India’s disproportionately high population of Dalits, Adivasis lodged in jails

Abdus Sattar Ghazali

A report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says, “Dalits and Adivasis – two of the most vulnerable sections of Indian society – make up a considerable number of India’s prison population.”

Adivasi is the collective term for the indigenous peoples of mainland South Asia. Adivasi make up 8.2% of India’s population, or 104 million people, according to the 2011 census.

Dalits are at the bottom of the Hindu caste system and despite laws to protect them, they still face widespread discrimination in India. According to the latest census, they comprise 16.2 % of India’s population (166 million people).

The NCRB report says that these two communities account for about 24.4  per cent of the country’s population, but constitute 34 per cent of prisoners.

Dalits and Adivasis constitute a disproportionately high number of prisoners with respect to their share of the country’s population, a study has shown, which adds that even behind bars, these prisoners face caste discrimination from jail authorities and their fellow inmates.

The term “Dalit,” which has been used widely since the 1970s to describe the Untouchables, means oppressed or broken to pieces in Sanskrit and accurately details the lives of these people. Dalits are among the most disadvantaged members of Indian society; 70 percent live in the most rural and impoverished regions, and nearly 90 percent work in agriculture or remedial, unskilled labor.

Technically, under the Indian constitution, “untouchability,” or the basic form of class discrimination against Dalits that limits physical contact between Dalits and members of higher castes, has been illegal since 1949. Legislation like the Anti-Untouchability Act of 1955 and Prevention of Atrocities of 1989 also serves to hypothetically protect Dalits’ livelihoods, but are often ignored in actual society.

A report titled ‘Criminal Justice in the Shadow of Caste’, released by the National Dalit Movement for Justice (NDMJ) this week, details how caste discrimination affects Dalit and Adivasi prisoners in terms of their right to food, wage, employment, accommodation, medical, bail, parole, and similar rights to trial and appeals. “Deeply entrenched prejudices against Dalits and Adivasis play an important role in their harassment and incarceration,” it states.

Citing data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the report says, “Dalits and Adivasis – two of the most vulnerable sections of Indian society – make up a considerable number of India’s prison population.” The report says that these two communities account for about 24.2 per cent of the country’s population, but constitute 34 per cent of prisoners.

NCRB 2015 data shows that 21.6 per cent of under trails (61,139 out of 2,82,076) belong to Scheduled Castes (SCs) and 12.4 per cent (34,999 out of 2,82,076) are from Scheduled Tribes (STs). As per the 2011 Census, the SC and ST population accounts for 16.2 per cent and 8.2 per cent of the overall population, respectively.

States that show a significantly disproportionate percentage of prisoners as compared to their actual population are in Assam, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan. For instance, the percentage of SC/ST population in Tamil Nadu is 21.2, while the percentage of SC/ST prisoners in the state is 38.6.

The study is based on detailed interviews with 21 prisoners, convicts, those acquitted, or those out on bail in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra.

“Most of them reported to have faced discrimination in terms of accommodation, bedding, food that is served to them, and even employment and wages provided within the jail. Another issue is also problem faced in accessing legal aid,” said advocate Rahul Singh from NDMJ.

Tellingly, the discrimination against Dalits is kept alive by social practices. Dalits are not to enter temples, use the same water sources as other castes or eat with members of a higher caste. This repressive discrimination keeps Dalits constantly at war with the rest of Indian society and subject to extreme prejudice. In some cases, Dalits who have “forgotten their place” are raped, beaten, burned or lynched.

India requires that 16 percent of government jobs and spots in public schools go to members of the Dalit group, but research shows that only five percent of Dalits actually benefit from these reservation laws.

The Hindu caste system structures Brahmans, society’s priests and teachers, at the top of the ladder, followed by Kshatriyas, the rulers and soldiers. Next come Vaisyas, or merchants and traders. Lastly, Sudras are the laborers. Dalit, or Untouchables, are seen as below even the boundaries of the caste system and shoulder the brunt of discrimination.

Massive incarceration of black in USA

Ironically disproportionate incarceration of Dalits in India reminds the massive imprisonment of black population in USA.

Black people in the USA are imprisoned at more than 5 times the rate of whites; one in 10 black children has a parent behind bars, compared with about one in 60 white kids, according to the Stanford Center on Poverty & Inequality study of 2017. The crisis has persisted for so long that it has nearly become an accepted norm.

Black people make up nearly 40 percent of America’s incarcerated population and are more than five times as likely as whites to be behind bars according to a new study by the People’s Policy Project, a progressive think tank that looks at how economic inequality exacerbates this longstanding racial divide.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, which has tracked a representative sample of Americans since the mid-’90s, the study by Nathaniel Lewis finds that the incarceration gap between blacks and whites is primarily driven by economic disparities. He concludes that one’s class, more than race, is the single greatest predictor of how likely someone is to land behind bars. Our jails and prisons are mostly filled with America’s poor.

In 2014, 57 percent of incarcerated men, and 72 percent of incarcerated women had incomes below $22,500 before they were locked away. Many of them are white, but a stunningly disproportionate share are black.

Trump Signals Withdrawal of US Troops from Syria

Nauman Sadiq

In a succinct tweet on Wednesday, Donald Trump has announced a momentous policy decision that the Trump administration will soon be pulling out the US troops from Syria and Iraq. Although the current redeployment of American troops will only be limited to northern Syria to appease the US-ally Turkey where it has been a longstanding demand of President Erdogan that Turkey will not tolerate the presence of the US-backed Kurdish forces west of Euphrates River, it can be expected in the coming months that Washington will withdraw American forces from eastern Syria and Iraq as well.

President Trump said in the tweet, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump Presidency.” Thus, Washington has finally acknowledged its humiliating defeat in a country it never formally invaded, but where it waged a devastating proxy war for the last seven years that gave birth to myriads of militant groups, including the Islamic State.

It is an irrefutable fact that the United States sponsors militants, but only for a limited period of time in order to achieve certain policy objectives. For instance: the United States nurtured the Afghan jihadists during the Cold War against the former Soviet Union from 1979 to 1988, but after the signing of the Geneva Accords and consequent withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan, the United States withdrew its support from the Afghan jihadists.

Similarly, the United States lent its support to the militants during the Libyan and Syrian proxy wars, but after achieving the policy objectives of toppling the Arab nationalist Gaddafi regime in Libya and weakening the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, the United States relinquished its blanket support to the militants and eventually declared a war against a faction of Sunni militants battling the Syrian government, the Islamic State, when the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and dared to occupy Mosul and Anbar in Iraq in June 2014 from where the US had withdrawn its troops only a couple of years ago in December 2011.

