Australia: Homeless people speak on worsening social crisis

Susan Allan

Record numbers of homeless people are living on the streets of Australia’s cities as charities and government services strain to meet growing demands from families, young people, pensioners and the unemployed seeking shelter and accessing meal programs.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, a federal homeless agency, reported in its 2013–2014 annual review that nationally those seeking assistance had increased by 4 percent from the previous year, with more than three-quarters of this increase registered in Victoria. Long the centre of the Australian manufacturing industry, working people in the state have been hard hit by years of corporate restructuring, backed by successive Labor and Liberal governments and enforced by the trade unions.

In Melbourne, the number of people sleeping rough on the streets has increased by nearly 25 percent in the last twelve months. Rising housing costs is fuelling the homelessness crisis, with just 8 percent of available homes now affordable for low income families in the city.

World Socialist Web Site reporters recently spoke with people attending the Salvation Army’s inner city café in Melbourne. Free breakfasts and lunches are regularly provided to more than 150 people daily, with the Salvation Army reporting increasing demand of between 60 and 100 percent over the last year. A wide range of people access the meal service, not just the homeless, including pensioners, single parents with young children, the unemployed and university students.

Risto originally came to Australia in 1996 from Finland. “I’ve been homeless since 2005,” he explained. “I was self-employed as a builder in carpentry but developed a health problem and was unable to continue working … I think it’s shocking that in Australia people are being forced into homelessness—government policies are terrible. We all have the right to housing, yet we are treated like this. People need to know what is happening.

Risto

“The place the Salvos gave me [in a boarding house] costs $180 a week, just to live in one room. The person I share with has come from jail. He’s been given no support since leaving prison and doesn’t know how to cope. It’s not his fault. I’ve been assaulted in some of these places, some people have mental health problems or drug problems.”

He continued: “We had a Christmas party here with 100 homeless people invited—it was just a media stunt for politicians. I think all governments have a lot to answer for, I can’t understand how this country with all these resources, and high taxes, can treat people with such little dignity.”

Kennedy a young Aboriginal man who is currently unemployed, said: “I’m here because I am on Newstart [the poverty-level unemployment benefit]. After I pay my rent of $130, I only have $270 to live on for the rest of the fortnight. It’s a one bedroom place, with a toilet and shower, that’s it. I share a kitchen. And then we have to pay for our own food and stuff, so it is pretty hard.

Kennedy

“If I have no food I come here to the café, sometimes three times a week … Before this, where I was staying all you got was a bed, a meal, a shower. That cost $350 a fortnight. It is hard to access those sorts of places and you can only stay for a short time. I had to wait four months to get in there. Last time I got sick from the food they were giving us. Most of it is donated, cooked somewhere else and then brought to the place. It’s not hygienic.

“I have a forklift and car licence. I have been looking for a job for over five years. I go for interviews but they always knock me back. I get depressed and have to take medication, and that probably stops me from getting jobs too. I am just trying to live a good life but it is so hard to even get a start.”

David has been on the disability support pension for 10 years. “The thing I have noticed since the change of government, with Abbott coming in, is that all government departments seem to be far more intrusive as to your requirements to be on a pension. I have just received a letter that I have to go and see a government doctor. I already have pre-existing conditions and I am really perplexed as to why the government is doing this. I’m concerned the changes to the DSP might mean I am taken off the pension.”

David

Several students from Colombia told theWorld Socialist Web Site that after paying their fees and rent they had nothing left to buy food. “When university re-opens after the summer break you will see many more students coming here in the exact same situation as us,” one explained.

An ex-health worker, who did not want to be identified, explained her situation. “I worked in the health industry for 20 years, but was a victim of domestic violence and had to leave my husband and I became homeless. I was unable to keep my job due to my home situation. I asked for proper safe housing but they never provided it. The place I currently stay is a long way from the city and doesn’t have facilities for people like me, so I need money for transport to come here.

“There is an organisation called Home Ground, where people who need housing line up. The lines are getting longer and longer. I have noticed increased numbers of single mothers with children. People just don’t realise how severe the situation is.”

Angelina has been unemployed for more than six months. “I’ve also been homeless for six months,” she said. “I lost my job in retail and I couldn’t get any family support, so I ended up homeless. I have no eligibility for benefits in Australia. Before I came here I worked as a social worker in New Zealand. I had problems with addiction, and it stops me from working.

Angelina

“I come here to get food and some coffee. I don’t often use their services, as I think they treat the homeless as if it’s their fault. Some of the charities are just for profit, and they’re not really interested in solving people’s problems. They just give band-aid measures. The boarding houses they run take your entire dole payment, it’s really dehumanising.

“A group of us get together and ask cafés for extra food. We take the food down to the park for people. You see more and more elderly people coming to get the food. I just find it so sad—it could be your grandmother. There are plenty of families that are homeless too, but they are not as visible because some of them are living in cars.”

Angelina denounced the major parties. “I think all the austerity measures are terrible—the rich and poor divide is growing. It’s causing massive social problems. If you really want to resolve the problems, the government needs to give people jobs, and mental health and other support.”

Australian police carry out another anti-terror raid

Peter Symonds

A raid by Australian police in Sydney on Tuesday, resulting in the arrest of two young men as terrorist suspects, has been immediately seized upon by the state and federal governments, as well as the establishment media, to fuel a climate of fear and uncertainty. The police have provided scant details of the operation, and those that have been provided should be treated with suspicion.

The two men—Mohammad Kiad, 25, from Kuwait and Omar al-Kutobi, 24, who moved to Australia from Iraq in 2009—were living in the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield in a modified garage. Police claim that they began monitoring the pair on Tuesday morning acting on an undisclosed tip-off. The two men bought a hunting knife from a military supplies shop at 3 p.m. and heavily-armed police swooped on the Fairfield property an hour later.

New South Wales Deputy Police Commissioner Catherine Burn alleged yesterday that “the men were potentially going to harm someone, maybe even kill someone.” She said that police had seized a machete, a hunting knife, a home-made flag representing the proscribed terrorist organisation IS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and a video depicting a man talking about carrying out an attack.”

Burn claimed on the basis of the video that an attack was imminent. “We will allege that both of these men were preparing to do this act today [Tuesday].” She released no details from the video, which was reportedly in Arabic, but insisted that the “intent is clear.” Both men have been refused bail.

It is worth recalling the outcome of the massive police raids that took place in Sydney last September. More than 800 state and federal police and Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) officers stormed 15 premises and detained 17 people, leading to lurid claims that a public beheading, on the orders of ISIS, was about to be carried out in Sydney. The allegations were based on an intercepted phone conversation and the seizure of a sword.

