Why is Iraq Singled Out? (1996)

From the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

“When you abuse your people and threaten your neighbours you must pay the price”

This pearl of wisdom was uttered by President Bill Clinton after the US had fired 27 Cruise missiles during the first of two attacks on Iraq by US B-52 bombers in early September.

You don’t need to be an expert in international affairs to realise how pathetic and hypocritical his statement is.

Clinton was attempting to justify the US attack on Iraq because Saddam Hussein had ordered his troops into Kurdish-held northern Iraq. He seemed totally unaware that Turkey, a NATO ally has been bombing the Kurds in northern Turkey on a regular basis for years — Kurds, like those in Irbil, attacked by Saddam, who demand autonomy — and from the same air base used by the US to attack the Iraqi army.

We might well ask why such logic is not used as a pretext to bomb Indonesia, whose government ruthlessly suppresses the people there and has murdered 200,000 since the invasion of East Timor some twenty years ago. Or why the US is not currently intervening in the present 25 ongoing conflicts in which people are “abused” and neighbours “threatened”.

One would think, judging by the number of separate occasions on which the US has bombed Iraq, that it would be easier for the US to oust Saddam, as they have done to countless other world leaders in the past. Bombing raids are, after all, expensive. The Cruise missiles alone that were fired at Iraq in early September cost $42 million.

However, what should have become apparent by now is that the US does not want Saddam toppled. He is, in fact, invaluable to the furtherance of US interests for a number of reasons,

Firstly, and most obviously, Saddam, as has been the case in the past, acts as a buffer to the spread of militant Islam from Iran, which itself regards the US as the “Great Satan” and is feared by the pro-US regimes in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Secondly, if Saddam is toppled, there is a strong chance that Iraq will break up into warring factions that will result in further regional instability.

Thirdly, so long as Saddam, the world’s number one “monster”, remains in power, he remains unpredictable and thus frightens his neighbours, who are only too willing to buy western arms and defence systems. Since 1990, the countries bordering Iraq have spent $75 billion on such hardware.

Furthermore, Saddam provides the US President and his cohorts with a timely vote-catcher. Unless you’ve been on a desert island or in a coma these past few months, you will know that the US presidential elections take place this November – elections already dragged down to gutter level by sex scandals and the like. The attack on Iraq can also be seen as a piece of electioneering aimed at a gullible and jingoistic electorate. Indeed, an ABC News poll, carried out after the first attack on Iraq, found that 81 percent of those questioned were in favour of it.

Big Game

Perhaps most importantly the US attack on Iraq should be seen as part of a larger game plan, with Saddam’s aggression not the issue at all.

By far the biggest threat to US interests in the Middle East is Iran, a country of 60 million ruled by Islamic fundamentalists who detest the US; a country with a huge army and arsenal to match and a probable nuclear capability.

The US has for years made every attempt to castigate the “mad mullahs” of Iran and turn world opinion against them, blaming them for every explosion from Saudi Arabia to the downing of an airliner 8 miles east of New York two months ago.

August had in fact brought much pressure on the US government to bomb Iran. “US prepares air strikes against I ran” ran a headline in the Sunday Telegraph (4 August) while a day later the Times reported: “Pressure grows for US raids on Iran” (5 August).

However, the Pentagon is fully aware that any attack on Iran would result in a far greater response than anything elicited from Iraq. Most certainly the bombing of the American heartland by Iranian terrorists.

With this in mind the attack on Iraq was also a message intended for Iran “mess with our interests and this is what you’ll get” — ‘a message far less costlier than any attack on Iran would be.

Again, with the US still looking for its hegemonic raison d’être, the anti-Communist passport now expired, the Middle East is still as good a place as any for the US to assert its presence on the world stage, and Saddam is as good a target as any to bully and to show anyone watching you’re still policeman of the world.

Hate and War

For a bigoted white American, the average Middle Easterner is an ideal target of hate and one that confirms the average prejudice. They are generally of a different hue. They have strange cultures and customs. They have a different religion and speak a funny language and are always staging wars. What other motives do you need to convince an already brainwashed audience (Clinton fans) that they (the Iraqis) have no place in the civilised world and that it is okay to bomb them?

It can well be argued that the Iraqi working class has more than paid the price for Iraq’s brief incursion into Kuwait back in August of 1989.

Six years of sanctions have not only crippled the economy, but have also, the World Health Organisation argues, resulted in 500,000 deaths from want of decent food and medicine. The sewage system has collapsed, disease is every-where and there are 5,000 new cases of malnutrition every month.

A plan to allow Iraq to sell $2 millions-worth of oil to buy food and medical supplies (as if this is sufficient for a population of 17 million) was supposed to come into operation at the end of September. This has currently been suspended. One thing is certain, the future looks bleak for the average Iraqi.

All of this is not to say that Saddam deserves a break and should not incur the wrath of the world, even though, he argued, he had been invited into Kurdish–held territory by Kurdish leaders. And neither do we care to imply that the US were wrong insofar as they “misinterpreted” Resolution 688 of 5 April 1991, which made no mention of justifiable attacks on Iraq or of no-fly zones.

The entire episode should reveal the desperate lengths the world’s ruling capitalist elite will go to secure their own interests and that all conflicts, when properly analysed, are the result of the desire of a minority to make a profit at the expense of the majority — whether through trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets or mineral wealth. The crisis in the Middle East actually fits all these criteria.

John Bissett

The Road to Nowhere (1996)

TV Review from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you are unlucky enough to be reading this in the middle of the British party conference season, spare a thought for those who stayed up into the middle of the night a few weeks back to watch the Republican and Democrat conventions in the US choose their Presidential candidates. Ignoring wiser counsels, this reviewer stayed up till four in the morning in an attempt to understand the alleged significance of it all, but to little avail.

In one sense it was an education — it certainly taught me a lesson. But in virtually every other sense it was at best a badly acted pantomime. The purpose of the BBC’s Road To The White House coverage (BBC1, 1 a.m., various nights) appeared to be to convince British viewers that mainstream politics over here does really have a purpose and is really about issues, in obvious distinction to its American counterpart. If so, it almost succeeded — but not quite, for the obvious similarities between the two served to override any superficial differences. Most notably there was an unashamed party of the Right opposed by a party heading at a rate of knots to meet it from the other direction. taking all the liberals and reformists with it. Then there was the glitz, choreography, leader-adulation and even much of the phraseology that was used which could so easily have graced Blackpool or Brighton just as it graced San Diego and Chicago. And to the extent that any issues were addressed— however fleetingly—they were the same too: jobs, mortgages, crime, education, health care, war and the other problems that flourish under the market economy. The "solutions" offered were little different — tax-breaks and subsidies, the restoration of “family values", and economic growth as a panacea without the first idea where it was going to come from.

Deep doo-doo

This was all as bad as it was familiar. But there was worse—much worse — and it would be possible to fill a whole edition of this magazine with examples of it. For those of you who missed it, there are just three samples of the political excrement served up at the conventions, and which will no doubt be manifesting itself here in some form or other shortly as the General Election campaign gets underway.

1. The pathetic sight of former Superman Christopher Reeve, paralysed from the neck-down and barely able to speak, wheeled on stage at the Democratic convention during TV prime-time to boost Clinton’s re-election chances with a halting plea for more compassion for the poor and disabled. Though Reeve isn’t actually a member of the Democratic Party, his appearance was exploited to the hilt by the Democrats’ spin doctors and even made the headlines on British TV news bulletins. Hasn't anybody told him the Democrats— like the Republicans—aim to crack down on welfare expenditure not increase it? Or that Clinton has in this very policy field just signed one of the most anti-working class pieces of legislation to be passed through Congress in recent years?

