Millions view video showing police murder of homeless man in Los Angeles

John Burton

Shortly after noon last Sunday raw video appeared on Facebook within minutes after multiple Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers shot and killed an unarmed man on the sidewalk outside the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row, where many of the City’s homeless live in makeshift tents on the street.

Within hours, the video had been shared on thousands of Facebook pages and racked up millions of views. While the original Facebook post has been taken down, the video can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.

Details, including the victim’s name, age and background, have not yet been released. The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office reports that he is black and in his mid-30s. Andy Bales, president of the Union Rescue Mission, has stated that the victim used the name “Africa,” and may have been an immigrant from Cameroon.

According to Bales, the victim stayed nearby and helped Mission workers keep the area clean. Other people have told reporters that the victim spoke to them of having spent long stretches in a mental hospital before showing up on Skid Row a few months ago.

A significant number of the homeless who populate Los Angeles’ Skid Row and similar neighborhoods in other major US cities suffer from serious mental illness, and there are no effective programs to house and treat them.

Skid Row has been targeted by developers who see driving the homeless away as the key to profiting through gentrification. The officers involved in Sunday’s shooting were assigned to the so-called “Safer Cities Initiative,” an LAPD task force assigned to target Skid Row residents and force them to move out.

The video, which appears to have been made by a cell phone, begins abruptly with officers rousting the victim from his small plastic tent on the sidewalk almost directly in front of the Mission. As the man spins around, waving his arms harmlessly, surrounded by four officers, a small woman can be seen standing in the background. It is not yet known whether she and the victim were associated in any way.

One of the four officers drops his billy club, leaving it on the sidewalk, to draw his firearm. The woman walks over, picks up the nightstick, and holds it as if to defend herself from officers, who by this time have knocked the victim to the ground, piled on top of him, and started beating him.

The woman was herself knocked to the ground violently by two officers, as more officers arrived and joined in the beating of the victim.

At the 20-second point in the video, the distinctive clicking sound made by a Taser during its discharge of electricity can be heard, and one of the officers appears to be jamming the Taser’s electrodes into the victim. A voice is heard yelling, “Drop the gun!” three times, and then five shots rang out in the space of three seconds.

Officers continued to point their weapons at the victim’s lifeless body for almost a minute and a half before one of them finally checked for a pulse, as stunned onlookers became increasingly angry, yelling denunciations of the police.

No gun was recovered, and there is nothing in the video suggesting that the victim ever had his hand on an officer’s weapon.

The LAPD later confirmed that two officers and one sergeant fired bullets.

At a press conference, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, defended the officers and called the LAPD “the most progressive force in the country.” He announced that at least two officers were wearing body cameras. Neither video has been released, however.

LAPD Chief of Police Charlie Beck immediately rushed to the defense of the officers at a Monday morning press conference, using the same lame “he was going for an officer’s gun” excuse used by Officer Darren Wilson after killing Michael Brown last summer in Ferguson, Missouri.

When officers approached, the victim “refused to comply with the officers’ commands and then began to fight with them,” according to Beck. The video clearly shows the officers as the aggressors.

Beck claimed that the victim “forcibly grabbed one of the officer’s holstered pistols,” for proof pointing to a blurry screen shot from the video that shows the victim’s hand extended into the air, not touching a gun.

Beck did not explain why, if the prostrated man was grabbing at his gun, the officer did not simply stand up, removing it from his reach.

Beck called his officers’ sickening one-sided beating and execution of a mentally ill, homeless man “a very intense situation and a brutal, brutal fight.”

Surveillance cameras mounted outside the Mission captured events before and after the shooting. The victim had been involved in a minor altercation with another homeless man. After his tent was pointed out, the officers dragged the victim out, leading to the events captured on the cell phone camera. The surveillance cameras also captured the paramedics arriving and pronouncing the man dead at the scene.

Police officers have extensive training on weapons retention, and they use special holsters that make taking weapons away from officers very difficult. No officer in a situation like this one is going to allow a vastly outnumbered, unarmed transient access to a firearm unless he is looking for a pretext to use deadly force.

Officers have been known to shout lines such as “Stop resisting” to cover up for their own brutality. Yelling “Drop the gun” signals other officers to use lethal force.

Sunday’s shooting is part of a surge in police violence throughout the United States, which is itself a direct response to deepening social tensions arising from the growth of social inequality. According to killedbypolice.net, law enforcement agencies in the United States have killed over 175 people already this year, a rate of about three people a day. In contrast, no police officers have been killed by criminal suspects so far in 2015.

Obama administration whitewashes police killings

Andre Damon

Only one day after the world was shocked and horrified by the release of a bystander video showing Los Angeles police murdering yet another unarmed man in broad daylight, the Obama administration’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing released its interim report, offering a handful of toothless recommendations that amount to a green light for police violence and murder.

In December, in the wake of mass protests against the police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York and 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio, the Obama administration announced it was establishing the task force to “strengthen the relationships between local police and the communities they are supposed to protect and serve.”

Apologists for the Obama administration such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson sought to present the task force, together with federal investigations into several high-profile police killings, as evidence that the White House was seriously seeking to bring killer cops to justice and put a halt to police brutality.

From the beginning, however, Obama made clear that the task force would have no real power. It was staffed with many former and current police officials, including Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, who functioned as its co-chair.

At the same time as it announced the creation of the task force, the administration released a report endorsing federal programs that have transferred billions of dollars in military-grade hardware from the Pentagon to local police agencies.

In establishing the task force, Obama implied that the fundamental problem was not that police murdered hundreds of people every year, but that the population did not sufficiently support the police. He decried the “distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color.”

In announcing the task force’s findings on Monday, Obama declared that this distrust “means we’re not as effective in fighting crime as we could be.” He called the task force report “a great opportunity, coming out of some great conflict and tragedy,” to make “our law enforcement officers feel, rather than being embattled, feel fully supported.”

The recommendations in the report are in line with this goal of defending and strengthening the police. There are no proposals for significant nationwide legal or administrative measures to rein in the police. Rather, there is a laundry list of recommendations for law enforcement agencies to carry out or ignore, entirely at their pleasure.

These include calling on local police departments to implement “outside” investigations of police killings by referring probes to “neighboring jurisdictions or to the next higher levels of government.” This would mean in practice shifting investigations to other police-friendly agencies and jurisdictions.

There are no demands that killer cops or their superiors be held criminally or legally accountable for the deaths and injuries they inflict. There are no demands for the removal of officials guilty of whitewashing police killings, such as Robert McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecutor who rigged the grand jury proceedings to prevent the indictment of Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, the killer of Michael Brown.

