrast with the attitude it took in 2017 when Indian and Chinese troops faced off for 10 weeks over the Doklam Plateau, a Himalayan ridge claimed by both China and Bhutan, has abandoned any pretense of neutrality. It has labelled Beijing the “aggressor” and in international forums and statements repeatedly sought to tie the Indo-China border dispute with the South China Sea, where Washington has incited various states to aggressively pursue their respective territorial claims against Beijing as examples of Chinese “aggression.”

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee is currently considering a bipartisan motion that affirms America’s support for India’s claim that the McMahon Line, the border the British Empire imposed on Tibet without any consultation with China in 1914, constitutes the rightful border between India and China. In addition, it calls for closer cooperation between India and the US, including through “enhanced defense interoperability and information-sharing,” the United States-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology” and the Quad—the quasi-strategic alliance between Washington, its closest Asia Pacific allies, Japan and Australia, and New Delhi.

The Dec. 9 clash took place just days after Indian and US troops had concluded a provocative two-week-long military exercise, Yudh Abhyas, in “high altitude warfare” in the Himalayas, just 100 km from the disputed Indo-China border.

The US New and World Report’s claim the Dec. 2022 border encounter was the first time that US-supplied real-time geospatial military intelligence had a material impact on an India-China border clash may well be true. However, Indian reports at the time suggested US-supplied intelligence played a role in the success of an August 2020 Galwan Valley operation in which thousands of Indian troops seized a series of hilltops uncontested. Indian officials subsequently admitted that the operation was high-risk and could easily have led to armed clashes between Indian and Chinese forces, if not the eruption of a full-scale border war. That is, it was undertaken with the knowledge it could trigger a war which, whatever the initial intentions of the belligerents, risked spinning into a broader conflict, involving other regional powers, like Pakistan and the US and its allies.     

By stoking tensions between New Delhi and Beijing, Washington is seeking to harness India still more tightly to its drive to destabilize, encircle, and prepare for war against China. It views India as a means to threaten China along its southern and western borders, but also as central to its plans to economically strangle China in the event of a crisis by denying it access to the Indian Ocean.  

Washington’s war preparations are already far advanced, with Taiwan, which the US is now rapidly arming and seeking to transform into a “giant weapons depot,” only the most prominent in a long series of potential flashpoints. US military and political leaders openly speak about the inevitability of a military showdown, with some saying it could break out by 2025.

The Indian bourgeoisie, for its part, is doubling down on its anti-China strategic partnership with US imperialism, even as Washington’s instigation and escalation of the war with Russia over Ukraine demonstrates that it is ready to risk nuclear conflict to advance its predatory global ambitions.

With the support of the entire political establishment, India’s Narendra Modi-led far-right BJP government has used the flaring up of border tensions with China in 2020 to massively expand India’s bilateral, trilateral, and quadrilateral military-strategic ties with the US, Japan and Australia. This includes the signing of reciprocal logistical supply agreements with Tokyo and Canberra and the expansion of India’s annual Malabar naval exercise to include the navies of all four Quad partners. It has also intensified its collaboration with the US to counter Chinese influence across South Asia, from tiny Maldives to Nepal and Bangladesh.

With an economy one-fifth the size of China’s, the Indian ruling class is also desperately hoping to profit from the plans of the US, Japan and other western imperialist powers to weaken China by pressing their domestically based transnational corporations to relocate production facilities and develop India as an alternative cheap-labour production chain hub.

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, accompanied by a high-powered delegation of global CEOs, visited India from March 7 to 10 to discuss supply chain “resiliency” and diversification, and press India to remove remaining barriers to foreign investment and profit repatriation in key economic sectors.

Earlier, in January, Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and his American counterpart, Jake Sullivan, held the first high-level dialogue on the Initiative for Critical and Emerging Technologies (ICET) that Biden and Modi announced when they met in Tokyo in May 2022 on the sidelines of the first-ever face-to-face summit of Quad government leaders. The ICET aims to promote Indo-US cooperation in the development of new technologies deemed crucial in securing US military and economic supremacy and global hegemony, including artificial intelligence, quantum computing, 6G, biotechnology, space and semiconductors.

Underscoring the breadth of Washington’s ambitions, the US Ambassador to NATO, Julianne Smith, told an April 1 news conference that Washington would welcome India’s entry to NATO. “[T]he message that has already been sent back to India,” said Smith, “is that NATO alliance is certainly open to more engagement with India, should that country take interest in pursuing that.” 

India’s participation in NATO is not currently in the cards. New Delhi has resisted pressure from Washington that it line up full-square behind the NATO war on Russia, with which it has longstanding close ties dating back to the Cold War,  for both political and strategic reasons, including continuing dependence on Moscow for arms supplies and support for its nuclear industry.

