New York Times, Spins Wikileaks Cablegate to Favor America

New York Times plays the role of America's, Spin Dr.

Sharmine Narwani

The New York Times' lengthy explanation of why it decided to publish the WikiLeaks Cables leaves out one important consideration. What on earth would the State Department have done if a major US paper had not "interpreted" the information dump for the American masses?
Someone had to take on the "national responsibility" of "crafting" the leaks into supporting US policy initiatives, after all.

The Wikileaks Cables are plump with evidence of US doublespeak, proof that "conspiracy-minded" Middle Easterners are, well, correct on most counts.

Iran Was Right

Here is a startling September 2009 Cable from the US Embassy in London summarizing a high level US-UK meeting that included British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Ellen Tauscher. Discussing the upcoming P5+1 talks on Iran's nuclear program, the principals agree to push through an unrealistically short time frame for negotiations, and initiate plans for sanctions almost immediately.

One can hardly fault the Iranians for believing that the US was never serious about negotiations, and the Cable is a reminder of the days before our invasion of Iraq, when Baghdad complained that every time they tried to make concessions on IAEA inspections, "the goalposts were moved."


 Arabs Vs Iran -- The New York Times Refrain

Instead of honing in on significant disclosures that shed some light on the many Middle East policy failures that have marked US decision making in the region for decades, the US press went with "silly" and "sully." Those much-touted Cables reporting the acidic -- and not very diplomatic -- barbs of Arab leaders against Iran do not represent any "new" thinking, and need instead to be examined in context:

Firstly, these rulers have never recovered from their 1979 "bogeyman" fear of a Shia-majority, non-Arab, Islamist regional hegemon on their doorstep -- one that continued to thrive even after the predominantly Sunni, Arab Persian-Gulf nations, Egypt, Jordan and others misguidedly backed Saddam Hussein's hostile 1980 invasion of Iranian territory.

Secondly, many of these rulers are viewed - internally and throughout the Arab world -- as corrupt, often illegitimate and beholden to foreign interests. These heads of state are bitterly resentful that, by comparison, leaders like Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syria's Bashar al Assad are viewed vastly more favorably by populations throughout the Mideast and Muslim world.

In fact, when asked in a July 2010 Brookings poll about the prospects of a "nuclear" Iran, 57% of the populations of the same Arab nations whose leaders were caught in this Wikileaks pants-down-moment supported a nuclearized Iran. Why? Because only 10% of the Arab public view Iran as a threat, as opposed to their leaders. Instead, 88% of Arabs views Israel as their main threat, followed closely by 77% who worry about the United States.

To be honest, the "real" story is that this many Arab nations had secret dealings with Israel, which they bash very publicly for domestic and regional consumption. I suppose the theme here is Iran-in-secret, Israel-in-public.

Wikileaks "Beef" -- Some Random, Informative Analysis
 
The Wikileaks Cables do disclose some very telling snippets of information that provide critical information on a changing Middle East. I research shifting centers of influence in the region, and have long pointed out that we are erroneously lumping Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas together as a exclusive club of four. This grouping -- often referred to as the "Resistance Bloc" -- is perhaps the ground zero of a new and fast-growing "Worldview" emanating from the Mideast, but there are other important participants, namely Qatar, Turkey, maybe Oman, Iraq, and more.

This worldview -- put simply -- reflects a "desire to act in their own self-interest," and its adherents, who come from varying backgrounds, place "opportunism" ahead of "ideology" which has led to new and unexpected political and economic alliances, both regionally and internationally.

A revealing March 2009 Cable from the US Embassy in Tel Aviv shows that we are aware of these subtleties, but obviously choose not to assign importance to the regional shifts in influence and alliances. They simply and inconveniently do not "fit" our own worldview.

In a July 2007 Cable, Israel's Mossad Chief Meir Dagan characterizes Qatar as "a real problem," and accused its Emir Sheikh Hamad of "annoying everyone." The Cable continues: "In his view, Qatar is trying to play all sides -- Syria, Iran, Hamas -- in an effort to achieve security and some degree of independence."
Bingo. There is your New Middle East right there.

