Material World: Gangsterism rules OK (2026)

The Material World column from the May 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Whether you believe the stories about US officials issuing veiled threats by reminding Vatican diplomats of the Avignon Popes (when the French Crown asserted secular power over the church and moved the seat of the Bishop of Rome to France), that they are circulating at all is a sign of the widely held sense of American lawlessness. An American official, according to the gossip, opined that the US has the power to do what it likes in the world, and the Catholic Church should take sides. Some have seen this as a threat to the Pope.

It has been doing what it likes for decades. In 2001 the US Congress passed a resolution, Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001, which stated:

‘That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.’

In justification, it noted:

‘the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States.’

This became the basis for the campaign of targeted killing by executive order, as part of the so-called War on Terror. It was a carte blanche, and, as with any executive authority, the office holders since that date have sought to strengthen and extend the scope of authority for actions taken under this resolution. It extended from the battlefields of Afghanistan to become a universal reach, justifying strikes in Libya, Somalia, Oman and even, under the present administration, to the strikes against alleged narcotrafficking boats in Venezuelan waters.

In 2011 even Obama took the step of killing an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, in an overseas strike.

Although there are no exact figures available, the estimate is that in over 14,000 strikes, over 10,000 people were killed and wounded, of whom around 15 percent were civilians, including hundreds of children.

The laws of war

The ‘rules of war’ permit civilian casualties in proportion to the value of the military objective to be achieved: that is, the decision to adopt the targeted killing policy was a decision in advance to kill entirely innocent civilians.

The argument of presidents and their hangers-on is that such death tolls save more lives and stretch the limits of liberty and legality less than alternatives. But it does, in the end, put the President in the same place as a gangster, killing anyone who might get in his way (and threatening anyone thinking of doing the same). It turns the end sequence of the first Godfather film, where Michael Corleone orchestrates a string of murders of rival bosses, from a fictional scene into real government policy.

Of course Trump, who most likely will have encountered the real-world mafia in his career as New York real estate developer and casino owner, has extended this policy even further. His strikes on Iran this year included the direct slaying of the Iranian head of state, as well as top government officials. This is close to saying all bets are off.

The laws of war, such as they are, were developed by professional militaries and soldiers to make a life of warfare possible. They limit the actions either side can make to prevent a cycle of violence so destructive that the entire game of war grinds to an exhausted halt. It was always a hypocritical gloss on the murderous business, but it did offer some respite and protection.

The chief victims of Trump’s extension of the remote murder strategy are likely to be members of other governments. The US position is that it will retaliate with untold ferocity should someone dare to slay its head of state: but other governments may not have that luxury. And, as Iran has demonstrated, the technology for a sudden and surgical missile strike is within the reach of many countries.

Iran, for its part, has come out swinging: its retaliation against US bases and the countries that host US bases has been to try and impose costs on any US attempt to repeat the Iraq adventure of siege and invasion. They aim to pressure the US to back off by causing pain to US allies.

Whilst the fog of war still prevails, it’s clear that deaths have been many and widespread: at the time of writing over 2,000 Iranians have been killed, with over 20,000 injured. Around 15,000 have been injured in US-allied states (with around half of those in Israel), and about 200 dead (including 15 Americans).

Given the interconnected worldwide system we all rely on, the direct casualties in modern wars are very likely dwarfed by the number of deaths later incurred due to damage to infrastructure. Both sides in this war have threatened desalination plants essential for life in the region, as well as power plants (including nuclear installations).

Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will lead to disruption around the world, as we see fuel prices rise dramatically (already there are serious fuel protests in Ireland).

With Trump threatening to counter-blockade the strait (which will bring the US navy within range of Iranian missiles), the prospect of damaging the world economy in the medium term is real.

Leaving simple morality to one side, war makes us all poorer. Every death is the loss of a mind that might have come up with brilliant insights in the future. Houses, roads, bridges all get destroyed and inhibit economic activity in a wide area (the same has already happened in the war between Russia’s and Ukraine).

Universal gangsterism over trade routes and resources means everyone has a stake in ending war, and the only means to do that is the common ownership of the world.

Pik Smeet

America versus the World (2002)

From the March 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

George Bush’s State of the Union address at the end of January was a rhetorical declaration of war on the world; an assertion that US interests are now paramount and woe betide anyone foolish enough to think otherwise.

Bush boldly announced that the “war on terror” was “only beginning” and announced an enormous hike in military spending. This year’s military budget is up $36 bn to $379 bn and next year the US war machine will receive an extra $48 bn, with a further $120 bn promised over the next five years, bringing the total spent on the military by 2007 to $ 2 trillion. To get some estimate of this level of spending it is worth noting that this year’s increase alone is higher than the joint military spending of Europe, and larger than China’s existing military budget. Though just how such an awe-inspiring arsenal of state of the arts weaponry is to stop 11 September type attacks on the USA is yet to be explained.

America has at last declared that the “war on terror” has replaced the threat of the “international communist conspiracy” and found in this the pretext to set the agenda for the coming century. The Bush administration has embedded its flag in what it believes is the moral high ground. From now on it is a war of good against evil – evil being anyone standing directly in the way of the US and its aspirations of global domination, with the “war on terrorism” allowing it to intervene anywhere and whenever and to deem who it likes a terrorist. Clearly this new “war” will involve countless military interventions with no regard whatsoever for international sensibilities.

There are now bogeymen under every rock and the world needs protecting from them. Bush identified an “axis of evil” in his State of the Union Address, pointing to the threat the world faced from North Korea, Iraq and Iran. Vice-President Dick Cheney would later remark that the US is considering military action against 50 countries and that this ongoing conflict could last 50 years, without seeming to question whether this would be sustainable.

Bush’s adviser Richard Perle commented: 

“This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there . . . if we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

All of this has naturally left political analysts wondering just who will be next. Somalia (on a key oil export route and with untapped oil deposits off its coast and with whom the US has a score to settle following the botched “Restore Hope” operation of a decade ago, which left thousands of innocents dead), or Yemen, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or Libya? All harbour bogeymen whose existence sullies the notion of American hegemony. Any could be the next target for a war machine drunk with its recent victory in Afghanistan. And what a victory! – Osama bin Laden still not caught (the entire campaign was about catching him), 5 thousand civilians dead and 7 million facing starvation in refugee camps.

A key element in the US game plan for global hegemony is clearly control of the Caspian’s rich oil reserves – estimated to be able to produce 3.3 million gallons of crude oil per day and 4850 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year. Hence US military manoeuvring in the states surrounding Afghanistan and thus the attaching of the “bogeyman” label to any state perceived as standing in the way of these profits.

Already Kyrgistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are under US military domination and there are US military tent cities in 13 states surrounding Afghanistan, with the map of US bases mirroring the route of a possible oil pipeline which would take oil through Iran to the Indian ocean.

The pretext for the US invasion of Iraq would be Iraq’s refusal to agree to terms laid down by a US-led weapons inspectorate into the country, hence Bush’s assertion in his State of the Union Address that Iraq “continues to flaunt its hostility towards the US” and that “this is a regime that has something to hide from the civilised world.”

The above may sound like so much scare-mongering, but when it is considered the US now accounts for 40 percent of global military spending, that it spends more on its war machine than the next 19 states, that in the past year it has discarded numerous international treaties, including those pertaining to weapons control, that the space taken up by its military hardware covers an area the size of Sweden, that it has served notice on all countries opposing the notion of US hegemony that their days are numbered, we can’t but conclude that warfare will be as much a part of life in this century as the one we have just emerged from.

We have every reason to be fearful for the future of humanity. War is competition for profits (either via trade routes, mineral wealth, resources or areas of influence) writ large, and to safeguard its future profits, its control of world resources the world’s greatest and largest military power is accumulating an unimaginable array of weaponry, rolling up its sleeves and marching forward to stamp underfoot all it perceives as being a threat to its interests.