But the Indian ruling class, through the “global strategic alliance” it struck with Washington under George W. Bush and has since massively expanded on the full understanding that it was transforming India into a frontline state in Washington’s war preparations against China, has provided American imperialism with pivotal support, thereby emboldening it in its reckless aggression around the world, including against Russia. At the same time, New Delhi has used US strategic favours and support to pursue its own predatory great-power ambitions, including in its reactionary strategic conflicts with Pakistan and China, which could themselves spiral into nuclear conflict.

Mass drowning of refugees off the coast of Tunisia

Martin Kreickenbaum

At least 29 refugees drowned off the Tunisian coast in three boat accidents last week, and another 67 people are missing, according to aid agencies.

These new tragedies occurred amid a veritable exodus of refugees from Tunisia. Mostly coming from Central Africa and West Africa, as well as Pakistan and Bangladesh, they are victims of a racist campaign conducted by the Tunisian government and the European Union's criminal anti-refugee policy.

The Tunisian coast guard was only able to rescue eleven refugees from one of the capsized boats north of the city of Mahdia, while another patrol boat pulled eight bodies out of the water. Two fishing boats recovered another 21 bodies from the sea about 60 kilometres off the coast of the port city of Sfax. The actual death toll, however, is likely to be far higher. Speaking to Sky News, one of the smugglers who organised the crossings said he had counted 130 fatalities in the last week. “There have been many disasters this week,” he added.

The cemetery for migrants who have died trying to reach Europe, in the village of Zarzis, Tunisia, Saturday June 12, 2021. [AP Photo/Mehdi El Arem]

The Tunisian coast guard reported at least 80 decrepit boats last week carrying around 3,000 refugees who were trying to cross to Italy and have now been taken back to Tunisia.

In Italy itself, 6,564 refugees have been registered on the coast in the same period, almost as many as in the first three months of 2022. In total, 27,000 refugees have already been stranded on Italy’s coast this year, with 12,000 having departed from Tunisia, according to the United Nations. That is ten times as many as during the same period last year, when just 1,300 refugees from Tunisia were registered.

The aid organisation Forum for Social and Economic Rights (FTDES) also reported that the Tunisian coast guard had prevented a total of 14,000 refugees from crossing to Italy. Tunisia has thus replaced Libya as the main point of departure for refugees crossing the Mediterranean towards the European Union.

However, only 1,771 of the refugees from Tunisia registered in Italy so far have Tunisian citizenship. According to a report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, 3,660 people gave the Ivory Coast as their country of origin, 3,177 Guinea, 1,986 Pakistan, 1,896 Bangladesh and 1,195 Egypt.

The immediate trigger for this dramatic increase in refugee numbers from Tunisia was a racist diatribe by Tunisian President Kais Saied on February 21 this year. Addressing the generals of the National Security Council, Saied made refugees into scapegoats, declaring they were responsible for the country's deep economic crisis, which has led to rampant poverty and the impoverishment of a broad mass of the population.

Saied stated, “There are still hordes of illegal immigrants coming from sub-Saharan Africa, with all the violence, criminality and unacceptable practices that go with it.” He also said, “The unspoken aim of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to turn Tunisia into another African country that no longer belongs to the Arab and Islamic nations.” He claims there is a deliberately organized “population exchange”, a racist theory widely propagated by far-right and fascist organisations in Europe.

In fact, out of a total population of 12 million, only about 21,000 people in Tunisia are from Central and West Africa. But Saied, who rules with dictatorial powers, sparked pogrom-like agitation against migrants with his speech, especially among the security forces, but also among the most backward layers of the population.

Only two hours after Saied's speech, police began a wave of arrests in the port city of Sfax with its 300,000 inhabitants. Migrants from Central and West Africa were arbitrarily and indiscriminately put in jail. Landlords and employers cancelled migrants’ flats and jobs, often for fear of being criminalised for giving housing and jobs to people from Central Africa.

Hundreds of migrants have gathered in Tunis outside the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) office with tents and tarpaulins, hoping to find shelter from the official raids and attacks. They are marooned there, without access to sanitation and sufficient food.

More than half of the 10,000 migrants from Central and West Africa previously living in Sfax have now left the city. Some have returned to their countries of origin, but thousands are trying to find protection in Europe from the terror of the Tunisian security authorities.

The deeper reason for the mass emigration from the small North African country is the devastating economic crisis that has hit many countries in Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a massive collapse in economic output, hitting the tourism and service sectors in particular. The OECD Tunisia 2022 report, published a year ago, declared that “Tunisians are facing the worst economic crisis in a generation.”