The police later admitted that the word “behead” had not been used in the phone discussion. The sword turned out to be plastic. Of those detained, only one was actually charged with “conspiring to act in preparation for, or plan, a terrorist act or acts”—an extraordinarily sweeping and vague charge.

The raids, however, had served their political purpose—to justify the escalating US-led military intervention in Iraq and Syria, and Australian involvement in it, as well as a raft of draconian new anti-terror legislation that was rapidly pushed through the Australian parliament.

In December, the Abbott government, along with the entire media and political establishment, elevated a hostage standoff at a Sydney café involving a disturbed and unstable individual into a major national crisis. Thousands of heavily armed police flooded central Sydney in what was a dress rehearsal for the lockdown of a city. The siege was used to justify the massive build-up of the police and security apparatus and expansion of police state powers over the past decade under the banner of the “war on terror.”

Tuesday’s arrests served similar political ends. Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared that the threat of terrorism was “a serious issue” and warned that it could “get worse before it gets better.” For Abbott, the raid was a useful diversion from the continuing crisis surrounding his government after Monday’s leadership challenge, as well as a justification for further anti-terror laws.

Abbott played the war on terror card in his National Press Club speech on February 2 aimed at shoring up his leadership. He called for sweeping new legislation to make it an offense to “justify terrorism,” going beyond existing laws that illegalise organisations that “advocate terrorism.” While Abbott targeted the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, such laws could be applied very widely to anyone who, for instance, explains that the roots of organisations such as ISIS are in the criminal wars of US imperialism in the Middle East.

During a visit last Thursday to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) headquarters, Abbott pressed for the passage of legislation which will require that Internet service providers retain the metadata for all Internet activity for two years. The law would provide the means for police and intelligence agencies to spy on the email, social media and Internet surfing of the entire Australian population.

The metadata legislation, which has provoked widespread opposition, is currently being examined by a parliamentary committee which is due to report at the end of February. “As soon as that report comes down,” Abbott said, “the government wants the parliament to deal with it, because we know … there are a whole range of people … who want to do us harm.”

The police raid on Tuesday will undoubtedly be used as a further pretext for pushing through the legislation, with the support of the opposition Labor Party and the Greens, which have voted for previous anti-democratic laws on terrorism.

The spectre of so-called “lone wolf” attacks is already widely raised in the media following police claims that the arrested men, Kiad and al-Kutobi, had no known associations with Australian citizens who have gone to the Middle East to fight for Islamist organisations. This will be exploited to justify even greater surveillance powers.

AFP Deputy Commissioner Michael Phelan declared yesterday that there was now “a new paradigm” of terrorism—low level, simple attacks that unfold quickly. “Police forces, whether they be state or federal, or our intelligence agencies need to be nimble to adjust to the threat and work out what our tactics are at a particular time.”

Federal Attorney-General George Brandis used this week’s incident to justify anti-democratic measures that were rammed through after the September police raids. He claimed that the arrests on Tuesday “may not have been possible under the old law but it was made possible by the reforms which this Senate passed when it passed the Foreign Fighters Act.”

Among its many other draconian measures, the Foreign Fighters Act increases the AFP’s already arbitrary arrest powers by allowing a police officer to detain anyone he or she “reasonably suspects” of having committed a crime. This is a far looser legal standard than the previous “reasonably believes.” The change enables police to act on all manner of rumour, suspicion and prejudice and raises the question of what was known about Kiad and al-Kutobi before they were arrested.

Indonesian government pushes ahead with planned executions

John Roberts

The Indonesian government is determined to press ahead with a second round of executions of 11 convicts despite appeals for mercy from families, foreign governments and lawyers. In the case of two prisoners, Australian citizens Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, it has brushed aside a new legal appeal launched in the State Administrative Court in Jakarta.

The latest court case follows the rejection of an appeal for a judicial review in the Denpasar District Court on February 4, following the intervention of Indonesia’s Attorney-General H. M. Prasetyo. Chan and Sukumaran were convicted along with seven others in 2006 of attempting to bring 8.3 kilograms of heroin from Bali into Australia.

Prasetyo told the media that the embassies of foreign nationals had been informed of the executions and that these would be carried out at “the right time … maybe within two weeks, maybe less than two weeks.” The authorities normally inform relatives of the exact dates, but are not legally obliged to do so.

Six prisoners were executed by firing squad on January 18, and, as in the current cases, most had been convicted of drug offences. These were the first judicial killings in Indonesia since March 2013 when three were shot. This was the only use of the country’s reactionary death penalty laws in the last five years under the previous President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The decision by current President Joko Widodo to reactivate and accelerate executions is based on cynical political calculations. In an interview with CNN on January 27, Widodo was adamant that there would be no mercy and “no compromise” for the scores of drug offenders among the more than the 130 prisoners currently on death row.

Widodo is engaged in a law-and-order campaign to cement his ties to the politically powerful police and military apparatus established under the decades-long Suharto dictatorship. He is also seeking support from right-wing Islamist groups as his government implements deeply unpopular austerity measures and pro-market restructuring demanded by big business and foreign investors.

In the case of Chan and Sukumaran, the political considerations in Canberra are no less venal. The overriding concern of the government of Prime Minister Tony Abbott is to do nothing to upset Australia’s strategically important relationship with Indonesia. Particularly over the past decade, close ties have been forged between the police, military and security apparatuses of the two countries under the banner of the “war on terror.”

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) provided the intelligence to their Indonesian counterparts that enabled the arrest of the so-called “Bali Nine” in 2005 even though Indonesia imposes the death sentence for drug trafficking. The federal government and its agencies are legally barred from assisting a foreign country in prosecuting anyone charged with an offence punishable by death, but the AFP effectively put Chan and Sukumaran on death row.

Beside the two Australians due to be executed, probably on Nusakambangan Island off Central Java, the attorney general’s office has named Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte, Filipino Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, French national Serge Areski Atlaoui, Ghanaian Martin Anderson, Nigerian Raheem Agbaje Salami and four Indonesians—Syofial, Zainal Abidin, Sargawi and Haran bin Ajis.

The case being brought by Chan and Sukumaran in the Administrative Court case is based on challenging Widodo’s blanket denial of clemency for drug offenders sentenced to death. Their lawyers are arguing that each case should be dealt with on its merits.

Former Constitutional Court and Supreme Court judge Laica Marzuki told the media that Widodo’s decrees denying clemency were administrative acts and therefore the Administrative Court had jurisdiction. However, the judge would not comment of the outcome of the case. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that such an appeal had only been tried once before in 2008 and failed.

The lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran were also acting on information from Mohamad Rifan, a lawyer in the 2006 case. He said that the judges had come to him after the case and said that they had not wanted to impose the death penalty and implied there had been a political “intervention” into the penalty phase of the case.