The only difference between the Soviet-Afghan Jihad back in the 1980s that spawned Islamic jihadists such as the Taliban and Al-Qaeda for the first time in history and the Libyan and Syrian proxy wars 2011-onward is that the Afghan jihad was an overt jihad: back then, the Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, used to openly brag that the CIA provides all those AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and stingers to Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, which then distributes those deadly weapons among the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” to combat the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

After the 9/11 tragedy, however, the Western political establishments and corporate media have become a lot more circumspect, therefore this time around they have waged covert jihads against the Arab-nationalist Gaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Zionist Assad regime in Syria, in which Islamic jihadists (aka terrorists) have been sold as “moderate rebels” with secular and nationalist ambitions to the Western audience.

Since the regime change objective in those hapless countries went against the mainstream narrative of ostensibly fighting a war against terrorism, therefore the Western political establishments and the mainstream media are now trying to muddle the reality by offering color-coded schemes to identify myriads of militant and terrorist outfits operating in Syria: such as the red militants of the Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front, which the Western powers want to eliminate; the yellow Islamic jihadists, like Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham, with whom the Western powers can collaborate under desperate circumstances; and the green militants of the Free Syria Army (FSA) and a few other inconsequential outfits which together comprise the so-called “moderate” Syrian opposition.

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

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

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

While we are on the subject of Islamic State’s weaponry, it is generally claimed by the mainstream media that Islamic State came into possession of the state-of-the-art weapons when it overran Mosul in June 2014 and seized huge caches of weapons that were provided to Iraq’s armed forces by Washington.

Is this argument not a bit paradoxical, however, that Islamic State conquered large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq before it overran Mosul when it supposedly did not have those sophisticated weapons, and after allegedly coming into possession of those weapons, it lost ground?

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is that Islamic State had those weapons, or equally deadly weapons, before it overran Mosul and that those weapons were provided to all the militant groups operating in Syria, including the Islamic State, by the intelligence agencies of their regional and global patrons.

If we were to draw parallels between the Soviet-Afghan jihad during the 1980s and the Syrian proxy war of today, the Western powers used the training camps located in the Af-Pak border regions to train and arm Afghan jihadists against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan.

Similarly, the training camps located in the border regions of Turkey and Jordan were used to provide training and weapons to Sunni Arab militants battling the Shi’a-led Syrian government with the collaboration of Turkish, Jordanian and Saudi intelligence agencies.

During the Afghan jihad, it is a known historical fact that the bulk of the so-called “freedom fighters” was comprised of Pashtun Islamic jihadists, such as the factions of Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf and scores of other militant outfits, some of which later coalesced together to form the Taliban movement.

Similarly, in Syria the majority of the so-called “moderate rebels” were comprised of Sunni Arab jihadists, such as Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham, al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State and myriads of other militant groups, including a small portion of defected Syrian soldiers who go by the name of Free Syria Army (FSA).

Moreover, apart from Pashtun Islamic jihadists, various factions of the Northern Alliance of Tajiks and Uzbeks constituted the relatively “moderate” segment of the Afghan rebellion, though those “moderate” warlords, like Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abul Rashid Dostum, were more ethnic and tribal in character than secular or nationalist, as such. Similarly, the Kurds of the so-called “Syrian Democratic Forces” can be compared to the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan.

Recently, the Islamic State’s purported “terror franchises” in Afghanistan and Pakistan have claimed a spate of bombings against the Shi’a and Barelvi Muslims who are regarded as heretics by Takfiris. But to contend that the Islamic State is responsible for suicide blasts in Pakistan and Afghanistan is to declare that the Taliban are responsible for the sectarian war in Syria and Iraq.

Both are localized militant outfits and the Islamic State without its Baathist command structure and superior weaponry is just another ragtag regional militant outfit. The distinction between the Taliban and the Islamic State lies in the fact that the Taliban follow Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam which is an Islamic sect native to South Asia and the jihadists of the Islamic State mostly belong to the Wahhabi-Salafi denomination.

Secondly, and more importantly, the insurgency in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan is a Pashtun uprising which is an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, while the bulk of the Islamic State’s jihadists is comprised of Arab militants of Syria and Iraq.

The so-called “Khorasan Province” of the Islamic State in the Af-Pak region is nothing more than a coalition of several breakaway factions of the Taliban and a few other inconsequential local militant outfits which have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in order to enhance their prestige, but which don’t have any organizational and operational association, whatsoever, with the Islamic State proper in Syria and Iraq.

Conflating the Islamic State either with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or with myriads of ragtag local militant groups is a deliberate deception intended to mislead public opinion in order to exaggerate the threat posed by the Islamic State which serves the scaremongering agenda of Western and regional security establishments.

Which Nations Are State Sponsors of Terrorism?

Eric Zuesse

On 30 December 2009, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent a cable (subsequently released to the public by WikiLeaks) to America’s Ambassadors in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, and Pakistan, headlined, “Terrorist Finance: Action Request for Senior Level Engagement on Terrorism Finance.”

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“Terrorism finance” is what’s generally referred-to by the official phrase “state sponsorship of terrorism.” This cable from Clinton contained the U.S. Government’s confidential list of state sponsors of terrorism. Her cable discussed exactly how bad the situation was in each of those countries. The supply of money to jihadists is what makes a government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Supplying money to jihadists is illegal in almost every country, including the United States. And very little even of private money is paid from Americans to jihadists. However, the U.S. Government hides its own quite substantial supply of weapons to jihadists. Here are some examples of that: On 24 March 2013, the New York Times bannered “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.”, and reported that “From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons,” and that “‘A conservative estimate of the payload of these flights would be 3,500 tons of military equipment,’ said Hugh Griffiths, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who monitors illicit arms transfers.” The U.S. Government tried to hide its involvement in this, by doing it through allied “Arab governments,” which were named in this news-report: “Qatar and Saudi Arabia had been shipping military materials via Turkey,” and all four of these Governments (U.S., Sauds, Turkey, and Qatar) were trying to overthrow Syria’s Government. Then, on 8 September 2014, AFP headlined “Islamic State fighters using US arms: study”, and they reported that the U.S. Government was supplying ISIS. On 1 September 2017, Russian Television reported that the U.S. Government was secretly supplying weapons to ISIS and that an anti-Assad fighter had even quit the CIA-backed New Syrian Army because of that.

