Bush orders the militarisation of space

In signing the recent executive order creating a new National Space Policy, President Bush has announced that the US will reject future arms-control agreements that might limit US military manoeuvrability in space. The document further announces that the US “will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space ... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests."

“Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power,” the policy declares and that to “increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance the national security, the United States must have robust, effective, and efficient space capabilities.”

One wonders why the US fears other countries may have “hostile” intentions in the use of their space capabilities. Clearly the answer has to be because this is exactly what the US is itself intent on using space for. What else was Clinton’s Star Wars programme all about?

The White House, however, insists that the new policy does not refer to the development or deployment of weapons in space. Indeed, in those sections of the policy made widely available recently, there is no explicit reference to the militarization of space. However, while the policy document insists that the main concern of the US is to “strengthen the nation’s space leadership”, to facilitate “US operations in and through space to defend our interests there”, it boldly asserts that national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities.

Moreover, it calls upon Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish Defence Secretary and John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, to “develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain US advantage and support defence and intelligence transformations.” In this regards the policy document adheres to the militaristic and offensive tone that runs through every national defence document the White House has produced since Dubya’s inauguration.

Clearly the US dislikes anything perceived as an attempt to muscle in on its standing as the foremost power in space and the world’s leading military power; the two titles now looking likely to merge. Hence, US concerns about the EU’s Galileo project. At the outset, the US feared the project would allow the transfer of state of the art technology to countries it perceives as antagonistic to its interests. What really spooked Washington was the realisation that China was investing £150 million in Galileo.

Michael Kriepon of the Stimson Centre told the Washington post: “The Clinton administration opened the doors to developing space weapons, but that administration never did anything about it. The Bush policy now goes further.” (The Independent, 19th October).

One wonders just how other countries will now respond to US ambitions for the militarization of space for, make no mistake, this is exactly what Washington’s masters of war have in mind – this is full spectrum dominance in the making. Back in 1999, when Republican hawks celebrated a Senate vote not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and announced their intention to scupper the 1972 ABM Treaty which outlawed Star Wars missiles systems capable of intercepting incoming missiles, Russian Defence Minister Nikolai Mikolov, acknowledging Russia could not match US technology, declared Russia would simply deploy more warheads capable of overwhelming the US nuclear umbrella system.

Theresa Hitchens of the Washington based Centre for Defence Information said: “You would think that we would have learnt our lessons about the danger of military pre-emptive action and unilateralism in Iraq, yet we are repeating the same policy towards space.” (The Independent, 19th October).

Experts argue that the new space decree has put the US on perilous path in so far as it extends Bush Doctrine policy to brand new military arena, whilst at the same time discarding endeavours to limit US military ambitions.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, in an attempt to discourage the military significance of the new policy, said: “Technology advances have increased the importance of and use of space…Now, we depend on space capabilities for things like ATMs, personal navigation, package tracking, radio services, and cell phone use.” (Asia Times, 20th October)

What really concerns international observers and the US ‘s budding competitors, and which should concern all of us, is that the US absolutely refuses to negotiate any space arms-control agreement. Washington is promoting the line that because there is currently no space-arms race then there is no need for any such accord – which is utter hypocrisy when one considers the number of actual international agreements in existence, aimed at maintaining the peace, preventing weapons proliferation and the like , that the US refuses to ratify or even acknowledge.

Meanwhile, though, the US Air Force has produced the Counterspace Operations Doctrine, calling for “a more active military posture in space,” and arguing that defence of US satellites and spacecraft necessitates the use of “deception, dirpution, degradation and destruction.” Nothing like a bit alliteration to hammer your message home.

Make no mistake; the militarization of space is now well underway. The very fact that the US is playing down the military dimension of its new space policy is evidence it wants a real head start and to thus be in a position to better oppose any country with similar ambitions.As socialists have announced several times in recent years, if we are to prevent the 21st Century becoming a more violent re-run of the 20th, that witnessed two world wars, the first use of nuclear weapons and many hundreds of smaller conflicts – all in the name of profit – it is essential we, the victims, the cannon fodder, the class that has the biggest price to pay to satisfy the whims of the mighty, begin to organise now; not tomorrow when space is militarised, nor in years to come when the sirens are screaming and lasers are zapping the planet from US defence satellites orbiting the earth . We as a class have suffered too much and have too much to lose to leave decisions regarding the future of our planet in the hands of group of arrogant, conceited and profit crazed individuals. Let’s really organise to take their power away now, before it is too late.

Sudan: one country, two stories

Some 200,000 people have died during the present conflict in Darfur, in which militias loyal to the government are charged with committing genocide against the region’s black African population. An estimated 2 million have been made homeless. Starvation, fear and insecurity are an everyday reality for millions of Sudanese.

This is, of course, not the complete picture, as the New York Times reports. An economic boom is taking place in Sudan – despite western imposed sanctions. In Khartoum, 600 miles away from the epicentre of the humanitarian crisis, posh supermarkets are opening, skyscrapers are reachingupwards, the well-to-do are driving around in brand-spanking-new BMWs and relaxing at home on an evening in front of their plasma screen TVs and munching on Dubya’s favourite snack – Pringles. There is even a Coca Cola plant churning out 100,000 bottles of the tongue-tingling stuff per day - a plant set up by Sudanese investors.

Oil is rapidly turning the country into the fastest growing economy on the planet. While the US and Europe have prevented their countries from investing in Sudan, China, India and Middle Eastern oil states are ignoring Sudan’s appalling human rights record and realising there are profits to be had – investment is pouring in.