The task force report notes that there is no mandatory federal database of police killings, and that the submission of this information by local police to the federal government is voluntary. Its response to this scandalous situation is merely to urge police departments to be more forthcoming with data.

The only substantial nationwide proposal is for the creation of a federal “Law Enforcement Diversity Initiative” to encourage the hiring of minority police officers. This is aimed at giving ammunition to the White House’s apologists, who will hail the proposal as evidence that the White House is “sensitive” to the needs of minority communities.

It is in line with the administration’s attempt to define the nationwide epidemic of police killings of unarmed people—white as well as black—as a racial question, obscuring the more fundamental class issues.

It is noteworthy that the central premise of the task force—that the problem is a “lack of trust” between the police and the population, is the same as that advanced by Obama following the exposure of massive, illegal spying on the American people by the National Security Agency. The task, Obama declared at that time, was to restore the trust of the American people in the NSA and other police and intelligence agencies.

Obama established a task force, packed with defenders of the NSA, to look into the issue and make recommendations. The result was a series of toothless proposals that in no way challenged the “right” of the NSA to violate the Constitution and intercept the communications of every single person in the US and tens of millions more around the world. The result is a level of mass surveillance today that is, if anything, even more pervasive than when the spying revelations emerged two years ago.

It will be no different with the policing task force and the epidemic of police killings.

The White House report is the product of a calculated political operation that began with the eruption of protests following the killing of Michael Brown last August. The administration responded by backing the police-military crackdown carried out by the local authorities, while carrying out maneuvers aimed at tamping down public outrage.

After the sham grand jury proceedings that exonerated Wilson, the White House announced a “civil rights” investigation. Predictably, the Justice Department has, according to media reports, found no grounds to bring charges against Wilson.

Since the killing of Brown, more than six hundred more people have been killed by police, according to an online compilation of local media reports. The murders of Brown, Garner and others, followed by the exoneration of the killer cops, sparked nationwide protests. But what have been the results?

The police have been given a virtual license to kill, secure in the knowledge that they will not be prosecuted. Meanwhile, hundreds of people have been arrested for protesting and dozens detained for posting criticisms of the police on social media.

The basic lessons is that democratic rights—including the right to live—cannot be defended by appealing to or relying on Congress, the courts, the Democratic Party or any other official institution. Basic rights can be defended only through an independent political movement of the working class in opposition to the existing economic and political system, that is, on the basis of a socialist program.

The endless series of sociopathic police killings expresses something much deeper than the individual psyches of the backward people recruited by the state to do its dirty work. These killings are ultimately an expression of the cancerous growth of social inequality, which is intrinsic to capitalism and the corporate and financial aristocracy that runs America.

Murder in Moscow: Why was Boris Nemtsov assassinated?

David North

The assassination of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is a significant political event that arises out of the US-Russia confrontation and the intense struggle that is now underway within the highest levels of the Russian state. The Obama administration and the CIA are playing a major role in the escalation of this conflict, with the aim of producing an outcome that serves the global geo-political and financial interests of US imperialism.

The relations between the United States and Russia are approaching a point of breakdown, with potentially catastrophic consequences. The Obama administration has concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be removed from power, based on the Kremlin’s refusal to accept, as a fait accompli, the overthrow last year of the democratically elected Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, and its opposition to the complete economic and military integration of Ukraine into the US sphere of influence.

Especially in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in US plans to attack Syria in 2013 and its granting of political asylum to NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, Putin’s continued presidency has been deemed incompatible with US geo-political interests. Thus, the decision has been made to instigate—through international political pressure, economic sanctions, and covert operations of various sorts—Putin’s removal from power.

It is all but obvious that the Obama administration is hoping a faction will emerge within the Russian elite, backed by elements in the military and secret police, capable of staging a “palace coup” and getting rid of Putin. The personal fate of the Russian president—whether he goes the way of Serbia’s Milosevic, Romania’s Ceausescu, Iraq’s Hussein or Libya’s Gaddafi—is to be decided by the circumstances of his ouster.

In any event, Putin would then be replaced with a representative of a section of the oligarchy—a Russian version of the billionaire Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko—who is prepared to follow the US line without equivocation. The US media, of course, would hail such a development as a “democratic revolution.”

The United States is not seeking to trigger a widespread popular revolt. That is the very last thing it wants. The administration’s actions are directed entirely at convincing a section of the oligarchy and emerging capitalist class that their business interests and personal wealth depend upon US support. That is why the Obama administration has used economic sanctions targeting individuals as a means of exerting pressure on the oligarchs as well as broader sections of the entrepreneurial elite.

Significantly, Garry Kasparov—the émigré Russian neo-con who speaks for the most right-wing and aggressively anti-Putin forces in the US foreign policy establishment—wrote an opinion piece appearing in Monday’s Wall Street Journal which makes clear that the US is in close contact with the elites, discussing with them such issues as the overthrow of Putin. He calls on Western leaders to respond to Nemtsov’s killing by treating the Kremlin as a “criminal rogue regime.” He calls for the breaking off of negotiations between Russia and the West over the situation in eastern Ukraine and the immediate dispatch of weapons to the right-wing regime in Kiev.

Finally, Kasparov urges the US and EU to escalate pressure on the oligarchs in order to break their support for Putin. “Tell Russian oligarchs, every one of them,” he writes, “that there is no place their money will be safe in the West as long as they serve the Putin regime.”

It is in the context of this international power struggle that one must evaluate Nemtsov’s murder. Of course, it is possible that his death was the outcome of his private dealings. But it is more likely that he was killed for political reasons. Certainly, the timing of the killing—on the eve of the opposition’s anti-Putin demonstration in Moscow—strongly indicates that the killing was a political assassination, not a private settling of accounts.

The demonstration itself has particular significance. The organization of such demonstrations has become something of a CIA specialty, serving as a vital political backdrop and pretext for the implementation of regime-change. Individuals such as Alexei Navalny and other opposition figures are trumpeted in the US media as leaders of a “pro-democracy” movement.

There are two possible plot lines (each of which has innumerable variants) behind last Friday’s assassination:

The first is that Nemtsov was killed by elements in the Putin faction—with or without the knowledge of the president—as a warning to those in the elite who may be considering jumping ship. However, it is hard to see how such a reckless action would strengthen the regime.

The second is that he was killed by elements within the anti-Putin faction as a means of providing the fake democracy movement with a martyr. It is worth noting that in his Wall Street Journal comment, Kasparov refers to differences he had with Nemtsov over anti-Putin tactics, with Nemtsov taking a more cautious approach than Kasparov.

“Boris and I began to quarrel after Mr. Putin returned as president in 2012. To me, the Putin return signaled the end of any realistic hopes for a peaceful political path to regime change. But Boris was always optimistic. He would tell me I was too rash, that ‘you have to live a long time to see change in Russia.’ Now he will never see it.”

