Britain's biggest arms firm has just put a top George Bush official who was deeply implicated in the Republicans' torture policies onto its board. BAE hired Michael Chertoff, formerly the US secretary of homeland security, at the end of last week. The appointment of one of Bush Jnr's crazy gang to the BAE board was ignored by the British press, but US reporters are shocked such about a high official joining a company that recently had to promise the US government not to bribe any more high officials. BAE also had to pay $447 million to settle charges about bribing the Saudis. The US press thinks that BAE promising not to bribe government officials while giving jobs to government officials looks a bit tacky. But when it comes to the unseemly, BAE and Chertoff seem a perfect match. Chertoff was the head of the criminal division of the US Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was promoted to head of homeland security in January 2005. It was in the former job that Chertoff first covered up torture. And then helped to spread it. Chertoff worked hard to hide the abusive interrogation of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban." Lindh was a Catholic boy from Washington DC who converted to Islam and went to join the Afghan Taliban in May 2001. He was captured by the US-friendly warlords of the Afghan Northern Alliance in 2001 and was interrogated by a CIA officer.
Lindh then joined a prison uprising as foreign fighters held by the Northern Alliance tried to break free from their Afghan fort prison. Hundreds were killed when the uprising was brutally put down. Lindh's CIA interrogator also died in the fighting. Lindh was shot in the leg, recaptured and transferred to the prison at a US base called "Camp Rhino." He was shipped to the US and hit with 10 charges, including "conspiracy to murder," supporting terrorism and supporting al-Qaida. He faced 90 years in prison. The evidence against him was stronger than many of those unfortunates stuck in Guantanamo. Then something strange happened. Lindh pleaded guilty to lesser charges of carrying a rifle for the Taliban. This ended the trial before any real evidence was heard and got Lindh a 20-year sentence. This was mild by US standards. Why? Because Chertoff arranged a plea-bargain with Lindh. Chertoff pushed the deal to stop details of Lindh's abuse being discussed in court. Lindh was questioned while strapped naked to a stretcher inside an unheated cargo container with an untreated bullet wound in his leg. Lindh says guards kept him awake at night by hammering on the container. His confession was given before the bullet was removed. Chertoff brought the strange and mysterious end to Lindh's trial with a deal that hid the strange and shocking treatment of the captive. Had Lindh's abuse been exposed in 2002, there was a chance the US would have turned away from torture more quickly. Instead, Chertoff helped to spread the practice. The Bush White House asked the Justice Department to legally OK "coercive" interrogation methods. Under Chertoff's leadership, junior justice officials wrote bizarre, grotesque memos suggesting, for example, that interrogations causing anything short of the pain of organ failure were OK as long as the president said so. Records show Chertoff was a bit queasy about some of these suggestions.
He refused to give a blank cheque to the CIA. He would not offer them immunity from prosecution if interrogations got out of hand. The New York Times also said Chertoff ruled out a few interrogation methods such as using death threats against family members and mind-altering drugs that would change a detainee's personality. But The Times says Chertoff did approve waterboarding for interrogations. So after covering up torture in Lindh's case, Chertoff helped authorise it, reluctantly. A Justice Department ethics panel later very mildly slapped Chertoff's wrist, saying he "should have looked beyond the surface complexity" of the torture memos written by his underlings and checked if they really were "sound." But never mind, Chertoff is respectable enough for a job on the BAE board. You can get a sense of Chertoff's views from his address to the right-wing US Heritage Foundation at a meeting called to discuss the TV show 24. In the "Ronald Reagan Building" in Washington DC, in front of the cast and writers of 24, Chertoff said of the torture-happy adventure show, "frankly, it reflects real life." Chertoff was clearly delighted by the way 24 portrays investigators as macho men who are just forced to abuse suspects to save lives. Chertoff claims 24 accurately showed justice officials had "choices about whether to take drastic and even violent action against a threat, and weighing that against the consequence of not taking the action and the destruction that might otherwise ensue."
BAE wants Chertoff because, as the firm said, he "is uniquely well positioned to support the company as it continues to grow in the global security market." It thinks that "his years of experience in the security domain will be of tremendous value to our businesses as we help our government and private-sector customers develop cyber-security solutions, combat terrorism and organised crime and strengthen border and transportation security." That is, it wants Chertoff to win those war on terror contracts, running spying and immigration databases, surveillance systems and so on. BAE relies heavily on British government support. So our tax money will pay to help Bush's pal Chertoff to spy on us. BAE is at the very centre of British politics - Speaker John Bercow recently admitted he had hired a BAE subsidiary called Detica to try and flush out who leaked the MPs' expenses details. The Home Office is preparing a report proposing BAE and other firms will help with "social profiling" to catch "terrorists." And now it can do this with the help of a man who helped Bush to abuse prisoners.
Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conflict. Show all posts
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Friday, 1 January 2010
Afghanistan: Obama’s war
"I WOULD say this about defining success in Afghanistan and Pakistan… We’ll know it when we see it", said Richard Holbrooke, US special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jim McGovern, Democratic Congressman from Massachusetts put it another way: "I have this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that we’re getting sucked into an endless war here". Whatever way you put it the eight-year war in Afghanistan is a nightmare. The death toll of Afghani people has already topped 1,000 last year. Forty-four US soldiers died in July, 45 in August – more than any other months in the war to date – while 79 British troops have died in 2009 up to 16 September. What are these people dying for? That is the question being asked with ever greater urgency. US president, Barack Obama, seemed sure during his election campaign. In contrast to George W Bush’s needless "war of choice" in Iraq, he said, Afghanistan is "a necessary war": to destroy al-Qaeda, make the US safe, bring democracy, fight against corruption, promote women’s rights and stamp out opium production. He promised to increase troop numbers to 68,000 this year – all but 4,000 are in place. There are now 100,000 US and Nato troops there – 9,000 from Britain.
What was called a presidential election took place on 20 August. The extent of the rigging and violence was breathtaking. In president Hamid Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where his younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairs the provincial council, over 350,000 votes were recorded. Western officials estimate that only 25,000 people actually voted. Around 800 fake polling stations were set up by supporters of Karzai, who also took over a further 800 legitimate polling centres to stuff the boxes with votes. For what it’s worth, the preliminary totals gave Karzai just over three million votes (54.6%), with second placed Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, on 1.6 million (27.8%). Just after the election, Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan hailed the vote as "a bad day for the Taliban and a good day for the people of Afghanistan". Obama called it the most important event in Afghanistan this year. He may be right, of course, but not for the reasons he meant. The massive vote rigging and growing public scepticism have compelled the UN-sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission, which has to ratify the result, to order a recount of 10% of the vote. If a recount brings Karzai’s total down to 50% or below this would trigger a run-off between him and Abdullah. Phillippe Morillon, head of the EU observer team, said that 1.5 million votes (27%) were suspect – 1.1 million for Karzai, 300,000 for Abdullah, the rest for other candidates.
Recounting could months; with winter settled, a second round could be delayed until April 2010, leaving the prospect of months of increased political volatility and uncertainty. It would further undermine the case made by the Obama, Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy administrations for the military intervention. Effectively, the election authorities have a month to sort something out: call a destabilising, divisive (and rigged) run-off, stitch up a deal between Karzai and Abdullah, or announce that Karzai won after all. Whatever happens will be dirty politics, with the western powers up to their necks in the filth. Karzai was installed as president by the US in 2001. He won the inaugural presidential election in 2004 and was feted the world over. He now resides in a palatial fortress in the centre of Kabul, presiding over what The Economist calls the "spread of narco-corruption". He keeps some scary company. General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord, arrived back in Afghanistan a week before the election to back Karzai. It is said that he was responsible for killing 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war in 2001 and executed people by crushing them under bulldozers.
Karzai did deals with Marshal Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik warlord heavily implicated in drug trafficking, and Abdul Karim Khalili and Mohammad Mohaqeq, two Haraza warlords. Ironically, Karzai’s campaign adviser was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Islamist who welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan in 1996! The election has exposed the Afghan political system as completely rotten. What none of the heads of states with troops in Afghanistan are prepared to admit – from their comfortable offices and homes – is that the presence of foreign armies is the main source of tension and conflict. The systematic use of air power to minimise Nato casualties exacerbates this because it causes massive Afghani civilian deaths. US and Nato supremo, General Stanley McChrystal, says this strategy has changed. A few days after making that claim, however, a US air raid against two fuel tankers taken by the Taliban – called in by German forces – led to 125 deaths, the majority of them civilians. A UN official asked the pointed question: "One day you are building a bridge and the next day you call in an airstrike that kills civilians. What kind of message does that send?"
