For British politics, the defining moment of the last decade was not an election result or a policy announcement. It was February 15 2003, when over a million people marched through London to oppose the invasion of Iraq. It was the biggest demonstration in British history, but both Labour government and Tory opposition went ahead and launched a war without public support. This striking turn of events illustrates two key aspects of the last decade - a government pursuing a thoroughly militaristic agenda and a public resistant to going along with it. Tony Blair's attachment to militarism was a key characteristic of his premiership. The terrorists who murdered thousands in the World Trade Centre in 2001 hoped to provoke a war that would be seen as an assault on Islam. George Bush played right into their hands. Blair fell into line with sizeable but far from overwhelming public support for invading Afghanistan. While al-Qaida was known to be a loose network, the media spoke as if it were a global conspiracy. Bush and Blair announced the "war on terror." It didn't work. Attempts to secure public support for invading Iraq failed from the start, with few taken in by fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Blair's comments on Saddam's brutality were undermined by his friendship with Saudi despots. For the first time in living memory, British troops were sent into a war that was opposed by a majority of the population.
But militarism is about more than troop deployments. The government plans to renew the Trident nuclear weapons system. The arms firm BAE Systems has enjoyed so much influence that former foreign secretary Robin Cook said that BAE's boss had "the key to the garden door at No 10." This twisted relationship reached its zenith in 2006, when Blair intervened to end a criminal investigation into allegedly corrupt BAE arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The incident was a staggering demonstration of the way that both militarism and capitalism distort democracy. Blair defended millionaire gunrunners, Saudi despots and Washington neocons while treating public opinion with contempt. With a few honourable exceptions, his militarism was enthusiastically supported by his ministers and the Tory opposition. By backing BAE, Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron showed their belief in furthering the financial interests of the wealthy at the expense of the majority. Taxpayer-funded subsidies for arms dealers reached around £850 million per year in the middle of the decade. Nor is war immune from the privatisation craze - military occupation has been outsourced, with contracts handed to mercenary companies whose soldiers in Iraq outnumbered British troops.
The privatisation of war has contributed to dramatic changes in the nature of armed conflict. Listening to certain commentators, you could get the impression that no such changes have taken place. Cheerleaders for militarism still talk as if war were a matter of defending nations from aggression with established armies. In reality, over 90 per cent of casualties in modern warfare are civilian. The vast majority of the decade's wars have been within, not between, countries. Their combatants have been resourced by multinational arms companies without national loyalties and have frequently included mercenaries. The changes to the nature of warfare are rarely acknowledged because they make the traditional arguments for militarism redundant. The horrific day in 2005 when terrorists blew up commuters in London has been used by politicians to justify all manner of policies. But no amount of battalions, tanks, Eurofighters or Trident missiles would have prevented such an attack. Bombs and bullets do not lead to compassion and understanding. Furthermore, it is clear that the biggest threat we face to our security is the danger of catastrophic climate chaos. The floodwaters will not stop at national borders or be repelled by a hail of bullets. While the government ploughs money into military "solutions," its supporters claim it would be "unrealistic" to do otherwise.
Given that the world now spends nearly $2,000 on military force for every dollar spent on conflict prevention, it is amazing that non-violent approaches are successful at all. Yet recent years have seen non-violent methods of conflict resolution used successfully in countries as diverse as Estonia, Guatemala and Mozambique; the relative lack of violence in Northern Ireland is surely one of the greatest successes of the decade. Non-violence has far less money and publicity than violence, but the British people have shown themselves able to see through the flimsy network of lies and reassurances used to justify militarism. Not only were most of the public opposed to the Iraq war but polls consistently show majorities against Trident and the occupation of Afghanistan. Last November it became clear that the government's gung-ho approach to war had massively mistaken the public mood when an independent poll revealed that 87 per cent of British adults believe the dead on all sides should be commemorated on Remembrance Day. The millions who marched in 2003 did not prevent the Iraq invasion, but they may have made Blair or Bush think twice about laying into Syria or North Korea. Many more people are now aware of the arms industry's influence within government. In 2008, campaigners achieved the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation - the arms companies' lobbying unit within the MoD. Arms dealers were infuriated by its replacement with a slightly weaker, but still abhorrent, unit within UK Trade and Investment.