This statement seems to suggest significant tactical divisions in the US-backed anti-Putin camp. Perhaps Nemtsov was seen as an impediment to the implementation of violent regime-change. In such a situation, it is hardly beyond the realm of possibility that he came to be seen as someone whose “martyrdom” could best serve the anti-Putin cause.

The figure of Nemtsov is significant, as his career is rooted in the years of Russia’s first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin. In the early 1990s, he emerged as a representative of a thoroughly corrupt layer of pro-capitalist compradors who were engaged in a fire sale of Soviet assets. Nemtsov formed close relations with US businessmen and was the subject of fawning treatment by the US press.

At the same time, Yeltsin, utterly corrupt and perennially drunk, had absolutely no concept of Russian national interests. The United States did whatever it wanted—in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia—without any opposition from Russia.

While Putin also emerged during the Yeltsin years—though in its later stages—it appears, in contrast to Nemtsov, that he represented sections of the old state intelligence agencies that were alarmed by the total abandonment by Yeltsin of any defense of Russian interests. Under Putin’s leadership, the traditional Russian preoccupation with a “strong state” has reemerged.

Eventually, this brought Putin into conflict with American—and, it must be added, European—imperialism. Clearly, Putin is trying to rally support for his nationalist-capitalist agenda. But this is inherently reactionary and politically bankrupt, involving Russia in an endless series of geopolitical conflicts for which it lacks the economic and military resources.

Moreover, the deep dissatisfaction of the working class with the outcome of capitalist restoration—devastating poverty and social inequality—will be intensified by the economic consequences of escalating military operations. Finally, Putin’s present-day allies in the oligarchy, beneath the weight of sanctions, grow increasingly disenchanted and are continually reassessing their options.

The Russian tragedy, arising out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, cannot be resolved on a progressive basis except through the reemergence of the working class, armed with a revolutionary socialist and internationalist program. A mass movement of the working class, inspired by the political heritage of October 1917, is the only antidote to the poisonous atmosphere of conspiracy and counter-conspiracy that presently dominates Russian politics.

At the same time, the incredibly reckless operations of US imperialism, which can at any point escalate into a full-scale military-nuclear confrontation with Russia, must be opposed and ended through the development of a new mass anti-war movement, spearheaded by the working class and based on the principles of socialist internationalism.

Finding Peace Through Culture: A Triqui Vision

A.G

Walking down the streets of the city of Oaxaca, Mexico, one can hear merchants speak to their family and friends in many indigenous languages, such as variations of the Zapoteco and Mixteco. With 15 out of the 62 recognized ethnolinguistic groups in Mexico, Oaxaca is one of the most diverse states in the country.

As a state rich in ethnic diversity, Oaxaca attracts a good deal of cultural tourism. The need has arisen, consequently, to assist in these cultures’  reservation. The foundation Alfredo Harp Helu, for instance, participates in the preservation of Zapotecan culture. Through the foundation’s support, different centers can host workshops on indigenous textile techniques developed in the region, and provide lessons to learn native dialects. This type of philanthropy is valuable for Mexican society, as it helps preserve the colorful and millenary cultures that we often associate with Mexico.

Unfortunately not all ethnic groups in Oaxaca receive enough help to maintain their culture. There are places beyond the capital where poverty, violence and illiteracy persist. The Triqui, for example, can speak their native language, but most can no longer read or write it. Despite their recent successes in international basketball, the Triquis of Oaxaca are currently in the midst of a cultural crisis. As Federico Anaya Gallardo writes in his essay titled Contexto político y social de la reforma constitucional en la materia indígena del estado de Chiapas, “Modernization produced the surge of new social identities and new political and social groups that societies were unfamiliar with in the best of cases, and in the worst, despised.” The same explanation may be extended to Oaxacan society. In the 70’s the Triquis began organizing to fight an abusive agricultural system. In the pursuit of political rights, factions of Triqui groups were created. They all wanted peace and respect for their human rights, but had different political interests and identities, and ended up working separately.

“Some groups weren’t as peaceful as others and the clashes between them escalated into violence”, explains Emelia, a young Triqui woman whose face shows the passage of few, but cruel years. “We are famous for our violence,” she says, “but with respect to our culture, we haven’t advanced much. We have lost a lot of culture from our writing because there have been too many murders. All of the knowledge that we have goes to the grave, it worries us.”
“We are looking for a strategy on how to lessen the violence, it’s difficult, it’s not easy. But that is our vision, that someday the Triquis can live well, like humans, like we all deserve. Little by little we have advanced and accomplished things. In 2012 we signed a peace treaty amongst the Triquis.”

Even if the Peace and Concord Treaty has brought some relief to the region, the scar of past violence has kept trumping overall stability. Emelia’s eyes fill with tears as she speaks about her cousins who disappeared in 2007, yet, her voice is filled with the conviction that she will not stop trying to bring peace amongst the Triquis. “And like that, little by little we have been working with several groups, little by little with the communities, and like that, we have been advancing. And it was really hard because two of my cousins disappeared. And like that, with all the pain we worked, and we advanced, and now we have had some peace for four years.  Effectively, yes, there have been murders, but it isn’t like it was back in 2006 to 2010. Just because you weren’t a member of a certain community, you were an enemy, you were sexually attacked, physically. It was a critical situation. There’s a lot of widows and orphans thanks to the violence.”

Three years after the treaty was signed, the organization called Movimiento Unificación y Lucha Triqui (Triqui Struggle and Unification Movement, MULT) has attempted to create a house of Triqui culture in Oaxaca. This house, the MULT says, would bring together the Triquis under one same roof, and through the preservation of their culture, attain peace between the factions. There still are groups that clash, but the house promises to bring unity. “In this house there will be peace for everyone, not one group, but all of us, but we don’t have the means to start, that’s the problem. If we could receive some financial or cultural help from anyone, they could help us preserve our culture,” says Juan Domingo Pérez Castillo, natural leader and founder of the
MULT. “We want the house to be a sort of embassy amongst Triquis. For the Triquis of Oaxaca, we want this to be a place where we can document so many things from our culture. There are many young Triquis outside of Oaxaca, even in the U.S., who know they are Triqui but do not know much about us. So we want this house to be the place where they can go online, too, and do their research there.” Some of the things Juan says the house would have is a database of the curative plants they use, and have extensive information on the way the Triquis of the mountains sustain themselves. There is even talk of making a small documentary and going around the Triqui communities to have them all chip in their bit of Triqui wisdom. A major challenge they face in the creation of the house, says Emelia, is that very few living Triquis know how to read and write their language. The cost of reaching old Triqui speakers and writers is too high. “There are areas where the Triquis don’t even know how to read and write Spanish. So by keeping us ignorant, we stay separated,” says Juan. “Then alliances start forming, where groups look only to benefit themselves, instead of all the Triquis.” This does not mean that the Triqui language has been lost. There is a woman named Elena Erickson de Hollenbach who has a website where one can find books about the Triqui language. “The problem,” says Juan, “is that she came with intentions of evangelizing us too, rather than just documenting our language.” Juan says that they’re open to collaborating with any foreigner as long as they respect their beliefs and customs.