The political establishment and mass media deal in simplistic caricatures. The right-wing commentator, Nicholas Kristof, is basically correct when he points out: "Some Taliban are hardcore ideologues, but many join the fight because friends or elders suggest it, because they are avenging the deaths of relatives in previous fighting, because it’s a way to earn money, or because they want to expel the infidels from their land – particularly because the foreigners haven’t brought the roads, bridges and irrigation projects that had been anticipated". In other words, it is not the simple good-versus-evil formula rammed down our throats. In contrast to the rampant corruption of the regime, Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, even wrote that, despite its brutality, the Taliban "allow people to file formal complaints against local Talib leaders". Time is running out for Obama with 61% saying the conflict is going badly and 51% that the war is not worth fighting – up to 70% among Democrats. Increasingly, Obama has to rely on backing from the Republicans, dangerous when he faces such strong opposition over his healthcare plans and economic policy.
In Britain, Eric Joyce resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Bob Ainsworth, defence secretary, on 3 September, saying that he could no longer justify the growing casualties by saying the war helps prevent terrorism. Even this staunch New Labour loyalist could stomach the lie no longer. There is mounting anger at the rising death toll of young soldiers, at the neglect of injured soldiers and their struggle for financial assistance, as well as the substandard equipment they are sent into battle with. And for what? To prop up a completely corrupt regime. As for the people of Afghanistan, they are caught between the Nato occupation, Taliban insurgents, warlords and drug-trafficking gangsters, in one of the world’s poorest countries, almost two-thirds of which is too dangerous for aid agencies to reach. It would be naïve to believe that the withdrawal of troops would immediately bring peace to Afghanistan. But they have to be pulled out. They are foreign fighters in occupation. The more troops that are sent in – the logic of Obama’s position and the demand of McChrystal – the greater the resistance. By all the criteria set by Obama, Afghanistan is a failure. Al-Qaeda has not been destroyed. It has moved to Pakistan, a potentially greater source of instability in the region. Corruption and drug trafficking is endemic, funding the Taliban as well as many in and around Karzai’s palace. Women’s rights are crushed by all the warlords, Islamists and insurgent forces.
Afghanistan has been ripped apart by 30 years of war and intervention by major world powers. US-backed mujaheddin fighting against Russian forces became the Taliban regime. Today, we are eight years into the Nato occupation. Given that terrible legacy, developing a free, united country is a long-term goal, a dream even. Tragically, the people of Afghanistan – and the troops sent there, too – are living in a nightmare conjured up by capitalism. We must do all we can to hasten the withdrawal of troops and make links with the workers and poor of Afghanistan, struggling in socialist solidarity to rid the region of imperialist intervention.
What was called a presidential election took place on 20 August. The extent of the rigging and violence was breathtaking. In president Hamid Karzai’s home province, Kandahar, where his younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, chairs the provincial council, over 350,000 votes were recorded. Western officials estimate that only 25,000 people actually voted. Around 800 fake polling stations were set up by supporters of Karzai, who also took over a further 800 legitimate polling centres to stuff the boxes with votes. For what it’s worth, the preliminary totals gave Karzai just over three million votes (54.6%), with second placed Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, on 1.6 million (27.8%). Just after the election, Britain’s ambassador to Afghanistan hailed the vote as "a bad day for the Taliban and a good day for the people of Afghanistan". Obama called it the most important event in Afghanistan this year. He may be right, of course, but not for the reasons he meant. The massive vote rigging and growing public scepticism have compelled the UN-sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission, which has to ratify the result, to order a recount of 10% of the vote. If a recount brings Karzai’s total down to 50% or below this would trigger a run-off between him and Abdullah. Phillippe Morillon, head of the EU observer team, said that 1.5 million votes (27%) were suspect – 1.1 million for Karzai, 300,000 for Abdullah, the rest for other candidates.
Recounting could months; with winter settled, a second round could be delayed until April 2010, leaving the prospect of months of increased political volatility and uncertainty. It would further undermine the case made by the Obama, Brown, Merkel and Sarkozy administrations for the military intervention. Effectively, the election authorities have a month to sort something out: call a destabilising, divisive (and rigged) run-off, stitch up a deal between Karzai and Abdullah, or announce that Karzai won after all. Whatever happens will be dirty politics, with the western powers up to their necks in the filth. Karzai was installed as president by the US in 2001. He won the inaugural presidential election in 2004 and was feted the world over. He now resides in a palatial fortress in the centre of Kabul, presiding over what The Economist calls the "spread of narco-corruption". He keeps some scary company. General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord, arrived back in Afghanistan a week before the election to back Karzai. It is said that he was responsible for killing 2,000 Taliban prisoners of war in 2001 and executed people by crushing them under bulldozers.