However, these supplies were only weapons, not money. For example: the study cited by AFP “documented weapons seized by Kurdish forces from militants in Iraq and Syria over a 10-day period in July.” “Militants” were also called “rebels,” and they had U.S. weapons, which were seized by U.S.-backed “Kurdish forces,” whom the U.S. Government called “rebels,” but who thought that “rebels” didn’t include ISIS, and that ISIS wasn’t also being armed by the U.S. Government. They were mistaken. In fact, on 2 July 2017, the great investigative journalist Dilyana Geytandzhieva headlined “350 diplomatic flights carry weapons for terrorists Azerbaijan’s Silk Way Airlines transports weapons with diplomatic clearance for Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Congo.” Bills of lading, etc., were presented as documentation, for the CIA’s secret operation to arm the jihadist groups that were trying to overthrow and replace Syria’s Government.

However, these were not supplies of money to the ‘rebels.’ Only the supply of money is what makes a government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” And that was her cable’s topic.

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Secretary of State Clinton told those Ambassadors to those Muslim-majority lands, to make clear to the given nation’s aristocrats, that, under the new U.S. President, Barack Obama, there would no longer be any allowance for continuation of their donations to Al Qaeda and other jihadist groups that attack the United States.

Her cable opened, “This is an action request cable,” meaning that the operations of the local U.S. Embassy in the given nation would be monitored for compliance with the Secretary of State’s “request.”

Clinton’s focus was:

on disrupting illicit finance activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the external financial/logistical support networks of terrorist groups that operate there, such as al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, and Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT). The IFTF’s [Interagency Illicit Finance Task Force] activities are a vital component of the USG’s [U.S. Government’s] Afghanistan and Pakistan (Af/Pak) strategy dedicated to disrupting illicit finance flows between the Gulf countries and Afghanistan and Pakistan. The IFTF has created a diplomatic engagement strategy to assist in the accomplishment of this objective. The strategy focuses on senior-level USG engagement with Gulf countries and Pakistan to communicate USG counterterrorism priorities and to generate the political will necessary to address the problem. The IFTF has drafted talking points for use by all USG officials in their interactions with Gulf and Pakistani interlocutors. These points focus on funding for terrorist groups threatening stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan and targeting coalition soldiers. These points have been cleared through the relevant Washington agencies.

Although the named concern was “groups threatening stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the U.S. Secretary of State was actually telling her agents (the Ambassadors) to warn the local aristocracy to stop funding the groups that pose a terrorist threat to the United States as well.

She was listing the actual countries that are State Sponsors of Terrorism and threaten the people of the United States and of other countries.

These confidentially listed State Sponsors of Terrorism were being listed as of 2009, which was 8 years after 9/11; and so, after eight years of George W, Bush’s being in the U.S. White House, these were the nations that still were leading the world in the financing of the Sunni fundamentalist group Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, which were doing such attacks.

This cable reviewed the existing situation regarding each one of the governments, and it included separate instructions to each of the Embassies:

Concerning Saudi Arabia:

While the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) takes seriously the threat of terrorism within Saudi Arabia, it has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority. …

Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide. …

Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT, and other terrorist groups, including Hamas, which probably raise millions of dollars annually from Saudi sources. …

She noted that,

In 2002, the Saudi government promised to set up a Charities Committee that would address this issue, but has yet to do so. 

She instructed the U.S. Ambassador there to:

encourage the Saudi government to take more steps to stem the flow of funds from Saudi Arabia-based sources to terrorists and extremists worldwide, 

and to,

encourage the Saudi government to take more steps to stem the flow of funds from Saudi Arabia-based sources to terrorists and extremists worldwide.

Concerning Qatar:

Qatar’s overall level of CT [Counter Terrorist] cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region. Al-Qaida, the Taliban, UN-1267 listed LeT, and other terrorist groups exploit Qatar as a fundraising locale.  Although Qatar’s security services have the capability to deal with direct threats and occasionally have put that capability to use, they have been hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking reprisals. …

However, given the current focus of U.S. engagement with the GOQ [Government of Qatar] on terror finance related to Hamas, it would be counter-productive for Embassy Doha to engage the GOQ at this time on disrupting financial support of terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [No explanation of that was provided, but one interpretation of it might be: Protecting Israel from Hamas was more important to the Obama Administration than was “disrupting financial support of terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”]

Concerning Kuwait:

Kuwait … has been less inclined to take action against Kuwait-based financiers and facilitators plotting attacks outside of Kuwait. Al-Qa’ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point. …

Clinton noted that though

Kuwait’s law prohibits efforts to undermine or attack Arab neighbors, … the GOK [Government of Kuwait] faces an uphill battle to implement comprehensive terror finance legislation due to a lack of parliamentary support. 

In other words: Kuwait’s aristocracy refused to donate to jihadist groups that attack themselves or the aristocracies of other “Arab” countries, but did contribute to jihadist groups which attacked non-Arab countries. Furthermore, the official reason why they did was that the parliament, which consists of people who are elected by the public, supported jihadists who attacked non-Arab countries. (Actually, when they supported jihadists trying to take over Syria, they were violating that rule, but only because those Sunni jihadists would be replacing a Shiite leader, Bashar al-Assad, who was, to them, even worse: he’s a non-sectarian Shiite, whose political party, the Ba’athist Party, is committed to a separation between church-and-state.)

The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung headlined on 25 April 2014, “Kuwait, ally on Syria, is also the leading funder of extremist rebels.” She reported that, “Last month, the administration decided to go public with its concerns. … Such fundraising was not illegal in Kuwait until last year, when the government took advantage of an unrelated parliamentary boycott to push through a new law. Disappointingly, since then there has not been much vigor shown in implementing a ban on terrorist financing.”

DeYoung went on: “Unlike other monarchies and autocracies in the region, Kuwait’s politics are relatively open and combative. The executive branch, headed by Emir Sabah Ahmed al-Sabah, frequently clashes with a feisty parliament composed of warring political groups within both the Sunni majority and the Shiite minority. Unlike other Gulf countries, Kuwait allows broad freedom of association for its 2.7 million citizens, and Sabah’s rule is characterized more by political incorporation than confrontation.”

Secretary of State Clinton’s cable continued:

A particular point of difference between the U.S. and concerns Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS). … providing financial and material support to al-Qa’ida. … In Kuwait, RIHS enjoys broad public support as a charitable entity. The GOK to date has not taken significant action to address or shut down RIHS’s headquarters or its branches.

So: whereas the Sabah family had been saved by America’s 1991 war against Saddam Hussein’s invasion and attempted takeover there, they didn’t crack down against Al Qaeda; they didn’t stop the funding to Al Qaeda. They “took advantage of an unrelated parliamentary boycott to push through a new law,” but, after the boycott ended, didn’t enforce the new law.

Concerning UAE:

UAE-based donors have provided financial support to a variety of terrorist groups, including al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups, including Hamas. 