2. Bob Dole during his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination declaring that anyone in his party with racist views "knows where to find the door marked Exit". This of a party supported and funded by people who think the United Nations is run by an international Jewish cabal, whose candidates for office have included former (and unrepentant) leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, and half of whose membership believes that anyone without faith in the Christian god will burn in hell for all eternity (quite literally). Oh, and Dole’s party supports tougher immigration controls against the Mexicans, courting the Southern Redneck vote with all the subtlety and aplomb of an old-fashioned lynch mob.

3. Vice-President Al Gore, bringing tears to the eyes of the would normally have been expected to be in a catatonic trance during one of his mind-bogglingly tedious speeches. The reason for this unexpected bout of audience participation? The Veep's stomach-churning display of ham acting over his sister’s death from lung cancer caused by smoking cigarettes. This was so wooden and contrived that it would have been sufficient grounds to have him removed form even the most mediocre of amateur rep companies. If you are tempted to think this assessment is just a touch harsh, remember that Gore's wealthy dynasty of a family made much of its fortune through its ownership of Tennessee tobacco farms . . .  a fact which he didn't mention once.

There was a lot else besides worthy of comment from Pat Buchanan’s sinister appearance on the Republican platform to the sickening parade of rat-bag Kennedy’s for the Democrats, each one feted like royalty. But BBC pundits Charles Wheeler and Gavin Esler summed it all up quite nicely in their comments that the conventions really are too long these days, with viewers turning off in their millions. The fifty percent-plus of American voters who refuse to go to the polls in November will be demonstrating a similar contempt for a political process which increasingly relies on ignorance, trickery and blind acquiescence to sustain it. One day—just one day—they might turn their passive resistance to this nonsense into something more energetic and vibrant, and leave the political tricksters to play with their placards and balloons to their heart’s content, just like a baby shakes its rattle while grinning inanely at passers-by. They and the rest of the world who have seen through these fakers can then get on with doing something really useful—shaping a world truly fit for intelligent human beings to live in.

Dave Perrin

Voice From The Back: Candid Clinton (2004)

The Voice From The Back Column from the March 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Candid Clinton

It is not often that Bill Clinton tells the truth, so when such a rare event occurs it is only right that we record it. “The former American President addressing a packed hall at the World Economic Forum, pleaded for much more to be done urgently to ensure that the globalisation process benefitted all the world’s population, rich and poor . . . Emphasising that the gains of globalisation must be spread more widely across the globe to defuse opposition, Mr Clinton noted that one billion people went to bed hungry every night, 1.5 billion had no clean water and half the world’s population lived on less than $2 (£1.09) a day . . . But he protested ‘We do not have the system the world needs to respond to the self-evident problems in a comprehensive, organised way’” Times (22 January). Of course we don’t. The only system to deal with these problems is world socialism – capitalism, by its very nature cannot.

 

Wasted lives

Capitalism is a very wasteful society. It destroys food, to keep up prices whilst people starve. It spends vast amounts of effort in devising new and more efficient ways to destroy property and people in wars. It also stops millions of people producing wealth as these figures show. “The number of jobless people worldwide has reached a record of almost 186 million, while hundreds of millions more are employed but make so little money they can barely survive, according to the United Nations labor agency . . . The number of people out of work in 2003 reached 185.9 million, or 6.2 percent of the total labor force. In 2002 the figure was 185.4 million, although this represented 6.3 percent because the world’s population was smaller. In 2001 the number was 160 million, or 5.9 percent” Tampa Bay Tribune (23 January). Just another load of statistics perhaps but it represents the reality of capitalism, a system that stops men and women from producing wealth. Think of what kind of society we are going to have when these 186 million are allowed to start producing. The potential of a socialist society is enormous.

 

Heavenly help lines

Capitalism is a system that produces global problems. It also produces so-called answers to these problems on a world-wide basis. From Nashville, New Orleans and Hong Kong come the latest examples of spiritual answers to material problems – all at a price of course. “Concierge or credit card company can’t assist? Try divine intervention. Nashville: ‘Everybody has an angel,’ says Noelle Rose, who claims she can put you in touch with yours. Her clients range from the terminally ill to folks just searching for answers. Sessions in person or over the phone start from $60. New Orleans: Sally Ann Glassman, the city’’s best known voodoo high priestess, says she cured herself of breast cancer last month. She promises to heal you of your discomforts – spiritual, physical, psychological and social – startimg at $100 a treatment. Hong Kong: A favourite of local celebrities and socialites, ponytailed Peter So Man-Fung is a fengshui master who has a propensity to appear in local movies and at hip nightclubs. He’ll arrange your furniture for about $320 a session” Time (26 January). Socialists don’t have the answer to psychological problems but we do have a lot of ideas about social problems. If you contact us by phone or email we will try our best to deal with your questions. It will cost you nothing. After all we want a world without money.

 

Growing old disgracefully

“More than 2.5 million pensioners are going back to work because they cannot survive on their retirement income, new research has revealed . . . Many pensioners contemplate desperate measures to boost their income in retirement. Nearly a quarter of a million said they would commit or consider committing a crime – twice as many as the year before” Times (5 February). What a society we live in – it’s turning Gran and Grandad into Bonnie and Clyde!

 

A normal family

“Zara Phillips, daughter of Princess Ann, told Reuters on Wednesday that her best friends were her horses and rejected the media portrayal of her as the wild child of the House of Windsor. ‘My family is probably just like your family, but everybody makes it into something different. They have a dream of what we are,’ Zara, 22, said in an interview . . . ‘I play polo and most people in my family ride, but it is not like ‘Right, let’s all go out for a hack then, gang,` she said” Yahoo News (11 February). How normal a life you lead when your grandmother is the richest woman in Britain is debatable, but one thing is sure, her Gran won’t be contemplating doing a bank job.

 

Beggar and billionaires

According to a recent UN report India is “home to more hungry people than anywhere in the world”. But this hunger does not apply to the Indian capitalist class as the following news from Lucknow shows. “The world has never seen anything like it. A billionaire lavished £30 million on the wedding of his two sons – and still had the change to pay for the nuptials of 101 other couples in one of the grandest Valentine’s Day gestures ever seen. As befits a latter-day maharajah, Subrata Roy also dipped into his family’s £3.7 billion fortune to feed 140,000 beggars all over India” Sunday Times (15 February).

Watching the war go by (1999)

From the May 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

The capitalists have never gone to war to promote Justice and they never will.

Last year The Most Dangerous Man In The World was Saddam Hussain. Pronounced Sadaaam Hoosayn by the plastic propagandists employed to spin the latest line for CNN. There had never been a nastier dictator than the Evil Saddaaam and that was why forces of the American Empire—sorry, NATO—had to “go in there and kick ass”. Any resemblance to a gangland settling of scores should be ignored. After all, that upright defender of virtue, Slick Willy Clinton, had cast himself as Batman against the Iraqi Joker, with wee Tony doing his best to look like Robin.

But let us not distract ourselves with nostalgia. That was yesterday’s war. Now, in the world of CNN-speak, an even more demonic evil has come to threaten the stability of the globe. Plucky little Kosovo must be defended. Think not of the fact that nine out of ten Americans had never heard of Serbia, let alone Kosovo, until CNN told them about it fifty times a day. The threat to the New World Order has been identified. Milosevic must be banged to rights. The propagandists, using a script uncannily similar to Wag The Dog (a fictional account of a sleazy US President saving his reputation by a bogus war against Albania), invite us to shout and curse against the crimes of the Belgrade regime.

And, blinded by the light of the TV screen, large numbers of decent people are weeping for the oppressed Kosovars and cheering NATO as it drops its bombs on Serb towns and villages. Because most people are decent and they hate to see injustice against a defenceless minority, so they are sucked in to the drama of war.