Karzai did deals with Marshal Mohammad Fahim, a Tajik warlord heavily implicated in drug trafficking, and Abdul Karim Khalili and Mohammad Mohaqeq, two Haraza warlords. Ironically, Karzai’s campaign adviser was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, an Islamist who welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan in 1996! The election has exposed the Afghan political system as completely rotten. What none of the heads of states with troops in Afghanistan are prepared to admit – from their comfortable offices and homes – is that the presence of foreign armies is the main source of tension and conflict. The systematic use of air power to minimise Nato casualties exacerbates this because it causes massive Afghani civilian deaths. US and Nato supremo, General Stanley McChrystal, says this strategy has changed. A few days after making that claim, however, a US air raid against two fuel tankers taken by the Taliban – called in by German forces – led to 125 deaths, the majority of them civilians. A UN official asked the pointed question: "One day you are building a bridge and the next day you call in an airstrike that kills civilians. What kind of message does that send?"
The political establishment and mass media deal in simplistic caricatures. The right-wing commentator, Nicholas Kristof, is basically correct when he points out: "Some Taliban are hardcore ideologues, but many join the fight because friends or elders suggest it, because they are avenging the deaths of relatives in previous fighting, because it’s a way to earn money, or because they want to expel the infidels from their land – particularly because the foreigners haven’t brought the roads, bridges and irrigation projects that had been anticipated". In other words, it is not the simple good-versus-evil formula rammed down our throats. In contrast to the rampant corruption of the regime, Admiral Mike Mullen, chair of the US joint chiefs of staff, even wrote that, despite its brutality, the Taliban "allow people to file formal complaints against local Talib leaders". Time is running out for Obama with 61% saying the conflict is going badly and 51% that the war is not worth fighting – up to 70% among Democrats. Increasingly, Obama has to rely on backing from the Republicans, dangerous when he faces such strong opposition over his healthcare plans and economic policy.
In Britain, Eric Joyce resigned as parliamentary private secretary to Bob Ainsworth, defence secretary, on 3 September, saying that he could no longer justify the growing casualties by saying the war helps prevent terrorism. Even this staunch New Labour loyalist could stomach the lie no longer. There is mounting anger at the rising death toll of young soldiers, at the neglect of injured soldiers and their struggle for financial assistance, as well as the substandard equipment they are sent into battle with. And for what? To prop up a completely corrupt regime. As for the people of Afghanistan, they are caught between the Nato occupation, Taliban insurgents, warlords and drug-trafficking gangsters, in one of the world’s poorest countries, almost two-thirds of which is too dangerous for aid agencies to reach. It would be naïve to believe that the withdrawal of troops would immediately bring peace to Afghanistan. But they have to be pulled out. They are foreign fighters in occupation. The more troops that are sent in – the logic of Obama’s position and the demand of McChrystal – the greater the resistance. By all the criteria set by Obama, Afghanistan is a failure. Al-Qaeda has not been destroyed. It has moved to Pakistan, a potentially greater source of instability in the region. Corruption and drug trafficking is endemic, funding the Taliban as well as many in and around Karzai’s palace. Women’s rights are crushed by all the warlords, Islamists and insurgent forces.
Afghanistan has been ripped apart by 30 years of war and intervention by major world powers. US-backed mujaheddin fighting against Russian forces became the Taliban regime. Today, we are eight years into the Nato occupation. Given that terrible legacy, developing a free, united country is a long-term goal, a dream even. Tragically, the people of Afghanistan – and the troops sent there, too – are living in a nightmare conjured up by capitalism. We must do all we can to hasten the withdrawal of troops and make links with the workers and poor of Afghanistan, struggling in socialist solidarity to rid the region of imperialist intervention.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Voices against war finally heard?
Eyebrows might be raised at the news that the Imperial War Museum in London is endorsing a new history of anti-war movements in Britain from the last century. They might be raised even higher at the news that the museum has the largest archive in the world of sound recordings of anti-war campaigners. These have been turned over to the author Lyn Smith, who has charted opposition to war from the First World War through to the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The result is a new book, Voices Against War: A Century Of Protest. It’s a fascinating and rich read. Some will be familiar with some of those interviewed towards the end, such as Tony Benn and Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition, Kate Hudson and Bruce Kent of CND, and Reg Keys and Rose Gentle of Military Families Against the War. But the book also charts how a smaller anti-war movement, opposing the 1999 Nato bombing campaign against Serbia, ensured activists were steeled in understanding the role of imperialism and rejecting notions of “humanitarian intervention”. This ensured that they could react rapidly and effectively to the declaration of the “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Other chapters describe the growth of pacifism between the First and Second World Wars in reaction to the horror at the useless slaughter unleashed in 1914.