John Bissett

Theatre Review: Guantanamo (2004)

Theatre Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Guantanamo (New Ambassadors Theatre, London)

 

Political Theatre has the ability to transform crises into drama with impressive speed. Already the so-called War on Terror has become a hot topic in the chilly West End theatres of London. This year has seen at least four productions concerning aspects of the post 9/11 conflicts: David Hare’s Stuff Happens, Alastair Beaton’s Follow My Leader, and Embedded by Tim Robbins. One of the latest is Guantanamo – Honour Bound to Defend Freedom, which explores the detention of over 650 internees at the Cuban base by the US. Picked up in the preliminary stages of the conflict, the internees are unprotected by the Geneva Convention or US justice and are seen as neither criminal suspects nor prisoners of war – simply ‘detainees’.

   

Described as a “shocking and often deeply moving production” by the Daily Telegraph, Guantanamo is written by Gillian Slovo – daughter of Joe – and Victoria Brittain, ex-Associate Foreign Editor of the Guardian. Written is perhaps the wrong word, for the story, such as it is, is a compilation of extracts from statements and interviews with the Camps Delta and X Ray detainees, their families, and friends of those killed in the 9/11 attacks. We also have relevant politicians from the ‘alliance’ putting their oars in, generally to the delight of the audience.

   

Interestingly, the play has no clearly defined beginning or end. As the audience enters the theatre the actors playing the detainees are already on stage, pacing the boards as if wishing the audience to hurry up and sit down so they can get on with it, and remain on stage when the play has apparently ended, presumably to draw attention to the audience’s freedom and the detainees’ lack of it.

   

Lack is something we are confronted with throughout the play, particularly of dramatic intensity. This is highlighted when the orange boiler suits part for the entrances of Jack Straw and Donald Rumsfeld. Passably impersonated, it is as if Rory Bremner has put in a guest appearance to brighten a worthy but rather sunless production. The cast do well with their material but seem constrained by the form of the play. Sitting, lying, standing but rarely moving, their general immobility seems emblematic of the static nature of the play, and the effervescence of dialogue is flattened by the need for single long speeches.

   

In the end there were no performances as such to enjoy, only the words of the inmates. Though their stories may have been moving, they alone were not enough to transpose this hot topic into even lukewarm theatre.

NW

The weakness of the anti-war movement (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The weakness of the anti-war movement is that the majority want nothing more than a return to capitalist “peace” rather than the overthrow of the system that causes war

According to the Guardian (15 October), government ministers were genuinely surprised at the estimated 20,000 plus demonstrators who turned out the previous Saturday for a CND peace march against the war in Afghanistan. The editors of the Guardian themselves must have been surprised, since earlier the same week they had published opinion polls showing 86 percent support for the war. Opponents of the war have already had a number of surprisingly large turnouts, given the short notice and word-of-mouth methods of announcing their meetings.

On 21 September a meeting was called by the “Stop the War Coalition”, an umbrella front organisation organised under the auspices of the SWP’s “Globalise Resistance” umbrella front organisation, and the “Socialist Alliance”, another front organisation. They had booked the main hall at Friends Meeting House in London, which seats 1,200 people. In the end over 2,000 people showed up, to this snap meeting, and thus an extra hall and an impromptu out-door meeting had to be organised as well, with speakers rotating between meetings. Although a healthy turn-out, the bulk of the audience was made up of what MP Jeremy Corbyn (one of the speakers) referred to as “The Usual Suspects”. Indeed, there is every chance that a bomb strike on that hall could have wiped out most of the left in London.

A CND concept vigil was organised outside Downing Street the following day (the concept being that everyone wear black). This attracted some 2,000 people as well, and saw them lined up along Whitehall displaying placards stating that they were standing “Shoulder to Shoulder against the war”, in pastiche of Blair’s cretinous soundbite of support for the US government in its war.

In clear distinction to the recent “anti-capitalist” demonstrations, these events were attended by an immensely broad range of background and age. One of the demonstrators was old enough to recall being handcuffed to a Socialist Party member, as a conscientious objector during the Second World War. Compared with crowds at other political events, they were relatively receptive to taking the literature being distributed by Socialist Party members present.

Alongside this various committees have been formed: “Media Workers Against the War”, “Artists Against the War” and “Lawyers Against the War”, usually with a significant SWP organisational input. This mushroom-like proliferation of organisations and their prominence within the anti-war movement that exists demonstrates the degree to which it is dominated by leftist notions and agendas. The aim, indeed their very existence, is focussed on the war itself, as an immediate crisis, without developing any broad analysis of the system of society that spawned it, with themselves as the unifying organisations drawing together the disparate groups and agendas involved in opposing the war.

Many of the protestors are dyed-in-the-wool pacifists, whilst others are leftists, and still others Islamists, united only in their opposition to this particular war, not their reasons for opposing it. This was made abundantly clear at the CND march. Trafalgar Square had been booked, some time before the 11 September 11 attack, by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign for their own cause, but they handed it over to CND for their anti-war march. A number of speakers, including one from the PSC, used the occasion of the war to push the Palestinian nationalist case as a cure for international terrorism. The number of mosques thanked by the meeting chair for their help in organising the event indicated why slightly more turned out in opposition to this war compared with the Kosovan conflict. The chair also thanked the Stop the War Coalition for helping organise the event. So, the front of a front was working in a front with CND to hold the march.

Speaker after speaker at each of the meetings have trotted out a long list of reforms, from George Monbiot’s suggestion of a Tobin Tax and an International Clearing House to alleviate world poverty, to Tariq Ali’s more conventional leftist approach of assessing the situation in national terms such as placing the Palestinian question at the centre, to the general cry for a standing International World Court to try “crimes against humanity”. The best CND could manage was a weak call to “negotiate”. The only glimmer of hope has been that the nebulous threat from “terrorists” has made the situation resistant to attempts to nationalise the problems into a conflict between specific states, thus speakers have had to talk much more in terms of a world solution.

The problem with this approach, above and beyond the mendacity of leftist fronts, is that it fetishises the crisis (both in philosophical, and more popular usages of the word, the latter, specifically for all the “activists” who long for a campaign to throw themselves into). It sees the immediate situation of open conflict as the problem, the simple solution of which is to simply pull back the troops. It doesn’t go beyond that to examine the fact that if states have weapons and armies, they are there to be used. It fails to look at how conflict is actually continuous in the present world. It simply adopts (and promotes) a simple moralist position, “War is bad, mmm’kay?”

Cause of war ignored

By taking the state propaganda at face value, and focussing on this war as a singular event, rather than a manifestation of historically arrived-at social relations, peace protestors are left with nothing more than vapid hopes. In ignoring this, they lose sight of the fact that we live in an economic system which drives its actors to battle against one another, in order to secure trade routes, natural resources and capital investments. This conflict is continual, the only variation being in the intensity of the conflict and the badges on the uniforms.

The leftists focus on the role of American Imperialism (with the SWP pointedly refusing to condemn the 11 September hijackers, merely disapproving of their tactics), hence their couching of their anti-war sentiments in terms of US withdrawal from the region. Such accounts present it as if the American government had some choice in pursuing an imperialist policy, that its actions result from some mysteriously gung-ho national characteristic, rather than from the dictates of capitalist economy. It also ignores the fact that if the US ceased to be the disruptive force for chaos in the region, there are plenty of willing understudies to take over that role. All capitalist states are basically imperialist in character and ambition.

That the master class of each nation needs to have recourse to violence to enforce and defend its interests in the world means that they must keep exclusive control of the states that direct those armies. The political machinery of society remains in the hands of a tiny minority so that it can be exercised to enforce the wage-enslavement of the immense majority at home, and rob the capitalists’ rivals abroad.

Hence why in Britain the decision to deploy military forces isn’t permitted to be voted on by Parliament, and why in America (as in the Kosovan war) the state can ignore the (unconstitutional in itself) War Powers Act (which, basically, states that the President may not deploy forces abroad for more than 60 days without congressional approval). The fewer hands involved in controlling the power to wage war, the better for the ruling class.