On February 2, 2015 there was a march in the city of Oaxaca where numerous MULT members walked down the main streets of the city. They were asking for the state and federal governments to implement projects that would improve the Triqui social structure including diminishing poverty and  marginalization. It culminated with the state government promising a dialogue on the 9th of February. This dialogue could lead to the creation of the House of Triqui Culture with the help and respect of the Oaxacan government. While those dialogues develop, Emelia and Juan say they will dedicate themselves to unify the Triqui communities through the maintenance of their culture, in any way possible.

House of Cards collapses

Andre Damon

In reviewing television programs, it has become customary to give readers a “spoiler warning” before discussing specific details of the plot. In the case ofHouse of Cards, Season 3, this will not be necessary, because the season has no significant plot to speak of.

House of Cards

The program, produced by Netflix, began as a sharp and scathing portrayal of the violence and corruption behind the official facade of American politics. It has been turned into an utterly trite and complacent celebration of the political establishment.

In the first season of the show, Democratic Congressman Francis Underwood, snubbed in his nomination to a cabinet post in a presidential administration he helped put in power, orchestrates his own appointment as vice president through conspiracy, in the process murdering a junior congressman.

In the second season, Underwood secures his ascension to the presidency through a plot to have the sitting president impeached. The body count rises: Underwood personally throws his mistress, reporter Zoe Barnes—whom he was using to plant stories in the press—under a subway train. He has the FBI entrap Barnes’s fellow reporter, who suspects Underwood in the murder, and convict him on trumped-up charges, locking him up for decades.

In the third season, Underwood somehow emerges from this baptism of blood as a thoroughly conventional president, although with his fair share of personal and political difficulties. The “drama” of the season largely revolves around petty, boring and completely unconvincing squabbles between Underwood and his wife, in the context of geopolitical and domestic events drawn uncritically from contemporary headlines.

The first two seasons presented a story that was half Macbeth, half Richard III. The show’s dramatic success depended on Underwood’s sangfroid, ruthlessness, cynicism and lack of sentimentality, which made for a believable character. At the same time, there were human, and even sometimes humane elements to Underwood that gave his character a certain complexity and richness.

A viewer watching season three will proceed through the first few episodes waiting for the shoe to drop, asking: When will the narrative resume? But at some point, he or she will realize that the third season bears no significant relationship to the first two. The characters are the same, the cinematography similar, but any trace of political criticism has been entirely removed, and the direction and purpose of the show have changed. The whole thing unfolds as one big bait and switch.

The political content of the show ends up supporting and justifying various pressing policy interests of the America ruling class. In dealing with international geopolitics, all the tropes of American foreign policy are parroted uncritically. The Russian state is painted as a totalitarian autocracy, clamping down on gay rights and political dissent, while the US seeks to counter Russian “aggression” while working for stability and peace in the Middle East.

Members of the pro-US, anti-Russian protest group Pussy Riot make a cameo when they are invited to a state dinner at the White House with Russian President Victor Petrov (a stand-in for Vladimir Putin). And after a jailed American political dissident in Russia commits suicide, Claire Underwood throws caution aside and does the “right thing,” denouncing the authoritarianism of the Russian state in a press conference. The irony of a First Lady of a country whose policy is torture and extrajudicial murder denouncing Russia for authoritarianism is not even considered.

Underwood’s ordering of assassinations—a reference to the unconstitutional drone murder program of the Obama administration—is presented in uncritical fashion and largely in passing. To the extent that the moral or constitutional questions involved are even considered, it is to justify these crimes.

A scene in which the Supreme Court hears testimony from the civilian survivor of a drone strike is counterpoised to a scene of Arlington National Cemetery, perpetuating the lie that drone murders are necessary to save American lives. The viewer is meant to draw the conclusion that, though drone assassination and the dozens of civilian casualties each one entails may be somewhat distasteful, they are ultimately necessary, and the real victims are the politicians and soldiers who have to carry out the killings.

Underwood’s main piece of domestic legislation, a proposal aimed at eliminating the “entitlement programs” of Social Security and Medicare, is presented as visionary, aimed at cutting through the “gridlock” of Washington and finally “getting something done.” The makers of the show seem to assume that this measure would be broadly popular, and rule out the possibility that it would evoke social opposition from the tens of millions of people who would find themselves cut off from their only source of income.

In the original 1990 British television show House of Cards, Francis Urquhart, on whose character Underwood is based, is ultimately undone both by his own crimes and the social forces he has unleashed. But in the third season of the American show, there is no consideration of any broader social forces outside of Washington.

Instead, Underwood and his wife, who once threatened to let an unborn child “wither and die” inside a woman who crossed her, are recast in the mold of affluent middle-class professionals. The action might as well have taken place in the home of a high-powered husband and wife team of proctologists.

The show’s executive producer, Beau Willimon, basically said as much in an interview with Variety magazine, declaring, “All we’re trying to do is tell the story of Frank and Claire Underwood. They happen to be politicians. Their story of ambition and power hungriness is a story you could have told on Wall Street or in a law firm or in a lot of different worlds. I don’t think House of Cards is about politics at all.”

This conception, that the broader social and political context is irrelevant to understanding the personal actions of anyone, much less of politicians, is stupid and childish, and applying it to House of Cards results in a show that resembles a daytime soap opera with desaturated colors.

All of this speaks ultimately to the views and values of the show’s affluent, well-connected actors and creators, who have accepted uncritically the broader views of the American ruling class. It has become a production of the political establishment. Indeed, it has incorporated much of the state apparatus, with cameos from major figures in the American media establishment, including Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert and NBC special correspondent Meredith Vieira.

In the process, the criminality that lay at the center of the first two seasons has been sanitized. In the first season, Underwood remarked that he came into high office with “not a single vote cast in my name,” declaring “democracy is so overrated.” But the horrible crimes committed by Underwood on his road to power have almost no relevance to the entire third season. Could there be any doubt that Underwood’s presidency would bear the marks of the crimes he committed to obtain it?

For the ruling elite and its media hangers-on, a crime, even a high crime, if committed by the rich and powerful, is seen largely as a public relations issue. If it is spun right, or even ignored, it simply goes away.