The book records the confusion over how to respond to Adolf Hitler, the anti-bomb movement of the late 1950s – including arguments between supporters and opponents of direct action – and a raw and honest account of the 1980s women’s peace camp outside the US cruise missile base at Greenham Common. But for me the most interesting chapter is on those who refused to fight in the First World War. Some 1,600 conscientious objectors were dragged before tribunals, branded as cowards, jailed, beaten and sentenced to hard labour. After the war ended they were barred from voting for five years. Sixty nine died in detention. Many refused to fight because of their religious beliefs, but several of those featured in Voices Against War refused because of their left wing views. One objector describes walking 11 miles to join a 10,000 strong anti-war protest addressed by Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party, just as further down Whitehall the cabinet was drafting its declaration of war.
Two leading lights in the Independent Labour Party, Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen, founded the No Conscription Fellowship in November 1914. In 1916 both men were arrested after handing out leaflets opposing the introduction of conscription. They were jailed for two months and, shortly after their release, jailed once more for refusing to enlist. Allen served 16 months in prison before being released on grounds of ill health. Brockway was only released six months after the war had ended. The heroism of these men is striking (women were not subject to conscription in this war). Yet their accounts point to a failure. The opposition to the war from the left was largely pacifist and stressed the need for a common humanity. So there was no sense that war was and is central to capitalism or that it was working people who would make the most sacrifices. Before 1914, many opposed to the capitalist system saw socialism as inevitable – whether they supported change through parliament or revolution. They believed that the job of socialists was to prepare and advance their message through education and by standing in elections. In practice they largely accepted the division between economics and politics that is central to parliamentary “democracy”. So activists tended to focus on one particular feature of the system. Trade unionists looked to strikes and struggled for economic gains.
Supporters of women’s rights fought for the vote. Elected representatives focused on political change through parliament and the council chamber. This meant that in 1914 they did not have an overall analysis of what underlay the war drive, or how to halt it. Anti-war left wingers found they could rally and demonstrate against war up until the point where it was declared, but they had no strategy once it had begun. Most fell in behind the “national interest”. Keir Hardie was heartbroken. But he kept his pacifist position until his death in 1915. The individual protests of those who refused to fight fitted in 1914. It seemed to be the only way to make a stand when even labour and trade union leaders had rallied to the flag. Yet across Europe the mood began to turn against the war as it brought galloping price rises, wage freezes, bans on strikes and, in the case of Russia, Germany and Austria, hunger. On Clydeside in the west of Scotland as early as 1915 a mass rent strike against ruthless landlords forced the government to introduce rent controls. Shop stewards in Glasgow’s key engineering, shipyard and armament factories came together in the unofficial Clyde Workers’ Committee to coordinate resistance. The leading lights in the Clyde Workers’ Committee were anti-war as individuals; they solely belonged to left wing parties.
But they also accepted a division between economics and politics. Their prime concern as a group was work in the trade unions to win and defend pay and conditions. Their political activity was confined to the weekend, when they might make anti-war speeches. The British government – sensing a weakness – went on the offensive, portraying the leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee as “unpatriotic” and “pro-German”. It used war-time emergency legislation to arrest and deport key activists. The Glasgow school teacher John Maclean was a fierce critic of the committee’s refusal to come out openly as anti-war, so much so that he was excluded from its meetings. More clearly than anyone else in Britain, Maclean argued the working class had no interest in a war fought for profits and markets. He went on to support the 1917 Russian Revolution, led by the Bolsheviks, and held it up as the shining example of what needed to be done. He was also one of the few people on the British left who argued to support rebellions against British colonialism in Ireland, vigorously defending the 1916 Dublin Uprising as a blow against imperialism and war. The British ruling class retaliated by ensuring that Maclean was sacked from his job and sending him to prison three times for sedition. Yet despite his strengths, Maclean was wedded to the old model of socialist organisation that stressed education along with electoral interventions. He did not look to a new, Bolshevik-style approach that combined a sharp ideological edge with being grounded in the daily battles of working people.#
The First World War ended with soldiers and workers in first Russia and then Germany refusing to sacrifice themselves for the “sacred cause” of their country’s war effort. In 1917 the October Revolution took Russia out of the war. The following year mutinies in the German forces spilled over into revolution and saw Germany leave the war, ending the conflict. In the underground conditions of pre-war Russia, the Bolshevik Party and its main leader, Lenin, had argued that whatever areas of work individual party members might focus on, the aim was to mobilise workers with revolution as a goal. This was seen as perhaps not happening immediately, but not in the distant future either. In 1914 Lenin argued that the First World War was an imperialist conflict in which workers had no interest, and that the main enemy was at home. Revolution on the domestic front was the key to ending the slaughter. One of the key reasons the Bolsheviks won the popular support needed to make a revolution was that they were the only resolutely anti-war party. Workers, peasants and soldiers knew it would deliver on its pledge to end the conflict immediately. This did not mean the Bolsheviks refused to participate in strikes, demonstrations and protests alongside those who were not 100 percent pro-revolution or even anti-war. It meant it put itself alongside these people while continuing to educate, agitate and organise. This seems to have carried us a long way from the central narratives of Voices Against War. But at its close, as the book focuses on the recent movement against the Iraq war, you get a sense of what is possible in the fight against a world where economic competition repeatedly spills over into military competition - and you also get a sense of what will be required to cleanse the world of war for once and for all.