But there are some other defenceless minorities whose plight is not shown on CNN. There are some defenceless minorities for whom NATO would not so much as fire a shot from an air gun. In fact, the NATO states are the very ones which have sold the weapons by which these defenceless minorities are oppressed. For example . . .

There are the Kurds in Turkey. Between 1990 and 1994 about one million Turkish Kurds were driven from their homes. Over 40,000 Kurds have been killed. And in 1994 Turkey became the biggest single importer of US military equipment and the world’s largest arms purchaser. Turkey is a member of NATO. Its troops are currently part of the NATO forces in Yugoslavia. Why is NATO attacking Serbia and not Turkey? The US administration justifies Turkish state atrocities on the grounds that they are defending “law and order” against Kurdish terrorists. The Serbian regime uses precisely the same logic: that it has only slaughtered people and burnt villages to the ground in a war against Kosovar terrorism.

Within the past month 10,000 people were killed in a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There are countless refugees. When did we hear about this on the TV News? Where are the calls from those incorrigible humanitarians, Albright and Cook, to send aid to these refugees and to stop the fighting? Since 1994 820,000 have died in Rwanda. Since 1986 a million and a half have died in Sudan. Where was CNN?  

What about East Timor? Conduct a simple experiment. Go on to the streets of Kansas City or, for that matter, White City in London and ask people what they think about the slaughter of the Timorese people. Most will never have heard about East Timor. The propagandists have forgotten to tell them about that atrocity because that one is a NATO-armed assault on a defenceless minority. East Timor was taken over by Indonesia in 1975, since when one third of its population has been killed—that’s 200,000 people. Since 1975 the USA has sold over $1 billion of weapons to the Indonesian dictatorship. The other main arms suppliers are Australia and Britain. Just as the NATO troops were whizzing off to knock the shit out of Belgrade, Indonesian militia entered a church full of people in East Timor and slaughtered them. Reports have not made it on to the CNN News, perhaps because the reporters are too busy congratulating the West upon its humanitarian campaign to help oppressed minorities.

There is something deeply disgusting about the pretence that bombing is a civilising mission. The people who drop bombs from the sky upon towns and villages are bullying cowards and deserve no respect from anyone. The people who give them the orders to drop their bombs are self-serving hypocrites whose concern for the safety of Kosovar refugees is about as genuine as their domestic concern for single mothers, the unemployed and the disabled. The minority who own and control the world—the Directors of USA Inc and UK Plc—are ruthless, exploitative thieves whose primary interest is in the fast buck and protecting what they imagine their interests to be. The capitalists have never gone to war to promote justice and they never will. Indeed, the notion that justice can be furthered by violence can only make sense when you have a social system that is rooted in violence and plunder.

We will no doubt be told that by opposing the military escapades of Clinton and Blair we are siding with those who are committing unspeakable acts against defenceless Kosovars. Socialists side with no state, for all states are merely organised forces of national coercion. We are opposed to the lot of them and support the interest of the oppressed, not selectively, but wherever they are. In time of war we refuse steadfastly to be deluded by the crass propaganda of any section of the ruling class or to become entrapped in the rhetoric of militarist terror.

Instead of taking sides between this nation or that, we oppose all nationalism. Workers have no country. None to live for. None to die for. Workers should refuse to fight, for every drop of working-class blood shed in battles within capitalism is wasted.  

CNN’s viewing figures have gone up since the war in Yugoslavia started. What exciting pictures the explosions make. What a terrific diversion from thinking about the poverty of life under the profit system it is for wage slaves to be presented with 24-hour live coverage of Clinton’s Heroes. CLOBBER SLOBBA, says the Sun, ever eager to find new depths of banality, illiteracy and tastelessness by which to woo its prey. So, we sit at home and we watch the war and just occasionally we might wonder how much it cost to build the US bomber planes (more than the total GDP of Albania, as it happens) and what kind of world we might live in if those resources were not used to produce ever more sophisticated weapons of death, but libraries, homes and hospitals for all.

Steve Coleman

Greasy Pole: Sex, lies and leadership (1998)

The Greasy Pole column from the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

What was remarkable about the Monica Lewinsky affair was not that Clinton had what he called a “not appropriate” relationship with here, nor that he then lied about it but that there are people—so many people—who profess to be surprised, shocked, outraged by his behaviour.

It does not have to be said, that Clinton is not the first politician to be exposed in this way and obviously he will not be the last. The sexual and political conditioning of capitalism work in combination to encourage relationships based on a recognition that, in the words of Henry Kissinger (who, it was said, knew what he was talking about) power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. This was put in another way by Antonia Sanchez, who experienced—whether she enjoyed it or not is another matter—a lot of attention over her affair with David Mellor, which did so much to undermine the Tories’ Back To Basics campaign. Ms Sanchez explained Mellor’s attraction for her by reference to his influence; he could, she said, “make things happen”. This influence—power would be a better word in the case of the President of America—is given to political leaders by the workers who vote for them, who surrender their own power to change human society to a few people mandated to keep the social system in being. There are so many elements in this for what is called the misuse of this power that the abnormal becomes the normal—the misuse becomes an appropriate use of the power. So we had all those Tory sleaze merchants and their hypocrisy about personal morality. So we had John Kennedy; so we have Bill Clinton.

Lies

Of course it would have been more than remarkable if Clinton had, from the first day of his exposure, told the truth and owned up to the affair. Because part of the job of a politician is to tell lies. (When they don’t in the House of Commons—or rather when they are caught out doing it—they describe it as “misleading the House”.) all their promises, which amount to an assurance that they can control, capitalism so that it stops being an anarchic, human-destructive social system and becomes an ordered, beneficial one instead, are lies. When the promises become discredited they try to cover it all up with more lies; they blame the depredations of greedy workers or foreign speculators or mad dictators in faraway countries ...

Imagine, if we can, the speech a political leader would need to make in order to tell the truth, in order to confess to their impotence and to the deceptions they have practised to hide it. Imagine, as well, how this suicide statement would be received by the workers who had voted for the leader. Millions of people vote for capitalism because they think their leaders are not impotent and don’t tell lies.That is why the same people who were so eager to denounce Clinton over his deceptions in the Lewinsky affair were falling over themselves in their eagerness to believe him when he said the American missiles recently sent into Sudan had destroyed a factory making material to be used in biological warfare and not pharmaceutical products.

Tough

This raises the question of what kind of leader the working class would like to have ruling over them—and what kind they think they get. “Strong” leadership is usually one of the most popular kinds—except that the “strong” leaders always have to be on your side and not on your adversary’s. For example foreign leaders like Hitler, Stalin and Saddam Hussein are famous for, among other things, a certain lack of tolerance of opposition. In fact anyone who opposed them was usually killed—and you can’t get much stronger then that. But for some reason such leaders are always known as madmen, or megalomaniacs or some such description when all they are doing is taking the theory of strong leadership to its logical end.

A Guardian/ICM Opinion poll published on 8 September assessed how strong—or rather “tough”—the voters rate Tony Blair. The prime minister will not go down in history as one of those leaders who has his opponents executed but he does give them quite a rough time, which gives him the reputation of being tough. So there would have been some dismay at Labour headquarters to see that Blair’s toughness rating has fallen from 57 percent in 1997 to 42 percent today. It is difficult to know what Blair was doing in August and September last year to justify a reputation for toughness, which he is not doing now. The only thing that comes to mind is his intervention over the funeral arrangements for Princess Diana— forcing her family to have a big public event, making sure that flags were flown at half-mast, that sort of thing. And of course coming up with the wheeze of calling a neurotic parasite the “people’s princess”.

Nonsense

If all the verbiage about leadership— about the lies, hypocrisy, toughness and weakness—sounds like nonsense that is because that is what it is. No leader, whatever their character and style, has been able to make any significant impression on the problems and the deficiencies of capitalism. That is why today tough, decisive Tony Blair confronts the same situation as weak and dithering John Major. Bill Clinton’s campaign to save his presidency was centred on the fact that as president he had the job of running American capitalism, beside which personal sexual difficulties are insignificant. Another way of putting that is that the working class should ignore such irrelevant issues and concentrate on the fact that they can themselves change society, without leaders of any kind.