This past December, the US Senate released portions of its report on government torture, decisively proving the personal culpability of the entire Bush administration in planning and orchestrating the most horrific crimes, of which “rectal feeding” was only the most memorable. The New York Timescalled for criminal prosecutions of top officials in the Bush administration. And what now? The media has stopped reporting on it, and politicians do not raise the issue. Life goes on.

One could envision a different trajectory for House of Cards, one that would also be closer to the reality of American politics. Let us imagine for a moment what would happen if the show’s creators had held true to the characters and approach they created in the first two seasons.

In the third episode of the third season, Underwood displays his “toughness” by cancelling a scheduled joint press conference with Russian President Petrov, instead holding his own press conference where he denounces the Russian government. But to be true to his original character, Underwood should have been able to display a degree of criminality in his interaction with Petrov that would have left the Russian leader frightened and horrified. For example, taking Petrov through a secret corridor below the White House to an interrogation room where Underwood personally tortures and murders a “terrorist” suspect.

But nothing like this ever occurs. The show’s creators are afraid of what would happen if they carry Underwood’s bent for murder and terror into the White House: they would have approached a realistic depiction of the sadism and violence that pervade the highest levels of the American state. It would have been too close to the truth for comfort.

South African MP warned against investigating Russia-South Africa spy satellite

Thabo Seseane Jr.

In revelations tied to the leaked “Spy Cables” documents being published byAl Jazeera in collaboration with the Guardian, opposition Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier said he was warned off an investigation into a joint Russia-South Africa surveillance project. This is thought to be a satellite now being used by rival South African spies to snoop on each other via Russia.

Appearing on Al Jazeera on February 27, Maynier, the Shadow Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, said a satellite “was launched [for South African Defence Intelligence] on or about 14 December 2014,” under the codename Flute. The satellite surveillance programme was to be used for strategic military purposes, eventually culminating in the launch of a satellite by Russia on behalf of South Africa that was to integrate the countries’ satellite surveillance programmes to provide wider coverage over all of Africa and as far north as Israel.

According to the leak, a top-secret report from the South African State Security Agency (SSA) shows that Russia and South Africa were cooperating on a secret satellite surveillance programme, which the SSA codenamed Project Condor.

“Bizarrely,” as a press release on Maynier’s web page explains, “the State Security Agency appears to have been collecting intelligence about a satellite surveillance programme being implemented by Defence Intelligence.”

The SSA report dated August 28, 2012 represents the first time information about Project Condor/Flute has been in the public domain. It says the SSA was relying on an agent in Russia for details of the joint satellite surveillance project between the Russians and Defence Intelligence.

The disclosures came days after Al Jazeera and the Guardian began publishing what they tout as “hundreds of secret intelligence papers from agencies all over the world.” The Spy Cables include papers drafted by operatives working for Israel’s Mossad, Britain’s MI6, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the SSA.

State Security Minister David Mahlobo said in an interview with the Mail & Guardian the leak “undermines the operational effectiveness of intelligence and its mandate to secure the state and diplomatic relations.” He denied that factionalism in the ruling party could be a factor in the revelations.

In what sounded like an early attempt to apportion blame, Mahlobo added, “We inherited an intelligence [service] from a fragmented past. We had the agents from the apartheid intelligence and those from the liberation movements. They were brought together to serve the country…”

Mahlobo’s boss, President Jacob Zuma, headed the intelligence wing of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in exile. That the leaks happened during his term of office is supposed to be a sore point.

The Spy Cables describe Johannesburg as the “El Dorado of espionage.” Experts have said that, whereas under apartheid the country was relatively unwelcoming to the world, with the explosion in the number of embassies opened after the ANC accession to power in 1994 there was a commensurate rise in the number of spies in South Africa.

Even as South Africa aligns itself more and more with Russia and China—now the country’s biggest trade partner—through multilateral vehicles like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) group—the country remains susceptible to pressure from the Western intelligence agencies. Britain’s MI6 and the CIA are supposed to have fostered an anti-Iranian bias among South African intelligence operatives. They warned that the Iranians were using South Africa as a recruiting ground for groups like Al Qaeda and asked the South Africans to keep tabs on their diplomats.

According to one of the leaked documents, the SSA considered spying for the CIA. Doing so, went the reasoning, might have illuminated what the US considered of most importance, and revealed some objectives of US intelligence gathering efforts.

The leaks come at a bad time for Mahlobo. Just days before the Al Jazeerascoop, the minister was forced to announce an inquiry into a signal jammer which prevented journalists from using their cell phones during Zuma’s state of the nation address on February 12.

In the press gallery, journalists prevented from covering the event in real time waved their handsets, chanting, “Bring back the signal!” DA Chief Whip John Steenhuisen rose to object to the communications blackout and was followed by other opposition party MPs who denounced it as a violation of parliamentary rules and therefore unconstitutional.

A handwritten note passed from Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to Mahlobo caused the minister to leave the House for a few minutes. When he returned, so did the cellular networks signal.

Minutes later, Economic Freedom Fighters MPs were assaulted by armed police officers and parliamentary security personnel in identical black-and-white attire. The EFF MPs were thrown out of the joint sitting of the National Assembly and the upper National Council of Provinces for interrupting the president’s address, demanding to know from Zuma when he intended paying back the US$23 million of state funds unlawfully spent on his private compound at Nkandla.

The chaos in parliament and Maynier’s fruitless investigations into the secret spy satellite deals between Russia and Defence Intelligence are of a type. For a sitting MP to be told, as Maynier reports he was, by persons unknown, that the surveillance satellite was not something he wanted to look too closely into smacks of more than just a creeping authoritarianism. The impotence of opposition politics is increasingly clear.

These events signify the limits of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. Having lost the power of persuasion, the ruling party turns to ever greater secrecy and when necessary, demonstrations of force. The DA and EFF are unable to compel Zuma to accept any responsibility for any satellites or for Nkandla, never mind making restitution for even a fraction of any expenditure he is personally responsible for. Neither the ANC, nor the reactionary EFF and DA can give expression to the popular will of working class South Africans.

The repression in parliament is related to the skulduggery of SSA agents and their 140 foreign counterparts throughout South Africa. All together dimly reflect the gigantic social pressures unleashed by the systemic breakdown of global capitalism since 2008. None of the elite factions in any of the parliamentary parties represent a way out for the working poor and the unemployed. For the masses, the answer lies in the building of an independent working class party with a socialist international perspective.