No longer can arms companies have it all their own way. NGOs have highlighted the true cost of Trident, resulting in a Cabinet split that means there is a real chance of Trident renewal not going ahead. With British soldiers still dying and killing in Afghanistan and other armed conflicts around the world rarely even making the British press, there is far, far more to do. Climate change and economic crises have gripped the world's attention. It is vital that we make the links between militarism, climate change and capitalism. This means not only co-ordinated campaigning but clearer messages. We must continue to expose the way that both war and climate change have delivered profit and power to the few, at the expense of the planet and its people. Militarism sustains its support by constantly telling us, despite the evidence, that people cannot achieve things alone, that we need powerful individuals employing men with guns to keep things under control. Gandhi suggested that one of the biggest threats to Indian freedom was the people's reluctance to trust themselves. There is always a tendency to fall back on trusting violence, governments, money, traditions or even activist heroes. The first step to challenging militarism is having the confidence simply to trust ourselves.
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iraq. Show all posts
Monday, 5 April 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Labour's dead man walking returns
It is, one supposes, the first time that a multimillionaire has ever graced Trimdon Labour Club with his presence as a visiting speaker. And it is a mark of the desperation and political bankruptcy of new Labour that it has pulled ex-prime minister and war criminal Tony Blair out of storage and is using him in its election campaign. There must have been many peace and political activists in the country who experienced an uncomfortable sense of deja vu when the oily face of Blair appeared once more on the television screens yesterday, hurrying into the Trimdon club under police escort. It's one of the few good things to say about politics in the Brown era that, somehow, the world seemed rather cleaner without the arch-opportunist and apologist for capitalism anywhere in evidence. But returned he is, and with the ascendance of Peter Mandelson in Cabinet and the creeping back into the public eye of Alastair Campbell, the set's complete.
Complete, that is, if you ignore the vanished coterie of disgraced new Labourites who have bitten, or are about to bite, the dust in various scandals involving influence-peddling and MPs' expenses. That's quite a substantial number, incidentally. But what does the political resurrection of Mr Blair tell us about the Labour Party in this election? In short, it tells us that the party hasn't learned a damn thing from the events of the last few years. It hasn't learned that the Blairite love-affair with the City led inexorably to the abuses that precipitated the banking crisis. The sense of invulnerability that came from having a capitalism-friendly Labour administration and a complaisant Tory opposition gave the banks and their tame speculators a licence to fiddle, free rein to invent ever-more ludicrous financial "products" to enable them to extract yet more paper "profit" from dodgy transactions and a society so based on greed and the acquisition of personal wealth that their behaviour could be passed off as acceptable. Capitalism, never exactly savoury, became casino capitalism, in which gambling was passed off as trading and skimming was considered legitimate. So difficult has new Labour found it to establish any real difference from the Tories that they are now reduced to arguments not about what, but about when. Not about attacking or defending the welfare state, but about how soon and how often to attack it. This unsurprisingly makes election campaigns difficult.
The electorate may be misguided at times, but it certainly isn't blind and anyone to the left of centre is finding it increasingly difficult to support a party which has demonstrably lost its way along with its progressive principles. Thus, the recourse to Tony Blair. It's back to the politics of spin over substance, back to a sales technique rather than a political manifesto and a return to the fight to command the centre rather than drive politics in a progressive direction. Not that there was ever much chance of a Brown administration being vastly progressive, but it has shown an increasing tendency to revisit the recent past, to try to recapture the "glory days" of the new Labour project that everyone except Labour's leaders realises is stone dead, even though as yet unburied. Mr Darling had a chance to become the defender of public services. He was driven into fighting to avoid an instant bloodbath of cuts. But he has wasted that opportunity and with it, rejected Labour's best chance of a principled victory in a general election. A vote for Labour is, in most cases, still necessary to defend against the wild excesses of a Tory Britain, but the retreat into spin represented by Mr Blair's resurrection hugely diminishes Labour's chances of electoral success. The Blairite dream of a Labour middle class is dead, but they still won't let it rest.