In its heyday, CND could count on having half-a-million marchers turnout to march down Whitehall to press its case for abandoning nuclear weapons. The holders of political power steadfastly ignored them, and nuclear weapons are still here. CND could march half a million down Whitehall against the war now, and the clique in charge would steadfastly ignore them again. The principle that the “masses” have no say over the means of war must be maintained at all costs. So long as the immense majority allows the state to arm itself and remain in the hands of a select few, we will have no capacity to effect war policy.

A socialist took the opportunity of an open microphone to address a Coalition Against the War demonstration from the plinth of Nelson’s Column, at a demonstration on 8 October, and point these facts out to the crowd. Hopefully some seeds of thought were sown there, and the idea that only socialism, the abolition of these conditions of war, exploitation and the existence of class, represents the practical material answer to the threat of war in all its forms will gain ground. So that, at some future demonstration, the impressive number of participants will stop chanting the puerile “Welfare not Warfare” and instead loudly proclaim their adherence to “no war, but the class war” as a means for bringing this ongoing horror to an end.

Pik Smeet

World View: Strange values, denials and a few truths (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The proverbial line has been drawn in the sand and President George W Bush has told the world “either you’re with us or you’re against us.” It’s a catch-all sentiment that is taking hold. Indeed, one writer asked me through the letters page of the Shields Gazette: “A simple message to John Bissett. Which side are you on, ours or the terrorists?” “It’s that simple”, I’ve been told on the streets!

The mainstream view is that the forces of barbarism have declared war on the bastion of democracy. George Bush boldly declared: “They hate our freedom, our freedom of religion, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with one another”, yet wonders not why, if this were so, the Statue of Liberty, the White House or the Lincoln memorial was not attacked on 11 September. Why the Pentagon and the WTC – one a symbol of America’s global military reach, the other a symbol of US economic prowess?

Of course there is much missing from Bush’s assertion that Islamic terrorists are simply jealous as hell of the democratic freedoms “enjoyed” in the US. The simple truth is that throughout the Middle East, indeed the world, the US has, despite its alleged support for movements towards democracy and greater freedoms for all, generally hampered provisional steps in the direction of democratisation whilst it has increased its support for despotic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Morocco.

Israel, for instance, gets 40 percent of all US overseas aid. Meanwhile Israel is in breach of six UN resolutions and continues oppressing people in Palestine. During Jordan’s despotic and repressive rule in the 1970s and 80s, US aid for the Amman regime was enormous. Then when Jordan decided to oil the cogs of its political machine in the 1990s, that aid was vastly reduced and for a while suspended. Similarly, aid to Yemen was cut off within months of that unified country’s first “democratic” election. In recent weeks, when it was discovered that Qatar’s satellite channel Al-Jazeera was beginning to sound a little “pro-democracy”, upsetting regional dictators, broadcasting images of the US bombings and airing bin Laden’s now famous video, it was Colin Powell who demanded the channel be closed down, insisting it fostered “anti-Americanism”.

When it comes to Middle Eastern peace, the US’s actions have ensured that the region is as unstable as ever, cocking a snook at UN Resolution 687 which calls for region-wide disarmament – which would also mean an end to Israel’s nuclear capability – and at the same time selling $60 billion worth of arms to Middle Eastern country in 10 years (80 percent of all world arms exports to the Middle East). Israel, by the way, receives $3 billion in US military aid on the pretext that it is defending itself from its Arab neighbours – those same neighbours the US has armed to the teeth.

Writing in the Guardian (29 September), Artundhati Roy goes a little further. “Could it be”, she asks, “that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government’s record of commitment and support of exactly the opposite things, to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorships, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocides?”

Blair’s double-speak

This side of the Atlantic, in his finest Orwellian double-speak, Tony Blair could announce: “The values we believe in should shine through in Afghanistan”. Could this be the same Blair whose government armed the Indonesian military machine that not so long ago ran rampage through East Timor? Whose government has signed 91 military export licences for Israel in the last eight months of the current Intifada? Such instances fly in the face of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office claim that “we will not issue export licences where there is clearly identifiable risk that the equipment might be used for internal repression or adversely effect regional stability”. Are these the same “values” which, on the same day as the attacks on the US, allowed the DSEi arms fair to go ahead in London and to continue for another two days? And are these same “values” informing a Labour government who, without any mandate from the UN, has helped notch up 15,000 RAF/USAF bombing raids on Iraq since the second Gulf War?

These same values are now behind the decision that Britain and the US should support a proxy army, the Northern Alliance, an outfit with an impressive record of widespread rape, pillage and murder in Kabul, in its confrontation with the Taliban. One of the key figures in the Northern Alliance is Abdul Rashid Dostom, and ally of Uzbekistan’s President Karimov, who has made huge profits from exporting drugs via Uzbekistan, and who allegedly was all to keen to secure Russian weapons and military supplies in exchange for keeping the gas flowing north.

Just as Blair’s values can enable him to curry favour with Israel’s Ariel Sharon, architect of the slaughter in Qibya in 1953 and the 1982 massacres in Sabra and Shatila, so can these same ideals prompt him into friendly dialogue with President Karimov, whose airfields are suddenly strategically important now the bombing of Afghanistan has commenced. Karimov, incidentally, holds 7,000 political prisoners, allows no free press and no political opposition. And Karimov, of course, has other reasons for supporting the anti-Taliban alliance. His corrupt police state is facing bankruptcy and to prop it up he is intent on having a pipeline through Uzbekistan and Afghanistan to a Pakistani port.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was castigated by his boss for making a link between Palestine and the recent terrorist attacks in the US when he said that Middle Eastern terrorism was bred “by the anger many people in this region feel at events over the years in Palestine.” Tony Blair was to spend 15 minutes on the phone to Ariel Sharon, trying to calm him down and get him to agree to meet Straw.

US foreign policy aims

Neither will Washington acknowledge its complicity in other areas which have a direct bearing on the present. Whilst Bush is mouthing off about the importance of curbing the funding of terrorist groups and keen to see the Taliban’s overseas assets frozen, it was his own administration, May gone, that scuttled international efforts to clamp down on tax havens, withdrawing support for an OECD initiative that called for more transparency in tax and banking procedures.

Moreover, it was again in May of this year that the Bush administration was giving the Taliban $43 million as an incentive to reduce the cultivation of poppies, knowing full well the Taliban were notorious abusers of human rights and that they harboured terrorists from all over the Islamic world. And there was no criticism of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan who for years gave the Taliban military and financial aid.

For quite some time now, US, German and Russian intelligence services have been alerting Washington to the fact that Osama bin Laden has been trying to acquire weapon’s grade nuclear material, indeed as early as 1993 from Russian outlets with poor controls. What was the response of the Bush administration to this? They proposed cutting funds for a programme aimed at preserving nuclear materials in the former USSR.

Of course all the cant and clever rhetoric and soldier speak of the last few weeks have helped mask what are now becoming the true intentions of the US. The attacks on the US on 11 September are now being used to serve US foreign and domestic policy.

The oil reserves of Central Asia are perhaps second to those of the Middle East and as Afghanistan is geographically located between the Caspian basin and the markets of Japan, China and the Indian sub-continent, we can well see the country’s strategic importance to foreign policy planners wishing to dictate the way in which the region’s oil and gas reserves are utilised to the benefit of the US dollar.

The “war on terrorism” is clearly being used to induce fear and mistrust in the US, and through this fear a justification will be found to curb all manner of civil liberties, increase police powers and military spending.

Furthermore, the current crisis serves to extend US power around the globe and perhaps set a definite agenda for the coming century, the ‘war on terrorism’ serving as a replacement for the Cold War, now that the US has had its anti-communist passport stamped null and void and is desperate to maintain a pretext to assert its hegemonic credentials.