Sadly the wealth does not trickle as far as Darfur. Seventy per cent of the oil-gleaned wealth is spent on defence. President Lt-Gen Omar al-Bashir, who came to power in a military coup back in 1989, realises he cannot depend on sourcing weapons contracts outside of Sudan, so has armaments produced and stockpiled at home, less supplies are cut off.

The NYT reports:

“Despite all the new materialism, Sudan still marches to a martial tune. Army officers enjoy special status, foreign visitors must register with the police and schoolchildren are required to wear camouflage uniforms to class. But the boom is changing much about society, from the careers people pursue, to the music they listen to, even what they eat.

“The traditional meal of ful, a bean stew eaten for breakfast and lunch, is giving way to kebabs, yogurt, hamburgers and hot dogs.”

Many believed the US would lift sanctions last year when the government made peace with rebels in the south, but not so. By then the conflict in Darfur was raging and the US became only more pissed off.

The US may well cite Sudan’s human rights record as a reason for not lifting the sanctions, but this is utter hypocrisy – the US has sucked up to the worst human rights offenders around the globe for decades. What really seems to be narking the US is that an oil rich country looked elsewhere for investment and to economic competitors such as China and India.

At the moment US/UN concerns do not bother Khartoum– hence the recent expulsion by the Sudanese government of the UN envoy Jan Pronk and the refusal to allow 22,000 UN peace keepers into the Darfur region (they say it would simply be an attempt to restore colonial rule).

A pressing fear in the business community is that the US might just manage to persuade others to fall in line and also impose sanctions; which just about says it all. To hell that an area of Sudan is war ravaged; to hell that millions are homeless, living lives of utter deprivation; forget that 200,000 have been murdered because of their skin tone, there’s a whiff of profit in the air.While the Sudanese master class lives it up in fine old style and the US profit merchants fear rising economic powers will get one up on them, via their contracts with Khartoum, it is our fellow workers – the real wealth producers in society - that are left to suffer.

OIL GIANTS HOME IN ON IRAQ'S UNTAPPED OIL RESOURCES

In a lengthy piece on AlterNet, Joshua Holland explains how, as Iraq falls apart, four big oil companies are homing in on the country’s natural resources.


If ever an article revealed the stench of corruption emanating from the Iraq saga, this is it. At a time when major world players are staking their claim to the world’s oil resources, most notably China - an emerging contender for the US no. 1 position - it is clear the oil drenched cabal that decides US foreign policy knew exactly what they were doing in dreaming up pretexts to invade Iraq.


Iraq's oil reserves have to be the biggest prize since the end of WWII. The US Department of Energy has stated: "Iraq contains 112 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, the second largest in the world (behind Saudi Arabia), along with roughly 220 billion barrels of probable and possible resources. Iraq's true potential may be far greater than this, however, as the country is relatively unexplored due to years of war and sanctions."


Moreover, Iraq’s oil is cheap and easy to extract, thus it yields greater profits. James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, observes how oil companies "can produce a barrel of Iraqi oil for less than $1.50 and possibly as little as $1, including all exploration, oilfield development and production costs." Contrast that with other areas where oil is considered cheap to produce at $5 per barrel or the North Sea, where production costs are $12-16 per barrel.Iraq has more undeveloped oilfields than anywhere on the planet.

The "Holy Grail" of the oil fields lies beneath the sand of the immense western desert. There is perhaps enough oil there to propel the country to the global oil reserves number one position. As Holland comments: “the country's enormous reserves could break the back of OPEC, a wet dream in Western capitals for three decades.”

The oil fraternity are unanimous on one thing - namely. who will walk off with the profits from the plunder of Iraq's oil: US firms Exxon-Mobile and Chevron, the British BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell -- that dominate the world oil market.


What I find utterly sickening, reading Holland's report, is that at a time when half a million Iraqi childen were dying (nay, murdered) as a direct result of the US-UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, by one means or another, the US received 37% of Iraqi oil. Perhaps this is exactly what Madeleine Albright (the then US Sec. of State) was thinking of when, questioned about the deaths of so many infant Iraqis, replied it was "a price worth paying."
Read on here...

Too late" to stop global catastrophe?

“At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing over nature – but that we, with flesh and blood and brain, belong to nature and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly. We are gradually learning to get a clear view of the indirect, more remote social effects of our productive activity, and so are afforded the opportunity to control and regulate these effects well. This regulation, however, requires a complete revolution in our existing mode of production…in our whole contemporary social order”

You could be forgiven for thinking the above quotation came from a modern day ecologist or environmentalist, commenting on impending global ecological catastrophe and drawing upon the myriad reports currently in existence, written by scientists that portend cataclysmic changes to our life styles if we don’t stop abusing our natural environment immediately. The quote is in fact 131 years old and is taken from Dialectics of Nature, written by Frederic Engels (1875).

So let’s get one thing straight from the outset. Socialists have been warning about the effects of capitalism’s penny-pinching production methods for well over a hundred years, and how they impact on the wider environment, and it is often with despair that we reiterate the Engels message from the latter 19th century, more so now that state of the art technology exists that provides hard evidence as to the dire effects of capitalist production.

So it is not with any great sigh of relief, or shock and disbelief, that socialist’s would have read the lead story in today’s Independent, which covered the findings of Sir Nicholas Stern’s long awaited report on climatic change and indeed the government’s reaction to it. It does make for grim reading, suggesting that time is running out to really address the environment question – previous opportunities having been pathetically squandered at the Hague and Kyoto Summits – and that the possibility of preventing a global disaster is "already almost out of reach".