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General for the Middle East Yacov Hadas provides a March 2009 briefing for US political counselors along the same lines, stressing "that he thought Qatar's policies were not a matter of a shift in ideology toward the radical camp, but linked to their rivalry with the Saudis and, by extension, with Egypt. "

US Calls The Shots In Australian Elections, Wikileaks

Australia is subservient to US Imperialism

  

By Patrick O'Connor

"... Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it’s unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP.”

These comments outline who really calls the shots in Australia’s so-called parliamentary democracy.

The latest batch of the several hundred leaked US diplomatic cables concerning Australia, provided by WikiLeaks to the Fairfax company’s Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age, provide further extraordinary evidence of Washington’s direct involvement in the anti-democratic coup against former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last June.

Key coup plotters in the Labor Party and trade unions—including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes—secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the leadership. As early as June 2008, the American ambassador identified Julia Gillard as the “front-runner” to replace Rudd. In October 2009, i.e., eight months before Gillard was installed in unprecedented circumstances, Mark Arbib informed American officials of emerging leadership tensions. The Australian people, on the other hand, were kept entirely in the dark about any differences between the prime minister and his colleagues until after Rudd was ousted.

Gillard was described, some two years before the coup, by US diplomatic officials as the “rising star” within the Labor government. They made various enquiries into Gillard’s foreign policy sympathies, receiving assurances from government sources that her origins in the party’s “left” faction had no policy significance whatsoever. Arbib told the embassy that Gillard was “one of the most pragmatic politicians in the ALP”; Victorian senator David Feeney added that “there is no longer any intellectual integrity in the factions” and that “there is no major policy issue on which he, a Right factional leader, differs from Gillard”. When embassy officials checked on Gillard with Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union boss and subsequent anti-Rudd coup plotter, observing that “ALP politicians from the Left, no matter how capable, do not become party leader,” he responded immediately: “but she votes with the Right’.”

The Sydney Morning Herald and Age have published parts of the latest material in excerpted form, ahead of their full public release expected in coming weeks. They focus today on Mark Arbib’s role as a “secret US source”. One of the key apparatchiks in Labor’s powerful New South Wales right-wing faction, Arbib reportedly made several requests to US officials that his identity as a “protected” informant be guarded.

The cables refer to Arbib as early as mid-2006, when he served as NSW Labor Party state secretary. After being elected to the senate in the November 2007 federal election, the factional leader deepened his relationship with Washington. A US embassy profile, authored in July 2009, noted that Arbib “understands the importance of supporting a vibrant relationship with the US” and that officials “have found him personable, confident and articulate”. The profile also recorded that he “has met with us repeatedly throughout his political rise”. Other cables referred to the senator as a “right-wing powerbroker and political rising star” and noted his influence within both Labor’s factions and “Rudd’s inner circle”.

The cables make clear that Arbib and the other identified MPs function not simply as mere US “sources”, as characterised in the media today—but rather as agents. Within the Labor and trade unions apparatuses, these party members serve as conduits for Washington’s agenda. The embassy communications reveal the extent to which the US government determines Australian foreign policy and dictates who will hold senior government posts, including the office of prime minister.

A precise chronology of Washington’s sordid, behind-the-scenes manipulation of Australian political affairs, between the Labor Party’s election victory in November 2007 and Rudd’s axing in June 2010, is likely to emerge once WikiLeaks releases the full cache of relevant cables.

Already, however, it is now beyond dispute that Washington began cultivating Gillard at the same time as embassy officials were issuing damning assessments of Rudd, above all over his stance on Beijing. In June 2008, the same month Gillard was named as the “front-runner” to succeed Rudd, the prime minister unveiled his Asia-Pacific Community project, attempting to mediate the escalating strategic rivalry between the US and China. An American embassy cable lambasted this proposal as yet another Rudd initiative launched “without advance consultation”. (See: “WikiLeaks cables cast fresh light on coup against former Australian PM Rudd”)

Beginning at this time, the Fairfax press reports: “US diplomats were anxious to establish Ms Gillard’s attitudes towards Australia’s alliance with the United States and other key foreign policy questions, especially in regard to Israel. Numerous Labor figures were drawn by US diplomats into conversation concerning Ms Gillard’s personality and political positions with ‘many key ALP insiders’ quickly telling embassy officers that her past membership of the Victorian Labor Party’s Socialist Left faction meant little and that she was ‘at heart a pragmatist’.”