In addition, one of the trial judges, Roro Suryowati, currently a High Court judge, said this week in an interview with the News Corporation that she had voted against the death sentence and that neither Chan nor Sukumaran deserved to be executed.

Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly, speaking on February 9 on the sidelines of a meeting of the Indonesian parliament, indicated that the Widodo might “review” the executions. His remarks were flatly contradicted by the attorney general’s office, which stated that the Administrative Court case would not alter the government’s plans to execute Chan, Sukumaran and the other nine prisoners.

The families of Chan and Sukumaran are in Indonesia and have made emotional appeals to Widodo to spare the two men.

No senior Australian minister has flown to Jakarta to call on Widodo to call off the executions. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the media “representations” were being made at the highest level from Canberra, but provided no details. “The course we are adopting is in the best interests of Mr Chan and Mr Sukumaran,” she claimed.

In fact, the Abbott government’s main concern is to maintain close relations with Indonesia. Successive Australian governments, Liberal and Labor, regard Indonesia as vital to Canberra’s interests in South East Asia and the broader Asia Pacific region. Indonesia has only assumed greater strategic importance as Canberra has integrated more closely in the US “pivot to Asia” and Washington’s military build-up throughout the region against China.

US closes diplomatic facilities in Yemen

Thomas Gaist

The US moved to close its diplomatic mission in Yemen on Tuesday, in the wake of the dissolution of Yemen’s official government by the Shia Houthi insurgency that seized control of the capital last September.

Following the US lead, Britain, France and Germany also closed their embassies in Yemen Wednesday, as Houthi leaders engaged in UN-supervised talks with competing political factions. The US State Department has issued a warning advising all US citizens to leave Yemen immediately.

Previous statements by Pentagon and Obama administration officials indicated that the White House was considering an arrangement with the Houthis that will enable continuation of the US drone war. Nonetheless, the State Department issued muted condemnations of the Houthis this week, signaling the start of a pressure campaign to insure that Yemen’s new rulers toe the US line.

“Recent unilateral actions disrupted the political transition process in Yemen, creating the risk that renewed violence would threaten Yemenis and the diplomatic community,” US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said.

“We will not hesitate to act in Yemen,” Psaki declared.

The “transition” process referred to by Psaki was orchestrated through the US and Saudi-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), replacing the hated regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh with a similarly pliant puppet regime headed by Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who emerged as the victor of a one-man election held in February 2012.

Despite the recent collapse of the Hadi government, US Special Forces will continue to carry out operations in the country on a “unilateral” basis, US Admiral John Kirby stressed in public statements. While Kirby noted “concerns about the tentacles that Iran has throughout the region,” referring to the Houthis ties to Iran, he made clear that the main priority of the US is to continue its covert military operations in the country.

“We still have Special Operations forces in Yemen, we continue to conduct counterterrorism training with Yemeni security forces, and we are still capable inside Yemen of conducting counterterrorism operations,” Kirby said.

“We want to be able to continue to have an effective partner there in Yemen,” Kirby added.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers will continue working inside Yemen, despite losing their main outpost in the embassy, according to Fox News. The closed embassy had long served “as a base for the CIA and other US spy agencies,” the Washington Post noted.

The decades-long Saleh dictatorship consolidated power on the basis of the 1990 unification of North and nominally Stalinist-led South Yemen, receiving covert support from major US and European transnational corporations in the process, according to a CIA report produced at the time.

After 2001, Saleh positioned himself as a loyal ally of Washington and the “war on terror,” coordinating US military operations in Yemen— including those directed at Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—through regular meetings with leading US government officials.

Top US politicians are calling for military escalation in Yemen in response to the Houthi coup. “Yemen has been of strategic importance to the United States, and I fear these latest developments will create a vacuum that will ultimately benefit” AQAP, US Senator Lindsey Graham said in a statement Wednesday.

AQAP “continues to harbor a burning desire to attack the United States,” Graham said.

Though framed in terms of the struggle against AQAP, the underlying aim of the US in Yemen is to secure control of the strategically critical Bab al Mandab straight. Connecting the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, the straight facilitates daily passage of massive commercial flows, including major sections of world trade in oil and grain, giving Yemen a strategic significance well beyond its small size and relative poverty of resources.

Directly across the straight lies Djibouti, where the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) maintains its largest military facility in Africa, Camp Lemonnier. The base serves as a central hub for US drone strikes and covert operations across the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula.

Reports indicate that the Houthis themselves are seeking arrangements with US imperialism. “We didn’t want them to go, and we were ready to work with the American Embassy on measures that would ensure their protection and facilitate their work,” an anonymous Houthi leader told the Times.

At the same time, Yemen appears on the verge of civil war and social breakdown, as increasing areas of the country fall to various armed factions and its oil industry and economy reel from the withdrawal of some $4 billion in annual Saudi aid. The central state administration, now under the de facto control of the Houthi Revolutionary Committee, may be incapable of paying employees for work in February, the Times reported.

Houthi fighters engaged in shows of force against mass demonstrations in the capital on Wednesday, according to Reuters, while continuing offensive operations aimed at seizing control of broader sections of southern Yemen. The insurgents captured the capital of Yemen’s central Al-Bayda province Tuesday, according to Asharq al-Awsat, leaving more than half of the country’s provinces under Houthi control.

Judge in Stockton bankruptcy upholds retiree benefit cuts

Adam Mclean

On February 4th, Judge Christopher Klein of the United States Bankruptcy Court signed a confirmation order allowing the city of Stockton, California to move forward with its bankruptcy plan of adjustment.

The order will most likely enable the city of Stockton to exit bankruptcy after an automatic two-week stay. According to officials, the city is expected to exit from bankruptcy later this month.

Judge Klein’s 54-page opinion in the ruling claims that pension obligations under state law can be unilaterally overwritten during the course of bankruptcy proceedings.

Using language that does not even attempt to conceal his enthusiasm for slashing the retirement benefits of elderly workers, Klein declares, “CalPERS [the state’s public employee pension system] has bullied its way about this case with an iron fist.” The fund, Klein wrote, “turns out to have a glass jaw.”

The move to slash the pension benefits of Stockton public employees is part of a nationwide assault on public employee pensions and benefits. The precedent for these moves was set by the Detroit bankruptcy, in which workers’ pensions were cut by 4.5 percent, and cost of living adjustments were eliminated.

CalPERS had made a claim of $1.6 billion against the city for unmet pension obligations. The fund had hoped to recoup the $1.6 billion through a lien against city assets.