The Independent informs us: “With world temperatures on course to rise by two to three degrees in 50 years, rainfall could be catastrophically reduced in some of the world's poorest countries, while others grapple with floods from melting glaciers. The result could be the largest migration of refugees in history.”

Amongst the reports shocking revelations, writes Andy McSmith, is “that changes in weather patterns could drive down the output of the world's economies by an amount equivalent to up to £6 trillion a year by 2050, almost the entire output of the EU.”The 700 page report, commissioned by the Treasury and carried out by the former World Bank chief economist (Nicholas Stern) argues environmental problems will be "difficult or impossible to reverse" unless something is done now. It says: "Our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

All is not lost, believe Chancellor Gordon Brown and Environment Secretary David Miliband. They point to the “positive message” arising from the report; this being that the world has the means to avoid the awaiting cataclysm. Money can be thrown at the problem – the earth shattering sum of 1 per cent of Global GDP (£0.3 trillion dollars); a figure, incidentally, which is dwarfed by global military spending.

Labour’s elite would have it that Sir Nick is something of a drama queen, but there again the government is first and foremost the executive of the capitalist class, with powerful interests to defend, so is not wont to panic their pals in big business with hints at environmental legislation that might eat into their profits. Milliband sounded quite optimistic being interviewed by The Independent. He said: "The second half of his message is that the technology does exist, the financing, public and private, does exist, and the international mechanisms also exist to get to grips with this problem - so I don't think it's a catastrophe that he puts forward. It's a challenging message.”

And what are offered are capitalist remedies, and to make it all the more attractive there are profits to be had – well, the master class have to have some damned incentive before they act. As The Independent reported:

“Combating climate change could become one of the world's biggest growth industries, generating around £250bn of business globally by 2050.” Providing, that is, that we still have a planet worth saving in 50 years time.

Governments appear oblivious to the fact that oil production will shortly peak, that half the earth’s available oil is estimated to by used within 10 years , and within another 20 years countries like China and India will have huge demands that will outstrip supply. Consider the global conflicts this will create.

Far worse than a shortage of oil is a shortage of water. We already know that 500 million live in regions prone to chronic drought. Scientists have forewarned us that within 20 years that figure is expected to increase fivefold to between 2.5bn and 3.5bn people. Already over 5 million people die annually - including 2 million children - from diseases caused by drinking contaminated water. Again, what desolation does this portend for the human race?

In the oceans, almost 50% of fish stocks are fully exploited, 20% are over-exploited, and only 2% are recovering. On land, soil erosion and degradation mean that half a billion people live in countries whose arable land can no longer support their own populations. The natural habitats of many animal species are being lost on an alarming scale, which with the decline of bird species, plants, forests - on which, ultimately, the human race depends – signals a crisis for biodiversity.
And the best capitalist politicians can think up is to tempt the master class with the whiff of profits to come if they agree to mend their ways. The very people who have disregarded the effects of their production methods on the natural environment for hundreds of years are now being asked to show it some mercy! Global environmental catastrophe can be halted by throwing money at the problem!

Right across the planet the economic system that governments defend plunders and squanders the Earth’s non-renewable mineral and energy resources and with one object in mind – profit. All over the world it pollutes the seas, the air we breathe, the forests, rivers and lakes, upsetting natural balances, eco-systems and defying the laws of ecology. Clearly, this destruction and waste cannot continue indefinitely. It should not and must not and no amount of money is going to redress the delicate balance.

Socialists have long argued that it is quite possible to meet the material needs of every person on this planet without destroying the natural systems on which we depend and on which we are party. So what stands in the way? Why isn’t this done? The simpler answer, which we must not get tired of reiterating, is that under the present economic system, production is not geared to meeting human needs but rather to accumulating profits for a few. Consequently, what we produce and the methods and the materials we employ are not decided rationally and democratically, but are dictated by market forces.

Production today is in the hands of business enterprises of one sort or another, all competing to sell their products at a profit. All of them – and it does not matter whether they are privately owned or state-owned – aim to maximise their profits. This is not the result of the greed of the owners or managers, as some Greens claim, but an economic necessity, imposed by the forces of the market. If a business does not make a profit it goes out of business. “Make a profit or die” is the law of the capitalist jungle.

Under the demands of the market, businesses only take into account their own narrow financial interests, ignoring wider social and ecological considerations. The whole of production, from the process employed to the choice of what to produce, is distorted by this drive to make and accumulate profits. The result is an economic system governed by anarchic market forces which compel decision-makers, however selected and whatever their personal views or sentiments, to plunder, pollute and waste.

So it’s no wonder that nature’s balances are upset today, and that we face problems like global warming, acid rain and the widening hole in the ozone layer, to name just a few. It’s no wonder that the Earth’s easily accessible resources are plundered without a thought for the future; that the power stations and factories release all sorts of dangerous and noxious substances into the air and water; that chemical fertiliser and pesticides that get into the food chain are used in agriculture; that animals are injected with hormones, fed unnatural diets; that human waste is not recycled back to the land; that non-biodegradable plastics and textiles are produced; that lead is put into petrol; that goods are made so as not to last, etc. The list of anti-ecological practises imposed by market forces is endless.

The conclusion is clear: If our needs are to be met while at the same time respecting the laws of nature, the present market-driven profit system must go and be replaced with a system capable of producing the essentials humans need, but in an ecologically friendly way.