Puerto Rico: Regressive taxes levied on workers as island’s economy falters

John Marion

For almost 10 years, since the expiration of a US federal tax credit that benefited corporate investors followed by the financial collapse of 2008, the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has suffered through an economic crisis used by hedge funds and bondholders to hold it hostage. As the island’s official unemployment rate remains above 13 percent and workers leave in the tens of thousands for the US mainland, predatory financiers are creating tax havens for themselves and using the federal courts to protect their interests.

The use of Puerto Rico’s crisis to attack workers’ rights was expressed last June in an emergency law that froze wages, sick leave and other benefits for government workers.

At the same time, a second law was passed giving authority to the Puerto Rican Electric and Power Authority (PREPA) to restructure its debts, which total approximately $9 billion. This law, modeled on Chapter 9 of the US federal bankruptcy code, was challenged in US District Court by investors that included Franklin Templeton, Oppenheimer, BlueMountain Capital and others.

Puerto Rico had sought to define PREPA as a “municipality” which, with state approval, could seek bankruptcy under Chapter 9. The federal law, however, explicitly states that Puerto Rico is not defined as a state for this purpose. On February 6, the US District Court for the District of Puerto Rico ruled against the debt restructuring law and in favor of investors.

Last Thursday, the island’s Resident Commissioner in the US Congress, Pedro Pierluisi, introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would change this definition so that the restructuring can proceed. Pierluisi is the only representative to Congress from an island of 3.7 million people, and does not have a vote. In seeking to amend Chapter 9, he is looking to copy the attacks on workers that have recently occurred in Detroit and Stockton. While predatory lenders are fighting to protect their immediate interests, sections of the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie view bankruptcy as preferable to default or some types of receivership.

In his decision, District Judge Francisco A. Besosa, wrote that “plaintiff bondholders … should not be forced to live with such substantially impaired contractual rights—rights that they bargained for when they purchased the nearly two billion dollars worth of PREPA bonds that they hold collectively.” The rights of PREPA’s workers will not be treated so gingerly by the courts when push comes to shove. The electric authority employs more than 9,500 people, of whom nearly 6,800 are unionized.

Quoting a 2005 Supreme Court ruling, Besosa also issued a warning to PREPA workers and anyone who purchases energy from the agency: that he sought to “bar the government ‘from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.’”

PREPA, under “forbearance agreements” with large creditors that include Citibank and Scotiabank, is already subjected to strict reviews of its Accounts Receivable and meter reading practices. A November 2014 report issued by FTI Capital Advisors noted as a “positive observation” that the agency had lowered its cut-off period for non-payment from 55 to 50 days.

As the only provider of electricity in Puerto Rico, PREPA is essentially a state-run monopoly that runs 14 plants and services about 1.5 million customers. No doubt there are interests lining up behind the scenes to advocate for its privatization.

Puerto Rico’s General Obligation bonds were also downgraded by Moody’s on February 19. GO bonds are funded in part from the island’s 7 percent sales and use tax through a government-owned corporation established in 2006. Not satisfied with revenues from this regressive tax, the government is now trying to replace it with a 16 percent value added tax which would be applied to many imports as well as items produced on the island. It argues that there is a large informal economy that is escaping the sales tax. While the VAT (or IVU in Spanish) would supposedly include features to limit its regressivity, they come in the form of refunds that are paid out only three times a year and limited to $600.

Rather than build a movement of workers against capitalism, Puerto Rican labor unions and the New Progressive Party (NPP) are advocating pressure on the government. The San Juan Daily Star quoted Luis Pedraza Leduc of the Electrical and Irrigation Workers Union Solidarity Program as advocating “real” tax reform while “recognizing that there is an existing need to restructure the public debt.” NPP gubernatorial candidate Ricardo Roselló called for a “united front” to “bring together all sectors and allow them the necessary time to achieve a transparent and thorough discussion.”

While workers suffer, the government is giving grotesque tax breaks to the wealthy. Under laws passed in 2012, hedge funds located in Puerto Rico now pay only 4 percent tax on profits from exported services, and no tax is charged on capital gains for people who become Puerto Rican citizens. Citizenship means living on the island 183 days out of the year and, asForbes glibly writes, “your driver’s license and yacht should … move with you to the island.”

“Puerto Rico-sourced income” of residents is also not subject to US income tax. The arrogance of the financial aristocracy taking advantage of these measures was expressed by a money manager who told Forbes, “the way the US tax code is written, I could be on Mars and be taxed on intergalactic income but not if I’m sitting on this island in the Caribbean.” Last week theOrlando Centinel quoted Rudy Giuliani as saying that more such people would go to Puerto Rico if beggars were taken off the streets.

Criminality is a characteristic of the banking industry. On Friday, the FDIC shut down Doral Financial Corporation and its subsidiary Doral Bank, which have been investigated for fraud and seen their stock prices drop. El Nuevo Día reported that workers were crying and in shock as they were escorted from the building. The FDIC waited until the end of the day before tens of its agents descended on the company’s headquarters in Guaynabo.

Doral employed more than 800 people, of whom approximately 100 will become employees of FirstBank and 80 will be offered work at Banco Popular. Those two companies are buying Doral’s branches, but its central offices will be shut.

The FDIC expects to lose $750 million in the closure. Doral had total assets of $5.9 billion and total deposits of $4.1 billion. While the FDIC claimed on Friday that no deposits would be lost, it will ensure them only to its standard amount of $250,000. Doral had attempted to balance its books with a $230 million tax credit it expected from the Puerto Rican government, but regulators would not allow this maneuver.

Doral is the largest US bank to fail since three other Puerto Rican banks—Westernbank, R-G Premier Bank and Eurobank—collapsed in 2010. As of December 2014, the total losses registered by the FDIC from those failures were also about $5.9 billion.

Wisconsin unions hold rally against “right-to-work” legislation

Niles Williamson

On Saturday, an estimated 3,000 people attended a union-organized rally in Madison, Wisconsin, to protest so called “right-to-work” legislation that is moving quickly through the state legislature.

The right-wing bill, which would outlaw mandatory dues payment to a union as a condition of employment in private companies, was introduced and passed in the Senate last week. It will be introduced to the Republican-dominated Assembly today, and it is expected to be brought to a vote and approved on Thursday.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a likely candidate for president in 2016, has pledged to sign the bill into law soon after it is approved.

The sections of the political establishment that support the measure—primarily the Republicans—are seeking to dispense with the unions as they escalate the war against the working class. In addition to the right-to-work law, Walker is also seeking to push through a raft of cuts to social programs, as was also the case in 2011, when legislation was passed severely limiting collective bargaining rights for most public sector workers.

The state’s Democrats, on the other hand, see the unions as both a significant source of cash for political campaigns and as instruments for containing social conflict and enforcing attacks on workers.