Klein instead ruled that while employee pensions are nominally honored under state law, the lien itself could be set aside under federal bankruptcy law, effectively negating the very mechanism which would ensure the disbursement to retirees of their constitutionally guaranteed pension payments. Furthermore, according to the judge, state municipalities should be allowed to exit the pension system entirely.

As part of the city’s bankruptcy plan, all retiree medical benefits–part of a program costing $544 million–have been eliminated. To make up for this devastating blow to retirees, a paltry, one-time payout of $5.1 million has been made to those affected. Most of these retirees are not eligible for social security benefits and live on near poverty level incomes from CalPERS.

Under the plan of adjustment, remaining pension benefits for new city employees will be lowered while individual employee contributions will rise. In addition to cutting pension benefits for all new hires to the bone, the plan will inevitably be used to pit “greedy” older workers against younger new hires.

The ruling should be taken as a grave warning to the working class. The initiation of municipal bankruptcy is now a tool that the financial elite can utilize to eliminate pensions and healthcare for retirees entirely.

Klein also wrote in his opinion, “As a matter of law, the City’s pension administration contract with CalPERS, as well as the City-sponsored pensions themselves, may be adjusted as part of a chapter 9 plan.” He continued, “It is doubtful that CalPERS even has standing to defend the City pensions from modification. This decision determines that the obstacles interposed by CalPERS are not effective in bankruptcy.”

Furthermore, the legal reasoning behind Klein’s ruling is that in bankruptcy proceedings states effectively act as “gatekeepers.” That is, states initiate bankruptcy proceedings by determining whether or not bankruptcy is necessary, but once they have, federal Bankruptcy Code directs proceedings. Since pensions often derive their hardiness from their enshrinement in state constitutions, by making bankruptcy a federal issue, state constitutions are effectively bypassed. This opinion may well be used as a starting point for future attacks on pensions across the country.

Bankruptcy courts are increasingly becoming the method of choice by the ruling class to circumvent democracy and impose new and greater attacks on the working class. In Detroit this took the form of an unelected emergency manager, deep cuts in pensions, the sell-off and privatization of public services and invaluable art, and even the cutting off of access by a large section of the population to water.

Franklin Templeton, an investment firm that is calling for even sharper cuts to workers’ pensions, is being represented by Jones Day, the same firm that oversaw the dubious and semi-legal proceedings in the Detroit bankruptcy.

Talks on Greek bailout terms break down

Robert Stevens

Talks between the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Vourafakis and the 18 other finance ministers of the euro zone held in Brussels yesterday broke down without any agreement on proposals by the Syriza-led government for dealing with the country’s debt.

There were mixed messages from the discussions which lasted well into the night with some initial reports suggesting an agreement in principle had been reached. But after six hours the meeting broke up without even a statement on how to take discussions forward at the regular meeting of the Eurogroup, comprising the region’s finance ministers, to be held next Monday.

According to a report in the Financial Times, a joint statement had been agreed but after Vourafakis consulted Athens new objections were raised to the wording and the statement was scrapped.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, who chaired the meeting in his capacity as head of the Eurogroup, said there was no agreement on how negotiations should proceed. It was his “ambition” to have an agreement before Monday’s meeting on the steps to be taken but “unfortunately we haven’t been able to do that.”

After receiving a slap in the face over his proposals for restructuring the Greek debt and his call for a bridging loan to finance the government from the end of the month when the present agreement runs out, Vourafakis, engaged in the fawning rhetoric which has characterised so many of his public statements.

He said the talks were “constructive” and “fascinating” and that he was pleased to have “had the opportunity to table our views.”

While it was never expected that an agreement would emerge from yesterday’s talks there was a belief that at least a procedure for negotiations would be set up. But even this foundered in the face of opposition to any restructuring led by Germany.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaüble insisted on Tuesday that discussion on debt restructuring could only take place if Greece accepted an extension of the previous troika program, which is to expire on February 28. “We are not negotiating a new program. We already have a program,” he said. If Greece would not accept being in the existing program, “then that’s it.”

Schaüble’s hardline was supported by Dijsselbloem in the lead-up to the talks. Rejecting Syriza government assertions that it would no longer hold discussions with the troika—the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund—he said: “An agreement is an agreement. That means that only within the program, measures could be exchanged for other measures.”

Any changes would first need approval from the troika. “Then you can change the program, you can fill the program in differently. But support without a program, support without further progress on reforms is unthinkable. The alternative measures will always have to be vetted, tested by the troika, whether you call it the troika or not,” Dijsselbloem said.

The Obama administration, while endorsing reforms of the Greek economy to enable the further exploitation of its strategically vital assets and infrastructure, made urgent appeals for an agreement to be reached with Greece to prevent it being forced out of the euro zone.

On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew called for a “practical and pragmatic” solution saying, “I don’t think that there should be casual talk about the kind of resolution that would end up leaving Greece in a place that is unstable or the EU in a place that is unstable.”

A critical factor in US calculations is to keep Greece within the orbit of NATO, under conditions where it is ramping up preparations for war against Russia and making hostile moves against China. Russia and China are seeking to cement closer ties with Greece.

Yesterday Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias was in talks with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Moscow. Russia, as Lavrov again confirmed, has offered to assist the Greek government with funds.

This followed a warning to EU leaders from Panos Kammenos, the leader of Syriza’s right-wing coalition partner the Independent Greeks. “What we want is a deal,” he said on Tuesday. “But if there is no deal—hopefully (there will be)—and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source. It could be the United States at best, it could be Russia, it could be China or other countries.”

Thousands protested in Athens and Thessalonika to urge an end to austerity. But those hoping that Syriza will follow through on its pledge to abandon austerity measures and who voted for the party on this basis will be disabused.

Syriza’s leading representatives, including Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Varoufakis, spent the hours leading up to the meeting seeking to assure the representatives of the EU and international financial elite that they would impose a host of structural reforms to pay off the debt and remain in the euro zone.

Varoufakis met with the IMF’s chief Christine Lagarde just prior to Wednesday’s meeting. Immediately following Syriza’s election victory, she warned that Greece would have to assent to previous agreements. “There are internal euro zone rules to be respected,” she said. “We cannot make special categories for such or such country. It’s not a question of austerity measures, these are in-depth reforms that remain to be done.”

Syriza’s differences with the troika’s austerity agenda are of a tactical nature, with Varoufakis already on record that the government will impose 70 percent of the measures. They are requesting an interim “bridging” agreement at least until the end of June, after which Greece would formally be able legally participate in the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing program.

Proposals on an agreement until the end of August have also been prepared. If Greece has no access to funds it could default on its debt because Greek bonds currently held by the ECB (worth about €7 billion) must be repaid by that date.