None of which surprises socialists. We are well attuned to the machinations of the elites of powerful countries as they seek to promote the interests of their corporate backers. Though it is no easy task for the uninitiated, we urge our fellow workers to be as vigilant as ever. To believe the arguments of the likes of Bush and Blair is to disarm yourself intellectually – for it is at times like the present, when the media is dancing to the tunes of governments, when the trumpets of jingoism, patriotism and reaction are sounding, that we need to be fighting the war of ideas.

John Bissett

More reactions – from the front line (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

We reproduce below recent emails sent by a member of the World Socialist Movement living in Peshawar, near the Afghan border

Well, Pakistan as you might be aware is breathing heavily as the pressure is mounting on it by the US. The religious parties are furious over the government support for the Americans. They are bringing people out on the streets and protesting against the government and USA. Things could get worse if the attack on Afghanistan actually takes place. The place where I live is indeed very sensitive. There is a religious movement going on for the past six years in the frontier region here. They are armed, rebellious and can defy the government any time. They are pro-Taliban and are sending fresh recruits across the border into Afghanistan to fight the holy war. The imminent attack is sure to trigger off a far worse situation than can ever be imagined. People would rally around the religious parties as they have the street power and are bold enough to defy any ban by the government. Already life is too tough for the poor and destitute here and inside Afghanistan. Watching BBC and CNN it seems war is already here. They are whipping the drums of war just for nothing. The impact of this on the lives of the common people is worse. Thousands of refugees are crossing the border for safety and entering Pakistan for food and shelter. What is going to be their fate is anybody’s guess. We are living at only three hours drive distance from the border. There is a hectic activity on border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the frontier region to which I belong. Emotions are very high and even illiterate people are keen to know what is happening on that side. As we all know, Afghanistan is in a virtual grip of drought and fighting for the many years. People are already suffering in refugee camps set up in Peshawar. More are coming. There is going to be a huge catastrophe in terms loss to humans lives of the innocent and hapless who have nothing to defend themselves.

Well, this is how things are moving, not in the right direction which it never was.

(3 October)

Blair arrived and said what he had been saying all along since the attacks. The generals on this side obviously looked tense and confused. Yesterday’s dictators are today’s democrats. Blair praised Musharaf’s so-called roadmap to democracy and in turn promised large and hefty economic largesse. Obviously the government is happy as it has been bailed out of the economic stranglehold that has dogged it for three years. The government economic managers (mismanagers) hired from the IMF and World Bank (the finance and foreign ministers were former employees of the WB) are now lining up in Washington to thank their boss and to beg for more. Back at home people the majority whom the general terms minority are infuriated over the government “unstinted support” in the fight for terrorism. The armed religious are waiting for the strikes to happen and then there would be nobody to stop them from carrying out their agenda. Presently they are a bit silent and cautious.

(6 October)

So the strikes have begun, and so have the demonstrations in every nook and corner of Pakistan. The area where I live is considered to be very sensitive as there are many religious groups operating here. The schools were closed today for an indefinite period. There were more than ten demonstrations today here by students and parties protesting and chanting slogans against US. Across the country protestors have damaged vehicles and put a cinema on fire in Quetta alone. They were tear-gassed. Later in the day shops too were closed down as mark of solidarity with the Afghan brethren. The situation is very volatile and open to violence any time. Now we are living in the midst of war albeit fought at a distance from us. The government will soon come under severe attack by the religious and non-religious alike, as the strikes have paralyzed business here. The president in his press conference here said today the strikes would be short and targeted while the Americans say it would be sustained and relentless. One thing seems clear the Americans will take it too far no matter what happens to Pakistan and Afghanistan in the process.

(8 October)

The drive to war (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

A member from Ireland who was in the USA on 11 September records the atmosphere there

I wasn’t alive during the summer of 1914 but I think I may have got a sense of what it felt like as a result of my recent holiday in the United States. We were staying with a relation in Los Angeles when we were awoken by him on the morning of Tuesday the 11 September to the continuous coverage on all the TV and radio channels of the terrorist bombing in New York or “Attack on America” as the news anchormen quickly deemed it. It was shocking to see the footage of those planes crashing into the World Trade Center and to imagine the gruesome deaths that so many on the planes and in the buildings must have suffered.

What was particularly upsetting was the sight of people forced to jump off the building to their deaths rather than tolerate the fireball. For me though as a socialist, what was most dispiriting, that in addition to the knowledge of so many innocent dead, was the whole way that the media and the establishment in general so quickly took control of how the incident should be interpreted. It was a powerful example of the socialist critique of what’s called liberal or parliamentary democracy; although we elect our leaders by periodical mass voting the context in which they operate and their agenda somehow seem to be set by others beyond our control.

Even before President Bush made his first announcement “today we saw an attack on freedom”, and only a number of hours after the suicide bombings, grief for the victims and hope for the survivors was already being pushed aside by talk of retribution and revenge. Almost instantaneously an endless series of retired State Department and Pentagon officials from the Reagan and Bush (Senior) era, together with innumerable academics, (styling themselves as “terrorism experts”) were paraded across the screens offering their two-pence worth on who was behind it and what form the military response should take. It was evident that a large number of these were aching for a war with Iraq/Iran/Libya etc. and any other ‘rogue state’ that could be tied into the conspiracy.

The papers were just as bad and the coverage even in supposedly liberal papers such as the New York and Los Angeles Times was equally strident. They carried stories on the role that the “Special Forces” would undertake which read like the worst excesses of tabloid jingoism that we’ve come to expect from the Murdoch Sun. It wasn’t just the media who were uncritical in their judgements. The Friday after the bombings had been designated as an official “Day of Mourning” for the country. The President and a number of ex-Presidents plus the leaders of Congress all gathered in the National Cathedral in Washington for “prayer”. Representatives of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths (in that order!) duly said their piece to be followed immediately by the President on the podium. Bush’s warlike comments on the actions that the US would undertake were clearly at variance with the supposedly religious ethos of the service though unsurprisingly provoked no adverse comments from the clerics present. Indeed the whole affair ended with a stirring rendition of Battle Hymn of the Republic by a Marine choir.

The effect of this on public opinion was quickly apparent. The ‘Stars and Stripes’ flew everywhere. Reputable billboards in Shopping Malls carried the slogan “God Bless America” while their more uncouth cousins (located close to offices of the National Rifle Association or similar organisations) promised all sorts of unprintable vengeance to Osama bin Laden. On the radio talk shows people wanted the borders closed, immigration halted, “racial profiling of people of Middle Eastern appearance” and a multitude of other measures. For some even this wasn’t enough; “it was time this country got serious” and the mass expulsion or detention of Arab-Americans was the only solution. This provoked a response and “helpful” listeners rang in and urged Arab-Americans to place the US flag prominently on their houses to demonstrate to their neighbours where their true loyalties lay.

Of course Wall Street wasn’t going to take the attack lying down; radio and newspaper advertisements, sponsored by the major banks and investment houses, soon appeared urging Americans to buy shares as it was their patriotic duty to push the Dow Jones index up. In a vague way it was suggested that the World Trade Center was singled out because as a symbol of capitalism it captured America’s true spirit. Hollywood too (where correctly sensing the public mood and identifying with it is a key requirement for success) went to war and a “galaxy” of A-list celebrities hosted a “Tribute to Heroes” television special. Raising money for the victims of the atrocity is an entirely praiseworthy event of course; the irony that some of the big names involved such as Sylvester Stallone had made films in the 1980s extolling the Mujaheddin as freedom fighters will register with some of us.