The character of the protests against the right-to-work legislation is entirely conditioned on these political considerations. While the unions would prefer the bill not pass, they are also completely opposed to any mobilization against it by the workers they claim to represent. The demonstration was mostly composed of bureaucrats, union members and supporters bussed in by union locals from across the state.

The principal speakers on Saturday, including Wisconsin AFL-CIO president Phil Neuenfeldt, focused their remarks on urging workers to testify against the bill at a limited public hearing today and “bear witness” to its passage on Thursday.

The Democrats and the unions have also not expressed any fundamental opposition to the hundreds of millions of dollars in proposed cuts to public education and social programs contained in Walkers’ latest biennial budget proposal. There has been no attempt to mobilize workers against these cuts, in Wisconsin or anywhere else.

Saturday’s protests and others earlier in the week were markedly smaller than protests in Wisconsin in 2011. In February and March of that year, tens of thousands of workers and students participated in demonstrations, which included the occupation of the capitol building in Madison, to oppose a law that curtailed collective bargaining for most public sector workers and massive budget cuts aimed at public education.

The protests were corralled by the Democratic Party and the unions, who funneled workers’ anger into a futile recall election campaign aimed at Republican politicians, including Walker.

Wisconsin Democrats boasted during the 2011 protests of imposing the deepest austerity measures in the state’s history by working with the unions. After the passage of Act 10, the public unions moved quickly to impose concession contracts on teachers and other state workers, before the bill came into effect, in a bid to maintain their bargaining privileges.

Among workers, there is little active support for the unions, which have collaborated for decades in the destruction of workers’ living standards. As is the case nationally, the unions have lost a significant membership base in Wisconsin over the last three decades. The union membership rate stood at 11.7 percent in 2014, down from its historic peak of 20.9 percent in 1989. Since the passage of the legislation curtailing public sector unions in 2011, the number of workers in the state belonging to a union has fallen by more than 30,000.

The union leaders oppose right-to-work legislation out of the knowledge that if dues payment is made voluntary, many workers will stop paying them, severely curtailing one of their main sources of income.

The dues collected from rank-and-file union members are used to fill the pockets of a bevy of well-paid bureaucrats. Among them are Wisconsin state AFL-CIO president Neuenfeldt, who collected a salary of more than $108,526 in 2010. Nationally, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka pulled in a total compensation of $368,652 in 2013, while executive vice president Arlene Holt-Baker raked in a total of $635,507.

In addition to furnishing such handsome salaries to their executives, the unions also funnel tens of millions in dues payments to fill the campaign coffers of the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO contributed approximately $100 million to state and federal election campaigns in 2013, with 95 percent of this sum going to the Democratic Party.

This money goes to maintaining a political party which, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, has presided over the greatest transfer of wealth, from the working class to the corporate and financial aristocracy, in US history.

German Left Party leader outlines campaign against Russia

Johannes Stern

Christine Buchholz, a leading member of Marx 21, the German offshoot of Britain’s Socialist Workers Party and a parliamentary deputy of the Left Party, was recently treated to a reception buffet at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP). If there was a critical visitor to the event—and there were none, since it was “invited guests” only, along with members of the press—they might have been reminded of the saying, “He who pays the piper, calls the tune.”

The mere fact that the defense spokesperson for the Left Party delivered a lecture at the DGAP on German foreign and defense policy exposes how deeply the organization and its pseudo-left factions are integrated into German imperialism. In fact, the Left Party is playing a central role in the revival of an aggressive German foreign policy.

The DGAP is one of the largest and oldest foreign policy think tanks in Germany. It was founded in 1955 by the influential bankers Hermann Josef Abs and Robert Pferdmenges, both of whom had made their careers under the Nazis.

The DGAP today has more than 2,500 members, including major figures in the economic and political establishment. In its presidium can be found Wolfgang Ischinger, the head of the Munich Security Conference. Its managers are CEO Arend Oetker and diplomat Paul Freiherr von Maltzahn. One of its most well-known active members is the current German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU, Christian Democratic Union).

Buchholz spoke within the framework of a series of talks at the think tank, organized under the headline, “German defense policy and a new responsibility—parliamentary group speakers explain their positions.” The spokesmen of the government parties had already explained their “positions” at previous events.

The stated aim of the DGAP is to promote discussion of a new defense and military strategy for Germany. The text announcing the series of meetings reads, “2014 was a year of major security policy crises in Europe and its periphery … Germany must and will take on more responsibility in this conflict-ridden world. At the same time, the deficiencies of the Bundeswehr [armed forces] are striking.”

It continues, “German defense policy is being put to the test: What should a stronger German engagement look like in practice? Do we have the right defense mindset to tackle the threats? Where do we stand in the reorientation of the Bundeswehr? Does it have the right skills? How can the necessary changes be better conveyed to the German public? Can we fulfill our treaty obligations?”

Buchholz came to the DGAP not as an opponent, but as an ally and strategy consultant of German imperialism. Even before beginning her actual contribution, she stressed that cooperation with the Left Party was possible in foreign policy issues.

“I do not see this so narrowly, that there are no points of overlap at all,” she said. Rather than making absolute statements, she said, the question is, “How to conduct oneself with regard to specific points.” These remarks were made to an audience comprised of representatives from the world of politics and the media, senior ministry officials and a whole detachment of the military in civilian clothes and in uniform.

Buchholz was received with warm applause. The moderator of the event, Henning Rieke, head of US/Transatlantic Relations at the DGAP, praised Buchholz’s biography as “one of engagement in numerous projects of the peace movement, globalization movement and other alternative political fields.” Rieke said Buchholz, a founding member of the Left Party, could be described not only as a defense politician, “but generally as an influential foreign policy politician.”

Buchholz’s lecture, titled “New responsibility instead of old interests,” revealed the specific role that the Left Party and Marx 21 are playing in the change in German foreign policy. She justified the return of German militarism with “humanitarian” arguments, calling for a German role more independent of the US and NATO. Such arguments are playing an important role in mobilizing an entire petty-bourgeois layer for the return of German militarism. She also offered the Left Party’s services to foreign policy elites in Germany in the campaign to install pro-Western governments in strategically and economically central regions of the world.

This was particularly evident in Buchholz’s remarks on Russia. In condemning Russian “imperialism”—a term she did not employ in relation to Germany—and the alleged Russian aggression in Ukraine, Buchholz plainly stood behind the aggressive attitude of the German government.

“While Western imperialism remains quagmired in Iraq and Afghanistan,” she lectured, “Russian imperialism has awakened again.” In 2008, Russia had inflicted “a defeat upon a NATO ally, Georgia.”

Specifically, she said she agreed with the defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen. “Frau von der Leyen said the day before yesterday [at the opening event White Paper 2016]: the ‘new policies of the Kremlin began long before the Ukraine crisis.’ That is true.” Russian behavior corresponds to “a great power that imposes its interests by means of force.”

