WSJ: U.S. Plans Military Intervention in Africa

“Terror Fight Shifts to Africa” screams the front-page headline on this morning’s Wall Street Journal.  The subhead elaborates: “U.S. Considers Seeking Congressional Backing for Operations Against Extremists”

The WSJ article explains: 

“The move, according to administration and congressional officials, would be aimed at allowing U.S. military operations in Mali, Nigeria, Libya and possibly other countries where militants have loose or nonexistent ties to al Qaeda’s Pakistan headquarters. Depending on the request, congressional authorization could cover the use of armed drones and special operations across a region larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined, the officials said.” 

Well, this is good news indeed!  The U.S. is considering helping Africa to deal with the “Terror Fight” just as it has helped Iraq and Afghanistan.  We know what to expect: war, ruin, and destruction; villages “mistakenly” bombed, massive civilian deaths; drone assassinations. No doubt such an intervention would include targeting mass leaders of the Egyptian and Nigerian working classes. The region and its people will be made worse off by far than before the U.S. intervention. A generation of African youth will join the generations of Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistani youth in their profound hatred for U.S. imperialism.  And then, the U.S. will move on, to combat yet another “terrorist” threat – perhaps this one in adjacent southern Africa, where the striking miners and farmworkers are already being accused of “anarchy” and “terror”.

When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he promised to end the war in Iraq. Many of his then-euphoric supporters took this to mean that he was an anti-war candidate. He was not. They had failed to read the fine print: Obama didn’t plan to end the war, he planned to move it east to Afghanistan – a “smarter war”, he said at the time, because “that’s where the terrorists are”. Well, things didn’t turn out appreciably better there than they had in Iraq – so it’s time to move the war (the “Terror Fight”) yet again.  The places change; the drive to maintain U.S. capitalist global hegemony remains.

The WSJ article quotes Christopher Anders of the American Civil Liberties Union, who warns, “This is the kind of thing that Americans could end up regretting; we could end up in another decade long war if this crazy idea isn’t stopped.”

We must do more than regret. We must demand that the U.S. immediately and unconditionally pull all military forces and CIA agents out of the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa and immediately end the drone murders. These demands already resonate with a vast number of American working people.

 Our voices will be heard!

US/Zionist aggression the destabilizing factor in the Middle East

Whose threatening whom?

The arrogance of the Zionists as the Apartheid state announces it will build 3000 more settler homes in the West Bank and Jerusalem as punishment for the Palestinians winning "non member state" status at the UN.

The Palestinians have lodged a formal complaint with the UN stating that the Zionists have acted  "in a rogue, hostile and arrogant manner, contravening all principles and rules of international law and reacting with contempt to the will of the international community."

This comes as no surprise as Israel makes no bones about violating international law. "A clear message must be sent to Israel that all of its illegal policies must be ceased or that it will be held accountable and will have to bear the consequences if its violations and obstruction of peace efforts," the Palestinian communication states.  Unfortunately Israel has become accustomed to not having a need to be accountable to anyone.  It is the most heavily armed state in the region as no other nation has them, with hundreds of nuclear weapons in its arsenal and enjoys the protection of US capitalism. 

As the US threatens war against Iran if it doesn't drop its nuclear program, surrounds the country with bases and has a flotilla of warships in the gulf, and now warns Syria against using chemical weapons or face the threat of military action, it welcomes with open arms the butcher Netenyahu after the Zionists orchestrate a massacre in  Gaza using white phosporous on civilians.  I wonder what the Arab and Muslim workers of the region and the world think about that? It doesn't go unnoticed except by millions of Americans, many of whom have not yet drawn the conclusion that the roots of terrorism are deep in US foreign policy.

The argument that Iran is the destabilizing factor in the Middle east is laughable were it not so tragic.  Three U.S. Nimitz class carrier groups in the "Persian" (yes "Persian") Gulf each  has more aircraft than the entire complement of the Iranian air force. The US regularly spies on the country using unmanned drones and refuses to acknowledge warnings not to do so. Why wouldn't Iran want nuclear weapons?  Look what the US did to the nation next door and they're not stupid, the folks at the Pentagon decided not to invade North Korea. And lets not forget, the US orchestrated the coup that overthrew the secular democratic government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953 and installed the murderous dictatorship of the Shah. Blame US and British interference ion that country for the rise of the Mullahs.  An Israeli or US attack on Iran will set off a global chain of events that will be hard to quell but it can't be ruled out and certainly the Zionists are crazy enough to do so regardless.

One wonders how much longer events like Black Friday, Christmas sales and the Superbowl will keep Americans from taking a more active role in the affairs of state, made harder by the fact that workers have no political party of our own here and the heads of organized labor stay mum about foreign policy.  The mass media in the US is extremely closed and tightly censored and designed to carve up the year in to sections, baseball, football, basketball, with sales events in between.  There has been a major strike going on here for over a week as dock workers shut down two of the major ports in the country in a state with one of the top 6 economies in the world, but such events are not real newsworthy and might give people ideas. 

Despite this, the recent walkouts at fast food outlets the above mentioned strike and an earlier major action by teachers in Chicago, and the actions at the dreaded Wal Mart, have forced the mass media to take notice. The Occupy movement, while quieted is not yet dead and major cuts from the Obama administration are on the way so it's likely were in for a long hot summer in 2013.