Gillard was undoubtedly aware that she was being sounded out. One cable sent to the State Department in mid-2008 stated: “Although long appearing ambivalent about the Australia-US Alliance, Gillard’s actions since she became the Labor Party number two indicate an understanding of its importance. [US embassy political officers] had little contact with her when she was in opposition but since the election, Gillard has gone out of her way to assist the embassy... Although warm and engaging in her dealings with American diplomats, it’s unclear whether this change in attitude reflects a mellowing of her views or an understanding of what she needs to do to become leader of the ALP.”

These comments outline who really calls the shots in Australia’s so-called parliamentary democracy. Labor leaders must understand “what they need to do”—that is, kowtow on every major strategic and foreign policy issue to Washington. They need to recognise that Australia is an obedient servant of US imperialism, and that its political superstructure must function accordingly.

Arbib issued a terse statement today, simply outlining that he was an active member of the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and “like many members of the federal parliament, have regular discussions about the state of Australian and US politics with members of the US mission and consulate”. Contained here is a fairly clear warning, by Labor’s key backroom operator, to anyone in the government thinking of using the revelations against him. Arbib has helpfully reminded them that he enjoys Washington’s support, and that others are sure to be implicated as more cables are released.

The Fairfax press has already named former Labor national secretary and Rudd government cabinet member Bob McMullen and current backbencher Michael Danby as among those named in the WikiLeaks documents. Others likely to be named are starting to come out of the woodwork, in an effort to pre-empt the fallout. Health Minister Nicola Roxon today volunteered that she is likely to be identified, as she “meets with US diplomats from time to time”. Greens’ leader Bob Brown has foreshadowed similar revelations—though he was at pains to point out that he was always “very careful” in his responses, and spoke with diplomats “from all over the world, from Bangladesh to the US to New Zealand, Taiwan and Beijing”.

The cables will no doubt reveal similar relationships between Washington and senior Australian media personnel. Editors, journalists, and broadcasters are routinely nurtured through the Australia-American Leadership Dialogue, and other such forums.

The excerpted cables also expose the close working relationship between the US government and Australia’s trade unions. The Fairfax press noted that “senior union leaders have privately briefed US officials about how they use their influence over the Labor Party to shape federal government policies”, and cited an August 2009 cable, which stated that the trade unions “continue to play a significant role in the formulation of national policies that can impact the United States”. Discussions between US embassy officials and senior figures in the Australian Workers Union and the National Union of Workers were reported, with one cable declaring that the leaders of the right-wing unions were “dynamic and forward thinking”.

The same cable reportedly described the declining influence of the “left” unions within the Labor Party, a conclusion that was “drawn partly through briefings from CFMEU [Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union] national secretary Dave Noonan and Victorian secretary Bill Oliver”. These two figures—often hailed as great militants by the various middle class pseudo-left outfits—were described by US embassy officials as “capable leaders”.

China Bites Back With Report On; US Police' use of unrestrained violence

China redirects blame

By Patrick Martin

Last year, 315 police officers in New York City were subject to internal supervision due to “unrestrained use of violence. 7.3 million Americans [predominantly black] were banged up in the prison system, more than in any other country.

On March 13, China’s Information Office of the State Council published a report titled, “The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009.”

This document was clearly intended as a rebuttal to the annual US State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2009, released two days earlier.

The Chinese report quite legitimately notes that the US government “releases Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse other countries.

The US takes human rights as a political instrument to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs, defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests. This fully exposes its double standards on the human rights issue…”

The Chinese report is an eye-opening document—factual, sober, even understated, drawn entirely from public government and media sources in the United States, with each item carefully documented.

It presents a picture of 21st century America as much of the world sees it, one which is in sharp contrast to the official mythology and American media propaganda.

Not surprisingly, the report went unmentioned in the US mass media.

The 14-page report is divided into six major sections: Life, Property and Personal Security;

Civil and Political Rights;

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;

Racial Discrimination;

Rights of Women and Children;

US Violations of Human Rights Against Other Nations.

The cumulative picture is one of a society in deep and worsening social crisis.

A few of the facts and figures cited on violence and police repression in the United States:

• Each year, 30,000 people die in gun-related incidents.

• There were 14,180 murders last year.