Concerning Pakistan:

Pakistan’s intermittent support to terrorist groups and militant organizations threatens to undermine regional security and endanger U.S. national security objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Although Pakistani senior officials have publicly disavowed support for these groups, some officials from the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) continue to maintain ties with a wide array of extremist organizations, in particular the Taliban, LeT and other extremist organizations.  These extremist organizations continue to find refuge in Pakistan and exploit Pakistan’s extensive network of charities, NGOs, and madrassas.  This network of social service institutions readily provides extremist organizations with recruits, funding and infrastructure for planning new attacks.

Those were the countries that, in private, the U.S. Government recognized as being State Sponsors of Terrorism. All of them were being identified as funders of fundamentalist-Sunni groups who perpetrate terrorism upon the U.S. and other countries.

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The United States Government has an official list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism”, and only four governments are on it: Syria (as of 1979),  Iran (as of 1984), Sudan (as of 1993), and North Korea (as of 2017). None of them is a fundamentalist-Sunni-led nation, and none of them has ever attacked, nor even threatened to attack, the United States of America. By contrast, fundamentalist-Sunni terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, which are primarily funded by the actual State Sponsors of Terrorism (mainly Saudi Arabia), have attacked the U.S. Furthermore, on 6 September 2016, Asia News headlined “Conference in Grozny: Wahhabism exclusion from the Sunni community provokes Riyadh’s wrath” and reported that at the international Islamic conference in Grozny, jihadist sects were condemned by all Governments except Saudi Arabia’s, and that the only Government continuing to support the most extremist sect, Wahhabism, was Saudi Crown Prince Salman, the American regime’s closest ally.  

Furthermore, in a secret 2014 court case in the United States, the financial bagman who had personally collected tens of millions of dollars for Al Qaeda during the years prior to Saudi Arabia’s 9/11 attacks, said there, under oath, that, “without the money of the — of the Saudi, you will have nothing” of Al Qaeda. And, yet, Saudi Arabia wasn’t even on the official list of “State Sponsors of Terrorism,” not at all. The U.S. Government continues, to this day, to protect the royal Saud family, who own and control Saudi Arabia and its Government and who were the chief funder of the 9/11 attacks.

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Consequently: On whose side is the Government of the United States of America? Is it on the side of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; or is it on the side of countries such as Iran and Syria — countries that the Sauds want to take over? And why does it lie (deceive), so much, calling “State Sponsors of Terrorism” countries such as Syria and Iran that are instead the chief enemies of the actual state sponsors of terrorism?

As I have previously documented, the only country that has any authentic reason to worry about terrorism that comes from Shiites, such as in (or that are backed by) Iran, is Israel. But is the U.S. Government supposed to be representing and protecting the people in Israel, or instead to be representing and protecting the people in the United States of America? What’s actually behind the U.S. Government’s systematic lying, against Shiites, and for Sunnis (especially Wahhabist ones) and Israel? And why is this U.S. Government lying bipartisan — not Republican or Democratic, but both — at the very top of the U.S. regime: the people who actually control both of America’s political Parties? Or, do the American people actually not control the American Government? If not, then what should be done to the American Government, and why are such questions not being publicly debated and discussed, especially in the American press and among the American people? Is the U.S. lockdown that complete? (This commentary is being submitted to all U.S. newsmedia for publication, to get that essential public conversation in America started.)

UK workers’ wages slashed by as much as a third in last decade

Barry Mason

The onslaught against workers’ wages since the 2008 financial crisis has resulted in pay falling by as much as a third in parts of Britain.

A report by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), based on figures from the Office for National Statistics, notes, “UK workers are suffering the longest real wage squeeze in more than 200 years, with average pay packets not set to recover to their 2008 level until 2024.”

Such is the collapse in wages that “The UK is only of two advanced economies (along with Italy) where real wages are still lower than a decade ago.”

Workers in London suffered the greatest loss in real wages over the decade—at £20,390—while the average real wage loss figure for the whole of the UK was £11,840.

Areas suffering the highest losses, with a loss of around a third in the value of real earnings, were the London borough of Redbridge and Epsom and Ewell in Surrey. In other areas, workers have lost a quarter in the value of real wages, including in the London borough of Barnet, Selby in North Yorkshire, Waverley in Surrey and Anglesey in north Wales. This figure matches the drop in Greece

In the deindustrialised heartlands of the north west and Yorkshire and the Humber, wages fell cumulatively by £14,230 and £12,680. Commenting on the situation in the north west, the TUC notes, “Real wages are still lower than a decade ago in 34 of the region’s 43 local authority areas. And only four areas have seen the value of wages increase by 5% or more since 2008.”

The TUC study follows an International Labour Organisation (ILO) report released November. It found that real wage growth of workers in the UK was among the weakest in the advanced economies of the G20 nations. According to the ILO, a recovery in real wage growth following the 2008 crash began in 2014 but hit a brick wall in 2016.

Despite government claims that wages are recovering, the prognosis for workers’ pay remains grim. This is reflected in the latest Earnings Outlook of the Resolution Foundation (RF). Nye Cominetti, economic analyst at the RF wrote, “[T]he longer-term [situation] is poor because productivity growth, a key driver of pay, remains weak. This was reflected in the OBR’s [Office of Budget Responsibility] recent pay projection, which, if correct, would mean real pay will not recover to its pre-recession peak until 2024. This would amount to a 17-year pay squeeze.”

Speaking in October, Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane linked the decline in real wage growth with the rise of insecure work. He spoke of a “lost decade” for workers, with job insecurity increasing as the use of flexible contracts rose. Haldane quoted data from a survey showing that 1.7 million workers suffered anxiety because of uncertainty over the hours of work available. The use of zero-hour contracts has risen at least fivefold since the millennium. Currently, around 1.8 million contracts are for zero hours.

Attacks on jobs, wages and conditions have produced a huge growth in the numbers of working poor. The Joseph Rowntree charity’s annual report analysing in-work poverty noted, “In our society there are now almost four million workers in poverty, a rise of over half a million compared with five years ago and the highest number on record. The employment rate is also at a record high, but this has not delivered lower poverty. Since 2004/05, the number of workers in poverty has increased at a faster rate than the total number of people in employment, resulting in workers being increasingly likely to find themselves in poverty.

“Latterly the rise in in-work poverty has been driven almost entirely by the increase in the poverty rate of working parents, which has grown over the past five years. A working parent is now over one-and-a-half times more likely to be in poverty than a working non-parent.