Ivan

World View: Bogeyman or diversion? (1998)

From the October 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

By now, most will be aware that on 20 August the US carried out air-strikes against alleged “terrorist facilities” in Afghanistan and Sudan and that the launch of 75 Tomahawk missiles was reputedly a response to bomb attacks on US embassies in Africa orchestrated by rogue Saudi millionaire-cum-terrorist Osama bin Laden and his Islamic International Front Against Jews and Crusaders.

Likewise, most will be familiar now with the popular view that the US air strikes were in fact an attempt by the Clinton regime to get the Monica Lewinsky story off the front page. And if you’re into conspiracy theories, then you will have chanced upon the one that has the US bombing its own embassies to provide it with the pretext to attack militant Islam.

But would Clinton and his Joint Chiefs of Staff be so blatant as to carry out such military strikes while his sexual excesses were being contemplated by a Grand Jury, or is there a larger game plan?

The entire episode seems to have been sparked by testimony allegedly extracted from Mohamed Saddiq Omeh, a Palestinian and friend of bin Laden, extradited from Pakistan by the FBI and CIA in the wake of the Nairobi and Dar-es-Salem bombings, caught en-route to Afghanistan. Not that bin Laden had helped matters He had, after all, issued a fatwa against US interests back in February.

Whether bin Laden is actually behind the bombings in Africa is anyone’s guess, but in the perpetual US hunt for new bogey-men to protect us from he certainly warranted a punishment beating. And why not? Afghanistan is, after all, one of the poorest countries on earth with little means of defending itself against a more powerful enemy. It is a country of which 90 per cent is controlled by the much feared Taliban, pursuing a Pushtu version of Islam that makes Iran look secular. And is not Afghanistan too close for comfort to the oil fields of the Middle East and the Caspian?

At a time when upstarts in North Korea, the former Yugoslavia and Iraq have been thumbing their noses at the US, the attacks carried out by the US may best be explained as a message to bogeymen, one and all, perhaps Islam in particular, not to get ideas above their station. It can also be interpreted as a message to the possessors of the new “Islamic Bomb”, an unstable Pakistani regime heading towards shariah law, and to anyone else paying attention: “the US is still in charge. Don’t fool with our interests.”

In the past, too many countries have found themselves as US patsies, the threats to global peace we all needed defending from: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Cuba to name a few.

The episode, coming at the close of the 20th century, is also a timely reminder to the world, no matter how much we wish to dispute it, that the US will, as has been the case for 50 years, be calling the shots in the 21st Century. Britain has, for half a century, danced the trans-Atlantic tune with most of Europe happy to hum along.

In the wake of the Sudanese bombing there was no shortage of western experts, many who had actually worked at the now levelled Shifa pharmaceutical plant, prepared to come forward to counter US intelligence claims that the factory produced nothing more than harmless medicines, many intended for Iraq, and that the VX nerve gas precursors, allegedly found by US agents in soil samples taken at the factory, are also used in the manufacture of beer and cherry-flavoured sweets.

Though Clinton claimed the US had “irrefutable proof” that Shifa was producing nerve gas, the FBI refused to make soil samples available to a wider body of international experts. And guess, incidentally, which country has the biggest stockpile of VX nerve gas? Yup, the US have 1,700 tons stockpiled at the Newport weapons depot in Indiana.

As could be expected, the US was quick to cite Article 51 of the UN Charter, as they have done so many times in the past, as justification for the 20 August attacks. Properly interpreted, however, Article 51 applies to situations when the state is in imminent danger and when there is no time to consult the UN Security Council.

Obviously, the US itself was not in imminent danger and the issue could easily have been discussed at the Security Council. Moreover, the UN action flies in the face of a UN Resolution of April 1964, adopted by the Security Council, and which states unambiguously that such reprisals are “incompatible with the purpose and principles of the UN”.

So it’s a bold claim indeed when Clinton asserts that the US is leading the fight against international terrorism, for if ever any country could be labelled the world’s number one terrorist state then it is the US.

Not only have the US supported tyrants like Saddam, Ceaucescu, Trujillo, Marcos, Amin, Duvalier and Mobutu, they have backed the Contras in Nicaragua and financed terrorist proxies from El Salvador and Guatemala to Israel. For almost 40 years they have terrorised Cuba and Indochina, backing the Khmer Rouge for instance, and in this period the CIA have helped topple almost 30 governments.

Indeed, it was not so long ago—during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, that the CIA were hailing bin Laden and the Mojahedin as great freedom fighters, supplying them with blow-pipe surface-to-air missiles, building camps in Khast, distributing US Marine training manuals and providing info on Soviet troop movements.

What effects the air strikes will have on those in direst need in Afghanistan and Sudan remains to be seen. As US flags continue to burn across the Islamic world, and as the voices of preachers continue to boom out anti-Western sentiments in a myriad mosques, we are left with two choices. We can settle down in our arm chairs and follow the interminable discussions about the Lewinsky affair or we can contemplate the real nature of the politics of power and unite to take it away from those who will always use it to further the interests of the few, at the expense of the many.

John Bissett

New Itinerary for Africa (1998)

From the June 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who chanced upon UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s recent report on Africa’s ills, requested by the UN Security Council as a contribution to the US effort to bring about an “African Renaissance”, could be forgiven for thinking it was written by President Bill Clinton on behalf of the US corporate elite.

Annan’s manifesto smacked of the same hypocrisy and was fused with the same Orwellian double-speak as had characterised much of President Clinton’s speeches during his six-nation tour of Africa in March.

Annan’s blueprint called for continent-wide reforms and urged Africa to solve its own problems. He criticised the “accountability of leaders”, neglecting to mention just how many were US-backed, the “inadequate checks and balances, non-adherence to the rule of law”, the lack of respect for human rights, argued that African governments should stamp out corruption and accused African states of being far too reliant on military force. All of this would be laughable were it not downright pathetic, for the same critique could just as easily be levelled against the US, with particular emphasis on violations of human rights and some 300 foreign military interventions.

The report suggested Africa could steer a path to “economic liberation”, by ushering in deregulation and the privatisation of state-controlled industries and that the private sector was the engine of growth that would speed Africa’s integration into the world economy.

Ever the altruist, Annan also suggested that other countries could also do their bit to help Africa, but for instance by reducing debt repayments and by opening their markets to African goods, and he proposed that a ministerial session be held every six months by the UN Security Council that would result in a summit in five years’ time. Talk about the triumph of hope over experience!

It hardly seems coincidental that Annan’s report comes less than a month after president Clinton’s six-nation tour of Africa, nor that this tour included specifically those countries deemed economically stable, countries highly rated in a Harvard study which listed African countries according to “good governance and competition”—Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Senegal and Uganda. Rwanda was included but only as an afterthought and the object of the visit to “send a message that genocide is not acceptable and cannot go unpunished”, (Guardian, 26 March)—brave words indeed from a president whose military machine brought about bloodshed in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Iraq on a much greater scale than in Rwanda.