• In the first ten months of 2009, 45 people were killed by police use of tasers, bringing the total for the decade to 389.

• Last year, 315 police officers in New York City were subject to internal supervision due to “unrestrained use of violence.”

• 7.3 million Americans were under the authority of the correctional system, more than in any other country.

• An estimated 60,000 prisoners were raped while in custody last year.

On democratic rights, the report notes the pervasive government spying on citizens, authorized under the 2001 Patriot Act, extensive surveillance of the Internet by the National Security Agency, and police harassment of anti-globalization demonstrators in Pittsburgh during last year’s G-20 summit.

Pointing to the hypocrisy of US government “human rights” rhetoric, the authors observe, “the same conduct in other countries would be called human rights violations, whereas in the United States it was called necessary crime control.”

The report only skims the surface on the socioeconomic crisis in the United States, noting record levels of unemployment, poverty, hunger and homelessness, as well as 46.3 million people without health insurance. It does offer a few facts rarely discussed in the US media:

• 712 bodies were cremated at public expense in the city of Los Angeles last year, because the families were too poor to pay for a burial.

• There were 5,657 workplace deaths recorded in 2007, the last year for which a tally is available, a rate of 17 deaths per day (not a single employer was criminally charged for any of these deaths).

• Some 2,266 veterans died as a consequence of lack of health insurance in 2008, 14 times the military death toll in Afghanistan that year.

The report presents evidence of pervasive racial discrimination against blacks, Hispanics and Native Americans, the most oppressed sections of the US working class, including a record number of racial discrimination claims over hiring practices, more than 32,000.

It also notes the rising number of incidents of discrimination or violence against Muslims, and the detention of 300,000 “illegal” immigrants each year, with more than 30,000 immigrants in US detention facilities every day of the year.

It notes that the state of California imposed life sentences on 18 times more black defendants than white, and that in 2008, when New York City police fired their weapons, 75 percent of the targets were black, 22 percent Hispanic and only 3 percent white.

The report refers to the well-known reality of unequal pay for women, with median female income only 77 percent that of male income in 2008, down from 78 percent in 2007. According to the report, 70 percent of working-age women have no health insurance, or inadequate coverage, high medical bills or high health-related debt.

Children bear a disproportionate burden of economic hardship, with 16.7 million children not having enough food at some time during 2008, and 3.5 million children under five facing hunger or malnutrition, 17 percent of the total.

Child hunger is combined with the malignant phenomenon of rampant child labor in agriculture: some 400,000 child farm workers pick America’s crops.

The US also leads the world in imprisoning children and juveniles, and is the only country that does not offer parole to juvenile offenders.

US foreign policy comes in for justifiable criticism as well. A country with so many poor and hungry people accounts for 42 percent of the world’s total military spending, a colossal $607 billion, as well as the world’s largest foreign arms sales, $37.8 billion in 2008, up nearly 50 percent from the previous year.

The Chinese report notes the documented torture of prisoners in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, the worldwide US network of military bases, the US blockade of Cuba (opposed by the UN General Assembly by a vote of 187 to 3).

And the systematic US spying around the world, utilizing the NSA’s “ECHELON” interception system, as well as the US monopoly control over Internet route servers.

The report also points out the deliberate US flouting of international human rights covenants.

Washington has either signed but not ratified or refused to sign four major UN covenants: on economic, social and cultural rights; on the rights of women; on the rights of people with disabilities; and on the rights of indigenous peoples.

The report does not discuss the source of the malignant social conditions in the United States and the causal connection between poverty, repression and discrimination and the operations of the capitalist profit system.

American "Holy" War

 

Obama keeps the war machine humming

By Rodrigue Tremblay

Since September 11, 2001, a new type of “holy war” may have begun. This time, the new crusade with strong religious overtones pits fundamentalist Christian America and its allies, against political Islam and the radical Islamist al Qaeda network.

On September 16, 2001, then President George W. Bush set the tone when he said: “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is gonna take awhile.”

On December 1, 2009 Nobel “Peace” laureate Barack Obama, president of the United States since January 20, 2009, decided to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

He announced a policy of stepping up the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan-Pashtunistan. He announced an escalation in the military occupation of Afghanistan by sending extra American troops in that Muslim country, putting the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan at more than 100,000.