Most Greens believe that things could be put right with a change of government policy, which is exactly what Labour now proposes. What is needed, they say, is a government that will pass laws and impose taxes – on air travel, motoring and high emission vehicles - to protect the environment. But experience shows that no government, however well meaning or determined, can protect the environment. Governments exist to run the political side of the profit system. They do not have a free hand to do what is sensible or desirable. They can only act within the narrow limits imposed by the market system. This is why the reformist policy advocated by the Green Party, Friends of the Earth etc. is not working. At most it could only succeed in slowing down the speed of decay, not in making the profit system work in an environmentally friendly way. Those who want a clean and safe environment are up against a well entrenched economic and social system, based on class privilege and property and governed by the overriding law of profits first. What Greens should work towards is not a change of government, but a change of society.

If we are to meet our needs in an ecologically acceptable way, we humans must first be in a position to control production or, to put it another way, to consciously regulate our interaction with the rest of nature – and the only basis on which this can be done is the common ownership of productive resources.

Once the Earth’s natural and industrial resources have become the common heritage of all humanity, then production can be geared to meeting needs in an ecologically acceptable way, instead of making profits without consideration for the environment. These include types of farming that preserve and enhance the natural fertility of the soil, the systematic recycling of materials obtained from non-renewable energy sources while developing alternative sources that continually renew themselves (i.e. solar energy and wind power); industrial processes that avoid releasing poisonous chemicals or radioactivity into the biosphere; the manufacture of solid good made to last, not planned to break down after a period of time.

We are talking about a system of society based on common ownership and democratic control of productive resources. That is the only basis on which we can meet our needs whilst respecting the laws of nature. And it’s the only basis on which we can begin to successfully reverse the degradation of the environment caused by the profit system. The only effective strategy for achieving a free and democratic society, in harmony with nature it to build up a movement which has the achievement of such a society as its sole aim.

Thisa posting can also be found here

PROJECT FOR THE OLD AMERICAN CENTURY

I'm surprised it has taken me so long to find this revealing site, not that I'm unfamiliar with the Bush family-Nazi connection. Just as strong these days, incidentally, is the Bush family-Bin Laden connection. No doubt, before too long, some researcher will reveal the Bush family-Genghis Khan connection.

The photo above is of Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandpappy, sitting chatting comfortably with Nazi officials.

The text accompanying the photo says:

"According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush. On the 20th of October, the government commenced action against the company under the trading with the enemy act. After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past."

Of Dubya's great grandpappy, the site says:

"George Walker set up the takeover of the Hamburg-America Line, a cover for I.G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the United States. In Germany, I.G. Farben was most famous for putting the gas in gas chambers; it was the producer of Zyklon B and other gasses used on victims of the Holocaust. The Bush family was not unaware of the nature of their investment partners. They hired Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA, to hide the funds they were making from Nazi investments and the funds they were sending to Nazi Germany, rather than divest. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With The Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped pumping money into Hitler's regime."

As Kitty Kelly might have said, looking into the Bush family history is like navigating the New York sewer system in a glass mini submarine.

Lies, lies and more lies

Remember the bullshit spouted by Blair and Bush in the run up to the invasion of Iraq? The spoof dossiers and documents, the photos and false testimony from exiles? Remember Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, in which he outlined the case for military action against Saddam? Yeah, that’s right, the lies about WMDs, Iraq’s mobile labs, the Niger connection, the aluminium tubes, Iraqs link to Al Qaeda.

U.N. inspectors have now complained to Washington and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear programme. The inspectors have labelled parts of the report "outrageous and dishonest”.

When there are profits to be had - in this case from oil – truth is not only the first casualty in war, truth is in fact stamped into the ground long before the first salvo is fired and trodden further into the dirt when the last shell casing hits the ground.

As the US makes the case for sanctions against Iran, as a prelude to widening Middle East war, expect the bullshit machine to go into overdrive.

The Labour Party Leadership Battle

Countless column inches and seemingly endless hours of news reports have been given over to the leadership crisis the Labour Party is currently engulfed in. Speaking up for Prime Minister Tony Blair, Home Secretary Charles Clark said Blair would stand down when he was good and ready to do so and he accused Chancellor Gordon Brown of “absolutely stupid” behaviour in challenging Blair, commenting that Brown needed first to prove his fitness to lead.

Fitness to lead? Now there’s a thing. It assumes leaders have some special qualification acquired over years of study and self-sacrifice when the only real qualification is the ability to hoodwink others into thinking you possess knowledge and qualities they do not. Unlike other professions – doctors, surgeons, architects, physicists – whose skills come via many years of hard slog – politicians require none whatsoever. The only requisite credentials needed when standing for election are that you are over 21 years of age, not insane and with no recent prison record.

Despite this, many workers think we cannot function without leaders. This is a fallacy and one perpetuated by the master class to help them maintain their rule over our lives. Indeed, so prevalent is this philosophy, that from the cradle to the grave we are taught to mistrust our own intelligence and to feel somewhat inadequate, to look up to our ‘betters and superiors’ (schools, church, politicians, parents etc) for their expert guidance and to accept without question the plans they draw up for our future.

Moreover, the whole concept of leadership and the need to choose the candidate most fitted for the post of leader is keenly promoted by aspiring leaders. In truth, history confirms them to be pitiable exemplars of honesty, integrity and compassion, forever paying lip service to truth and justice and other grand notions equated with leadership.