Since then, the war in Ukraine provoked by the NATO powers has dramatically worsened the situation. Energy and food prices have skyrocketed, basic foodstuffs are hard to come by and the official inflation rate is 10.4 percent. Youth unemployment stands at almost 40 percent. At the same time, approval ratings for President Saied’s government have plummeted dramatically. In the last parliamentary elections, only 11 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots at all, while at the same time protests and strikes have increased.

Tunisia’s impending economic collapse has rung alarm bells in the European Union. Italy’s Minister of Civil Protection and the Sea, Sebastiano Musumeci from the fascist Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) party, described Tunisia as a time bomb and, with reference to the rising number of people seeking protection, declared, “The flow is swelling.” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared a week ago: “Tunisia's serious financial problems could spark a new wave of migration.”

European Commission Vice President Josep Borell echoed the same sentiment, fearing that Tunisia's economic collapse would trigger a new wave of migration to Europe. The EU has therefore already made an additional 110 million euros available to North African states as a precautionary measure aimed at preventing refugees crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.

At the same time, the governments of Italy and France are putting pressure on the International Monetary Fund to conclude negotiations on a $2 billion loan for the country. In fact the loan would impose an austerity diktat on Saied’s government, forcing it to cut all remaining subsidies and drastically reduce the public sector. However, the administrative apparatus and especially the security agencies are Saied’s last power base and negotiations are currently suspended.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported Monday that Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, together with several Gulf states, offered to grant Tunisia a loan. In addition, Saied’s loan negotiations with the governments of Russia and China are said to be close to being concluded.

The European Union wants to prevent such a deal at all costs, having chosen Tunisia for a strategic partnership in its deterrence strategy directed against refugees. Among other things, “asylum centres” are to be set up in Tunisia. This refers to detention camps where the European Union can decide on asylum applications from refugees without being bound by the rules that still apply within the European Union. In addition, the Tunisian coast guard is to be expanded in a manner similar to the practice already established by the EU with the Libyan coast guard.

The Tunisian border guards have already adopted the technique of illegal pushbacks, employed for some time by the Libyan and Greek coast guards. Speaking to Sky News, refugees from the Ivory Coast related how their boat was stopped by the Tunisian coast guard. ‘They took our smartphones, we were in the middle of the high seas, and they stole our engines and just left us at sea. They are a gang of robbers and racists.’

The migrants living in Tunisia are caught between twin evils: a racist government in Tunisia that brands them as scapegoats responsible for the economic crisis on the one side, and on the other, a no less inhuman European Union that conducts its merciless campaign against refugees.

A report by the United Nations Human Rights Council recently proved that the European Union is aiding and abetting the so-called Libyan coast guard in committing crimes. The report, written by independent human rights experts, is based on more than 400 interviews, documents and visits to Libya.

Releasing the report in Geneva, co-author Chaloka Bayani said that serious human rights violations against civilians and especially migrants had been uncovered, linked to the activities of the Libyan coast guard, which is funded and trained by the European Union. He stressed: “We are not saying that the EU committed these crimes, but its support is an accessory to the committing of these crimes.”

In the detention centres under the control of the coast guard and other Libyan state institutions, people are tortured, blackmailed, raped and murdered, while others are sold like slaves and some are sexually exploited. The report says: “These facilities received technical, logistical and financial support from the European Union and its member states, including for the interception and repatriation of migrants.” These pushbacks are illegal and a serious violation of the Geneva Refugee Convention.

For its part the European Union claims that supporting the Libyan coast guard helps save lives in the Mediterranean. This is nonsense and the height of cynicism in view of the at least 500 refugees who have already drowned in the Mediterranean this year and the many thousands more who have been pushed back illegally by the Libyan, Tunisian and Greek coast guards.

WHO says that XBB.1.16 “Arcturus” is the next Omicron variant “to watch”

Benjamin Mateus

As Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Technical Lead on COVID-19, noted last week, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to transmit across the globe and kills between 5,000-10,000 people each week. “These are largely among individuals who are of older age, they may not be vaccinated or received the full number of doses that are required for them at their age,” she said.

She then noted that the threat remains because the virus has not settled into a predictable pattern, meaning that as it evolves despite population immunity, it may develop into more virulent forms. 

In particular, she warned that the current variant of interest being tracked, given the designation XBB.1.16 and dubbed “Arcturus” by variant trackers, is the most transmissible variant yet. Having a similar profile as its predecessor XBB.1.5, its additional mutation has shown it to be more infectious and pathogenic in the laboratory setting, although preliminary data does not indicate it is causing a more severe disease among people infected. However, she noted, “It is the one to watch.”

This is because the concerning K478R mutation on the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein makes the new variant more capable of dodging antibodies from prior immunity, whether due to vaccination or infection. The mutation also enhances its infectiousness and virulence. Since XBB.1.6 has emerged, it has quickly outpaced XBB.1.5, spreading almost twice as fast.