Pre-empting Annan’s report, President Clinton had previously declared his 12-day visit to Africa to be all about “delivering the message that the US stands ready to be an active partner in Africa’s prosperity”, (Guardian, 16 March). If past experience is anything to go by, Africa’s immiserated millions should set no store by such statements. For when it comes to trade with Africa and direct foreign investment, the facts speak for themselves:

Whereas flows of direct foreign investment reached $315 billion in 1995—two-thirds of those transactions between the wealth OECD countries—only 0.5 percent found its way to the developing world. and while the former are the main beneficiaries of the “Uruguay Round” of GATT, sub-Saharan Africa is expected to lose $1,200 million per year. It is also the case that trans-national corporations (TNCs) have almost total control over the process of globalisation, and that they can dictate the terms and conditions governments must adhere to prior to investment. These same TNCs will have the biggest say in Africa’s future, and it’s worth pointing out that in 1994, the top 5 TNCs had an income of $871.4 billion, compared to sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP of $246.8 billion, that in the same year General Motors alone enjoyed corporate sales of $168.8 billion, while Nigeria (Africa’s most populous country) had a GDP one-fifth of that figure.

This is the reality behind Kofi Annan’s diatribe. These are the facts President Clinton’s speeches are devoid of. There is no real agenda to lighten the lot of the average African, regardless of the cant contained in the recent African Growth and Opportunity Act approved by the US House of Representatives. Africa may well experience growth, but when the big boss is sent over to Africa you can bet your bottom dollar the real beneficiaries are already sizing up Africa’s mineral deposits and the exploitability of the African working class. That whereas in the past, when Africa was divided between the superpowers, each one pursuing their own interests, the future will see Africa divided between the super TNCs.

John Bissett

Hidden agenda in East Asia (1994)

From the July 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

In March 1993, the CIA decided that the 30 megawatt reactor at Yongbyon was capable of producing enough plutonium for one nuclear warhead a year. What convinced the US that Kim Il-Sung was the next third world dictator to threaten the post-cold war peace process was North Korea’s decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). North Korea had joined the 154 signatory pact in 1985 on the insistence of the Soviet Union, and was now the first country to withdraw.

What further upset the US was when North Korea cocked the proverbial snook at the US by forbidding inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out inspections at two sites and by further ignoring a 31 March deadline for the admittance of the IAEA.

The following month the US wanted to push for an enforcement of economic sanctions through the UN Security Council. Such sanctions would have had little impact. North Korea has been isolated internationally for some years and has enjoyed pariah status since the end of the cold war. Again, China, still on speaking terms with the Pyongyang regime, and being a permanent member of the UN Security Council with the right to veto, would have scuppered any embargo.

In July 1993, President Clinton was comforting US troops stationed in South Korea, reassuring them that "it would be pointless for them (the North Koreans) to develop nuclear weapons . . . if they ever used them it would be the end of their country".

By November, Clinton was still impressing his friends with his fighting talk, promising them that "any attack on South Korea would be an attack on the US" (Guardian, 8 November). His reason this time was that North Korea had amassed 70 percent of its forces on the 38th Parallel. North Korea was responding to threatened economic sanctions, warning that any attempt "to force it to comply with UN rules would be regarded as an aggressive act to which it would respond in kind" (Independent, 8 November).

A week later, probably in an attempt to intimidate North Korea, the US and South Korea began ten days of joint military manoeuvres. Not that the military brass in South Korea feared an invasion or took North Korean threats seriously. The Economist (12-18 February) reported how "South Korea generals angrily dismiss the idea that the vast but ill-equipped North Korean army could sweep into the South. They speak of the superiority of the American and South Korean air forces . . . Ordinary soldiers at the front joke about the North's tanks running out of fuel before they even make it across the border."

In early January this year, North Korea agreed to allow IAEA inspectors access to seven nuclear facilities. The inspectors later discovered that monitoring equipment they had installed had been tampered with, thus giving the US further cause to believe North Korea had something to hide.

During bilateral talks in March, the North Korean representatives stormed out, threatening to turn Seoul into "a sea of fire". The South Korean government responded by permitting the US to begin installing a Patriot missile system. North Korea hit back by threatening to attack Japan if joint US/North Korean hostilities broke out.

Later in March, Russia stepped into the arena proposing an international conference to defuse the dispute over North Korea’s nuclear programme. This was followed by a UN attempt to impose a resolution urging North Korea to allow the IAEA experts to complete inspection at North Korea’s nuclear facilities. China, however, as anticipated, obstructed the move.

Sanctions are looking increasingly more difficult to impose, let alone enforce. The Japanese Socialist Party (state capitalist and no relation to us), the largest party in the governing coalition there, has strong affiliations with the "communists" in North Korea and would more than likely object to the enforcement of sanctions. Iran, a key oil supplier to North Korea, and financer of Pyongyang’s long-range ballistic missile programme, would jump at the chance at flouting a US-led embargo.

The Wisconsin Project, a Washington-based "think tank", recently warned that North Korea could soon be exporting finished nuclear bombs to Iran, thus increasing pressure on the IAEA to pursue their objectives in North Korea to their end.

There are some in South Korea who believe that such excessive Western pressure upon the Pyongyang regime to open the doors of its nuclear industry will spark a last-ditch, cornered-rat syndrome that will turn Kim U-Sung on the offensive.

The US currently have 37,000 troops stationed in South Korea, and North Koreans believe that the nuclear weapons that were allegedly removed from South Korean soil in 1991 are still there.

North Korea has bitter memories of past US threats to nuke them. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower in 1951 and 1952, both reminded North Korea of what happened to Japan when it failed to comply with US wishes.

Simon Tisdall, writing in the Guardian, believes North Korean fears are not unfounded and not based solely on a fear of the US:

"Set adrift by the collapse of a global security system built around US-Soviet confrontations. North Korea's neighbours are now engaged in an arms race every bit as frantic as the contest between the old superpowers" (12 April 1993)

Tisdall went on to argue that future flashpoints are to be found in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Gulf of Tonkin, Cambodia, the Phillipines and Burma.

In 1991, when politicians were harping on about the "Peace Dividend", East Asia accounted for 34 percent of all purchases in major weapons sales. A year later, January 1992, Thailand placed a $540 million order for a squadron of F-16s, and Taiwan topped that by ordering 150 US fighters worth $6 billion. Exactly one year later, Indonesia bought half of former East Germany’s navy for the knock-down price of $30 million. That same month, Japan submitted a defence budget of $37 billion. And in recent years China has raised its defence budget by 50 percent, estimated to be worth $24 billion annually. With neighbours like these who needs enemies?

Considering the US has more nuclear warheads than any other nation on earth and has a proven track record of using them against oriental people, and bearing in mind the experience of Saddam when he tangled with the US, threatening their interests in the Middle East, is it any wonder Kim Il-Sung is feeling intimidated?

East Asia and Pacific countries accounted for 58 percent of US exports last year. Obviously the best way to protect these markets is to have a military presence there and a constant threat that justifies that presence. Even the pro-capitalist Economist has spotted the hidden agenda:

"Many Koreans suspect America of exaggerating the threat from the north for their own purposes: to justify the continued presence of 36,000 troops in one of the cheapest training grounds in the world; to prevent defence cuts from biting too deeply; and to help sell the South Koreans weapons it can scarcely afford” (12-18 February).

If South Korea is buying weapons it can ill afford, then what must be the situation in the North where there have been widespread food riots? North Korea hardly has the money to buy the type of weaponry its neighbours are shelling out for. North Korea is in fact an impoverished country. In 1990 its GNP declined by almost 4 percent. Its estimated GNP that year (per head of population) was one fifth that of South Korea. In 1992 its income fell by 7.6 percent.

Kim Il-Sung’s threats had little impact on the South Korean economy. While he was threatening to turn Seoul into a "sea of fire", the Seoul stock markets were bounding upwards by 37 percent, thus widening the financial gulf between north and south.

Kim Il-Sung’s "seven-year plan", which came to an end in 1993, was short on all targets. During the past four years of the plan the state-capitalist command economy shrunk by an average four percent annually.

There has been civil unrest and food riots in North Korea for over a year and many experts believe that Kim Il-Sung in in danger of being ousted. The only logical conclusion one can draw is that the stand-off with the IAEA and the slanging match with the US are Kim Il-Sung’s deliberate distractions from domestic troubles.