Blair has proved to be just as deceitful, dishonest and corrupt as every British prime minister that preceded him, ready always to defend power and privilege over the real needs of the people who elected him. From the moment he won a fourteen minute standing ovation from a CBI Conference just prior to the 1997 Labour victory, through the myriad scandals his Party has been caught up in, and right through to his perfidious reasoning to invade and occupy an immiserated but oil rich country, he has constantly lied to the electorate, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and bullied anyone bold enough to stand up to him.

Nothing Brown has said or done inclines us to consider he will act any differently. As Prime Minister he will lead the executive of the capitalist class – what else are governments but the national administrative arm of capital? - and as leader he had better be seen to be “batting for Britain”, defending the interests of big business at home and abroad. This is the real remit of the leader in capitalist society.

It is assumed by many that leaders run the world. Well, I rather think it is we, the workers, who run the world. Politicians might make government policy, which becomes law, but it is we who build and work the hospitals and schools. It is we who build the bridges, roads and railways, ports and airports; all the products that humans need to survive. It is we who produce everything from a pin to an oil-rig and provide humanity with all the services it requires – we the working class! We don’t depend on leaders for these skills or for their guidance. They have no monopoly on our knowledge and intelligence or on the inventions we dream up to enhance the quality of life. If all the worlds’ leaders died tomorrow, few would really miss them and society would function just as before.

The concept of leadership has emerged with class society and will end when we abolish class society, when we abolish the capitalist mode of production and all that goes with it. The master class have been allowed to lead because of their control over the means of living and by virtue of their control of the education system and their monopoly of the media and other and information processes.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The greatest weapons we posses are our class unity, our intelligence, and our ability to question the status quo and to imagine a world fashioned in our own interests. Leaders perceive all of this to be a threat and so will do anything to keep us in a state of oblivion, dejection and dependency. Our apathy is the victory they celebrate each day. Our unwillingness to unite as a globally exploited majority and to confront them on the battlefield of ideas is the subject of their champagne toasts.

Remember this as the battle for leadership of the Labour Party hots up.

OFFICIAL! George Bush: Iraq had sod all to do with 9/11

President Bush in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch the video.

Full transcript:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

AIRPORT PARANOIA

From what I’m reading lately I can only assume there is some covert state plot to prepare the public mind for an all out Middle East war. It’s as if people are being psyched up to be distrustful of anyone of Middle Eastern origin.

Not a day goes by when I’m not reading, in the press, stories about suspected Arab terrorists being arrested or about the growing fear of terrorists. I well remember, shortly after 7/7 last year, sitting on Platform 4 of Newcastle’s Central Station waiting for a train to London. A Moslem family walked up the platform just yards in front of me – husband and wife and two sons, and dragging those cases with the elongated handles and awkward little wheels. You could literally feel the suspicious looks they were getting - the unease on passengers’ faces was quite visible. Undoubtedly the same has happened a million times around Britain in the past year.

Yesterday, this growing anti-Arab phenomenon took a new twist. Two Arab gentlemen were kicked off a flight from Malaga to Manchester airport, quite literally because their faces did not fit. Seemingly, fellow passengers feared they were terrorists. Apparently they were heard communicating in Arabic and were observed to be repeatedly checking their watches. So cabin crew called the Spanish police and had the poor sods carted away for interrogation. Thankfully, they were later released.

The Independent reported: “Similar incidents in which people of Asian or Middle Eastern appearances have been targeted by fellow passengers have been reported on pilots' and cabin crews' websites, including one in which two British women with young children on a flight from Spain apparently complained about a bearded Muslim man - even though he was security checked twice before boarding the plane.”

The Sunday Times yesterday reported: “Elite teams of security officers are to be trained to monitor passenger behaviour at airports in a new attempt to combat terrorism. The ‘behaviour detection squads’ will patrol terminals to monitor the gestures, conversations and facial expressions of passengers. One of their aims will be to spot those who may be concealing fear or anxiety…. The Spot teams, who are in uniform and work in pairs at US airports, use a list of more than 30 unusual behaviours against which to check passengers.”

Well, that’s me fucked. My bracket attracts the attention of cops like a steaming turd attracts flies. And I’m a bastard for looking at me watch. And when I'm anxious or pissed off I go through about 187 facial expressons.

So cops will be watching for people who look anxious? In a friggin’ airport where 5000 hungry and thirsty passengers have had flights delayed for hours, holding the hands of their children who are tired and fretty and crying to go to the toilet. And many of these will have deep tans, it being holiday time and looking non-white.

Training the officers in spotting the downright guilty is Paul Ekman, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of California.

Said The Independent: “In particular, officers are trained to recognise concealed emotion, such as fear or anxiety. These so-called ‘micro-facial expressions’ appear on a person’s face for 1/25th of a second. ‘They are so fast, that unless you’ve been trained you don’t see them,’” said Ekman.

So now they can train dip-shits in uniform to recognise 1/25th of a second of anxiety? There are more than 30 ‘unusual behaviours’ to look out for? Thirty? They want to stick one of these ‘behaviour detection squads’ outside of the House of Commons. There’s some right shifty looking bastards entering that building. Maybe even on the London Underground during the morning rush hour, when everyone looks stressed and anxious and irritable; where everyone avoids eye contact and regularly look at their watches and where many people carry bags.

Expect a wave of paranoia in the coming weeks. There’s a big war coming and the public must be psyched up for one.

ISRAELI TROOPS SHOOT AT UNARMED ANTI-WAR ISRAELI PROTESTORS

The video clearly shows the Border Police unit firing on the demonstrators from close range. There is no evidence that the soldiers were in danger. Typically, the military spokesperson has claimed that “activists threw stones” and Haaretz’s article reiterated the same false information. The video also clearly shows the commander of the unit saying, “This is Lebanon!” as he orders his force to fire on retreating demonstrators, and “I will not allow a demonstration during wartime!”