The book records the confusion over how to respond to Adolf Hitler, the anti-bomb movement of the late 1950s – including arguments between supporters and opponents of direct action – and a raw and honest account of the 1980s women’s peace camp outside the US cruise missile base at Greenham Common. But for me the most interesting chapter is on those who refused to fight in the First World War. Some 1,600 conscientious objectors were dragged before tribunals, branded as cowards, jailed, beaten and sentenced to hard labour. After the war ended they were barred from voting for five years. Sixty nine died in detention. Many refused to fight because of their religious beliefs, but several of those featured in Voices Against War refused because of their left wing views. One objector describes walking 11 miles to join a 10,000 strong anti-war protest addressed by Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour Party, just as further down Whitehall the cabinet was drafting its declaration of war.
Two leading lights in the Independent Labour Party, Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen, founded the No Conscription Fellowship in November 1914. In 1916 both men were arrested after handing out leaflets opposing the introduction of conscription. They were jailed for two months and, shortly after their release, jailed once more for refusing to enlist. Allen served 16 months in prison before being released on grounds of ill health. Brockway was only released six months after the war had ended. The heroism of these men is striking (women were not subject to conscription in this war). Yet their accounts point to a failure. The opposition to the war from the left was largely pacifist and stressed the need for a common humanity. So there was no sense that war was and is central to capitalism or that it was working people who would make the most sacrifices. Before 1914, many opposed to the capitalist system saw socialism as inevitable – whether they supported change through parliament or revolution. They believed that the job of socialists was to prepare and advance their message through education and by standing in elections. In practice they largely accepted the division between economics and politics that is central to parliamentary “democracy”. So activists tended to focus on one particular feature of the system. Trade unionists looked to strikes and struggled for economic gains.
Supporters of women’s rights fought for the vote. Elected representatives focused on political change through parliament and the council chamber. This meant that in 1914 they did not have an overall analysis of what underlay the war drive, or how to halt it. Anti-war left wingers found they could rally and demonstrate against war up until the point where it was declared, but they had no strategy once it had begun. Most fell in behind the “national interest”. Keir Hardie was heartbroken. But he kept his pacifist position until his death in 1915. The individual protests of those who refused to fight fitted in 1914. It seemed to be the only way to make a stand when even labour and trade union leaders had rallied to the flag. Yet across Europe the mood began to turn against the war as it brought galloping price rises, wage freezes, bans on strikes and, in the case of Russia, Germany and Austria, hunger. On Clydeside in the west of Scotland as early as 1915 a mass rent strike against ruthless landlords forced the government to introduce rent controls. Shop stewards in Glasgow’s key engineering, shipyard and armament factories came together in the unofficial Clyde Workers’ Committee to coordinate resistance. The leading lights in the Clyde Workers’ Committee were anti-war as individuals; they solely belonged to left wing parties.
