". . . Protect oil supplies by force."

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

KUWAIT "ONLY AREA WHERE WE MIGHT WISH TO INTERVENE TO PROTECT OIL SUPPLIES BY FORCE"

Protection of Kuwaiti oil was the United Kingdom's “irreducible interest” in the Gulf—to be defended by force of arms if necessary—according to confidential Whitehall policy papers released after 30-year closure yesterday.

Dick Beaumont, head of the Foreign Office Arabian Department, had written to Sir George Middleton, political resident in the Persian Gulf, on 29 January 1960, saying: “The irreducible interest of the United Kingdom in Kuwait is that ‘Kuwait shall remain an independent state having an oil policy conducted by a government independent of other Middle East producers’. A corollary of this is that Kuwaiti independence will not be preserved unless any government, which might wish to subvert or overthrow it. is convinced of Her Majesty’s Government’s willingness and ability to defend Kuwait by force of arms if necessary".

The previous November, senior defence and foreign policy planners had agreed that: “The only area where we might wish to intervene to protect (oil) supplies by force was Kuwait’’.

—Independent. 2 January 1990.

“Great Men” (1991)

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The great ones of the earth

Approve, with smiles and bland salutes, the rage

And monstrous tyranny they have brought to birth.

The great ones of the earth

Are much concerned about the wars they wage,

And quite aware of what those wars are worth.

You Marshals, gilt and red,

You Ministers and Princes, and Great Men,

Why can’t you keep your mouthings for the dead?

Go round the simple Cemeteries; and then

Talk of our noble sacrifice and losses

To the wooden crosses.

— Siegfried Sassoon, The War Poems. 

Caught In The Act: Time for a change (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time for a change

Who is Margaret Thatcher? It is necessary to ask the question because it seems she has disappeared. Only a few months ago she was the indestructible Iron Lady, terrifying her foes, doing all her minister's jobs herself and ruthlessly squashing out any of them who fell from her favour. But now she is hardly mentioned.

For example the Gulf Crisis simmered and burst into war without any stimulus from her; she might have been expected at least to make a speech about the wishes of the Kuwait people being paramount (provided, of course, the dictatorship there allowed the people's wishes to be known). British capitalism is sliding into another recession but she is not expected to launch into one of her searing damnations of the Moaning Minnies who refuse to acknowledge that millions unemployed and an unprecedented bankruptcy rate are actually signs of a booming economy.

When one of Thatcher's Ministers left — or was ejected from — her government it was usual for the Downing Street media manipulators to quickly spread the word that the ex-minister was not much loss or even that the government was better off without them. The more prominent the ex-minister and therefore the more threatening their absence — the more violent was the campaign to undermine their reputations.

So it was that the likes of Howe and Lawson were on the receiving end of particularly malicious stories. Of course we couldn't expect that Thatcher would now be treated like that — John Major is supposed to be a much nicer, much less obsessive personality. In fact a rather gentler and more subtle technique has been used. Thatcher's standing now was expressed by a Tory grassroots member in the Ribble constituency: "I'm grateful for all she did for the country", said this patient, malleable blockhead, "But it was time for a change".

But whatever the style employed the fact is that Thatcher is the victim of an exceptionally efficient demolition job. The Tories have a long history of these things, often plotted in some bastion of chivalry such as the Carlton Club or the discreet offices of City merchants.

When the knife was wielded it was done with due regard for the Tory reputation as the Gentleman's Party. For they are the most single-minded bunch of political operators, who thoroughly understand that politics is about getting power to keep capitalism running in their way, at whatever cost. In the business of fighting elections and disposing of leaders who damage their chances of winning they leave their opponents standing. Ask Douglas-Home. Or Ted Heath. Or Margaret Thatcher.

Labour in change

It is ironical that Thatcher may eventually be seen to have left more of a mark on the Labour Party than on their own side. As the Tories have shown that they could win enough votes from politically deranged workers to keep them in power for a long time, the Labour Party decided that their best hope of winning a general election lay in imitating the Tories as closely as possible. The new Labour policies have provoked anger and confusion among those grassroots members who joined the party under the mistaken impression that it took a principled stand for a basically different society.

Their anger is based on the recent policy statement Meet The Challenge, Make The Change, which openly accepted market forces and private industry and was aimed solely at winning the next election. But how much of a change is this from the Labour Party of the past?

In October 1964 the Labour President of the Board, Douglas Jay, assured a dinner of the International Chamber of Trade that "the new government starts with no prejudice or bias whatever against private business and industry". In May 1965 George Brown, who was then head of the Department of Economic Affairs, told a meeting of company directors and managers that "the profit motive has an ' important role to play as an incentive and test of efficiency". In April 1966 Harold Lever, who later became a Treasury minister, wrote "Labour and business are already moving towards a mutual understanding".

And what about Labour's leader then, Harold Wilson. How does he compare to Neil Kinnock? In September 1964 — just before Wilson won the election — Anthony Howard wrote that ". . . he has already transformed the Labour Party from being primarily an ideological movement into being an election-minded organisation". Lest you misunderstand — Howard was one of Wilson's admirers.