Not satisfied in using the same vocabulary as George W. Bush, Barack Obama pushed the symbolism by adopting Bush’s practice of announcing policies surrounded by more than 4,000 students dressed as soldiers at the West Point Academy.

This was all too reminiscent of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s fatal decision in 1965 to acquiesce to the request from U.S. commanders to enlarge the Vietnam war by sending scores of additional U.S. soldiers to that Asiatic country.

America seems to be in a constant need of a foreign enemy. First, it was the British. Then it was the Indigenous peoples. Then it was the Mexicans. Then it was the Spanish. Then it was the Filipinos.

Then it was the Japanese. Then it was the Germans. Then it was the Italians. Then it was the Koreans. Then it was the Cubans. Then it was the Vietnamese. Then it was the Soviets. Then it was the Iraqis.

Then it was the Islamists. Then it was the Taliban. And, once the current conflict in Pashtunistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan is over, it will possibly be the Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians…etc.!

The reason for such a permanent-war mentality is most likely related to the U.S. military-industrial complex, an enormous beast that must be fed regularly hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions of dollars, to sustain itself.

In the months following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the high echelons at the Pentagon were busy designing a new post-cold-war strategy designed to keep the U.S. war machine humming.

Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy under Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in the George H. Bush administration, wrote a memorandum titled “The Defense Policy Guidance 1992-1994”, which was dated February 18, 1992.

The new so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine was a blueprint to “set the nation’s [military] direction for the next century.” This new neocon military doctrine called for the replacement of the policy of “containment” with one of military “preemption” and international “unilateralism”, in effect, discarding the United Nations Charter that forbids such international behavior.

The Pentagon’s overall goal was to establish, through military force, a “one-Superpower World”. The more immediate objectives of the new U.S. neocon doctrine was to “…preserve U.S. and Western access to the [Middle East and Southwest Asia] region’s oil.”

And, as stated in an April 16, 1992 addendum, to contribute “to the security of Israel and to maintaining the qualitative edge that is critical to Israel’s security”.

Because of some opposition within the U.S. Government, the new policy did not become immediately effective. But the objective remained.

For instance, in September 2000, under the auspices of “The Project for the New American Century”, a new strategic document was issued and was entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses, Strategy: Forces and Resources For a New Century”. The same goals expressed in the 1992 document were reiterated.

The belief was expressed that the kind of military transformation the (neocon) planners were considering required “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”, to make it possible to sell the plan to the American public.

They were either very prescient or very lucky, because exactly one year later, they were served with the “New Pearl Harbor” they had been openly hoping for. Indeed, the Islamist terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, turned out to have been a bonanza for the American military-industrial complex.

The military planners’ wish for a “New Pearl Harbor”, was fulfilled at the right time. It is important to remember that from 2001 to 2005, Paul Wolfowitz served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush administration, reporting to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

In this capacity, he was well positioned to implement his own Wolfowitz doctrine that later morphed into the George W. Bush Doctrine.

For the time being, this is the “doctrine” that newly-elected President Barack Obama continues to implement in the Pashtunistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan corridor. As a politician, Barack Obama may be new at the job, but the policy he is being asked to implement was crafted long before he even set foot in Washington D.C.

Another possible reason why the United States is so often involved in foreign wars, besides its obvious aim of imposing a New American Empire on the world, may be due to the strong influence of religion in the United States.

Just as for some aggressive Islamic countries, the U.S. is also the most religious of all first world countries.

Researchers have found strong positive correlations between a nation’s religious belief and high levels of domestic stress and anxiety, and other indicators of social dysfunction.

These include homicides, the proportion of people incarcerated, infant mortality, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and abortions, corruption, large income inequalities, economic and social insecurity, etc.

It is possible that wars serve as an emotional outlet that allows some Americans to forget about their nation’s domestic problems. I suppose more research would be necessary on this issue.

Indeed, is it possible that foreign wars, including wars of aggression, are a way for the American elites to deflect attention from domestic social problems and, as such, are a convenient pretext to direct tax money to defense expenditures rather than to social programs?

The issue deserves at least to be raised. This could explain why U.S. foreign policy is so devoid of fundamental morality.

U.S. politicians who become president understand this American proclivity for war. They know that the best way to popularity is to be seen as a “war president”.