But they also accepted a division between economics and politics. Their prime concern as a group was work in the trade unions to win and defend pay and conditions. Their political activity was confined to the weekend, when they might make anti-war speeches. The British government – sensing a weakness – went on the offensive, portraying the leaders of the Clyde Workers’ Committee as “unpatriotic” and “pro-German”. It used war-time emergency legislation to arrest and deport key activists. The Glasgow school teacher John Maclean was a fierce critic of the committee’s refusal to come out openly as anti-war, so much so that he was excluded from its meetings. More clearly than anyone else in Britain, Maclean argued the working class had no interest in a war fought for profits and markets. He went on to support the 1917 Russian Revolution, led by the Bolsheviks, and held it up as the shining example of what needed to be done. He was also one of the few people on the British left who argued to support rebellions against British colonialism in Ireland, vigorously defending the 1916 Dublin Uprising as a blow against imperialism and war. The British ruling class retaliated by ensuring that Maclean was sacked from his job and sending him to prison three times for sedition. Yet despite his strengths, Maclean was wedded to the old model of socialist organisation that stressed education along with electoral interventions. He did not look to a new, Bolshevik-style approach that combined a sharp ideological edge with being grounded in the daily battles of working people.#
The First World War ended with soldiers and workers in first Russia and then Germany refusing to sacrifice themselves for the “sacred cause” of their country’s war effort. In 1917 the October Revolution took Russia out of the war. The following year mutinies in the German forces spilled over into revolution and saw Germany leave the war, ending the conflict. In the underground conditions of pre-war Russia, the Bolshevik Party and its main leader, Lenin, had argued that whatever areas of work individual party members might focus on, the aim was to mobilise workers with revolution as a goal. This was seen as perhaps not happening immediately, but not in the distant future either. In 1914 Lenin argued that the First World War was an imperialist conflict in which workers had no interest, and that the main enemy was at home. Revolution on the domestic front was the key to ending the slaughter. One of the key reasons the Bolsheviks won the popular support needed to make a revolution was that they were the only resolutely anti-war party. Workers, peasants and soldiers knew it would deliver on its pledge to end the conflict immediately. This did not mean the Bolsheviks refused to participate in strikes, demonstrations and protests alongside those who were not 100 percent pro-revolution or even anti-war. It meant it put itself alongside these people while continuing to educate, agitate and organise. This seems to have carried us a long way from the central narratives of Voices Against War. But at its close, as the book focuses on the recent movement against the Iraq war, you get a sense of what is possible in the fight against a world where economic competition repeatedly spills over into military competition - and you also get a sense of what will be required to cleanse the world of war for once and for all.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Afghanistan Nightmare Must End
Every time you turn on the news there seems to be one more British casualty in Afghanistan. By the time you read this article the death toll of British troops will have exceeded 100 this year. This war has gone on now for 8 years, longer than the Second World War and the Vietnam War. It has been overshadowed by the war in neighbouring Iraq, but has now become the centre of attention. Nothing quite captures the attention like the prospect of a humiliating defeat. Kim Howells, a leading government supporter, has broken ranks to call for British troops to be brought home. This reflects the growing public anger against the war. In Britain, more than 70% believe the troops should be withdrawn within a year. 35% believe the soldiers should be withdrawn immediately. In March, Obama declared the fight a ‘war of necessity’ and dispatched an extra 20,000 troops. This has been followed by a ‘rethink’ and a further ‘review’. The shambles over the Afghan elections has served to compound the problem. Rather than ‘democracy’, we have corruption, bribery and staggering levels of fraud. The farce of the second round, which failed to take place, followed by the inauguration of Karzai for another presidential term, has piled added pressure on the imperialists.
The American stooge, Karzai, had invited a group of warlords, drug dealers and other mafia undesirables into his government to help ‘win’ his election. One of these, General Dostum, the Uzbek commander, is accused by human rights groups of allowing 2,000 Taliban suspects to suffocate to death in cargo containers. Karzai was favoured by the Americans because of his links with the CIA in the struggle against the Russians. In one of the poorest countries in the world, Esquire, the style magazine, once rated him as among the world’s best-dressed men. His power was based on nepotism and patronage, backed up by Western cash. Karzai’s brothers, exploiting their links to government, have amassed fortunes while the Afghan people are left to live in misery and hunger. His younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, wields so much power in Kandahar province that he has earned the nickname “the King of the South”. He is also on the pay roll of the CIA. However, drug money, based on the biggest crop of opium in the world, serves to fuel corruption as well as the Taliban.