It's hard to say exactly how things will unfold but one thing is certain; there's no solution on the basis of capitalism.

Another Gaza massacre: Finkelstein on the last one

As the Zionist regime, backed by the warmonger Obama and the US capitalist class commits further atrocities on the people of Gaza, the world's largest open air concentration camp. We hear from the hypocrites at the UN,  the same old phrases. In response to the invasion British capitalism mimicking their US friends, calls for "restraint on both sides". "Israel has a right to defend itself" says the war monger Obama. That Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, the only nuclear armed state in the region and one of the world's most powerful military's these massacres cannot in any way be called wars and Israeli Defense Force cannot be called a defense force.

The Palestinians on the other hand, have no planes, no anti-aircraft weaponry, no ships no army and no state. Calling for "restraint on both sides" in this situation is a sick joke. It is sicker than any young person who resorts to suicide bombing. It is sicker than any terrorist that flew planes in to buildings or blows up invaders in their country, yet we have to listen to this on the news time and time again and are expected to give it credibility.

On the eve of this new murderous assault on Gaza (and lets not forget the siege, which is also an act of extreme aggression) it is worth taking the time to listen and watch Norman Finkelstein discuss the previous assault on these people. And as Americans we might reflect that this is sanctioned by the US government and financed by the US taxpayer.

David Petraeus caught with his pants down.

What are all those little mini bumper stickers and bars about?

So David Petraeus has resigned as the director of the CIA for getting a little nooky on the side.  This is so common but we are supposed to think it's just a matter of "poor judgement". They all do it but it's supposed to be something that is rare and a sin of all things. He's a smart guy though, Petraeus. When he was at West Point he ended up marrying the daughter of the general who was superintendent of the academy.  I wonder if that helped his career.

Petraeus was in charge of the "surge" that the US claims pacified Iraq and also was their man in Afghanistan, before becoming head of the CIA.  All these people are connected through a web of marriages, links, business connections and favor trading.

Obama said of Petraeus' resignations that he is,  "Completely confident that the CIA will continue to thrive and carry out its essential mission, and I have the utmost confidence in Acting Director Michael Morell and the men and women of the CIA who work every day to keep our nation safe,"

But the work of the CIA has nothing to do with keeping us safe, and everything to do with keeping US corporations' profits safe. It has been involved in assassinations and murders throughout the world helping to suppress any and all resistance to the plunder of a nations resources by US capitalism.  It has protected the interests of oil companies in Iran by overthrowing the democratic government of Mosssadegh there in 1953 and the democratically elected leader of Guatemala in 1954. 

The murder of Lumumba of The Congo,  Rene Schneider and Allende in Chile, and other Latin American leaders unwilling to open their country's resources to US multinationals are all part of the CIA's handiwork. Walter Rodney, the Guyanese  politician and Socialist who was assassinated in 1980 is undoubtedly another victim. The first operatives in Vietnam and other countries where the US needs to destabilize the state are CIA.  It's not a nice organization and you have to be a trusted tool of the US bourgeois to head it.

California Senator, Dianne Feinstein heaped praise on Petraeus, "I very much regret the resignation of David Petraeus. This is an enormous loss for our nation's intelligence community and for our country." And so she should, Feinstein's billionaire husband Richard Blum, is an investment banker with his grubby little hands in numerous global pies.  Feinstein is one of the richest women in the US, her net worth went from $26 million in 2003 to between $43 and $99 million in2005 according to Wikipedia. That's not bad for two years and as a lot of that comes from ripping off workers in the former colonial world the CIA is an important security blanket for them.

When I look at that picture of him above with all those ridiculous tributes stuck on him it reminds me of those birds that steal little trinkets and hide them in their nests.  Revolutionists never look like that, adorn themselves with all that stuff.  The American revolutionists, the Russian and Spanish and other revolutionists don't need it, the cause is enough.  All that color and pomp comes with being a ruling elite, he reminds me of Brezhnev or Pinochet.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Pakistani and Afghani civilians have been killed by US capitalism's predatory wars against these people.  Prior to that, more than 500,000 Iraqis died due to the US imposed sanctions against their old chum, Saddam Hussein.  The US has yet to apologize for killing three million Vietnamese and pouring dioxin on them and their own troops, 67,000 of whom died in that war against a people who had never threatened or harmed the US. 

The brunt of these post Vietnam excursions on behalf of US corporations is being borne buy a small section of American families.  Not the Obama's, or Bush's or Cheney's or Rumsfeld's, but those families who have much fewer options than these people; don't have their money or connections.  Yet when they are seen on TV or in public they hold their hands over their hearts and talk about the patriotism and bravery and courage of the fallen. What hypocrites they are, hypocrites and liars. These wars, the death and destruction that Petraeus and his buddies wreak on societies including young American lives is something they avoid but get colorful little pins stuck all over their clothes in recognition of their sacrifice.

Those few US families that are bearing the brunt of these excursions are losing more and more of their family members to suicide which is an epidemic in the military. We will not know the level of demoralization among the troops until it breaks out more in to the open.  It was severe in Vietnam, it's not like Hollywood. Killing another human for most of us, even when we have to do so to save our own lives, has severe psychological consequences.  A whole generation of human beings here and abroad are the sad victims of US capitalism's ruthless wars.  Bus as long as the profits keep rolling in, it's worth it.


That what the medals are for.