The US, of course, are aware of all this, just as they are aware that North Korea poses no real threat to world peace, but they go through the actions of being displeased with Pyongyang, stirring up unfounded fears in Asia in the process, as a means of securing markets for US arms manufacturers.

John Bissett

Trade wars (1993)

From the April 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a recent meeting at the White House, President Clinton promised John Major that he would "try to make the GATT accord succeed" (Financial Times, 25 February). Subsequently. however, both he and his Secretary of State. Warren Christopher, were less conciliatory in their pronouncements.

Speaking to students at Washington University. Clinton said “we will say to our trading partners that we value their business, but none of us should expect something for nothing". Warren Christopher, addressing NATO foreign ministers, referred to “a new diplomacy that views domestic and foreign issues as inseparable. Wc will elevate us economic security as our primary foreign policy goal” (Daily Telegraph, 27 February).

The North America Free Trade Agreement, the supposed US answer to the European trade bloc, has resulted, however, in the use of cheap labour in Mexico by American industrial manufacturing companies with resultant lay-offs in the corresponding industries in the US.

The United States is constantly calling for a “level playing field" with the other major capitalist powers. This ignores the fact that America has imposed import duties on steel, wine and cereals. The volume of US exports abroad expanded by 74 percent between 1985 and the first quarter of 1992, compared to increases in German exports of 28 percent and those of Japan by less than 20 percent (Financial Times, 10 February). So the "cooperation" that Clinton and Christopher are demanding is really a greater share of the world market.

Barriers

In Europe the promises of prosperity based on an expansion of trade with the former Eastern Bloc countries has given way to the worst recession of the post-war period. Nor has the German economic miracle that was to follow the unification of the two former German states materialised. Instead. Europe now has increasingly bitter internal conflicts over jobs, trade, currencies and interest rates. The volatility of the two latter is indicative of the failure of the larger market to produce convergence or stability.

The average level of unemployment in Europe has risen to 10 percent. Recently 7000 German steel workers demonstrated against proposed job cuts. Car manufacturers in western Europe have drastically cut costs by restructuring plants and laying off workers. Far from stimulating trade, the EEC has put up barriers, particularly to countries such as Poland and the former Czechoslovak Republic whose labour costs are lower (hourly rates for car workers are about one tenth of those of western German workers). Exports to the EEC from the former Eastern Bloc countries have increased to 19 percent during the past half-year. Czech exports to the EC alone rose 10 percent last year to 51 percent of the new regime's total exports. Restrictions on textiles, farm products and cement imports already exist and it is anticipated that these measures will shortly be extended to steel products from Hungary. Poland and Slovakia.

Western capitalist politicians who welcomed the break of the eastern European states with the Soviet Bloc as a triumph for democratic capitalism which would lead to an economic boom are now erecting a reverse version of the Berlin Wall by creating trade barriers.

Japan and China

Japan, a country involved in a worsening slump, is frequently the object of exhortation by American spokesmen to lower its trade barriers on industrial goods as well as rice imports. Industrial production is falling, bad debts are increasing rapidly as property values continue to slide whilst banks struggle with at least 100 billion dollars of doubtful loans. For a country in this position to lower import barriers so as to admit manufactured goods could only worsen a rapidly-deteriorating situation. Domestic sales of cars fell by 7.2 percent in 1991. Importing Fords and Chryslers will hardly mitigate the problem. Against this background Japan can offer a market for little else than Japanese goods. As an export dependent country to an extent greater than its rivals, Japan has no alternative other than to struggle for an outlet for Japanese manufactured goods.

One country whose production is rising rapidly is China which is already beginning to seek an outlet for its manufactured goods on the world market. As it is, China’s exports to the United States are rising and this is causing tension:

  The Americans have made it clear that GATT membership for China will not lay to rest the provisions of America’s own laws that make China’s most-favoured nation (MFN) status a perennial subject of dispute. The Clinton administration’s China policy is still unformed, but it seems likely that human rights, Chinese arms sales and China’s huge trade surplus with the United States (more than $18 billion last year) will all crop up yet again in this years’s MFN debate. (Economist, 6 March).

Already the US trade negotiator Douglas Newkirk has gone on record as saying that ’’China and America are further apart now' than they were before the talks were broken off in 1989”.

What we are witnessing is the division of the world into rival trade blocs where the major powers are following the “beggar thy neighbour policies” of the 1930s. Far from stimulating world trade this can slow it down drastically. All the high-sounding phrases such as “free trade” and “cooperation” are merely attempts to dress in respectable language the struggle of the various capitalist powers to grab a bigger share of the world’s markets.

Many observers have draw n parallels between the present world economic crisis and the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Wall Street Journal (15 February) recalled that Cordell Hull, United States Secretary of State under Franklin D. Roosevelt, had said in 1937 "I have never faltered and will never falter, in my belief that enduring world peace and the welfare of nations are indissolubly connected with friendliness, fairness, equality and the maximum practicable degree of freedom in world trade”. Thus the same nebulous phraseology was being used then as the modern politicians are using now. One other more significant quote is attributed to Hull in the same article, and is said to be heard nowadays in the corridors of GATT headquarters in Geneva, "that when goods don't cross frontiers armies do”. War commenced in Europe two years later.

The present crisis and trade war exemplify the anachronistic nature of capitalism in terms of social development. Marx saw the contradiction clearly:

  The enormous power, inherent in the factory system, of expanding by jumps, and the dependence of that system on the markets of the world, necessarily beget feverish production, followed by over-filling of the markets, whereupon contraction of the markets brings on crippling of production. The life of modern industry becomes a series of periods of moderate activity, prosperity, over-production, crisis and stagnation . . . Except in the periods of prosperity, there rages between the capitalists the most furious combat for the share of each in the markets. (Capital, Vol.1. chapter 15, section 7)

The present trade war cannot be ended by GATT, NAFTA or G7 summits. It will continue in one form or another as long as world production is organized to produce primarily for profit rather than use. The present mode of production can no more function without trade conflicts than it can without world slumps as we have today.

Terry Lawlor

The Haitian Tragedy (2010)

From the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Haiti spent more, in 2008 servicing the country’s debts than it did on health, education and the environment.

In our February issue (Haiti—an un-natural disaster) we noted that the earthquake in Haiti, and similar disasters, are presented as unavoidable disasters; and that, to some extent, this is true. But we stated that it is not a coincidence that the number of victims is clearly related to the degree of their poverty. This was true regarding the Asian tsunami and the Katrina hurricane in New Orleans.

Seumas Milne also says (Guardian, 21 January) that “It is uncontested that poverty is the main cause of the horrific death toll: the product of teeming shacks, and the absence of health and public infrastructure.” In his view, this is the direct consequence of an uniquely brutal relationship with the outside world—notably the US, France and Britain, stretching back centuries. There is some truth in this, although not all Haitians were, or are, poor.

Says Milne:

  Punished for the success of its uprising against slavery and self-proclaimed first black republic of 1804 with invasion, blockade and a crushing burden of debt reparations, only finally paid off in 1947, Haiti was occupied by the US between the wars and squeezed mercilessly by multiple creditors.

For decades, the US backed the dictatorships of the Duvaliers. Just 30 years ago Haiti was self-sufficient in its staple of rice. In the mid-1990s, however, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forced it to slash tariffs, and the US dumped its subsidised surpluses on Haiti. Most of the peasant farmers were forced out of business, squatted in Port-au-Prince, and many will have died in the earthquake. The United States also imposed lending conditions on the country, forcing the government to privatise the already minimal health, education and public services, and cut back the minimum wage.

The Duvalier Dictatorships and the CIA

From 1957 to 1971 Haiti was ruled by François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and, following his death, by his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc”, both “anointed” “President for Life”. The US trained and armed Haiti’s counter-insurgency force, although much American military aid was covertly channelled through Israel.