“Workers in four types of industry have particularly high rates of poverty: accommodation and food services (25 percent), agriculture, forestry and fishing (23 percent), administrative and support services (22 percent) and wholesale and retail (18 percent). This compares with a poverty rate for workers overall of 12 percent.”

It concluded that “in-work poverty is increasing faster than employment. Many workers are caught in the middle of a series of moving currents; stuck in low-paid work, with little chance of progression, subject to high housing costs and using a weakening social security.”

The National Education Union carried out a poll of more than 1,000 teachers to determine how the increase in poverty is affecting children and young people. As the report headed “Teachers witnessing distressing new levels of child poverty this winter in schools” noted, 46 percent of teachers confirm that holiday hunger has got worse compared to three years ago.

It also found that:

* 63 percent of respondents say that more families are unable to afford adequate winter clothes or shoes compared to three years ago.

* 46 percent of teachers believe that there are more housing issues (poor quality, insecure, overcrowded or temporary accommodation).

* 53 percent of respondents believe that children and young people will go hungry over Christmas.

* 40 percent of respondents say schools are having to provide extra items for children and young people and their families because of increased poverty.

The Young Women’s Trust was set up to support and represent women aged 16-30 struggling to live on low pay or no pay. Its report using data collected earlier in the year established:

* Four in 10 young women (40 percent) say it is a “real struggle” to make their cash last to the end of the month, compared to 29 percent of young men. This rises to 58 percent of women aged 25 to 30.

* 28 percent of young women and 21 percent of young men say that their financial situation has gotten worse in the last 12 months.

* 39 percent of young women have been offered a zero-hours contract, compared to 32 percent of young men. In 2017, the figure was 33 percent of young women.

* 27 percent of young women say their level of debt has gotten worse in the past year, and one in four say they are in debt “all of the time.”

* Just 5 percent of young women are currently debt-free, and 37 percent don’t think they will be debt-free by the age of 40.

Those politically responsibility for this situation are the Labour Party and trade unions, with Labour councils having imposed central government cuts in the urban centres they run.

The collapse in wages reported on by the TUC is the severest indictment of its own role. It has sabotaged every single struggle of the working class over the decade it documents, from the fight against pension cuts by millions of workers in 2011, to the junior doctors’ strike against an inferior contract in 2016. This year alone, the unions have sold out struggles by university lecturers and administrators and rail workers. Earlier this year, 13 National Health Service unions agreed on a sellout deal that ensured that 1 million health workers—who had already suffered seven years of pay freezes reducing their pay by 14 percent—will continue to have their pay cut for another three years.

Brutal crackdown on West Bank as Netanyahu pledges stepped-up land grab

Jean Shaoul

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized a military crackdown on the Palestinian West Bank.

The assault was calculated to appeal to Israel’s ultra-nationalist forces at the expense of his fascistic coalition partners, which are vying over who has a tougher policy against the Palestinians.

In the days that followed, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) carried out a series of military operations, killing six and arresting at least 100 more in protests that erupted over Israeli brutality in Nablus, Tulkarem, Ramallah, Hebron and al-Bireh. One of those arrested in the Hebron area was the Palestinian legislator Mohammed Ismail Al-Tal.

The assault started after a drive-by shooting on December 9 near the West Bank city of Ofra that injured seven Israelis, including a pregnant woman whose baby was subsequently delivered by Caesarian section but later died. Settler leaders demanded to “see the blood of the terrorists.” Netanyahu’s son Yair joined the calls for revenge, following a series of posts on social media calling for the expulsion of the Palestinians and writing that he would prefer all Muslims to leave Israel. Facebook’s temporary ban on him for breaking its rule on hate speech only served to make him a martyr among Israel’s fascists.

On Wednesday, Israeli security forces gave chase to 29-year-old Salah Barghouti, who lived near Ramallah, opening fire on his car before arresting and killing him. His family denied that he had any involvement in the shooting, pointing out that he had not gone into hiding. The next day, the conflict escalated after Palestinians shot and killed two Israeli soldiers and injured two others in a drive-by shooting at a bus stop near the illegal settlement of Ofra. Amid another media uproar, there were calls from several far-right figures for Israel to legalise the entire settlement in retaliation for the attack.

The IDF mounted a full-scale provocation, moving into Area A, supposedly under the Palestinian Authority’s full control. The IDF blockaded the city of Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority (PA), for two days, escalating tensions throughout the West Bank. They carried out a mass round-up, arresting 40 Palestinians, mostly members of Hamas, the bourgeois Islamist group that controls Gaza.

The PA’s security forces reportedly went into hiding during the Israeli military presence on the streets. PA President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Palestinian attacks, while pointing to Israel’s raids as the cause of popular anger.

The same day, Israeli security forces killed 23-year-old Ashraf Naalwa, whom they suspected of shooting and two killing Israelis in the Barkan settlement industrial plant last October. They had forced their way into a home in Askar al-Jadid refugee camp, near the northern city of Nablus, sparking a lengthy gun battle. Troops used live rounds or rubber-coated steel bullets on crowds of angry Palestinians protesting Naalwa’s murder, injuring at least 11.

Soldiers shot Hamdan al-Arda, a 58-year-old resident of the northern town of Arrabeh, near his aluminum plant in al-Bireh, claiming that he had tried to ram soldiers with his car. Al-Arda died after soldiers refused to allow Palestinian medics to attend to him. Eyewitnesses told the Ma’an News Agency “that the incident was merely a car accident,” and that taken by surprise by the presence of the Israeli soldiers, the driver—who was hard of hearing—had tried to turn away from them before they opened fire on him, a claim that Israel’s Channel 10 also supported. There were reports of Israeli forces using drones to tear gas protesters gathering in the aftermath of the killing.

On Friday, the IDF shot and killed 18-year-old Mahmoud Yousef Nakhla in the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah. Palestinians came out onto the streets in protest. The IDF responded by firing stun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets to disperse the crowds. At least six Palestinians were wounded by the bullets and dozens more suffered from gas inhalation, while 57 were arrested.

Meanwhile in Gaza, the IDF shot and wounded 75 Palestinians, including five paramedics and two photojournalists, during the weekly Friday protests—held last week under the banner of the “legitimate right of resistance”—ongoing since the end of March against the Israeli blockade. Since then, Israeli forces have killed 235 Palestinians and injured 7,000 more with live fire, at least 1,000 of whom face permanent disabilities.

Early Saturday morning, 700 IDF soldiers besieged al-Amari refugee camp and demolished a four-story building that was home to Umm Nasser Abu Hmeid, after throwing the residents out onto the streets without even giving them time to put on warm clothes or take their possessions, as punishment for the killing of an Israeli soldier in May, allegedly by Umm Nasser’s son, Islam. On at least three occasions they stopped Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances trying to evacuate a pregnant woman who had gone into labour.