Complete, that is, if you ignore the vanished coterie of disgraced new Labourites who have bitten, or are about to bite, the dust in various scandals involving influence-peddling and MPs' expenses. That's quite a substantial number, incidentally. But what does the political resurrection of Mr Blair tell us about the Labour Party in this election? In short, it tells us that the party hasn't learned a damn thing from the events of the last few years. It hasn't learned that the Blairite love-affair with the City led inexorably to the abuses that precipitated the banking crisis. The sense of invulnerability that came from having a capitalism-friendly Labour administration and a complaisant Tory opposition gave the banks and their tame speculators a licence to fiddle, free rein to invent ever-more ludicrous financial "products" to enable them to extract yet more paper "profit" from dodgy transactions and a society so based on greed and the acquisition of personal wealth that their behaviour could be passed off as acceptable. Capitalism, never exactly savoury, became casino capitalism, in which gambling was passed off as trading and skimming was considered legitimate. So difficult has new Labour found it to establish any real difference from the Tories that they are now reduced to arguments not about what, but about when. Not about attacking or defending the welfare state, but about how soon and how often to attack it. This unsurprisingly makes election campaigns difficult.
The electorate may be misguided at times, but it certainly isn't blind and anyone to the left of centre is finding it increasingly difficult to support a party which has demonstrably lost its way along with its progressive principles. Thus, the recourse to Tony Blair. It's back to the politics of spin over substance, back to a sales technique rather than a political manifesto and a return to the fight to command the centre rather than drive politics in a progressive direction. Not that there was ever much chance of a Brown administration being vastly progressive, but it has shown an increasing tendency to revisit the recent past, to try to recapture the "glory days" of the new Labour project that everyone except Labour's leaders realises is stone dead, even though as yet unburied. Mr Darling had a chance to become the defender of public services. He was driven into fighting to avoid an instant bloodbath of cuts. But he has wasted that opportunity and with it, rejected Labour's best chance of a principled victory in a general election. A vote for Labour is, in most cases, still necessary to defend against the wild excesses of a Tory Britain, but the retreat into spin represented by Mr Blair's resurrection hugely diminishes Labour's chances of electoral success. The Blairite dream of a Labour middle class is dead, but they still won't let it rest.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Convinced of Britain's guilt?
Gordon Brown chose the Daily Torygraph to signal his intention to prevent magistrates from issuing arrest warrants against visiting war criminals. Brown, as a sponsor of Israel's ethnic cleansing arm the Jewish National Fund, was obviously embarrassed by the arrest warrant issued last November for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni. He explained his planned restriction of "politically motivated arrest warrants" to the Crown Prosecution Service by insisting that Britain's standing in the world could be "compromised" by "tolerating such gestures." What a curiously truncated vision he must have about what constitutes the world.
Israel is, of course, up in arms about having its war crimes described as such and its war criminals at risk of facing trial, as others from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia have. Former US secretary of state Colin Powell - the man who presented fraudulent evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN to justify invasion of Iraq - is also said to be worried about the possibility of being arrested in Britain.
Far from the rest of the world seeing Britain's standing in the world compromised by identification of the likes of Livni and Powell as having a war crimes case to answer, a substantial section of the global population is already convinced of their guilt. For good measure, the same assessment goes for Brown, Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw, who were up to their necks in the duplicitous process to construct a false prospectus to justify a US war that was never about weapons of mass destruction. The intention was always regime change, which is illegal under international law, and it was designed to bolster US global hegemony and control of Iraqi oil and gas resources. Brown brazenly asserts that "politically motivated" organisations and individuals are simply seeking headlines because there is no realistic chance of a successful prosecution, but the wave of popular anger that greeted the Iraq invasion and the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza casts doubt on his certainty. And how would Brown, a politician, determine when a course of action is "politically motivated?"
Is Richard Goldstone "politically motivated?" He carried out the UN inquiry into Israel's war on Gaza and was forced by the facts to conclude that there was evidence of war crimes. He spotlighted Palestinian use of rockets against Israeli civilian targets, but the bulk of his report was directed against Israeli forces, who killed 1,400 people and wounded over 5,000. The Goldstone report catalogued Israel's "numerous instances of deliberate attacks on civilians" and the deployment of white phosphorus and high explosive artillery shells against civilian targets in Gaza, labelling these acts "violations of humanitarian law." Since then, an Israeli death squad has forged passports from a number of countries, including Britain, to enable it to kill Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates. Israeli politicians played their usual game of refusing to confirm or deny Mossad involvement, while giving a nod and a wink to indicate that Tel Aviv would continue to flout international law. Only the aforementioned Livni openly applauded the killing and she has the gall to resent being called a terrorist. Brown's avowed intent to change British legislation at Israel's behest augurs badly for the government's supposed "full investigation" into the forgery and misuse of British passports in Dubai.