Very importantly though it must be pointed out though that not all American workers were taken in by this frenzy; within days after the event I passed small groups of anti-war protestors in different towns who were pointing out the fallacy of equating justice with revenge. It took some courage to do so in that heated environment. Their small stand highlighted the complete absence in the mainstream media of any attempt to ask the question of why this attack took place and what the suicide bombers intended to achieve by their act. The role of the US in the Middle East in terms of its support for Israel in its conflict with the Palestinian Authority and its propping up of autocratic, reactionary states in the Gulf was not referred to. While the Taliban regime in Kabul owe their origin and rise to power to a complex series of events in Afghanistan’s recent history, the not-so-covert actions of the CIA in supplying the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation with a plentiful supply of weaponry cannot be glossed over. George Bush now has a 90 percent popularity rating in the polls and may find himself in the trap that unless forthcoming US deeds match his rhetoric then his credibility and re-election hopes will be damaged. It may be that many more people across South Asia will join the 5,000-plus fatalities in New York and Washington as victims of 11 September.

Kevin Cronin

Indictment of capitalism (2001)

From the November 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter from a member was published in The Belfast Telegraph on 28 September

George Bush has made it clear that if we do not support his plans to use absolute state terrorism to defeat the more “laissez faire” variety of terrorism, we will be marked down as an enemy. This is, we are assured, in the interests of the Bush definition of freedom.

Meanwhile, America’s astronomical “defence” budget must be going through the roof. Enormous bribes to old enemies and new friends are the order of the day and what are obviously staggering amounts of dollars are being laid out in the massive movement of men and equipment to terrify the enemy and, presumably—unless the Pentagon is absurdly wanton with its military resources—take the lives of a great many human beings. As in all wars, most of the latter will be completely innocent people, or, to use that brutal term taken from the lexicon of the US military establishment, mere “collateral damage”.

While the killing hasn’t yet started, the starving people of Afghanistan whose lives have been blighted by the brutality of the Russian imperialists and cynical usage by the agents of the West, are already being terrified. The UN, obviously bound hand and foot by the purchasing power of the West, has embargoed food aid to these starving people, caught between the religious madmen of the Taliban and the threat of the allegedly sane leaders of what they insist are the Western democracies.

Conversely, while the miserably poor of Afghanistan are being starved and terrified, the US President and the mayor of New York are appealing to Americans—obviously excluding the millions of poor in that country—to go out and spend to help American capitalism.

Could there be a more profound indictment of the system of international capitalism?

Richard Montague

Letters :The war goes on (2001)

Letters to the Editors from the December 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

The war goes on

Dear Editors,

The action of terrorists on America’s twin towers and Pentagon on 11 September and the subsequent bombing of Afghanistan by the USA and its allies is proof (if any was necessary) that there is no civilisation or democracy in this world.

As he accepted his Presidential nomination in 1988, George Bush (senior) had this to say, “This has been called the American century because in it we were the dominant force for good in the world. Now we are on the verge of a new century, and what country’s name will it bear? I say it will be anther American century.” However, there is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and with the same basic needs.

As long as we live under the market system, the conditions that give rise to wars will always exist. War in the modern world has the potential for destruction of the whole human race. The working class – the propertyless majority – have no interest at stake in supporting any war at any time for any reason. Terrorism will only go with the collapse of capitalism and the coming of a new era – socialism.

It is clear that any solution resulting from violence or confrontation is not lasting. It is only through peaceful means that we can develop better understanding between peoples. Though lies and “spin” may deceive people temporarily and the use of force may control human beings physically, it is only through proper understanding, fairness and mutual respect that they can be genuinely satisfied and creative.

Human beings are capable of co-operating – the development of the human race has depended upon it. There are numerous examples of selfless behaviour and kindliness. But a system motivated by the quest for profit is bound to be competitive and ruthless. Otherwise how and why would people who are kind and caring support and even take part in deliberately causing death and destruction to strangers they have never met? The wheels of capitalism are oiled by human blood.

There are no bombs or bullets that select the guilty and spare the innocent. The pacifist is just as likely to get killed as the soldier. This is what is happening in Afghanistan and in all parts of the world that are ravaged by war. Though human life cannot be recovered, the energy and resources that are being put into the destruction of Afghanistan could be used to rebuild the destroyed twin towers. Destroying life and wealth in Afghanistan is not a solution – it will only aggravate the situation. Two wrongs cannot make a right. The USA is using misfortune to show the world its military might, using equipment sold to destroy human life elsewhere.

Socialists can only continue with propagating our case against capitalism. Sometimes we have to be careful not to provoke the sword of ignorance purposelessly. But to give up, to concede defeat, would be to allow the present disastrous and insane system to triumph.

To quote the words of a great scientist, Albert Einstein, “The significant problems we face cannot be resolved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”

Justus Weijagye, 

Uganda

The Bilderberg Group

Dear Editors

Just a short comment on the clarification on p. 18 of the November Socialist Standard.

The Bilderberg group may be “semi-mythological”, but there’s no doubt that such groupings do exist. For instance, in Captive State, George Monbiot discusses the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), an association of the bosses of forty-six of the biggest companies in Europe. They have long advocated the creation of a single market in Western Europe, and called for the improvement of transport links – including the building of the Channel Tunnel. The ERT does not control governments, but it certainly influences them.

Paul Bennett, 

Manchester

Editorial: Yet another war for oil? (2002)

Editorial from the October 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again, in an attempt to protect Western control over Middle East oil supplies, the titular head of US corporate capitalism, George W Bush, has presented the world with the vision of well-known bogey-man Saddam Hussein building up weapons of mass destruction.

No doubt, in this world where “might is right”, the Iraq regime would like to arm itself, just like any other state, with the most destructive weapons it can afford, and it would not be at all surprising that it was trying to develop them. In Iraq’s case this would be so as to be able to throw its weight around more in the Middle East. But this is precisely America’s aim too. Hence the clash of interests. Bush and Blair want the Saddam regime out of the way because they see it as a threat to Western capitalism’s continued domination of the Middle East and its oilfields. It’s as simple as that. For them too, might is right, as they are itching to prove.

Some of America’s allies are not convinced that a war with Iraq won’t endanger rather than protect their oil supplies or political stability. Aware of this, Bush is now pursuing his campaign via the UN, clearly hoping that Iraq’s failure to comply with requests from UN weapons inspectors will provide the pretext he needs to justify an attack upon Iraq. He cites Iraq’s refusal to comply with UN resolutions as evidence of Saddam’s contempt for the world. Yet that US ally, Israel, is in breach of as many UN resolutions as the errant Iraq. And the US itself has refused to accept a ruling from the International Court of Justice condemning its “unlawful use of force” during its terrorist war against Nicaragua, and for which it was also ordered to pay substantial reparations. Dismissing that particular ruling and refusing to pay, the US went on to intensify that assault.

That the US is concerned with the chemical facilities Iraq might have is understandable. Saddam certainly has the technological know-how. It came courtesy of the US when they sponsored Saddam in his war with Iran. Back in 1994, the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs produced a report entitled U.S. Chemical and Biological Warfare-Related Dual Use Exports to Iraq and their Possible Impact on the Health Consequences of the Persian Gulf War. It concluded:

“The United States provided the Government of Iraq with ‘dual use’ licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological, and missile-system programs, including: chemical warfare agent precursors; chemical warfare agent production facility plans and technical drawings…chemical warhead filling equipment; biological warfare related materials; missile fabrication equipment; and, missile-system guidance equipment”.

We can further observe that the country with the biggest nuclear arsenal on Earth and the biggest stockpile of chemical weapons, and which has a proven track record of having used them, is the United States. Clearly, America doesn’t object to the stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction as such. It just wants it and its allies to have a monopoly of them, not in the interests of world peace but in the interests of its world domination.

There can be no other reason for the US obsession with Iraq than continuing control of Middle East oils supplies. What remains imprecise is the US game plan: to use Iraq as a springboard to capture Iran and thus secure a shorter and cheaper route to Gulf ports for Caspian oil, or maybe to get a tighter grip on Saudi oil lest there be an Islamic fundamentalist blowback resulting from the “war on terror”? You don’t think so? Then ask yourself if there’d there be so much US concern if the Middle East just supplied dates.