To persuade EU leaders of its commitments to imposing “structural” changes, the Tsipras government has been working closely with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Varoufakis has presented to the Eurogroup a list of 10 “reforms” already prepared jointly between the government and the OECD.

Tsipras cloaked this manoeuvre in anti-austerity garb saying any program would be based “not on what was previously decided but on a popular mandate.” This rhetoric is belied by the record of the OECD, which was instrumental in drawing up hundreds of measures in order to “liberalise” and open up the Greek economy to competition.

By January 2014, the previous New Democracy (ND) government hadagreed to around 80 percent of the OECD recommendations. Two months later the OECD authored a “Competition Assessment Review” on Greece, noting that its study “identifies hundreds of competition-distorting rules and provisions.”

The report flagged up “555 problematic regulations” and called for “more than 320 recommendations on legal provisions that should be amended or repealed.”

The OECD demanded the overhaul of the Greek economy, sharply in favour of big business and international capital, even prior to the 2008 global financial crash. In 2006, the OECD called on the then ND government to accelerate the opening up of the Greek economy. Speaking as students protested outside a conference, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said reform of the education system in Greece was critical. Another priority was an overhaul of the pensions system, he added.

Tsipras met with Gurria on Wednesday, with Syriza’s leader saying he told him, “We have common targets and that we can cooperate.”

German Left Party backs Merkel on Ukraine crisis

Ulrich Rippert

The Left Party has responded to the Ukraine crisis and the growing danger of a war with Russia by backing the policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Party Chairman Berndt Riexinger opened a press conference Monday by stating, “We explicitly welcome the diplomatic efforts of Chancellor Merkel and French President Hollande.”

One might have mistaken him for the chancellor’s official spokesman when he repeated Merkel’s statement that there was no alternative to negotiations. Everything had to be done to reach an acceptable solution through negotiations, he insisted.

“We welcome the clear statement on supplying weapons by the chancellor,” Riexinger continued, adding, “Merkel correctly pointed out that the Ukrainian conflict cannot be resolved militarily.”

Riexinger presented four demands: no arms to Ukraine, a ceasefire between Ukrainian government troops and the rebels in the east, more autonomy for the regions in Ukraine, and a greater involvement of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe).

Making clear that the Left Party’s demands are fully within the framework of official German government policy, Riexinger emphasised that the demand for no military supplies to Ukraine was not limited to one side. “The supply of arms by Russia to the separatists must also be halted. I emphasise that explicitly,” he said.

Riexinger’s attempt to present the German government’s opposition to the dispatch of arms to Ukraine by the US as a peace policy is a grotesque falsification of the facts.

Along with the US, the German government is chiefly responsible for the current crisis, which threatens to escalate into a war, possibly employing nuclear weapons, between the NATO powers and Russia.

Berlin was the driving force behind the Association Agreement to integrate Ukraine economically and strategically in to the sphere of influence of the European Union (EU) and NATO, even though Ukraine had been part of Russia and later the Soviet Union since the 17th century. When then-President Viktor Yanukovych opposed the signing of the agreement, the German government helped organise a coup that brought a pro-Western regime to power with the backing of fascist forces. That this provoked a reaction from Moscow and the population in eastern Ukraine, which has close links to Russia, was entirely predictable.

Since then, Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have promoted the military encirclement of Russia in cooperation with the United States. They have imposed economic sanctions and supported the strengthening of NATO forces along the Russian border. The spearhead of a new rapid deployment force to enable NATO to mobilise tens of thousands of soldiers against Russia within a few days will be led this year by the German army.

However, Merkel and Steinmeier had not anticipated that the US would deliberately work toward a military confrontation. Washington is aiming to involve Ukraine in a long and expensive war, as spelled out by former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

During the administration of Democratic President Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski developed the same policy for Afghanistan, where the Americans armed Islamic fundamentalists in a proxy war against the Soviet Union.

The private security web site Stratfor, which has close ties to American intelligence, wrote: “There is a contradiction inherent in German strategy… In Ukraine, Germany was an early supporter of the demonstrations that gave rise to the current government. I don’t think the Germans expected the Russian or US responses, and they do not want to partake in any military reaction to Russia. At the same time, Germany does not want to back away from support for the government in Ukraine.”

Germany’s reluctance to supply the Kiev regime with weapons, which would plunge Ukraine into a drawn out war with countless victims and have a negative impact on Germany, does not mean that it is a peaceful power. Merkel has left no doubt that she supports an intensification of sanctions against Russia and will continue to align with Washington in escalating the conflict.

To the extent that there are voices in the German ruling elite calling for more distance from Washington, they are doing so in order to strengthen Germany militarily and turn it once again into an aggressive great power.

This aim was announced when German President Gauck, Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Defence Minister Von der Leyen proclaimed a year ago that Germany had to play a role “in Europe and the world” that corresponded to its size and influence, and that “in a world full of crises and unrest” Germany required an active and militarist foreign policy. The coup in Ukraine was the practical implementation of this policy.

With the emergence of tensions between Berlin and Washington, the Left Party has given up even its purely formal distance from the policies of German imperialism. That is the real significance of Riexinger’s words of praise for Merkel and Germany’s actions in Ukraine.

The Left Party’s representatives now move among imperialist politicians and military brass like fish in water. Four of their parliamentary deputies participated in the recent Munich Security Conference to exchange views with high-ranking politicians and military officials. Wolfgang Gehrcke, Left Party representative on the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, has noted at every opportunity that he is well connected in all areas, including the military and intelligence agencies.

Amid the growth in transatlantic tensions, the Left Party is positioning itself as a defender of German imperialism. The Left Party is the only party in the German parliament whose predecessors stood on the other side of the Iron Curtain during the years of the Cold War. Now they connect their critique of NATO and America’s war policy with support for the return of German great power politics.

This is the meaning of comments by former party chairman Oscar Lafontaine at the beginning of the year. At the Rosa Luxemburg conference of the Junge Welt newspaper, he said that as long as Germany was a NATO member and NATO’s infrastructure was dominated by America, Germany did not constitute a genuine sovereign state. The “vassalage” and “obligation to contribute” connected with NATO membership had to be overcome, he declared.

Lafontaine continued: “Germany has practically participated in every war led by the United States of America because all of the wars they have led have relied on US facilities in central Europe. We were in every case a participant. And as long as that is the case, we are not a sovereign country.”

The demand for German sovereignty is a key demand of right-wing circles. It makes clear that the Left Party’s criticisms of American military policy are based on a German nationalist standpoint.