This situation explains the millions of abstentions in the first presidential vote. This was not simply due to the activities of the Taliban, but the widespread disillusionment with government corruption and paralysis. The Karzai government, holed up in a tight security compound, has little support outside of Kabul as the Taliban gain ever more adherents. With the growing violence in Pakistan, there is a serious prospect of ‘Talibanisation’ of the entire region. Neighbouring Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan face desolation, turmoil and calamity. The intervention of the imperialists has not brought stability to the region, let alone ‘democracy’, but has created a whirlwind. They are propping up corrupt, but ‘friendly’ regimes, beginning with Karzai in Kabul, as part of their neo-colonialist policy. However, since major NATO military operations started in Afghanistan in 2006, support for the insurgency has grown. They are engaged in a war that they can never win. The situation is becoming worse and worse by the day. General Stanley McChrystal has requested 40,000 extra US troops, scaled down from an original 80,000, representing ‘one last desperate heave’. The US ambassador to Afghanistan, however, has urged the Administration to maintain troop levels at their current level. Obama is still dithering, a consequence of the deep mess they are in. The recent speeches by Brown and Miliband are a desperate attempt to shore up waning public opinion for this deeply unpopular war.
It is a war that can never deliver social and economic progress to the Afghan people. That was never the intention. The war was originally intended to extend the might and influence of US imperialism throughout the region based on military “shock and awe”. While NATO provides the cover, the war is conducted by the Americans and to a lesser extent by the British. However, they have reached a complete impasse. That explains their splits and paralysis. The labour movement must demand the immediate withdrawal of imperialist troops from Afghanistan. The imperialist powers, who invaded Afghanistan for their own interests, can never solve the problems of the Afghan people. They must be free to decide their own future. However, the barbarism that has been unleashed through the region will never find a solution on the basis of capitalism, feudalism or fundamentalism. Only on the basis of a Socialist Federation of South Asia, including a Socialist Afghanistan, can the horrors of war, hunger, disease and poverty be swept away.
The American stooge, Karzai, had invited a group of warlords, drug dealers and other mafia undesirables into his government to help ‘win’ his election. One of these, General Dostum, the Uzbek commander, is accused by human rights groups of allowing 2,000 Taliban suspects to suffocate to death in cargo containers. Karzai was favoured by the Americans because of his links with the CIA in the struggle against the Russians. In one of the poorest countries in the world, Esquire, the style magazine, once rated him as among the world’s best-dressed men. His power was based on nepotism and patronage, backed up by Western cash. Karzai’s brothers, exploiting their links to government, have amassed fortunes while the Afghan people are left to live in misery and hunger. His younger brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, wields so much power in Kandahar province that he has earned the nickname “the King of the South”. He is also on the pay roll of the CIA. However, drug money, based on the biggest crop of opium in the world, serves to fuel corruption as well as the Taliban.
This situation explains the millions of abstentions in the first presidential vote. This was not simply due to the activities of the Taliban, but the widespread disillusionment with government corruption and paralysis. The Karzai government, holed up in a tight security compound, has little support outside of Kabul as the Taliban gain ever more adherents. With the growing violence in Pakistan, there is a serious prospect of ‘Talibanisation’ of the entire region. Neighbouring Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan face desolation, turmoil and calamity. The intervention of the imperialists has not brought stability to the region, let alone ‘democracy’, but has created a whirlwind. They are propping up corrupt, but ‘friendly’ regimes, beginning with Karzai in Kabul, as part of their neo-colonialist policy. However, since major NATO military operations started in Afghanistan in 2006, support for the insurgency has grown. They are engaged in a war that they can never win. The situation is becoming worse and worse by the day. General Stanley McChrystal has requested 40,000 extra US troops, scaled down from an original 80,000, representing ‘one last desperate heave’. The US ambassador to Afghanistan, however, has urged the Administration to maintain troop levels at their current level. Obama is still dithering, a consequence of the deep mess they are in. The recent speeches by Brown and Miliband are a desperate attempt to shore up waning public opinion for this deeply unpopular war.
It is a war that can never deliver social and economic progress to the Afghan people. That was never the intention. The war was originally intended to extend the might and influence of US imperialism throughout the region based on military “shock and awe”. While NATO provides the cover, the war is conducted by the Americans and to a lesser extent by the British. However, they have reached a complete impasse. That explains their splits and paralysis. The labour movement must demand the immediate withdrawal of imperialist troops from Afghanistan. The imperialist powers, who invaded Afghanistan for their own interests, can never solve the problems of the Afghan people. They must be free to decide their own future. However, the barbarism that has been unleashed through the region will never find a solution on the basis of capitalism, feudalism or fundamentalism. Only on the basis of a Socialist Federation of South Asia, including a Socialist Afghanistan, can the horrors of war, hunger, disease and poverty be swept away.
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