Someone who has seen through the current charade is Mo Mowlam, once a member of Blair’s cabinet, who has written:

“This whole affair has nothing to do with a threat from Iraq – there isn’t one. It has nothing to do with the war against terrorism or with morality. Saddam Hussein is obviously an evil man, but when we were selling arms to him to keep the Iranians in check he was the same evil man he is today. He was a pawn then and he is a pawn now. In the same way he served Western interests then, he is now the distraction for the sleight of hand to protect the West’s supply of oil” (Guardian, 5 September).

Capitalism is a war-prone society in that built-in to it is perpetual conflict between rival states over markets, raw material sources, trade routes and investment outlets, for the profit-seeking capitalist corporations they exist to protect. You can’t have capitalism without wars, the threat of war and preparations for war.

So if you’re just demonstrating against war, then take our advice and invest in a sturdy anti-war banner, for if you are prepared to oppose war without opposing the very system that gives rise to it, then you’ll be demonstrating for quite some time to come. Alternatively you can join the movement which believes that to end wars we must first put an end capitalism. An uphill struggle? Less than campaigning to end war against the backdrop of the profit system.

We must unite to establish a world community without frontiers where all the resources of the planet would be at the disposal of all the people of the planet. Then we could use them to end world poverty, hunger and preventable disease once and for all and rapidly move towards applying the principle “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs”, ensuring that no man, woman or child anywhere on Earth goes without adequate food, clothing, shelter or other amenities. A world where wars and weapons of mass destruction would be things of the past. This can be done. So let’s do it.

September 11, 2001: reflections on a somewhat unusual act of war (2006)

From the September 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the fifth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attack on New York and Washington, we reflect on this act of war and try to place it in its true political and moral context.

As an act of war, the al-Qaeda attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre was somewhat unusual, though not unprecedented, in three respects. 

First, the method used was non-standard. Standard military practice is to blow things and people up by dropping bombs or firing shells and missiles on them. But flying planes right into the target has been done before. Japanese kamikaze pilots used the technique against US warships in the Pacific during World War Two.

Second, al-Qaeda is a non-state actor. Such actors rarely have the capacity to carry through such a complex and costly operation. Therefore al-Qaeda must have had financial backing from wealthy sponsors – Osama bin Laden himself comes from an extremely wealthy family – and the support, or at least complicity, of one or more powerful states. In general, arranging wars is a pastime for members of the capitalist class, though they get hirelings to do the dirty work for them. Working people don’t command the necessary resources.

Finally, it is a little unusual for the US to be on the receiving end of a military assault from abroad. For a comparable attack on the continental United States, you have to go back to 1814, when the British army entered Washington and burned down theWhite House and the Capitol.

In other ways the attack was not unusual in the least. As an atrocity it was par for the course. The death toll, initially estimated at 6,500, was later revised downward to about 2,800. Atrocities on a similar or larger scale are committed routinely by the US in other countries.

To take just one example, 3-4,000 civilians were killed in the invasion of Panama in December 1989. Even if we start the reckoning with September 11, we find that the US was quick to even the score. According to an independent study, 3,767 Afghan civilians (hardly any of them connected with al-Qaeda) had been killed in bombing raids by 6 December, 2001. This figure does not include the far more numerous indirect casualties resulting from the creation of refugees and the disruption of food and other supplies.

Betrayal

The attack should not have been a total surprise, a bolt out of the blue. After all, it was merely the next step in a war that Osama bin Laden had formally declared on the United States in August 1996. He had built up a far flung network of front companies, banks,”charities,” and NGOs (e.g., the World Union of Moslem Youth) to raise funds and recruit young fighters for the war. He had already attacked American assets abroad, notably the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, and there was ample intelligence warning that a major attack on US soil was in the offing. So the parallel with Pearl Harbor is pretty weak.

And yet September 11 clearly did come as a shock to Bush. That was because the attack came from forces that the US, its sidekicks Britain and Israel, and the Bush family in particular had long regarded as friends, allies and partners. This explains why Bush ignored the warnings – just as Stalin ignored warnings of impending attack by Nazi Germany in 1941 and felt “betrayed” by Hitler when the attack came American, British, and Israeli ruling circles saw the main threats to their economic and strategic interests in the Moslem world as coming from “communists” and secular nationalists backed by the Soviet Union (e.g. Nasser in Egypt, Ghaddafi in Libya, the PLO). When Khomeini’s theocracy took power, Iran was added to the list of enemies, together with associated Shi’ite Islamist movements in other countries. Sunni Islamist movements, however, were encouraged – largely on the principle that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” although also because they seemed more interested in imposing ritual conformity on their own communities and in fighting “communism” than in challenging the substantive interests of the “infidel” powers.

The Islamists were also beneficiaries of the “neo-liberal” economic policies of Western institutions. In Pakistan, for example, the secular state schools collapsed in the 1980s as a result of IMF-mandated public spending cuts. This left the Saudi-financed religious schools (madrassas) as the only educational option available to boys who were not from wealthy families. (Girls, needless to say, didn’t even have that option.) It was from these madrassas that the Taliban drew its recruits.

Moreover, relations with the leading Sunni Islamist power, Saudi Arabia, were and still are vital to Britain and the US in economic terms. The Saudi capitalist class, led by the royal family and influential families like the bin Ladens, not only sells these countries’ oil but uses much of the proceeds to buy arms from them and invest in their economies.

There are close and long-established personal and business ties between wealthy Saudis and British and American capitalists and politicians, including the father of the current US president and several members of his administration.

The Saudi-US alliance also entailed close military cooperation, above all in the fight against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden went to Pakistan in 1979 as an official of the Saudi intelligence service to finance, organize, and control the anti-Soviet Afghan resistance in collaboration with the CIA. It was here that Osama, who had trained as an engineer and economist with a view to taking part in the family business, acquired his taste for war. 

Osama fell out with the Saudi royal family in 1991 when they allowed the US to set up military bases on the “holy” soil of Arabia following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. But even in exile Osama received frequent visits from relatives, who provided a channel of communication between him and the royal family. An understanding appears to have been reached. Osama would abstain from attacking targets inside Saudi Arabia and in return no action would be taken against his Saudi supporters, who included various members of his own and of other wealthy families (such as Khalid bin Mahfouz, the “banker of terror”) and even certain royal princes. And the Saudi authorities did protect these people, refusing to provide US intelligence agencies with any information that might compromise them. 

So September 11 originated in a “betrayal” by the Saudi capitalist class of their American friends, allies and partners. How can we account for such strange ingratitude to those to whom they owe their vast riches? It probably has to do with the circumstances in which the Saudi capitalist class came into being. It did not make itself through independent entrepreneurial activity. It was made when oil was discovered in Arabia (in 1938) and property rights in that oil were vested in the pre-existing royal house. It is a class of bedouin patriarchs turned rentiers who became capitalists by investing their revenue. As a result, it retains to some extent a pre-capitalist mentality that it expresses in religious terms, and has a deeply ambivalent attitude to the capitalist world in which it now operates.

The endless “war on terror”

Despite the shock effect, US ruling circles did not necessarily regard September 11 as an unalloyed evil. In his book The New Crusade, anti-war analyst Rahul Mahajan draws attention to a document entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses, issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think tank with links to the Bush administration. The authors call for increased military spending to preserve US “global pre-eminence,” but add that such a programme will be politically impossible unless there is a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor”.

The purposes for which the fear generated by the al-Qaeda attack was exploited suggest that it filled this bill. The threat of “terrorism” has been used to push through military programs ranging from anti-missile defence to germ warfare. Thus, a vast lab is being built near Washington called the National Biodefence Analysis and Countermeasures Center, where in violation of the 1972 biological and toxin weapons convention the most lethal bacteria and viruses are to be stockpiled (Guardian Weekly, 4-10 August, 2006). What a tempting target it will make for terrorist infiltration or attack!

The “war on terrorism” unleashed in the aftermath of September 11, against first Afghanistan and then Iraq, is not – so Mahajan argues – a war on terrorism, just as the “war on drugs” is not a war on drugs. Combating terrorism and drugs are both low priorities, and the “wars” against them are covers for the pursuit of higher-priority interests.