After “Baby Doc” was forced into exile to France in February 1986 (in a US Air Force jet), the United States continued, now quite openly, military aid, supplying the Haitian Army with trucks, communications gear etc. in order “to maintain order”. Between the departure of “Baby Doc” and the date scheduled for elections in November 1987, the administrations were responsible for the deaths of more civilians than “Baby Doc” managed in 15 years of dictatorship. Meanwhile, the CIA managed to “spring” from prison two of Duvalier’s notorious police chiefs, and send them into exile, saving them from certain execution.

Haiti has never had a mass, reformist working-class party. In 1930 two “intellectuals”, Max Hudicourt and Jacques Roumain, attempted to form a communist party, but it was largely stillborn. In 1946 a clergyman by the name of Félix d’Orléans Juste Constant, founded the Parti Communiste d’Haiti (PCH). It too disbanded the following year. Shortly after a rival quasi-communist party, the Parti Socialiste Populaire (PSP), was founded. It disintegrated rapidly by 1949. But in 1959 Roger Gaillard, a former member of the PSP, founded the Parti Populaire de Libération Nationale (PPLN), which claimed to be a mass, nationwide organisation; it was badly weakened by police harassment and repression by 1965. It was basically reformist, with much in common with Fidel Castro’s 26 July movement.

Aristide the Priest

At the time of “Baby Doc”’s flight to France, there was one man who did have a mass following, particularly in Port-au-Prince. He was Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest and advocate of “liberation theology”; but looked upon by opponents, both in Haiti and in America, as a revolutionary, but in fact a populist reformer. He denounced the upcoming military-dominated elections, and urged his followers to boycott the elections, saying “The army is our first enemy.” He was condemned by the Vatican.

The elections were scheduled for the 29 November 1987—the CIA funded a number of candidates. In the event, the elections were postponed ostensibly because of unrest and violence in the country. According to William Blum in Killing Hope, “…the candidate favored by the military government was declared the winner in balloting widely perceived as rigged”. Writing in 1994, Blum continued:

  There followed more than two years of regular political violence, coup attempts and repression, casting off the vestiges of the Duvalier dictatorship, and establishing a new one, until, in March 1990, the current military dictator, General Prosper April, was forced by widespread protests to abdicate, and was forced by a civilian government of sorts, but with the military still calling the shots. (p. 371)

Pressured by the United States, the Haitian government called an election later in the year. Reluctantly, Aristide became a candidate of a coalition of reformist organisations. Despite intimidation, Aristide was victorious with 67.5 percent of the vote. He took office in February 1991, after a coup attempt against him failed in January.

And so Jean-Bertrand Aristide became President of Haiti.

But he did not even get any reformist legislation enacted by Parliament. Nevertheless, the military was much concerned by the arrest of a number of para-military thugs, his policies against drug smuggling, and his attempts to depoliticise the army. Aristide was, however, not anti-business. He encouraged American capitalists, and to please the IMF, he fired 2,000 government workers.

It was all to no avail. In less than 8 months, on 29 September 1991, Aristide was successfully deposed by a military coup, in which hundreds of his supporters were massacred and thousands fled to the Dominican Republic. He was saved from being murdered by the French ambassador. The new military dictatorship was largely supported by the local bourgeoisie. And the Vatican immediately recognised the government. The Bush Sr administration unofficially gave its blessing. Haiti was back to “normal”.

Aristide’s Return

In the summer of 1993 the United Nations mediated talks between Aristide, living in exile in Washington, and the Haitian military government; the leader of the junta, General Cédras, would step down by October, and Aristide would return as president. But October came and went without the military permitting Aristide to return. Indeed, they stepped up their repression of his supporters, including the assassination of his justice minister, Guy Malary. Meanwhile, the CIA spread rumours in Haiti that Aristide was mentally ill. It was not true.

An organisation of American States (OAS) human rights team accused the Haitian military regime of “murder, rape, kidnapping, detention and torture in a systematic campaign” to terrorise all those Haitians wanting a return to democracy. Amnesty International reported the same. The Clinton administration in Washington wanted the military out of power, but without actually having to do anything, including invading the country. Nevertheless, changing tactics, the CIA, with numerous agents in Haiti, launched a major covert operation to topple the military regime. It was not a success. But change was a’coming.

In September 1994, the Clinton administration told the Haitian military leaders they had just four weeks to resign. The US would have to take control. Yet again. So, on 19 September US forces began to arrive in Haiti. Initially, they were welcomed by the majority of the population; they first arrested, disarmed and also shot many of the former Haitian military; and permitted some of the leaders to escape into exile. And they sealed off, and protected the homes of many of the local capitalist élite, “Washington’s natural allies” (Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1994).

Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti in mid-October, courtesy of the US army. He received, in the words of William Blum, a reception of “joyous celebration”. But, unbeknown to a majority of his supporters, he was somewhat different Aristide who had, three years previously, been disposed and exiled to Washington. In the words of the Los Angeles Times (1 October 1994):

Almost every aspect of Aristide’s plans for resuming power—from taxing the rich to disarming the military—has been examined by the US officials with whom the Haitian President meets daily, and by officials of World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other aid organisations. The finished package clearly reflects their priorities. Aristide has obviously toned down the liberation theology and class-struggle rhetoric that was his signature before he was exiled to Washington.

Indeed, Aristide embraced market economics with zeal and enthusiasm. He also agreed to publicly announce that he would not attempt to stay in office to make up the time he had lost in exile. So much for the firebrand priest—even as a reformer.

Haiti—a Client State

In Killing Hope William Blum claimed that Haiti’s international function will be to serve “transnational corporations” by opening the country up to further investment and commerce, with minimum tariffs and other restrictions; and offering itself, primarily in assembly industries, and as a source of export labour. He added: “What appears to be certain is that the rich will grow richer, and the poor will remain at the very bottom of Latin America’s heap.” Under Aristide’s successor, it can only get worse. As Seumas Milne observed, new IMF loans require Haiti to raise electricity prices, and to freeze all public sector pay, where the majority exist on less than two dollars a day.

Infant mortality rate is about 80 per 1,000 (neighbouring Cuba’s rate is 5.8). Around 50 percent of Haiti’s adults remain illiterate. Former president Bill Clinton wants to build up Haiti’s export-processing zones,. But, as Milne comments, “… more sweatshop assembly of products neither made nor sold in Haiti won’t develop its economy nor provide a regular income for the majority”. Haiti currently owes the IMF around a billion dollars. Gary Young, writing in the Guardian (1 February), reported that Haiti spent more, in 2008, servicing the country’s debts than it did on health, education and the environment.

Meanwhile, the United States pours thousand of heavily-armed troops into the country (yet again). and “The Street”, a US investment website, says that the earthquake provides such American corporations as General Electric, Jacobs Engineering and Flour, with the opportunity and potential to benefit. Of course.

Following the earthquake, a commentator on French television advised his viewers and listeners that “Haiti is not a suitable place to take a vacation.” He can say that again.

Peter E. Newell

Genes for Sale? (2000)

Editorial from the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amid much self-congratulating publicity and heaps of hype, Blair and Clinton jointly announced on 26 June the first draft of the mapping of the human genetic code. Someone claimed the discovery to be greater than that of the wheel. Clinton said, “Today we are learning the language in which God created life.”

The truth is a trifle more prosaic. Biological scientists in the US and Britain, working competitively and later partly co-operatively, have deciphered 90 percent of the three billion “letters” of the human genetic code. They believe that their discovery will revolutionise medicine and the treatment of disease.

But it will be many years before we begin to understand what our genes do or the complex way in which they interact to create a living organism—let alone use that knowledge to develop treatments. And we must beware news stories that talk about a gene for homosexuality or for criminality. The human genome is not a kind of software program which explains everything about us and our behaviour. Personality is a product of the complex interaction of at least 30,000 of our genes and our environment.