Then Buchholz presented the strategy of the Left Party: “It is obvious that Putin is relying on the use of military force. The Left Party has no sympathy with this. However, the escalation of the conflict—and this is what the response of NATO amounts to—is no more an answer. The solution can only come from within.”

Buchholz added, “Anti-militarism in Russia is the answer to Putin’s militarism. But these voices are marginalized so long as Putin can justify his policy of escalation by pointing the finger at NATO, the EU and their allies.”

In other words, Buchholz advises the German ruling class to break up Russia from the inside in order to pursue their imperialist interests, rather than relying primarily on a military confrontation. Her demand for support for “anti-militarism” in Russia is merely another expression for the promotion of a “color revolution,” as the Western powers have already organized and financed in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

Marx 21 and other parts of the Left Party played a central role in the putsch in Ukraine a year ago, together with the Greens, the government parties and their respective think tanks. They celebrated the right-wing coup as a “democratic revolution” and defended the collaboration with the fascist forces that drove elected President Viktor Yanukovych from office.

During the clashes in Kiev, Marx 21 published an interview on its web site with Ilya Budraitskis, a member of the pseudo-left Russian Socialist Movement, who praised the fascists as the “bravest and literally most militant sections of the movement.” No one went on such an “offensive against the police as the ultra-right.” When asked whether he wanted to “discuss with Nazis,” Budraitskis replied, “Maybe with some.”

With her proposal for a regime change in Russia in the name of “freedom and democracy” and the “struggle against Russian imperialism,” Buchholz stands in the anti-Russian traditions of German imperialism and the DGAP. Shortly attack the attack on the Soviet Union by Hitler’s Wehrmacht in June 1941, Hermann Josef Abs—who founded the DGAP after the war and was the spokesman for the Deutsche Bank from 1957 to 1967—described the war against the Soviet Union as a struggle “against the greatest enemy of freedom and humanity.”

US and South Korea begin joint military exercises

Ben McGrath

Tensions on the Korean Peninsula are likely to rise as annual war games between the United States and South Korea take place over the next two months. Washington and Seoul are using the large mobilization of troops and weaponry involved in these military exercises to threaten and intimidate North Korea as well as China.

The South Korean navy announced Friday that the Foal Eagle exercises had begun early. “The naval maneuver drill started ahead of the official Foal Eagle schedule inevitably to fit the schedule of the US ships so they could come here,” a naval officer told the Yonhap News Agency.

The two exercises known as Foal Eagle and Key Resolve are held each spring. Foal Eagle officially starts today and involves 3,700 US and 200,000 Korean troops. It will be followed by Key Resolve in which 8,600 American and 10,000 South Korean soldiers will take part.

The Foal Eagle naval drill will take place in the Yellow Sea, the Sea of Japan, and the East China Sea just south of the Korean Peninsula and is slated to run through to mid-March. The South Korean Navy released a statement saying, “We expect to boost joint operational capabilities between Seoul and Washington and solidify a strong joint defense posture.”

Foal Eagle comprises a series of land, sea, and air drills. Friday’s exercise began in the waters south of Korea and involves live-fire drills. Ten South Korean vessels are taking part, including the Ganggamchan, a destroyer. The USS Michael Murphy, a destroyer, is participating along with attack helicopters and patrol planes.

The US navy announced last month that one of its new littoral combat vessels, USS Fort Worth, would participate in Foal Eagle for the first time. The ship, which is designed to operate in shallow waters, carries a helicopter and a drone and is armed with missiles and a 57-millimeter gun.

Key Resolve is a computerized command post exercise focusing on crisis management and combat readiness between the two allies. Both exercises are aimed, in the first instance, against North Korea, but also underscore the US military presence close to the Chinese mainland.

Pyongyang denounced the US-South Korean exercises. An editorial in the official Rodong Sinmun last Tuesday declared, “The whole course of Key Resolve and Foal Eagle is aimed to invade North Korea through preemptive strikes.” Another editorial on Thursday warned that North Korea would “wage a merciless sacred war against the US now that the latter has chosen confrontation.” As it has in the past, the North Korean military test fired two short-range missiles off its coast today.

These bellicose but largely empty threats, like its nuclear program, are part of Pyongyang’s attempts to gain some leverage with Washington in exchange for easing crippling US-led economic sanctions and international isolation. However, this rhetoric plays directly into the hands of the US and its allies.

In the past few years, the US used the joint exercises and supposed North Korean threat to escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula. In 2013, as the threat of conflict loomed, the US flew nuclear capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula. Last year a tense artillery exchange erupted between the North and South along the Northern Limit Line in the Yellow Sea, the disputed sea border between the two countries.

North Korea has been calling for dialogue with the South. In October, Pyongyang sent top-ranking officials to South Korea to observe the closing ceremonies of the 2014 Asian Games and hold talks with their counterparts. Then in his New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un offered to hold a summit with President Park Geun-hye.

In January, Pyongyang also offered direct talks with the US and to suspend a fourth nuclear test if the US would call off its annual war games with South Korea. North Korea’s last test was conducted in February 2013. Washington rejected the North’s overtures outright, indicating it currently has no interest in reaching an accord with North Korea.

The current war games also provide the US with an opportunity to highlight its commitment to the “pivot to Asia,” which has been questioned by Washington’s Asian allies as the US focuses on its confrontation with Russia in Ukraine and its new war in the Middle East. The “pivot” is aimed at diplomatically isolating and militarily encircling China in order to force Beijing to accept US hegemony in Asia.

US Republican congressman Randy Forbes, chairman of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, stated last month, “Devoting credible resources to the capabilities required to ensure US presence in Asia is the only way to ensure that the ‘rebalance’ is more than just a slogan.” He continued, “Both our allies and our competitors judge our commitment to the Asia-Pacific region by the capabilities we maintain.”

The current war games take place few days after Joel Wit, an analyst at the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University, predicted North Korea could have as few as 10 or as many as 100 nuclear bombs by 2020 as well as the ability to mount them on missiles. Speaking at a press conference last week David Albright from the Institute for Science and International Security, Wit declared that North Korea possessing 100 bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles was a “pretty scary scenario.”

Such statements coming on the eve of the US-South Korean exercise only further fuel tensions on the Korean Peninsula, which the US uses to put pressure on China. Albright once again blamed China for allowing North Korea to import equipment used in its nuclear program to cross their shared border: “Just cracking down on the border could do a lot, and they (China) do very little now,” he said.

With the war games scheduled to late April, the Obama administration could well exploit the tense situation to ratchet up a dangerous confrontation with North Korea.