As of last week, only 800 sequences of XBB.1.16 have been analyzed. Most have come from India, where it is now the dominant variant. However, the highly infectious variant has been found in at least 23 other countries. 

People wearing face masks wait for COVID-19 tests at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

The variant of interest is a newcomer to the WHO’s list of variants, first added on March 22, 2023. However, due to a significant decline in COVID-19 surveillance and submission of sequences, it is unclear when the variant first actually surfaced. 

In the US, XBB.1.5 remains the dominant version, accounting for 88 percent of all sequenced variants as of the first week of April, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They have not listed XBB.1.16 in their updates, but given that they have previously withheld such data until a whistleblower forced their hand, similar shenanigans could be once more at play. 

According to Raj Rajnarayanan, Assistant Dean of Research and Associate Professor at Arkansas State University, 18 states in the US have detected “Arcturus.” Additionally, 14 states have detected its descendant, the variant XBB.1.16.1. Presently, XBB.1.16 and XBB.1.16.1 are aggregated under the umbrella of XBB until they reach the 1 percent threshold of all variants across the country, when the CDC is required to list them separately.

Besides the US, the spread of XBB.1.16 covers nearly the entire surface of the globe, including Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea, South Africa, Israel, the UK and most of the major countries across Europe, where excess deaths have remained stubbornly high. 

Although not all deaths are from COVID-19, higher numbers of underlying pre-existing health conditions are being exacerbated, which may be directly attributable to the impact COVID-19 infections have caused across the population. These are further compounded by the chronic strain on health systems because of “let it rip” policies that have allowed repeated waves of infections to inundate hospitals.

In India, despite the low quantity of testing and tracking, the federal health ministry recorded more than 3,000 COVID-19 cases in a 24-hour period last Thursday, the highest figure in over six months. There has been a more than four-fold increase in new cases in a month. According to New Delhi’s Health Minister Saurabh Bhardwaj, the positivity rate has climbed above 10 percent. “We have issued an advisory,” he told reporters. “Asking people to wear masks if they have flu-like symptoms and in hospitals.”

Dr. Rahul Sharma, a pulmonologist and critical care physician at Fortis Hospital Noida, confirmed, “The sudden surge of cases throughout India is being seen. The main reason is the new variant of concern of COVID-19. The symptoms are mild, but a lot of patients are coming up with superimposed pneumonia. Another common reason is the low coverage of precautionary (booster) vaccine among people, which is less than 30 percent.”

Speaking with Fortune magazine, Biology Professor Ryan Gregory at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, explained that despite India’s “hefty population immunity,” the pandemic was gaining momentum, which is concerning. It remains speculative how large the surge will be, but he said, “large waves aren’t the main pattern of COVID cases anymore. It’s the consistently high baseline that won’t come down.”

Indeed, the official COVID-19 deaths since December 2019 have reached nearly 6.9 million, while the central estimate of global excess deaths has risen to 21.3 million, or 3.1 times the official COVID-19 fatalities. And although official COVID-19 deaths per week are slowly declining, weekly excess deaths have risen 33 percent since the end of February. 

In the US, according to the still operating New York Times COVID tracker, the average daily rate of COVID-19 deaths has never declined below 250 since May 2022. This translates to approximately 100,000 preventable deaths annually, a figure that is twice the deadliest flu season in the last two decades. Since January 1, 2023, in the span of three months, almost 34,000 people have died. 

The wave of XBB.1.16(.1), which may become dominant in the US, will have potentially significant consequences for the working class when the entire federal COVID-19 pandemic apparatus is dismantled. Workers will have to choose between working while infected or being fired for taking appropriate precautions. Anecdotally, already many workers who are infected are reporting difficulties obtaining the anti-viral treatment manufactured by Pfizer, Paxlovid, from their providers. Pharmacies will not provide the treatments without a physician’s prescription.

Because COVID-19 has been so downplayed by both the government and the media, there is a palpable lack of urgency on the part of pharmacies and health care systems to address the needs of those with coronavirus infections. Those anti-viral treatments which help reduce the chance of severe disease and Long COVID need to be administered within days of developing symptoms, or their benefits are diminished. 

Additionally, the end of the federal public health emergency for COVID-19 next month means access to individual “home tests” will become more expensive and harder to get. Reliance on wastewater surveillance will be critical to track the leading edge of the next wave of infections. However, this requires funding and coordination at the national level to become truly effective for monitoring COVID-19 and other infectious pathogens. 

There is complete disregard for any real public health initiative on the part of states and the federal government in the face of the current threat posed by COVID-19 and repeated outbreaks of highly infective and potentially deadly pathogens. This has immense implications for the working class who have, until now, been dependent and reliant on the government to look out for their well-being.