The commander, Majdei, made this decision despite a military court decision in August 2005 that people in Bil’in have the right to protest on their land on the village-side of the apartheid wall. Every week since the wall was finished in March 2006, the Israeli military has also denied them the right to protest on their farmland on the other side of the wall. The wall separates villagers from 60% of their farmland, half of which has already been annexed and developed by Jewish settlements.

AFTER HEZBULLAH, WAR WITH IRAN?

Was Israel’s attack on Hezbullah part of preparations for a coming US attack on Iran?

As I write, it with no great belief that the coming month will be one of peace in the Middle East. I personally anticipate a serious and threatening crisis will commence the instant the Iranian government - at the moment under a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment (actually Iran's legitimate rights under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) by August 31st - tells the UN what it can do with that resolution.

Sanctions will no doubt be immediately announced, but to what effect and with what response from Iran remains to be seen. Iran has already intimated it would spark a global oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions, and it is unclear whether China and Russia – each with vested oil interests in Iran, will go along with any sanctions. The worse case and perhaps more likely scenario is that the US will express feigned frustration at Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate and use the rejected resolution as a chequered flag to attack Iran militarily.

Make no mistake about it. Syria and Iran – part of the “axis of evil” have been in the US’ cross hairs for some time - the evidence for this is well documented – and lined up for a military bombardment, the likes of which will make the war in Iraq look like a street fight.

It is against this backdrop that we can begin to set the present Middle East crisis in context, particularly the recent Israeli attack upon Lebanon. This latest act of Israeli aggression had nothing to do with capturing back two kidnapped Israeli soldiers on 14th July and everything to do, it would seem, with oil and the securing of other resources and preparing for a wider conflict against Syria and Iran.

There are numerous reports that the war in Lebanon had been planned in advance by Israel. Reporting from Tel Aviv for the San Francisco Chronicle on 21st July, Matthew Kalman wrote: "More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail."

Speaking to CNN, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersch said: “July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel's attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran.” (The Guardian, August 14th, 2006).

In bombarding Lebanon and the Gaza strip - Gaza is still being bombed - there can be no other objective than to neutralise two opponents of Israel and indeed the US, and softening the backlash from Hezbullah and Hamas when Iran is eventually bombed.

Hezbullah’s fire power and missile capabilities needed to be tested in advance of any attack on Syria and Iran. For one thing, Israel is unsure of the number of rockets in the hands of Hezbulah (some say 20,000) or indeed their range. Now they know. The Israeli bombardment of key roads and bridges and passage to Syria can serve no other function than to cut of the weapons supply route to Hezbullah. By striking pre-emptively Israel seems to have planned to destroy as many Hezbullah weapons as possible in advance of any Hezbullah rocket attack on Israel resulting from a US-allied bombardment of Iran.

Now, widely unreported in the western popular media and brought to a wider audience by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economics professor, on the Global Research website, was the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline linking the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, and one day before Hezbullah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers that ostensibly started the recent ware in Lebanon. The BTC pipeline is anticipated to carry a million dollars of oil a day to Western markets.

In attendance at this inauguration ceremony were BP’s CEO Lord Browne and senior officials from the UK and USA, along with Israel's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, accompanied by a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The British Petroleum dominated pipeline skirts the Russian Federation, cutting through new pro-US states Georgia and Azerbaijan, countries allied with NATO and with a standing military pact with Israel. Israel already gets 20% of its oil from Azeri oil fields and this new pipeline is set to increase Israeli imports from the Caspian basin. Israel is now tipped to be a key player in the East Mediterranean oil transport protection racket.

Israel’s military programme is increasingly looking to be tailored to the region’s strategic oil pipelines and by the Western oil companies commanding the pipeline passages. The war against Lebanon can perhaps be best seen as Israel’s first overt move for territorial control over the East Mediterranean coastline.

Officially, the BTC pipeline will be channelling oil to Western markets. What is not admitted, however, is that some of this oil will be redirected towards Israel via a proposed underwater pipeline from Ceyhan in Turkey to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, and from there via a pipeline system to the Red Sea.

The plan seems to serve not only Israeli oil consumption needs, but plays a part in the US’ wider game of global-politics. Oil channelled from Ashkelon to the Red Sea will then be re-exported from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Asian markets. This will help undermine the inter-Asian energy market eventually weakening the position of Russia in Central Asia and cutting off China from Central Asia’s oil reserves.

In April of this year Ankara and Tel Aviv publicised their intention to create four pipelines which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory. As the Jerusalem Post reported on 11th May:

"Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East.”

The scheme further envisages a pipeline to carry water to Israel from upstream Anatolian rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Not only is this plan catered for in the recently announced military pact between Israel and Ankara, its implementation will be devastating for Syria and Iraq. The execution of this joint Israeli-Turkish venture requires that land and sea routes between the Ceyhan border, through Syria and Lebanon, and to the Lebanese-Israeli border, be militarised. Michel Chossudovsky asks in his article The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil:“Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.” (http://www.globalresearch.ca/)

Israel is keen to play a more dominant role in the Middle East and seeks to achieve a degree of economic autonomy by becoming a key player in oil politics. Of course to punch above its weight it needs outside help, hence alliances with the US and more recently with Turkey and NATO.
Chossudovsky’s well cited piece Triple Alliance: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon details the alliances and agreements which apparently underpin the war with Hezbullah:

“We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbullah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’.” (ibid.)