In Afghanistan the US had turned against the Taliban (previously welcomed as a force for “stability”), mainly because they were unwilling to host oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Pakistan, and was looking for a pretext to overthrow them. Capturing Osama was that pretext, for it was obvious that the chaos of war would create ideal conditions for him to escape.

Iraq was invaded to secure control over its oil and in the hope of establishing a new strategic beachhead in the Middle East. Saddam had no ties with Islamic terrorism, just as he had no nuclear weapons. To the likes of Osama he was not even a genuine Moslem. Bush demanded of his experts that they find ties between Iraq and terrorism; when they replied that there were none, he pretended not to hear and reiterated his demand. In October 2001 Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the war on terrorism”may never end — at least, not in our lifetime”(Washington Post, 21 October, 2001). Am I alone in finding this suspicious? Ordinarily in a war it is considered important for morale to hold out some prospect of victory, however remote. Does Cheney want and need the “war” to go on forever?

The torture system

To sustain the facade of the “war on terror” it is necessary to arrest lots of people. As there is no real evidence against them, they are held without trial in secret facilities throughout the world, where – like the victims of Stalin’s purges – they are tortured to extract the non-existent evidence. In her book The Language of Empire, Lila Rajiva describes for us the sickening tortures at Abu Ghraib, the prison complex outside Baghdad that the US occupation authorities took over from Saddam. The accounts and photos (some taken as exposés, others as souvenirs) are monotonous in their sameness. This is a clue: it strongly suggests that the torture is not a spontaneous practice of jailers and interrogators but a system designed by government experts and approved at the top.

The system goes by the code name R21 and is taught to British and American military intelligence personnel at the British Joint Services Interrogation Centre at Gilbertine Priory, Chicksands, near Bedford (Guardian, May 8, 2004). It is designed to shock Moslem cultural sensibilities. Victims are stripped naked and hooded, savaged by dogs, and forced under threat of beatings to masturbate and simulate sexual acts in front of sniggering female soldiers (another triumph for sexual equality). That’s just for starters, of course; it gets worse. I leave it to the reader to ponder what this means for the relative merits of Western and Middle Eastern “civilization.”

And yet the people who authorize all these horrors know very well who is responsible for terrorism (the Islamist variety, that is) and where they are to be found. But no bombs have been dropped on the wealthy suburbs of Riyadh. No scions of the bin Ladens and bin Mahfouz, no princes of the House of Saud have been stripped naked, set upon by dogs or sexually humiliated. That’s class justice for you! A few incidents, however regrettable, can’t be allowed to spoil British and American relations with a vital ally and business partner.

Stefan

Editorial: Middle East hypocrisy (2002)

Editorial from the September 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is a dangerous society. The competition between rival economic gangs for markets, trade routes and sources of raw materials is intense; so intense in fact that from time to time it explodes into war with the consequent suffering and death that this brings to the world’s working class. We appear to be at this time on the brink of another war in the Middle East; and although capitalism is in many ways an unpredictable society it seems fairly certain that sooner or later the USA might attack Iraq.

Much nonsense is being talked in the world’s media about this being a war against terrorism. It is no such thing, it is a struggle for control of the vast supplies of oil in the Middle East, and in this sense a continuation of the Gulf War – a war whose aim was always to secure oil supplies in the region rather than “topple Saddam”.

It would of course be difficult for the US government to get its workers to risk their lives in a future war if they were told the purpose of the conflict was to swell the profits of US oil companies, so some sort of propaganda story has to be stitched together before the atrocities start. We will be told that the dictator of Iraq is part of “The Evil Axis” plotting to manufacture weapons of mass destruction and must be overthrown. It will not be mentioned that this dictatorial regime was supported by the US government in the past as a counter to Islamic fundamentalism in neighbouring Iran any more than they wanted to tell us that it was the US that trained many of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists when they were fighting the Russian army in Afghanistan. That is the nature of this crazy society: plots and counter-plots, shifting alliances, pacts and double-dealing is the norm. It might even be that Bush’s sabre-rattling is just a bluff to extract concessions from the Saddam regime. In fact an actual war could lead the Middle East to implode with unforeseen consequences, leaving the US to have to pick up the bill which in present circumstances it might not be able to find the money for, given recessionary pressures, the US national debt and potential loss of cheap Saudi oil.

Writing in the Observer (11 August) Anthony Sampson, author of The Seven Sisters, about oil companies and the Middle East, had several revealing things to say about the present crisis:

“The alarmist briefing to the Pentagon by the Rand Corporation, leaked last week, talked about Saudi Arabia as the ‘kernel of evil’ and proposed that Washington should have a showdown with its former ally, if necessary seizing its oilfields which have become crucial to America’s energy . . . Western oil interests closely influence military and diplomatic policies, and it is no accident that while American companies are competing for access to oil in Central Asia, the US is building up military bases across the region.”

Let there be no ambiguity about this; the United States acts – because of its superior political, military and economic power – as the “gendarme of the world” and the threatening bloodbath is over the control of Middle East oil, not the freedom or democracy of the exploited workers in the region, whether they be in Iraq or Saudi Arabia. If either of these states threaten the US or the US-imposed “stability of the region” they will be dealt with in the same way the US deals with all regimes that seriously threaten its interests – in other words, with a bloodbath.

As in the Gulf War, the last people to gain from the bombing and terror will be the half-starved men, women and children of states like Iraq. The real winners will be the US and its allies, the oil barons, and possibly – as many of the financial papers have been hoping – the ailing stock markets.

Constant warfare against the innocent victims of entrenched dictatorships is no way to run a society. Indeed, capitalism itself, as a competitive system that leads to warfare just as night leads to day, is no way to run a society. To this end socialists are fundamentally opposed to the impending warfare and commit ourselves as in the past to the overthrow of the hellish system that causes so much misery and heartbreak.

Threats and threats (2009)

From the March 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are there really terrorists round every corner or is this just government hype to scare us into supporting them?

What’s the biggest threat in the world today for most of the world’s population? Judging by the airtime allocated by news media, the column inches of print media, the numerous books published in the last handful of years and the massive budget allocated worldwide to its defeat, it must be terrorism. Terrorism is good for sales and viewing figures. “Breaking News” is a sure-fire attention catcher. At the end of November Mumbai experienced a series of horrific, coordinated acts of violence which killed over 180 people, mainly civilians.

Sri Lanka has its ongoing struggle with the Tamil Tigers, Turkey the PKK, Spain ETA, Colombia the FARC, etc; all named “terrorist organisations.” Acts of terrorism occur daily in both Iraq and Afghanistan, individual suicide bombers, car and truck bombs killing single figures, dozens or scores of victims whilst guided missiles from the coalition forces create death and destruction for countless thousands of innocent victims. Since September 2001 the world’s biggest powers have allowed themselves every possible opportunity to wreak retribution wherever they have deemed there to be a terrorist threat, even against the will of the majority of their electorates. Around 3,000 deaths in New York and Washington, horrific, inexcusable deaths, have been the precursor to untold thousands since – each one as horrific and inexcusable as the originals – but most of these excused as collateral damage by the powerful.