Over 300 migrant workers perish off Italian coast

Paul Mitchell

In what has become an unending tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of migrant workers attempting to escape war and poverty and find a better life for themselves have perished off the coast of Italy as they attempted to cross from Libya in rubber dinghies, without food and water. The majority of the victims were from the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mali, and Gambia.

The death of 300 refugees adds to the more than 40,000 refugees since the year 2000, according to the International Organization for Migration. The tragedies are all a direct result of the callous “Fortress Europe” policy of the European Union (EU), compelling refugees to resort to ever more dangerous routes of entry and encouraging the ruthless business of traffickers and people smugglers.

The migrant workers told aid organisations that four dinghies left the North African coast on Saturday, carrying around 100 people each. Two of the boats capsized over the weekend in stormy weather. Only nine people survived after spending four days in freezing waters before they were rescued. The Italian coast guard came to the aid of the third boat and took on board 76 people, but at least 29 of them then died from hypothermia. The whereabouts of the fourth boat is still unknown. The youngest of the missing is a 12-year-old boy.

“This is a tragedy on an enormous scale and a stark reminder that more lives could be lost if those seeking safety are left at the mercy of the sea. Saving lives should be our top priority. Europe cannot afford to do too little too late,” said the Europe Bureau Director of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNCHR), Vincent Cochetel.

A UNHCR statement repeated “its concern about the lack of a strong search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean. Europe’s Triton operation, which is run by the European border protection agency Frontex, is not focused on search and rescue and is not providing the necessary tools to cope with the scale of the crises.”

The latest tragedy is the biggest loss of life since October 3, 2013, when a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy sank off the island of Lampedusa, with more than 360 dead. The EU began patrolling the Mediterranean in November 2014, after Italy ended its Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue operation following the Lampedusa deaths.

The Mare Nostrum operation was only superficially concerned with rescuing refugees. Its main goal was to identify trafficking boats and force them back to Africa. As then Italian Defence Minister Mario Mauro and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano made clear, the deployment of warships was to deter those who “think they can get away with people trafficking without being punished.”

Those rescued were denied access to a fair asylum procedure and forced to live in inhumane conditions. In one incident the naval ship Aliseo opened fire with several machine gun bursts on a boat containing 176 refugees. After the rescue of the refugees, the boat sank.

The Italian government had abandoned the Mare Nostrum operation barely a year after it was put in place, claiming other European countries did not provide enough support, and also pressure from right-wing anti-immigration groups saying it was a “pull factor” encouraging migrants to make the crossing.

The replacement Triton operation, run by the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (Frontex), is purely a border control measure, extending just 30 miles from the Italian coast. From its inception, with a meagre annual budget of 2.9 million euros, the European Commission insisted Frontex “is neither a search and rescue body nor does it take up the functions of a Rescue Coordination Centre.”

The Commission knew its policy would lead to increased fatalities, stating, “It must be stressed that the withdrawal of naval forces from the sea area near the Libyan coast... will probably lead to a higher number of deaths.”

The intention was that “significantly fewer migrants will attempt to cross the Mediterranean in bad weather and prices for the crossings will rise.” The number of refugees would thus decline to “the level of previous years”.

Instead, the number of people attempting to reach Europe by sea from the Middle East, Africa and Asia reached a record in 2014, with more than 170,000 individuals rescued by Italy and 40,000 by Greece. At least 4,077 people died in 2014 while trying to cross borders as they fled war and poverty, according to the International Organization for Migration. Of those, 3,072 died in the Mediterranean, up massively from the estimated 700 in 2013.

On New Year’s Eve this year the Blue Sky M, carrying 970 Syrian and Kurdish migrants, was intercepted by Italian sailors, after it had been abandoned by its crew and placed on autopilot within five miles of rocks off Italy’s coast. Within a few days, the Ezadeen was similarly abandoned with 450 migrants on board, and towed to Italy.

The EU denies it has any responsibility for the continuing tragedy in the Mediterranean and blames the traffickers. But the emergence of unscrupulous people smugglers is due to the systematic sealing-off of Europe. It is now impossible, as a result of war and repression perpetrated by Europe and the United States in the Middle East and Africa, for refugees to legally enter Europe. They are forced by the EU to take ever more dangerous routes across the Mediterranean.

At the same time, the NATO-led war and overthrow of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and that country’s descent into civil war between rival militias has led to hundreds of thousands of migrants being trapped there.

The EU’s response to the refugee crisis on its borders is to mount more repression.

Measures for the admission of refugees and access to fair asylum procedures are forbidden. Instead, drone and satellite technology is being used to monitor border regions, and neighbouring states are being coerced into intercepting and detaining refugees on their way to Europe in return for concessions to their ruling elites.

Obama administration seeks blank check for perpetual war

Joseph Kishore

On Wednesday, the Obama administration sent to Congress its proposal for a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), ostensibly targeting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Obama accompanied a draft of new legislation to rubber-stamp an escalation of war in the Middle East and beyond with an eight-minute announcement from the White House Wednesday afternoon.

Both the proposed resolution and Obama’s announcement were shot through with lies and double-talk aimed at concealing the far-reaching implications of what is being proposed.

The draft sent by Obama requests that Congress give its approval for military operations against ISIS or “associated persons or forces,” defined as anyone “fighting for, on behalf of, or alongside ISIL [ISIS] or any closely-related successor entity in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” This is formulated so as to potentially include organizations or individuals as diverse as Islamist groups in the Middle East and North Africa, homegrown “cells” in Australia, France or the United States itself, or anyone the US claims is aiding and abetting ISIS.

There are no geographical limits to the military action sanctioned by the resolution. Making clear the global framework of the new “war on ISIS,” Obama wrote in a letter to Congress that ISIS could “pose a threat beyond the Middle East, including to the United States homeland.”

The inclusion of language ending the authorization in three years unless the resolution is renewed has as much significance as similar “sunset” provisions in the Patriot Act, which has been routinely reauthorized by Congress. In his announcement of the AUMF, Obama stressed that the three-year framework did not represent a “timetable” for military action and could be extended by Congress under his successor in the White House.

In an attempt to delude the American public, which is overwhelmingly opposed to war, that the new operations are to be limited in scope, the authorization states that it does not provide for “enduring offensive ground combat operations.” Again, the wording is formulated so as to allow virtually any type of military action. There is no definition of “enduring” or “offensive.”

Extended combat operations in Iraq, Syria or another country could be justified on the grounds that they were “defensive” or not “enduring.”

Obama claimed that the resolution “does not call for the deployment of US ground combat forces in Iraq and Syria.” This is simply a lie. Obama last year deployed 1,500 US troops to Iraq, many of which have already been involved in combat operations. The authorization would sanction a vast expansion of such operations.