Significant for Chossudovsky is the Turkey-Israel alliance which involves military and intelligence sharing on Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as joint military exercises and trainingFurthermore, in early July, just one week before Israeli forces commenced the bombing of Lebanon, Turkey and the US jointly signed a "Shared Vision" contract, validating a new Turkey-US alliance. In attendance for the signing was US Secretary of State Condi Rice and Abdullah Gul, the Turkish Foreign Minister.

This "Shared Vision" contract depicts the Turkish-US alliance as being "characterized by strong bond of friendship, alliance, mutual trust and unity of vision. We share the same set of values and ideals in our regional and global objectives: the promotion of peace, democracy, freedom and prosperity."

More importantly, the document commits Turkey to lend its full support to the “war on terrorism” and to approve US foreign policy with regards the defence of Israel.

Off the coast of Israel, preliminary drilling and seismographic results suggest that the Eastern Mediterranean is also rich in gas reserves. One recent report states that:"… Palestinian and Israeli waters in the Mediterranean appear to contain at least 100bn cu metres of gas reserves, divided about 60:40 in the Palestinians ' favour. Almost all of this gas is expected to go to the Israeli market which, by 2015, will probably be consuming at least 12bn cu metres/yr. A small portion (about 0.5bn cu metres/yr) might also be reserved for a new power plant in the Gaza Strip."(See http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=19835&t=e&cat_id=)

Seeking greater independence and an enhanced role in the Middle East, the smell of profits all around, Israeli aggression now becomes more understandable.

Pepe Escobar, writing for Asia Times, stresses Israel’s water needs as partly behind the recent war in Lebanon. :

“There's also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani. ”Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan.

”So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable - the 21st-century energy wars.” (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HG26Ak02.html)

Tel Aviv recently announced it was in for a “long war” – clearly not with Hezbullah. It has been stockpiling weapons for several years and was re-supplied throughout the war with Hezbullah by the US. On top of its arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads it has in excess of 500 bunker-busting bombs, only a few, by all accounts, used recently in Lebanon. Clearly Israel is preparing for a widening and intense conflict.

With its military alliances, its stockpiling of WMD, its hankering after control of vital resources, its regional hegemonic ambitions, and ultra-strong links to belligerent US Neocons who have already intimated they can hit Iranian targets with 30 minutes notice and that they reserve their right to use nuclear weapons, are we being unrealistic in prophesising Israel’s desire to get involved in a more serious conflict.

Just how do we interpret Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s promise that he will officially proclaim Israel's "new" and in theory "final" borders before 2010, as anything other than a veiled hint at region-wide conflict?

Speaking of the Israeli-Hezbullah conflict, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted.” Can this hypocritical statement be interpreted as anything other than a serious threat of violence to those Middle Eastern countries that would stand in the way of profit hungry masters of war and their ambitions for global domination of the planet’s vital resources?

Seymour Hersch repeatedly asserts that President Bush ordered all out war against Iran shortly after his re-election in 2004. Pat Buchanan's American Conservative amongst other sources, sides with Hersh in arguing that vice-president Dick Cheney has drawn up a war plan for Iran inclusive of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

US Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert and Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force acknowledges: "We're now at the point where we are essentially on alert. We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less."
Dan Plesch (The Guardian, 8th August) suggests President Bush has at his disposal:

“200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2-F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.”

We live at a dangerous stage of human history, in which the greatest crime a country can commit is to have more than its fair share of resources in a world in which the leading superpower is seeking full spectrum dominance. Iran’s real and unforgivable crime – leaving aside its refusal to halt its legitimate uranium enrichment programme - is to have enviable oil and gas reserves, to control access to the Persian Gulf - a vital oil and gas transhipment route to Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world - and to have contemplated oil deals with a series rival for US supremacy, China. With China expected to have oil demands similar to US levels within 20 years, already consuming vast resources of coal, iron and steel, not to mention almost 70% of the world’s cement supplies on one dam project - the panic button has clearly been pressed.

As a Socialist I’m naturally fearful as I watch events unfold; fearful for my class, my fellows throughout the world and for whom I hold no ill feelings. As always, Socialists refuse to take sides in conflict, seeing all war as rooted in the desire to make profit, and viewing workers, wherever they are, united as one class with the same basic needs and common interest, diametrically opposed to the interests of those who would urge them to kill each other.

Before the slaughter once again commences, myself and fellow Socialists once more take the opportunity to declare our heartfelt solidarity with the workers of all nations, and their true common cause. We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of al lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. A world without waste, or want, or war.

The coming BNP earthquake

Despite recent claims to the contrary, the vast majority of British voters find the policies of the BNP nauseating. In the run up to the 2004 local and European elections and again during the 2005 general election, all manner of people, organised in their respective groupings, mobilised against them, from the Labour and Conservative Party activists and the myriad left-wing groups, to student bodies, church groups and unions like the CWU who informed members that their “conscience clause” gave postal workers the choice not to deliver BNP material if they found it objectionable. Back in 2004, the anti-Nazi organisation Searchlight even produced 28 versions of a newspaper targeting the BNP election campaign and distributed 1.5 million of them in areas where the BNP were most active.

This time round, by all accounts, the panic is just as big. The BNP is allegedly as strong now than at any time since 1982, when it displaced the National Front as Britain’s favourite bone-head magnet, and is standing 364 candidates in this year’s local elections. A YouGov poll conducted by the Daily Telegraph last week suggests the BNP is set to make “significant gains” in the coming elections. The poll shows that 7 per cent of voters are ready to back the BNP and that some 24 per cent have considered voting BNP in the past or are thinking of doing so now.