President Obama has vowed to carry on the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. No doubt UK forces will be expected to continue to play their role too. By continuing the occupation many argue that more Afghanis are and will continue to join the insurgency, the Taliban, because what they want more than anything is to remove the foreign occupiers from their soil. This is one of the poorest nations on Earth but it is seen as one of the greatest threats to the richest nation on Earth. Coincidentally, of the aid money actually contributed 40 percent has found its way back to the donor countries as consultant salaries and corporate profits. A mere $9 billion of aid has been spent in Afghanistan since 2002. Aid commitments have fallen well short of the promises; US still owes half of its pledged $10.4 billion; the World Bank still owes nearly half of its pledged $1.6 billion; UK is one of a few which has nearly met its commitment. (Matt Waldman/ACBAR Advocacy Series ‘Falling Short: Aid Effectiveness in Afghanistan’ March 2008 – from New Internationalist, November 2008)

War, invasion or occupation is excellent business, especially for the wealthy and the wealthy are very happy to keep the media on board to help cultivate misconceptions and broadcast them loud, clear and often, subjecting consumers to manufactured threats until most of us believe the unbelievable: – That there is a terrorist threat. That there are terrorists around every corner, at every airport, in every subway, maybe even living in your street. But look at the numbers, at the actual threat. (The following statistics relate to the US and are taken from Michael Moore’s Dude, Where’s My Country.) For Americans, in 2001, the chance of dying in an act of terrorism was 1 in 100,000; as a result of murder 1 in 14,000; by suicide 1 in 9,200; in a car accident 1 in 6,500; or from flu or pneumonia 1 in 4,500. Statistics like these will vary from country to country but the general risk of death as a result of terrorism is much, much lower than that of death on the road or from heart disease or even from suicide, but you don’t see people getting paranoid about getting into cars day after day. Even if you are born in Afghanistan you are more likely to die of malnutrition or health-related factors – 25 percent of children die before they are 5 years old and maternal mortality is 1,800 per 100,000 (compared with 8 in the UK). To repeat: even in the year of the biggest terrorist act in the US the chance of dying from terrorism was 1 in 100,000, but year on year the chance of dying in childbirth inn Afghanistan is 1,800 in 100,000. (UNICEF 2008)

Who knows this? Does it make any difference?

We need to get a sense of reality and balance. We need to recognise these manufactured, hyped-up threats for what they are. Terrorism will not be overcome by state-sponsored terrorism. Recognizing all lives as having similar worth would be an excellent start for world leaders – as they like to hear themselves called; even recognizing their own electorate as having worth on a par with their own would be an improvement.

A different threat, one which could claim the lives of untold numbers, suddenly and possibly without warning, is the nuclear threat. This threat is impossible to quantify. Proliferation is the name of the game now. Those with most of the nuclear weapons don’t want those without to have any but keep on stockpiling themselves, refining and upgrading, supplying their favoured clients whilst insisting that those without shall remain without. That the industrial-military complex is so vast and carries such clout with governments (politicians are prized among board members), coupled with the readily available terrorist threat with which to alert and frighten the public forever increases the possibility of disaster. Depleted uranium weapons have been in regular use for a number of years causing death outright to immediate victims, a slower, painful death following debilitating illness for other victims, war veterans and local populations alike and massively increased numbers of severe birth defects in the “theatre of operations” – not to mention environmental disasters. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. We can tolerate such horrors. The slow drip of outright cruelty and inhumanity on mankind and its habitat can be borne, it seems.

Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of ‘Physicians for Social Responsibility’ and a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize explains in her book The New Nuclear Danger in clear and unequivocal language how close the world has already been to all-out nuclear war and how simple human or computer error could trigger the destruction of the planet at any time. It used to be called the nuclear “deterrent” but terrorists, especially suicide bombers, are hardly likely to be deterred. They haven’t been so far.

If we do manage to progress without mutual nuclear annihilation then the other great threat is the one that millions of ordinary folk are focussed upon but which is being treated far too lightly by world governments, that is the challenge of global warming and climate change. Both the pamphlet An Inconvenient Question – Socialism and the Environment and the DVD “Poles Apart? Capitalism or Socialism as the planet heats up”, recently published by the Socialist Party address this subject convincingly. There can be little doubt in anyone’s mind that the threat to our environment is real and urgent.

Whether there is political will to confront this threat with the same enthusiasm and almost unlimited budget thrown at the war against terrorism and the continued development of nuclear weapons of all kinds is most definitely in doubt. It’s clear there is repeat business and plenty of profit in weapons of all kinds but the environment is just another poor relation leaving us with the obvious conclusion that, in fact, it is capitalism itself which is our greatest threat.

Janet Surman

Material World: Afghanistan: another empire fails (2021)

The Material World Column from the September 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, fell to the Taliban last month, with every other provincial city having already capitulated in what can only be described as a rout. Now the Taliban are in full control of Afghanistan. At the time of writing, the USA and the UK were rushing troops to facilitate the hurried evacuation of foreign nationals and diplomats from Kabul. Already Turkey, Iran and Tajikistan were reporting the arrival of refugees fleeing the threat of the Taliban.

The invasion of Afghanistan was the first action of America in what it called the ‘war against terror’ in response to the 9/11 attack in 2001. Afghanistan had been the base of operations for Al Qaida with the Taliban’s complicity. It has now become yet another embarrassing military defeat for the world’s greatest superpower.

In July as American forces departed Bagram Airbase without any advance notice to their Afghan allies, the United States’ top military general, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said to reporters, ‘This is going to be a test now, of the will and leadership of the Afghan people, the Afghan security forces and the government of Afghanistan’ (LINK).

We now know the result. Despite being a formidable force of 2-300,000, well equipped with some of the best US weaponry and trained by expert NATO instructors, and despite receiving continued American air support, the Afghan National Government army and police have melted away with a surprising lack of resistance.

The USA had invested almost $83 billion on just the training and arming of Afghanistan’s forces. From 2001 to 2018, the U.S. spent $730 billion on the war, the U.K. spent $28.2 billion, Canada $12.7 billion, Germany $11.1 billion, Italy $8.9 billion, and France $3.9 billion, all filling the coffers of the armament industry.

In addition, from 2001 to 2018 they each provided billions of dollars in foreign aid to Afghanistan which still remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The US donated $32.32bn, Germany gave $5.88bn, the UK’s contribution to aid was $4.79bn, Canada, $2.42bn, Italy, almost one billion and France, just over half a billion in foreign aid, with much of it going into the pockets of the profiteers and corrupt Afghan officials.

Of course, there will be other Great Powers ready and eager to take advantage of America’s defeat. After all, Afghanistan’s potential mineral wealth is still there to be mined and remains to be exploited. While China’s Belt and Road project will be viewing the trade routes through Afghanistan with great interest.

General McChrystal, the former Joint Special Operations Command and Afghanistan War commander, when asked if the ‘War on Terror’ had been worth it answered, ‘It would be impossible to argue that it was. The outcome just hasn’t been positive enough to argue that…’ (tinyurl.com/a9hvfv56).

While McChrystal may view the war through the lens of military strategy and the geopolitical context, socialists think about the human cost of this Afghan war and the consequences to come. What for governments is the price in the blood of the innocents, the pain of the wounded, the suffering of the displaced refugees?

An estimate is that the war has killed 171,000 to 174,000 people but the fatalities are an underestimate as deaths by disease, loss of access to food, water, infrastructure, and other indirect causes from the war are not fully included. Atrocities were conducted by all sides in this war and no country held the moral high ground although each claimed it.

There are millions of refugees from Afghanistan who comprise the largest refugee population in Asia, and the second largest in the world. Now those figures can be expected to rise sharply.

While some on the left may take a feeling of ‘schadenfreude’ from the West’s humiliation and claim another victory for ‘anti-imperialism’, our sympathy goes out to all our fellow workers.

A few Afghans who cooperated with the Afghan government and the occupation armies are being fast-tracked through the asylum-seeker process but many more who the Taliban, not known for their mercy, consider collaborators will face a very uncertain and insecure future. We can be sure that the Taliban will not be keeping to any conciliatory promises made to the USA back in 2020 during their peace talks at Doha.

Socialists can confidently predict that civilians will still be paying a terrible price for the actions of Osama Bin Laden back in 2001 and the American miscalculated response to it, and will continue to bear the cost of the ‘War on Terror’ for a long time to come. The best way to halt all the killing and maiming is to finish the fighting and we hope that the hand-over of power may reduce the extent of the conflict. But, as with all conflicts in capitalism, don’t expect any permanent end to human misery and tragedy.

ALJO