An Israeli court gave the go-ahead for the demolition—a flagrant violation of international law that bans collective punishment—as a “deterrence” against future attacks. Umm Nasser has faced decades of Israeli oppression. Mother to 12 children, 10 boys and two girls, she has six sons, including Islam, in Israeli jails, four of them serving multiple life sentences. Israeli soldiers killed another of her sons in 1994. As she told the Middle East Eye, “There isn’t a home in Palestine that hasn’t been affected in some way by the occupation. My family has been through everything with the Israeli occupation, and we will get through this as well.”

The Palestinians have faced not just the IDF but also Israeli settlers who have been attacking cars and civilians in the West Bank since Thursday, shooting and injuring at least one. Settlers from Ofra went on the rampage through the village of Ein Yabroud, northeast of Ramallah, firing on Palestinians’ homes and provoking clashes. Many of the attacks took place in full view of Israeli soldiers who did nothing to stop them. One far-right group put up posters all over the West Bank calling for the assassination of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians protesting in the city of Hebron also came face to face with the violence of Abbas’ PA security forces who attacked them, detaining a number, and prevented journalists from filming.

Netanyahu followed up the brutal crackdown with a pledge to expand the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem that Israel annexed illegally after seizing it during the 1967 June war. Last Thursday, he announced his intention to legalise thousands of Jewish homes built in settlement outposts in the West Bank, previously deemed illegal under Israeli law, while he is pursing plans to redefine Jerusalem’s borders to exclude Palestinian residents. Netanyahu said he would fast-track the demolitions of the family homes of Palestinians suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis.

Speaking during a tour of the West Bank, he said, “We will bolster the settlements even more, as we have now, and we will take all the necessary steps against terror.” He added, “We won't tolerate terror—neither from Gaza nor from the West Bank. We will beat it with a strong fist.”

He made a point of extolling “the settlers, who are showing strength and perseverance in face of this murderous terror, and the commanders and soldiers of the IDF who safeguard all of the country’s civilians, around the clock, throughout the year.”

Netanyahu faces the prospect of being indicted for bribery and corruption on numerous charges. He heads a fractious far right coalition that has a majority of just one in the Knesset, following the resignation of Avigdor Lieberman, his former Minister of Defence and leader of Israel Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home). The religious Agudat Yisrael, part of the United Torah Judaism party, has threatened to quit the coalition if Netanyahu goes ahead with the bill enforcing the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox into the army, as required by a High Court ruling before January 16.

At the same time, Netanyahu faces rising social discontent within Israel itself, fueled by social inequality, rising prices and the “yellow vest” protests in France that led to several hundred to protest on the streets of Tel Aviv last weekend.

The US hails Wickremesinghe’s reinstatement as Sri Lankan prime minister

Wasantha Rupasinghe

Colombo has been showered with praise by the US and its allies after President Maithripala Sirisena swore in United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe as prime minister last Sunday. Sirisena’s decision reversed his unconstitutional removal of the UNP leader and installation of former President Mahinda Rajapakse on October 26.

The immediate and enthusiastic support for Sirisena’s about-face is another indication of the concerted pressure brought to bear by the US behind the scenes for Wickremesinghe’s reappointment. The US “advice” to Colombo to uphold “parliamentary democratic norms, constitution and rule of law” was simply a smokescreen to cover up its geo-political agenda in the India-Pacific region.

Sirisena’s dismissal of Wickremesinghe last October was in response to sharp political divisions within Colombo’s political elite. The conflict was fuelled by growing tensions between the US and China, a mounting crisis in the Sri Lankan economy, and above all the eruption of militant struggles by workers in Sri Lanka and internationally.

The bitter dispute between Sri Lanka’s two political factions—one led by Sirisena and Rajapakse and the other by Wickremesinghe’s UNP and its allies—is over how best to deal with the mounting popular resistance to International Monetary Fund-dictated austerity measures.

The US and its regional partner India were concerned that the close military relations developed with Colombo during the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government as a part of their escalating confrontation with China would be undermined by an incoming Rajapakse government.

US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Alaina Teplitz, welcomed Sunday’s reappointment of Wickremesinghe, declaring in a Twitter comment, that the decision “upheld Sri Lanka’s democratic and constitutional norms.” Sri Lanka, she added, “is a valued partner in the Indo-Pacific and we look forward to continuing to develop our relationship with the government and people in this country”—i.e., to increase Colombo’s involvement in US military preparations for war against China.

Teplitz’s tweet was echoed by State Department spokesman Robert Palladino who noted: [W]e look forward to engaging with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe and his cabinet to advance cooperation on bilateral and regional issues of common interest.”

Washington, of course, is not concerned in the slightest with Sri Lanka’s “democratic and constitutional norms.” The US fully backed the Rajapakse government’s anti-democratic methods of rule and its bloody war against the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But when China emerged as a major military hardware supplier and provider of financial aid to Colombo, Washington suddenly “discovered” human rights violations in an attempt to pressure Rajapakse to distance his government from China.

When these moves failed to persuade Rajapakse to change his foreign policy orientation, Washington, with the aid of Wickremesinghe and former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, orchestrated the regime-change operation that brought Sirisena to power in the January 2015 presidential election.

The incoming Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration immediately reoriented Sri Lanka away from China and began closely integrating the Sri Lankan military with its US counterpart.

The close military relations between the two countries are reflected in the temporary logistics hub established by the USS John C. Stennis, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, in Trincomalee in eastern Sri Lanka. According to a December 6 article on the US Navy’s website “the hub provides logistics support to US Navy ships operating in the Indian Ocean.”

As Lieutenant Bryan Ortiz, USS John C. Stennis’s stock control division officer explained: “The primary purpose of the operation is to provide mission-critical supplies and services to US Navy ships transiting through and operating in the Indian Ocean. The secondary purpose is to demonstrate the US Navy’s ability to establish a temporary logistics hub ashore where no enduring US Navy logistics footprint exists.”

On December 14, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia David J. Ranz visited Sri Lanka and the Maldives to “strengthen” relations. The trip occurred after the recent pro-US regime change in the Maldives and just before Wickremesinghe’s reinstatement.

Sirisena also came under pressure from the IMF to “reconsider” his previous dismissal of Wickremesinghe. In November, the bank announced that it was withholding the final installment of its loan to Sri Lanka until the “political uncertainty” in Colombo was resolved. Additional pressure was exerted by the US postponement of its Millennium aid program for Sir Lanka and the announcement by US ally Japan that it was delaying its aid and investment project to the island.