A president who does not start a war abroad or who does not enlarge one already in progress is open to criticism and is likely to suffer politically.

He must be seen less as a president than as “commander-in-chief”, in effect, as an emperor. How could this be, when the framers of the U.S. Constitution attempted precisely to avoid that?

Indeed, Article One (the War Powers Clause) of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress, and not the President, the authority to declare war.

Since World War II, however, this central article of the U.S. Constitution has been circumvented by having Congress give the President a blanket authorization to deploy troops abroad.

This sleight of hand is euphemistically called “police actions“, which means it doesn't need an explicit or formal congressional declaration of war. The term was first used by President Harry S. Truman to describe the Korean War.

This artifice has done a lot to trivialize the act of war. It also contributed much in the transfer of the powers of war and peace from the legislative branch to the executive branch.

In doing so, it has reinforced the role of the U.S. president as a commander-in-chief or as a de facto emperor. Only a formal constitutional amendment could restore, in practice, the framers’ initial intent.

All said, it is easy to understand why when political faces change in Washington D.C., policies do not necessarily change. This push toward empire on the part of the United States can also explain why there is resentment and an anti-Americanism movement abroad.

Obama Endorses Endless War

 

 Any hope at all?

Political Left

In discussing Obama’s expansion of the US attack on Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is important not to focus on Obama as a personality but on the social system to which he is committed, specifically to the war-waging capitalist national state.

“War is the health of the state,” as Randolph Bourne declared during World War I. It is what the national state is for, what it does, and why it still exists, despite the real trends toward international unity and worldwide coordination.

In an age of nuclear bombs, the human race will not be safe until we abolish these states (especially the big, imperial, ones such as those of North America, Western Europe, and Japan) and replace them with a federation of self-managing associations of working people.

After 3 months of consulations and deliberation, President Obama has announced that he is going to do what he had promised to do during his campaign for president—namely to expand the US attack on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This may not have been inevitable. But he'd already broken many of his campaign promises , such as ending overseas prisons, openness in government, ending “don’t ask, don’t tell,” a health care plan which covers everyone, an economic plan for working people, etc.

So it was probable that he'd maintain America's endless wars. It's the nature of the beast

As has been pointed out, his stated reasons for the war do not make much sense: in order to get out of Afghanistan, the US will send more troops into Afghanistan.

The US needs to fight Al Qaeda, even though there are now only about 100 Queda militants left in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda base is mostly in Pakistan (which Obama slurred over by speaking of “the border”) but the US will not be sending troops there (just secret attacks by drone missiles and CIA operatives).

More generally, the US supposedly has to strengthen the resolve of the government of Pakistan by sending more troops to Afghanistan.

The US hopes to win over the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan by sending more non-Muslim, only-English-speaking, troops, which is sure to antagonize the people of the region.

In 18 months, the US forces are supposed to transform the Karzai regime from one of the most corrupt, incompetent, and illegitimate states on earth, to a stable government (never mind a democracy).

The effects of the mistaken US policies of 8 years can be reversed in 18 months (on the assumption that US forces will really “start” to withdraw in 18 months; promises are cheap; the US is still in Iraq).

All of this is simply unbelievable and it is hard to think that an intelligent man such as Obama believes any of it.

Why then, really, is the US sending more troops into the region? Closer to Obama’s thinking are the expressions in his December 1, West Point, address, when he announced his program, where he spoke about the US as a global power with an economy which competes on the world market.

Thus he remarked that “competition within the global economy has grown more fierce….Our prosperity…will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the past.”

Implicit in these statements is an awareness that the US is no longer the economic power it was “in the past.”

While still having the largest national economy, the US is now a de-industrializing debtor nation, losing out in world competition to Europe and Asia.

This has been made worse by the global Great Recession, which has exposed the decay of the whole international capitalist system. The US ruling class, its layer of rich people, is not happy about this.

So they turn to the one asset they still have, which is the mighty military force of the US state—more powerful than any potential combination of opponent states. By throwing its weight around, the US hopes to re-achieve world dominance, or at least to slow its decline in world power.

Obama reminded his listeners that the US has long been the dominant world power. “Our country has borne a special burden in global affairs ….More than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for six decades…”

This is modified by the hypocritical words,”But unlike the great powers of old, we have not sough world domination.”