In the wake of a huge election push by the BNP, The anti-racist group Searchlight now identiiesy 18 key “battlegrounds” where the neo-Nazis must be confronted. The BNP, capitalising on anti-Muslim feelings, believe they can increase their councillors by a third – they already have 20 councillors across the country. Ever the pessimists, anti-racist organisations believe BNP claims could be an underestimate and suggest that a 5% swing to the BNP could actually see them increase their tally of councillors to 70.

Back in 2004, the mainstream parties, as well as many on the left, panicked at the thought of widespread BNP victories and this clearly afforded the BNP media coverage which was out of all proportion to the size of their organisation. An eve of poll message from Nick Griffin, fuehrer of the BNP, on the BNP website of 9th June 2004, stated that they “were on course for a political earthquake”, that the BNP would be “breaking through with three or four Euro MPs” Yorkshire, the BNP claimed, was to be their "jewel in the crown.”

And so it came to pass that the BNP managed to gain four new councillors in Bradford in four wards. This ‘jewel’ was out of a record 101 candidates they fielded across Yorkshire.
Elsewhere, the BNP made a wee breakthrough in the south of England, taking three seats in Epping Forest in the local elections and gained its first foothold in Bradford. And in Burnley, the BNP gained one seat but managed to lose the other seven in which its candidates were standing. In the North East, where the party stood a full slate of 25 candidates in Sunderland, they failed to make any promised gains. The real winner this time round were the postal workers who, exercising their rights under the conscience clause, were able to take bags full of BNP leaflets home to use as toilet paper for years to come.

Leader Nick Griffin, who in April of that year had invited over the French Nazi Le Pen to plan how they could work as a team (or rather comedy duo) when Griffin became MEP for the north west of England, failed to take the seat he hankered after. No BNP candidate succeeded in getting elected to the European parliament and in the London mayoral elections the BNP ended up in sixth place and failed to secure the votes required to get representation on the London Assembly.

Regardless of how much these smiley-faced fascists claim to have changed their image, supposedly booting out the boneheaded troublemakers of yesteryear, they still represent the politics of hate - and their writings and statements still contradict the respectable shirt-and-tie image they try so hard to project.

Since late 2005, BNP’ literature has been portraying the coming local elections as a “Referendum on Islam”, linking the threat of Islamist terrorism in Britain to the Labour Government’s asylum and immigration policies and the war in Iraq. One BNP leaflet, handed out in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London, declared: “If only they had listened to the BNP.”

Moreover, The BNP’s anti-Islam position has gained in prominence since Nick Griffin was acquitted of racial hatred charges at Leeds Crown Court back in February. It did not help that the judgment came at the same time as the hullabaloo over the anti-Muslim Danish cartoons and the consequent display by a handful of young Muslims dressed as suicide bombers and demonstrating in London - a coincidence that allowed the BNP to pass itself off as the champion of freedom of speech and all things British.

Overnight, the BNP moved further to the right in its anti-Moslem line of attack. Heartened by what they perceive as a lowering of tolerance for Islam, the BNP has become more obsessive.

Speaking to the Observer, 24th April, Simon Darby, the man BNP leader Nick Griffin has appointed to take over should an appeal to re-convict him go ahead, Said: 'We are giving voice to the concerns of ordinary people, Yes, part of it is still about race.' But particularly after 9/11 and 7/7, he says, 'things have changed: the new issue is Islam'

Two years ago the BNP were fortunate to ride a wave of patriotism—a tool they can use to great effect when it suits—in the run up to the election, with voters going to the polls as the 60th anniversary of D-Day was being commemorated and rammed down our throats every night on TV, and the English football team were gearing up to compete in Euro 2004 and when manufacturers were reporting sales of 4 million St George flags. This time round they can count on the nationalism whipped up by the World Cup taking place in Germany shortly as well as the patriotism created by the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations. And neither is their raw branch of nationalism that unique in today’s climate where the UKIP and the Conservative Party can make huge gains in the European elections on a “say no to Europe” platform, proclaiming the merits of British sovereignty, and where the Labour Party is all to ready to send British troops off to far away lands to protect the interests of Britain’s ruling elite.

Furthermore, we can only wonder at the mainstream parties’ fears of a surge in support for the BNP. Considering the views of the Labour and Conservative parties on asylum (Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech springs to mind) and the former’s part in upsetting the Islamic world so much recently, their objections to the BNP do seem a little hypocritical. They may genuinely abhor the racists of the BNP but have been unsuccessful in confronting them where they have made political gains because to do so would mean acknowledging the shortcomings of a system they champion and which gives rise to the politics of race.

If anything the BNP are the product of the total failure of all the reformist parties to make capitalism a fit society to live in. And this is not the fault of the mainstream parties, for they are controlled by the system and not vice versa despite their claims and promises. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating bullshit of fascists and the quick fix they offer?

The hundreds of thousands of misinformed workers who fall for the BNP spiel are the products of the demoralising system we know as capitalism, deluded into thinking that one main issue - a total halt on asylum – would suddenly improve their miserable lives. In truth, a shortage of council housing and poorly maintained housing estates, low wages and pittance benefits are no more the fault of asylum seekers than is the hole in the ozone layer. At the end of the day the BNP promise voters little more than extra space at the trough of poverty and tens of thousands, their minds numbed by the politics of reform, want it.