Celera Genomics, the leading American company in this field, makes its research available on a subscription-only basis, enabling rich pharmaceutical and bio-technology companies to apply for patents. We don’t agree with the Guardian (27 June) that this “patenting is a necessary protection for the financial and intellectual investment made by inventors and scientists”, nor with the Times that “science will not be advanced by outlawing profits”. The patent system creates legal monopolies over the exploitation of scientific knowledge and works mainly to benefit large companies, not “inventors”. This may be necessary under capitalism where companies won’t invest unless there’s a profit in it for them. But that’s precisely what’s wrong with capitalism.

The development of the genome project in a capitalist environment raises two fears. One is that it will give a boost to eugenics, enabling certain forms of detected “disability” to be eliminated in the womb (this has already happened in some cases of Down’s syndrome, but its possible extension raises important moral issues, which capitalism is particularly ill-equipped to deal with). The other fear is that employers, and especially insurance companies, may discriminate against those born with problematic genes; in fact in order to maintain their profits the insurance companies will have to.

While Celera called for patents and profits, other scientists sounded a different note. Dr Michael Dexter, of the Wellcome Trust, describing the genetic code as “the essence of mankind”, said it “should not be owned by one individual, one company, or one country” (Times, 27 June). “The human genome project is the birthright of mankind and should be available to everyone” (Yahoo News, 26 June). So it is and so it should be. But this is not going to happen this side of socialism.

Voice From The Back: The Gap Widens (2008)

The Voice From The Back column from the May 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Gap Widens

Much is made of the progressive nature of capitalism by journalists eager to prove that it is a society that is gradually making us all better off. A dissident view has recently been aired by the journalist Phillip Blond. “The New Economics Foundation has shown that global growth has not aided the poor. In the 1980s, for every $100 of world growth, the poorest 20 per cent received $2.20; by 2001, they received only 60 cents. Clearly neo-liberal growth disproportionately benefits the rich and further impoverishes the poor. Real wage increases in the top 13 countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have been below the rate of inflation since about 1970 – a situation compounded in Britain as the measure of inflation massively underestimates the real cost of living. Thus wage earners – rather than asset owners – have faced a 35-year downward pressure on their standard of living.” (Independent, 23 March)

Double Standards

“Too much public money is spent on prolonging the lives of the elderly when it could be diverted to helping young offenders, according to a senior Church of Scotland minister. The Reverend Maxwell Craig, who is now retired but retains the honorary position of Extra Chaplain to the Queen in Scotland made the comments yesterday in a newspaper column.” (Times, 27 March) We are fairly certain that the reverend gentleman is complaining about the expense of keeping old workers healthy and not the Royal Family whom he serves and who have a fairly good record of longevity. In the east end of Glasgow, in an area known as Calton the average life expectancy of males is 57. Make your own mind up.

American Illusions

During the primary elections in the US much has been made of Hilary Clinton’s care for the under-privileged against the super-rich, but what is the reality? “Democrat Hilary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, have made $109 million since leaving the White House, including $51 million in speech income for Bill Clinton, according to eight years of tax records released on Friday.” (Yahoo News, 4 April) We don’t take sides in this political ‘beauty contest’, but we can recognise that all of the candidates are hypocritical self-serving people who wish to administrate the awful system of capitalism. We hate their system and we detest all of them who try to con us into supporting it.

This is Progress?

Apologists for capitalism like to paint a picture of a system that is gradually improving the lot of the world’s poor, but recent developments show that this is a fallacy. The development of the markets in China and India and the process of arable land being used to produce bio-fuels instead of less profitable foodstuff have led to chaos throughout the world. “Rising food prices could spread social unrest across Africa after triggering riots in Niger, Senegal, Cameroon and Burkina Faso, African ministers and senior agriculture diplomats have warned. Kanayo Nwanze, the vice-president of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agriculture, told a conference in Ethiopia that food riots could become a common feature, particularly after the price of rice has doubled in three months.” (Financial Times, 4 April)

A Grim Future

Recent droughts in places like Australia and Africa combined with the explosive competition inside modern capitalism have led to many experts forecasting future disasters. “In recent months the commodity prices of rice, wheat and corn has jumped 50 percent or more, pushing retail prices to levels unseen in a generation and prompting grain-exporting countries to curtail trade to suppress domestic inflation. On March 20, the World Food Program issued an emergency appeal for more funding to keep aid moving to the world’s poorest countries. Last week World Bank president Robert Zoellick called for urgent global action on the part of rich nations ‘or many more people will suffer or starve’”. (Newsweek, 14 April)

The biggest rogue (2001)

Book Review from the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. By Noam Chomsky, Pluto Press, 2000.

Over the years, Chomsky has been described in various ways: as “the medic trying to cure a national endemic of selective amnesia”; as “the most dangerous man in the US”; as “the little boy who told the emperor he was naked” and, more recently by the New York Times, as “an exploder of received truths”. In this, his latest book, we find Chomsky very much living up to this long-standing reputation.

It is often said that if you’ve read one Chomsky book, you’ve read them all, which is perhaps true in so far as he is a relentless critic of US foreign and domestic policy, sinking his teeth deeper into the same old foe like a vengeful rottweiler with each new publication. Rogue States is no departure from the norm—it’s Chomsky doing what he does best.

Through skilful analysis of internal documents combined with historical context, a meticulous scrutiny of the activities of the US State Dept and a thorough gleaning of the quality broadsheets both sides of the pond, Chomsky again sets himself the task of gauging the US and its allies by the standards they use as justification for the interference in the lives of others.

The Balkans, East Timor and Colombia come in for close scrutiny in separate chapters which reveal the extent of US collusion in the ongoing misery there. In Kosovo, observes Chomsky, the US “has chosen a course of action that undermines—perhaps destroys—promising democratic development”. The Clinton regime’s praise for Colombia as “leading democracy” is stringently challenged by Chomsky. Citing Colombia’s human rights record as one of the worst in the world, Chomsky provides ample proof that the Clinton/Blair doctrine of “new humanism”—the self-styled “historic mission of bringing justice and freedom to the suffering people of the world”—is a total sham. Colombia, notorious for its state terror, produces 300,000 refugees and 3,000 deaths per year at the hands of its security forces, yet is presently the biggest recipient of US military aid in Latin America. The same favoured nation status is reserved for Turkey, whose security forces, in their persecution of the Kurdish people, have destroyed 3,500 villages and created three million refugees. Meanwhile, the US is keen to promote the redeeming qualities of resource-rich Indonesia ahead of the political fate of East Timor at the hands of the former.

Chomsky further reveals the US to be wholly contemptuous and dismissive of UN resolutions and the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights it helped to bring into existence and to be severely lacking in any credible justification for its policies beyond its own borders. In the regard, Chomsky further highlights the US passion for free trade, pointing to the developing countries compelled not only to accept US cigarettes and other drugs and commodities but also to advertise them under threat of trade sanctions.

Sanctions and indeed debt “is a very powerful weapon of control” says Chomsky, with half the world subject to US unilateral sanctions, a cruel form of economic coercion condemned repeatedly by the UN. In a chapter on the paranoiac US relationship with Cuba, Chomsky reminds us that Cuba has suffered 40 years of embargoes—the longest in history, and in spite of two-thirds of the US population opposing the sanctions and in breach of WTO rules, all of which is dismissed with the defence that Cuba is a threat to US national security.

Though this can at times be a hard-going book for the uninitiated, the mountains of information make it an indispensable reference work and guide to the methods the powerful use to further their own interests to the detriment of so many. It is moreover an invaluable tool for deciphering the rhetoric the powerful use to rationalise their excesses.

John Bissett