To date, the administration has sought to develop local forces in Iraq and elsewhere to engage in heavy fighting, with US soldiers participating in an “advisory” capacity and engaging in Special Operations attacks. This could quickly change, as Obama made clear by noting that the resolution provides the “flexibility we need for unforeseen circumstances.” At the very least, the new proposal would authorize the deployment of combat forces within Syria so long as they are declared to be limited and “defensive.”

The entire proposal is thoroughly cynical, a pseudo-legal fig leaf to provide political cover for an illegal war. The way that the new authorization has been proposed—including a perfunctory White House announcement held in the middle of the afternoon—underscores the contempt of the political establishment for basic democratic procedures and the will of the American people. All decisions on military action are made behind the scenes by a cabal of military and intelligence officials, with Obama as their spokesman.

As recently as 2002, in advance of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, the political establishment felt it necessary to go through the motions of a Senate debate and vote, with a presentation of supposed facts (i.e., fabrications) and arguments to justify war. Now, wars and military operations are simply launched and presented to the population as a fait accompli.

The proposed congressional authorization for war against ISIS comes nearly half a year after the Obama administration initiated bombing in Iraq and Syria. There have already been at least 2,000 air strikes in this latest round of the US drive to conquer the Middle East.

The war authorization request marks the latest stage in the long and tragic encounter of the peoples of the Middle East with US imperialism. The White House proposal would repeal the 2002 authorization for military force in Iraq, which, following the 1991 Gulf War and a decade of brutal sanctions, was used to invade Iraq and initiate a war that led to the deaths of over one million Iraqis and laid waste to the entire country. ISIS itself is a product of this devastation as well as US support for Islamic fundamentalist forces that have served as proxies in the US-led wars to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya and oust Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

In asking for the new authorization, Obama was at pains to insist he did not need it, and that strikes would continue regardless. “Existing statutes provide me with the authority I need,” he wrote in his letter to Congress.

This was a reference to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force passed after the September 11 attacks, which has been used as the legal pretext for a series of wars and interventions, including (according to the Congressional Research Service) Afghanistan, the Philippines, Georgia, Yemen, Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq and Somalia. It has also been used, directly or indirectly, as a pseudo-legal justification for drone assassinations (including of American citizens), abductions, torture, military tribunals, indefinite detention, domestic spying on a mass scale and the establishment of the framework of a police state, including the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Department and the Northern Command.

Obama has adopted and extended the standpoint of his predecessor that the president has the right to unilaterally order military operations all over the world. The ostensible check on this power laid down by the US Constitution—that only Congress can declare war—has long been rendered a dead letter. As it is, the final language of any resolution that passes Congress will likely be even more open-ended.

The new AUMF is, if anything, even more broadly worded than its predecessor. As with the measure passed in 2001, the proximate target—in this case ISIS—provides a basis for operations aimed at ensuring US domination over key economic and geostrategic areas of the world. It is being introduced at the same time that the US threatens to unleash a European-wide war with Russia over Ukraine, intensifies its operations in Africa, and continues a “pivot to Asia” aimed at militarily and economically encircling and isolating China.

Obama concluded his White House announcement with the assertion that the new authorization does not place the US on a “perpetual war footing.” In fact, unending war, plotted behind the backs of the population, has become the permanent and essential feature of American foreign policy.

US escalates tensions with Russia as Ukraine talks deadlock in Minsk

Alex Lantier

Washington announced new military deployments in Eastern Europe aimed at Russia yesterday, as talks in the Belorussian capital of Minsk on the conflict in Ukraine failed to reach an agreement. The Minsk talks are slated to continue today.

US Army-Europe Commander Lt General Ben Hodges announced that 600 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy would deploy to Lviv, Ukraine to train the far-right volunteer battalions that comprise the Ukrainian National Guard. “We’ll train them in security tasks, medical, how to operate in an environment where the Russians are jamming, and how to protect from Russian and rebel artillery,” Hodges said.

It has been documented by human rights groups that volunteer battalions fighting for Kiev have carried out atrocities, including killings of civilians, in eastern Ukraine.

The US Air Force also announced yesterday it would deploy a dozen A-10 attack jets and 300 airmen to Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany.

To place maximum pressure on Russia in the Minsk talks, Washington is still threatening to directly arm the Kiev regime against Russian-backed forces in eastern Ukraine—a strategy that NATO officials have said could lead to war between NATO and Russia. Obama confirmed on Monday that the White House is considering arming Kiev. On Tuesday, a bipartisan group of legislators in the US House of Representatives introduced legislation that would provide $1 billion in lethal weaponry to Kiev.

European countries including Britain and Poland have also indicated that they may supply arms to the Kiev regime.

The US views the civil war in Ukraine triggered by the US- and NATO-backed coup in Kiev a year ago as part of a strategy whose ultimate aim is the reduction of Russia to a semi-colonial status. Military and foreign policy strategists believe that a bloody and ruinously expensive Russian war in Ukraine, combined with ethnic wars by US-linked Islamist fighters elsewhere in Russia or the former USSR, could undermine the Russian military.

The Financial Times wrote that bogging Russia down in “a drawn-out, larger war [in Ukraine] makes it more vulnerable on other flanks, such as the restive North Caucasus and Central Asia.” If these conflicts flare up, one military expert told the newspaper, “There are just not enough Russian soldiers to fight a war of attrition in Ukraine.”

The Minsk talks, aimed at arranging a truce between the Kiev regime and pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, continued late into the night yesterday without reaching an agreement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko met with small, high-level delegations at Independence Palace in Minsk. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called the Minsk meeting the “last chance” before the eruption of large-scale war.

Russian sources said the talks were “intensive.” The signing of an agreement “can happen tomorrow, not today,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after midnight, Minsk time.

While all sides have reportedly agreed to a temporary ceasefire, terms for a longer-lasting truce remain elusive. The Ukrainian delegation is reportedly demanding that separatist forces give up Russian weapons, control of border posts with Russia, and the territorial gains they have made in fighting with Kiev forces since the previous accord in Minsk last September. While it is considering “autonomy” for eastern Ukraine, it opposes Russian demands that Kiev end its financial blockade of eastern Ukraine, which has seen funding for pensions and state programs cut off by Kiev.

The Russian delegation is proposing a demarcation line closer to the current line of fighting. It denies that Russia has troops or military equipment in eastern Ukraine.

As Washington’s behavior makes clear, even if a deal is ultimately reached in Minsk, US imperialism is pushing to escalate the conflict, virtually ensuring that any deal would be a dead letter, like the Minsk cease-fire agreement reached last September. That agreement broke down in a matter of weeks amid fighting for control of Donetsk, the center of the rebel-held Donbass region.