Commenting on Washington’s postponement of the Millennium aid program, US Ambassador Teplitz told the Colombo-based Daily FT on December 10: “We are waiting to see how the crisis [in Sri Lanka] is resolved before we could resume our negotiations and go forward. … There is definitely an impact from the crisis on some of our bilateral opportunities.”

India immediately praised the return of Wickremesinghe. Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that “India welcomes the resolution of the political situation in Sri Lanka” and declared that the Modi government was “confident that India-Sri Lanka relations will continue to move on an upward trajectory.” New Delhi considers Sri Lanka and other South Asian countries as its backyard and is hostile to China developing its influence in the region.

An EU statement welcomed “the peaceful and democratic resolution of the political crisis in accordance with Sri Lanka’s constitution” and pledged to continue supporting “the island nation’s efforts towards national reconciliation and prosperity for all.” When Sirisena sacked Wickremesinghe as prime minister in October the EU threatened to “reconsider” GSP tariff concessions provided to Sri Lankan exports.

China issued a pro-forma statement welcoming the “resolution of the political situation” in Sri Lanka and declaring that it would work with the new government and all Sri Lankan political parties to promote “cooperation between the two countries.” This response cannot hide the fact that Wickremesinghe’s reinstatement undermines China’s position in Colombo.

Both of Sri Lanka’s warring factions sought the support of the major imperialist powers. Rajapakse insisted that he had “no grudge” against these powers and that his party was “taking steps to change their attitude towards us.”

These international pressures and fear of growing class struggle, expressed at its sharpest in indefinite strike action taken by tens of thousands of plantation workers, which emerged outside of the unions’ control, were key factors forcing Sirisena to reinstate Wickremesinghe.

After Sunday’s swearing-in ceremony, Wickremesinghe pompously thanked those “who stood firm” to defend the constitution and “ensuring the triumph of democracy.” His reinstatement does not end the crisis of the Sri Lankan ruling elite, which will intensify as pressure from US imperialism and international capital continues. Like his imperialist masters, Wickremesinghe and his UNP do not “defend democracy” but are involved in a headlong rush by the entire Colombo establishment towards authoritarian forms of rule.

Under his administration, Sri Lanka’s population of 20 million will be subjected to even harsher IMF-dictated austerity measures and will be further drawn into the maelstrom of major power rivalry and the US drive to war.

Turkey threatens to invade Syria amid tensions with Washington

Barış Demir 

On December 12, at the Turkish Defense Industry Summit, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to launch a new military operation east of the Euphrates River in northern Syria in coming days, targeting the Kurdish nationalist groups.

He dismissed arguments that US support for Kurdish nationalists was necessary to fight the terrorist threat from ISIS: “There is no ISIS threat in Syria any longer. This is only a tale. We said before and we are saying now that we will start the operation in east of the Euphrates in a few days to save it from the separatist terrorist organization. It is clear that the purpose of US observation points in Syria is not to protect our country from terrorists, but to protect terrorists from Turkey.”

This reflected longstanding concerns in Ankara over US support for the Kurdish nationalist People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish separatist movement against which Ankara has waged a bloody counter-insurgency for more than 30 years in Turkey. Ankara opposes Kurdish autonomy in Syria, fearing that it will provoke demands for Kurdish autonomy in eastern Turkey.

To crush the Kurdish nationalist forces, Erdogan has twice ordered the Turkish army to launch its own bloody invasions of Syria: “Operation Euphrates Shield” (in August 2016) and “Operation Olive Branch” (in January 2018), directed against the US-backed YPG.

Erdogan’s December 12 speech was a direct response to the announcement made by Department of Defense spokesman Rob Manning on December 11. “At the direction of Secretary (James) Mattis, the US established observation posts in the northeast Syria border region to address the security concerns of our NATO ally Turkey,” Manning said.

Mattis had announced that Washington would establish observation posts in northern Syria near the Turkish border in order to share military intelligence on Kurdish movements into Turkey. Mattis’ remarks were framed as an attempt to reassure Turkey that US support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is comprised largely of YPG troops, would not harm Ankara’s interests. Ankara rejected this, however, seeing it as an unacceptable proposal to place US troops athwart a Turkish attack on Kurdish forces in Syria.

As high-level talks continued, US-Turkish relations were nearing the breaking point. While Washington and its European imperialist allies had initially launched the Syrian war in 2011 using Turkey as a base to resupply Islamist militias fighting the Syrian regime, Turkey’s planned invasion threatened to provoke a direct clash with US troops in Syria.

While Erdogan rejected US attempts to mollify Ankara by pledging to monitor the Kurdish nationalists, US officials rejected Ankara’s claims that its planned invasion of Syria was compatible with US interests. Thrusting aside Erdogan’s statement that “Turkey’s target is never US soldiers,” US officials promptly warned Turkey against attacking Washington’s Kurdish proxies.

US Department of Defense spokesman Commander Sean Robertson said: “Unilateral military action into northeast Syria by any party, particularly as US personnel may be present or in the vicinity, is of grave concern. We would find any such actions unacceptable.” He added, “We believe this dialogue is the only way to secure the border area in a sustainable manner, and believe that uncoordinated military operations will undermine that shared interest.”

Despite the reference to “shared interests,” powerful forces in Washington saw Ankara’s determination to crush the Kurds as a major obstacle to its plans to harness the Kurdish nationalists to Washington’s plans for a military confrontation with Russia and Iran.

In a phone call Friday with Erdogan, Trump discussed Turkey’s concerns, and the two “agreed to continue coordinating to achieve our respective security objectives in Syria,” the White House stated.

Erdogan denounced the Kurdish nationalist groups as terrorist and demanded a shift in US war policy to accommodate a bloody Turkish assault in Syria.

Erdogan spoke at the meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, warning Washington that “85–90 percent of the people living in Manbij are Arabs, but they have completely given it to those terrorist organizations. They have promised us to clear that area and send them east of the Euphrates, but they have not. Now, we say, you either clear it or we enter Manbij… Turkey has already lost a lot of time to intervene in the terror swamp east of the Euphrates. From now on, we cannot afford even a one-day delay.”

Now, with Trump’s announcement Wednesday of a withdrawal of US troops from Syria, it appears that Washington is preparing to throw its Kurdish nationalist allies to the wolves, removing obstacles to a Turkish attack. YPG officials have responded by announcing that they may ally with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to fight off a Turkish invasion of Syria.