He can say this because the US has not ruled through open “ownership” of colonies (leaving aside Puerto Rico and a few other places) but by economically dominating the world market, so that all must buy and sell on the US’ terms (“neocolonialism”).

But whenever “necessary,” this has been backed up by military force, as shown in two imperialist world wars and a large number of invasions of smaller, weaker, nations.

Therefore it cannot accept being kicked in the teeth by small groups of terrorists living in caves, nor let petty dictatorships thumb their noses at the US.

Nor can they afford to let regions which dominate the world petroleum supply fall into chaos, or at least outside of US rule, given the centrality of oil for the capitalist industrial economy.

This includes both the Middle East and Northwest Asia (which may have important oil pipelines go through it).

Irrational behavior will result from being in situations which cannot be rationally dealt with. The US ruling class must try to dominate the world, economically and therefore politically and militarily, due to world competition.

But it cannot dominate the world and is losing out in international competition. It must try to control the oppressed nations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, but it cannot control them.

The result is a contradictory and irrational foreign policy. This was apparent under the stupid George W. Bush, with his ideologically fanatic advisors. It is still obvious under the intelligent and reasonable Barack Obama.

The result is likely to be disastrous (as it was in the Vietnam war, also waged by moderate Democrats—in fact most US wars have been waged by Democrats, starting with World War I).

In Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, many people have been killed or wounded or their lives disrupted—mostly the nationally-oppressed people but also many US soldiers.

Now very many more will be killed. Not to speak of the wealth which will be destroyed, both in the attacked countries and in the US (Obama says the war will cost $1 trillion).

And in the background is the threat of nuclear war—not only does the US have nuclear weapons but so does Pakistan and its long-time opponent and neighbor India.

Also, in the same region, the US is threatening to attack Iran, for supposedly working toward nuclear weapons, and there are similar threats by the US ally Israel, which does have nuclear weapons.

Will nuclear bombs be used in the near future? I doubt it; but time marches on and sooner or later they will be used. (The Bush administration made an effort to make smaller “bunker-blasting” nuclear bombs, which could be used in small wars such as in Iraq.

These would have erased the gap between nuclear and conventional weapons. I do not know where this stands at the moment.) Liberals have called on the US to lead a world-wide crusade to abolish all nuclear weapons.

Obama has given lip service to this idea, but nothing will come of it because the US state cannot give up any of its power to threaten the rest of the world.

Those on the 'real' left must oppose these wars will all our might. While the system cannot stop making wars, it can be forced to end particular wars. This can be done by raising the price which the state must pay for that war.

If the capitalist politicians feel that young people are becoming radicalized and militant, that labor is becoming restless, that soldiers are potentially mutinous, and that the local peoples will not stop resisting--then they will finally decide to end the war (as in Vietnam).

We should participate in broader “peace” movement, joining it in its mass marches and demonstrations. Often we radicals get tired of demonstrations, seeing how little they accomplish; but we should not forget how exciting they can be for newer layers of antiwar activists.

However this does not mean that we cover up our program. In particular we must oppose the leaders of this movement (liberals and progressives) for their capitulation to the Democratic Party.

For years now, they have held back the movement by focusing on electing and supporting liberal Democrats.

We need to point to those who have the real power to end the war: the soldiers and other military forces and the working class.

There has been increasing discontent among rank-and=file military and their families about the war.

We should have a positive attitude toward this, as opposed to a moralistic superiority toward ordinary soldiers, who are usually victims of the poverty draft.

Similarly, there has been much discontent with the wars among working people and their families. We can at least support the idea of strikes against the war, war production, and the transportation of war material. We should oppose any use of the war as an excuse for union-busting or wage-lowering.

The force most directly opposing US imperialism in these regions are the people. We should make clear our solidarity with the nationally oppressed people (who are mostly workers, peasants, and small businesspeople).

We should defend their right to resist US aggression. We should not be “neutral” between the mightiest imperial power and the oppressed people of Afghanistan.

But this does not require any support or endorsement for any particular organization or leadership.

We should be willing to work with anyone who will oppose the wars, while openly expressing our own program: the end of the state, of international capitalism (imperialism), and of all forms of oppression.