Even as the Minsk talks began, fighting in eastern Ukraine surged yesterday. The Kiev regime reported that 19 of its soldiers were killed in fighting near the strategic rail junction at Debaltseve, which separatist forces have largely surrounded. In Donetsk, hospital number 20 was hit by a shell, killing one person and forcing the evacuation of several patients.

Both sides are preparing for an even broader escalation. While officials of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic have announced that they are preparing to draft 100,000 men into their armed forces, Poroshenko has announced a call-up of 75,000 men.

There is rising opposition in the western Ukrainian population to the military and economic policies of the Kiev regime. As Ukraine’s economy collapses and the death toll from fighting in eastern Ukraine mounts, resistance is growing to Poroshenko’s draft orders and his policy of confrontation with Russia.

“At least here, mobilization has been a total failure,” Iryna Vereshchuk, the mayor of the small town of Rava-Ruska in western Ukraine, told theGuardian. She said that of 100 call-up papers meant to be distributed as part of the draft, only six could be served. The other men were in hiding or missing.

“We still have diplomatic and financial links with Russia, and yet people are saying we have to go and fight their troops and die,” she added. “If our region was coming under attack, people would take up arms, but they are not ready to go to the east and end up killing other Ukrainian citizens.”

Coal miners who have been thrown out of work by the Kiev regime’s suspension of subsidies have mounted protests in Kiev. Regime officials are insisting that nothing will be done to deal with the escalating social crisis facing the western Ukrainian population.

“This year, almost all sectors of the economy will experience layoffs on a larger or smaller scale,” said Oleksandr Zholud, an analyst at the Kiev-based International Center for Policy Studies. He said he expected significant wage cuts and demands that workers take unpaid vacations until the economy improves.

“A single position attracts 30-35 candidates today,” said Social Policy Minister Pavlo Rozenko, who declared criticism of rising joblessness in Ukraine to be illegitimate. “Forecasts on Ukraine’s grim future are groundless and are based on a criticism from opponents and those who are not interested in wide-scale reforms. Many will lose their jobs and salaries, but we don’t have any other way,” he declared.

The Kiev regime is threatening to impose a military dictatorship. “I, the government, and the parliament are ready to take the decision to introduce martial law in all the territories of Ukraine,” Poroshenko declared at a government meeting.

“Martial law would mean a lot of restrictions, including on freedom of speech, democratic freedoms, and would have lots of consequences. It would be the complete transfer of the country onto a military track,” declared Ihor Lapin, a legislator and member of the fascistic Aidar Battalion.

Air Power and Future Battlefields: India's Needs

Gurmeet Kanwal

As the 10th edition of Aero-India gets underway at Bengaluru (18-22 February 2015), attention will be focused on big-ticket deals like the long-pending multi-billion dollar acquisition of the MMRCA by the Indian Air Force (IAF). Discussion will centred on whether or not the government is having second thoughts about buying the Rafale fighter from France vis-à-vis adding to the existing fleet of Su-30 MKI aircraft acquired from Russia.

What will not find mention is the fact that both these aircraft are very expensive multi-mission fighters that cannot be risked to strike ground targets in the tactical battle area teeming with air defence weapons. As a future war on the Indian subcontinent will in all likelihood result from the unresolved territorial disputes with China and Pakistan and will be predominantly a conflict on land, the ability to acquire and accurately hit targets on ground will be a key requirement for the IAF.

During the Kargil conflict in the summer of 1999, air-to-ground strikes by fighter ground attack (FGA) aircraft of the IAF played an important role in neutralising Pakistani army defences. The destruction of a logistics camp at Muntho Dhalo was shown repeatedly on national television. In conflicts in Afghanistan, the Balkans, Chechnya, Iraq, Libya and, more recently, the ongoing fight against the Islamic State, FGA aircraft have achieved laudable results, especially while using precision guided munitions (PGMs).

Hence, the importance of close air support in modern wars must not be underrated. A few missions of FGA aircraft and attack helicopters can deliver more ordnance by way of dumb 1,000 lb bombs in a few minutes on an objective selected for capture than a 155 mm medium artillery regiment can deliver in 20 to 30 minutes. In critical situations, particularly in fast flowing mechanised operations, accurate air strikes can save the day. The battle of Longewala during the 1971 war with Pakistan is a good example. Also, it is a truism that accurate air strikes against the enemy in contact that can be seen by own troops provide a psychological boost to the morale of ground troops.

IAF aircraft that are earmarked for ground strikes need to be armed with PGMs in large numbers to achieve the desired effect. Free flight 1000 lb and 500 lb bombs cannot be dropped with the precision necessary to destroy individual bunkers, pillboxes and armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs). Modern jet aircraft flying at supersonic speeds and constrained by the threat posed by air defence weapons in the TBA, such as hand-held, shoulder-fired SAMs like the Stinger and the Unza, cannot be expected to achieve precision with rockets and Gatling guns. Only terminally homing laser-guided and TV-guided bombs and air-to-surface missiles with stand-off capability can provide the necessary reach and accuracy.

During the Kargil conflict, sustained, accurate and high volume concentrated artillery firepower and air-to-ground strikes by the IAF eventually won the battle for India by completely decimating enemy sangars and enabling the infantry to assault virtually unopposed. Tiger Hill and many other enemy-held mountain ridges were finally re-captured with very few casualties. The battle winning utility of ground and aerial firepower in limited wars was established beyond doubt. In view of the firepower capabilities that will be necessary to fight and win India’s future wars, the IAF needs to re-assess the suitability of its weapons platforms and ammunition holdings to support operations on land and launch a concerted drive to acquire the required means.

Ideally, the IAF should be equipped with a specialised, dedicated ground strike aircraft of the A-10 Thunderbolt/Warthog or the Russian SU-25 or SU-39, all of which are relatively slower moving, enable greater precision to be achieved in aiming, can carry several tonnes of payload per sortie, including air-to-ground precision strike missiles and bombs, and can absorb a lot of damage from the enemy’s air defence weapons. Writing about the role played by the US air power during Gulf War I, Robert H Scales Jr has stated, “The A-10 was devastating once the ground war began and once the aircraft dropped low enough to provide effective 30 mm cannon support.”

Dedicated ground strike aircraft cost only a fraction of the cost of multi-role fighter aircraft such as Mirage-2000 and the future MMRCA. It is certain that in the coming decades, the IAF will continue to be called upon to launch ground strikes with precision munitions in support of the army.

Quite obviously, the IAF cannot afford to acquire new, dedicated ground strike aircraft from its present meagre budget. Once the need for such aircraft has been adequately debated and is established beyond dispute, additional funds will have to be provided to the IAF for their early induction.