YPG general commander Sipan Hemo told the London-based Şarku’l Avsat newspaper: “Turkey is making every effort to destroy the achievements of Kurds and sees it as a priority job. They sent their forces to the border and bombed inside of Syria.” He called on the Syrian regime to protect Syria’s borders, saying, “we are ready to talk about the mechanisms to protect the borders and cooperation against Turkey.”

Erdogan’s maneuvers to try to work out a common war strategy with US imperialism in the Middle East are thoroughly reactionary. They pave the way for not only more bloodshed inside Syria, but also Ankara’s continued collaboration in Washington’s plans for strategic and military intervention in Eurasia.

A closer look at American “democracy”

Barry Grey

A central theme of the hysteria over alleged “Russian meddling” in US politics is the sinister effort supposedly being mounted by Vladimir Putin to “to undermine and manipulate our democracy” (in the words of Democratic Senator Mark Warner).

According to the narrative fabricated by the intelligence agencies and promoted by the Democratic Party and the corporate media over the past year-and-a-half, Putin and his minions hacked the Democrats and stirred up social divisions and popular grievances to secure the election for Donald Trump, and they have been working ever since to destroy “our institutions.”

Their chosen field of battle is the internet, with Russian trolls and bots infecting the body politic by taking advantage of lax policing of social media by the giant tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

To defend democracy, the argument goes, these companies, working with the state, must silence oppositional viewpoints—above all left-wing, anti-war and socialist viewpoints—which are labeled “fake news,” and banish them from the internet. Nothing is said of the fact that this supposed defense of democracy is a violation of the basic cannons of genuine democracy, guaranteed in the First Amendment to the US Constitution: freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

But what is this much vaunted “American democracy?” Let's take a closer look.

The two-party monopoly

In a vast and complex country with a population of 328 million people, consisting of many different nationalities, native tongues, religions and other demographics, spanning six time zones and thousands of miles, two political parties totally dominate the political system.

The ruling corporate-financial oligarchy controls both parties and maintains its rule by alternating control of the political institutions—the White House, Congress, state houses, etc.—between them. The general population, consisting overwhelmingly of working people, is given the opportunity every two or four years to go to the polls and vote for one or the other of these capitalist parties. This is what is called “democracy.”

The monopoly of the two big business parties is further entrenched by the absence of proportional representation, which it makes it impossible for third parties or independent candidates to obtain significant representation in Congress.

The role of corporate money

The entire political process—the selection of candidates, elections, the formulation of domestic and foreign policies—is dominated by corporate money. No one can seriously bid for high office unless he or she has the backing of sponsors from the ranks of the richest 1 percent—or 0.01 percent—of the population. The buying of elections and politicians is brazen and shameless.

Last month's midterm elections set a record for campaign spending in a non-presidential year—$5.2 billion—a 35 percent increase over 2014 and triple the amount spent 20 years ago, in 1998. The bulk of this flood of cash came from corporations and multi-millionaire donors.

In the vast majority of contests, the winner was determined by the size of his or her campaign war chest. Eighty-nine percent of House races and 84 percent of Senate races were won by the biggest spender.

Democratic candidates had a huge spending advantage over their Republican opponents, exposing the fraud of their attempt to posture as a party of the people. The securities and investment industry—Wall Street—favored Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 52 percent to 46 percent.

Elections are anything but a forum to openly and honestly discuss and debate the great issues facing the voters. The real issues—the preparation for new wars, deeper austerity and further attacks on democratic rights—are concealed behind a miasma of attack ads and mud-slinging. The research firm PQ Media estimates that total political ad spending will reach $6.75 billion this year. In last month's elections, the number of congressional and gubernatorial ads rose 59 percent over the previous, 2014, midterm.

The setting of policy and passage of legislation is helped along by corporate bribes, euphemistically termed lobbying. In 2017 alone, corporations spent $3 billion to lobby the government.

Ballot access restrictions

A welter of arcane, arbitrary and anti-democratic requirements for gaining ballot status, which vary from state to state, block third parties from challenging the domination of the Democrats and Republicans. These include filing fees and nominating petition signature requirements in the tens of thousands in many states. Democratic officials routinely challenge the petitions of socialist and left-wing candidates who are likely to find support among young people and workers.

Media blackout of third party candidates

The corporate media systematically blacks out the campaigns of third party and independent candidates, especially left-wing and socialist candidates. The exception is candidates who are either themselves rich or who have the backing of wealthy patrons.

Third party candidates are generally excluded from nationally televised candidates’ debates.

In last month’s election, the Socialist Equality Party candidate for Congress in Michigan’s 12th Congressional District, Niles Niemuth, won broad support among workers, young people and students for his socialist program, but received virtually no press coverage.

Voting restrictions

Since the stolen election of 2000, when the Supreme Court shut down the counting of votes in Florida in order to hand the White House to the loser of the popular vote, George W. Bush, with virtually no opposition from the Democrats or the media, attacks on the right of workers and poor people to vote have mounted.

Thirty-three states have implemented voter identification laws, which, studies show, bar up to 6 percent of the population from voting. States have cut back early voting and absentee voting and shut down voting precincts in working class neighborhoods. A number of states impose a lifetime ban on voting by felons, even after they have done their time. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the enforcement mechanism of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, with no real opposition from the Democrats. The United States is one of the few countries that hold elections on a work day, making it more difficult for workers to cast a ballot.

Government of, by and for the rich

The two corporate parties have overseen a social counterrevolution, resulting in a staggering growth of social inequality. In tandem with this process, the oligarchic structure of society has increasingly found open expression in the political forms of rule. Alongside the erection of the infrastructure of a police state—mass surveillance, indefinite detention, the militarization of the police, Gestapo raids on workplaces and attacks on immigrants, the ascendancy of the military in political affairs, internet censorship—the personnel of government have increasingly been recruited from the rich and the super-rich.

More than half of the members of Congress are millionaires, as compared to just one percent of the American population. All the presidents for the past three decades—George H. W, Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama—have either been multi-millionaires going in or have cashed in on their presidencies to become multi-millionaires afterward. In the person of the multi-billionaire real estate speculator and con man Donald Trump, the financial oligarchy has directly taken occupancy of the White House.

In The State and Revolution, Vladimir Lenin wrote: “Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor.”

The working class will never achieve genuine democracy, nor succeed in defending the democratic gains it extracted in the course of more than a century of struggle against the capitalist class, so long as it remains an oppressed class, exploited by the corporate owners and their state apparatus. Democracy for the workers and oppressed, as opposed to the phony democracy of the rich, can be achieved only through the creation of organs of workers’ struggle and control and the building of a revolutionary leadership to overthrow the existing state, place power in the hands of the working class, expropriate the capitalists and establish a socialist economy based on social equality.