Disappointed Leader

It could be that Kinnock has misled himself enough to be disappointed, were he to learn that he has not really changed anything about the Labour Party. It is some years now since he was a rebellious, CND-marching, fiery left winger; he dropped all that to concentrate on the serious business of exploiting working class readiness to disregard their interests and to vote parties like Labour into power.

To do this Kinnock must associate himself with, and defend, election programmes the attraction of which lies in their unrealistic claims to be able to solve capitalism’s problems and to reconcile essentially conflicting class interests.

In this Kinnock must upset his old friends, outraged by what they see as his change of course. In fact the real problem lies with them for Kinnock is following the inexorable route of a party which stands for a reformed capitalism and which must therefore compete for power over the system, cadging for votes with policies and promises which are as false and as cynical as they need be. This is as ruthless a business as the Tories getting rid of Thatcher; that is the nature of capitalist politics.

So it is not only incorrect to give Thatcher the blame — or the credit, depending on how you look at it — for Labour changing its policies and its style. It is also unfair: the Labour Party have always been as they are now only at times they are less effective in their campaign for capitalism. In any case, to be charitable to Thatcher: in the depths of anonymity of wherever she is, hasn't she got enough to answer for?

Ivan

Between the Lines: The Day War Broke Out (1991(

The Between the Lines column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The Day War Broke Out

This was the most planned for war in history. The cameras were waiting in the desert, eager for the first fireworks display. CNN reporters locked themselves in their hotel room and described the bombing of Baghdad as it started, even poking their microphone out the window so that the viewers could hear the big bangs. This was televised warfare — murder by media.

When the bombing started (16 January) the TV reporters affected an air of surprise, as if the whole shooting match was out of the blue. Had they not spent five months previous to this telling the workers that such mass slaughter was inevitable and then that it would begin on the first night after 15 January?

The second night of the war saw the first Iraqi attack on Israel. CNN reported that it was a chemical missile attack. This misinformation was reported for over three hours. The CNN reporter in Jerusalem, asked to describe the attack, recalled hearing a huge explosion close to his office. It later turned out that there was no missile attack on Jerusalem.

The ITN reporter, trapped in his sealed room in Tel Aviv and reporting that there had been a chemical missile attack, was asked what Israeli TV was saying. He replied that he could not tell us because the TV messages were in Hebrew — the language of Israel. What qualifications do you need to be an ITV reporter? An Israeli journalist on the BBC was asked to tell the viewers how scared he felt. He replied that he was in his flat with his family whom he rarely managed to be with and that they were watching Monty Python on TV. Were they the only ones, we asked ourselves.

Agreement Time

We all know that there is little difference between capitalist politicians. In time of war the little turns into nothing.

On Question Time (BBC1, 10.10pm, 17 January) the two panels of politicians did nothing but tell each other how much they were on the same side. Hattersley, Labour’s deputy leader, praised Major for his war leadership; Clarke, the Tory Minister, said how pleasing it was to see all parties united in Britain's hour of need; Kaufman, Labour's Foreign Affairs man, was so eager to support the war that he sounded more like Thatcher than Major does; Ashdown, the Liberal leader, let it ^be known that he was the only party leader to have served in Kuwait as a'' marine. One woman in the audience heckled, saying that they were all boring politicians saying the same thing. The audience had a jolly good laugh — all good clean English fun.

Three days later the BBC issued an edict to all disc jockeys: no pro-peace records could be played while the war is on. Lennon’s Give Peace A Chance is now banned in British broadcasting. Playful heckling of capitalist politicians who have the whole of Question Time in which to spew out their vicious pro-war filth is permissible, but lyrics which might just change workers’ minds - No fear.

The Con that kills

Remember those cosy TV ads about joining the army and seeing the world? Didn’t they make you want to rush to the recruiting office and learn to be a chef? Those T.A. recruitment ads used to tell wage slaves how they could give up a few weekends and have fun playing "Bang, bang, you're dead" games.

There was even one newspaper ad which showed the Socialist Party platform in Hyde Park. London, and suggested that if you join the army you would be becoming a sort of special protector of free speech. What they did not tell you was about the chemical weapons, the sweltering desert heat, the body bags, the pointless murdering and being attacked all in the name of oil profits.

A war for their class

This war is being fought so that capitalists can stay rich. Every wage slave in uniform who dies, including the poor conscripts in the Iraqi killing force, will die in vain. It is a war, as all wars, about capitalist power - on this occasion, the power to own and control oil production.

Alas. Channel Four's Class By Class (Fridays. 8pm) did not have the first clue what class is about. The presenter, Ray Gosling, perpetuated the stale old fallacy that class is a matter of lifestyle.

A month earlier BBC's Forty Minutes was about prostitution in the King's Cross area of London. It was an unpretentious documentary which made no claim to offer any grand theory of class. A number of prostitute women were interviewed who made it abundantly clear that their reason for doing their dirty work was that they needed money — they were poor.

Also interviewed on the programme was a socialist, David Hines, who has written an excellent play about prostitution (it is called Bondage and is highly recommended). He explained that hookers were no different from taxi drivers — both had to sell themselves on the market to the first bidder. This is true of all workers: wage slavery is prostitution.

Having said that, there is prostitution and prostitution, and there is something more dignified about selling quick sexual thrills or taxi rides than spreading war propaganda.

                                                                                                                             Steve Coleman