Israel is, of course, up in arms about having its war crimes described as such and its war criminals at risk of facing trial, as others from Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia have. Former US secretary of state Colin Powell - the man who presented fraudulent evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN to justify invasion of Iraq - is also said to be worried about the possibility of being arrested in Britain.
Far from the rest of the world seeing Britain's standing in the world compromised by identification of the likes of Livni and Powell as having a war crimes case to answer, a substantial section of the global population is already convinced of their guilt. For good measure, the same assessment goes for Brown, Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw, who were up to their necks in the duplicitous process to construct a false prospectus to justify a US war that was never about weapons of mass destruction. The intention was always regime change, which is illegal under international law, and it was designed to bolster US global hegemony and control of Iraqi oil and gas resources. Brown brazenly asserts that "politically motivated" organisations and individuals are simply seeking headlines because there is no realistic chance of a successful prosecution, but the wave of popular anger that greeted the Iraq invasion and the murderous Israeli assault on Gaza casts doubt on his certainty. And how would Brown, a politician, determine when a course of action is "politically motivated?"
Is Richard Goldstone "politically motivated?" He carried out the UN inquiry into Israel's war on Gaza and was forced by the facts to conclude that there was evidence of war crimes. He spotlighted Palestinian use of rockets against Israeli civilian targets, but the bulk of his report was directed against Israeli forces, who killed 1,400 people and wounded over 5,000. The Goldstone report catalogued Israel's "numerous instances of deliberate attacks on civilians" and the deployment of white phosphorus and high explosive artillery shells against civilian targets in Gaza, labelling these acts "violations of humanitarian law." Since then, an Israeli death squad has forged passports from a number of countries, including Britain, to enable it to kill Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates. Israeli politicians played their usual game of refusing to confirm or deny Mossad involvement, while giving a nod and a wink to indicate that Tel Aviv would continue to flout international law. Only the aforementioned Livni openly applauded the killing and she has the gall to resent being called a terrorist. Brown's avowed intent to change British legislation at Israel's behest augurs badly for the government's supposed "full investigation" into the forgery and misuse of British passports in Dubai.
Friday, 26 February 2010
All eyes on the oil prize
It is nearly seven years after the US-led invasion of Iraq. US imperialism had hoped for a quick war, the Iraqi oil industry under the control of US companies and a compliant, stable regime. However, the situation today is very different to what George Bush and Tony Blair envisaged. The Iraqi population has been abandoned, facing high levels of unemployment and a lack of basic resources, while the Iraqi government and oil companies struggle for control of the country's enormous oil wealth. This has increased sectarian and national tensions within Iraq and these tensions are spilling over into the forthcoming elections on 7 March. Recent bomb attacks underline the dangerous situation that ordinary Iraqis still face. Control of the oil wealth in the predominantly Kurdish area of northern Iraq is a major issue underpinning a lot of tensions. That oil wealth is potentially vast. Estimates put the reserves in Iraq at 115 billion barrels, probably more than Iran's and second only to Saudi Arabia. Yet production is still running at 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) lower than the pre-war daily average of 2.5 million.
In post-Saddam Iraq, the US government was hoping to dramatically increase output under the control of predominantly US oil companies. To try to achieve this aim Paul Bremer, Bush's chief representative in Iraq in the year following the invasion, under the guise of removing all members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from their positions, sacked oil technicians, engineers and administrators leaving behind only a skeleton crew of Iraqi oil workers to manage the existing production. Bremer was hoping that private oil companies, eager to exploit the oil wealth, would come in with their workforces to take over. Some companies did, but attacks on oil pipelines and facilities increased from 200 in the first two years of occupation to 600 in 2007. In part this was in response to Bremer ripping up agreements over access to oil by the local population. The major oil companies weighing up the risks decided the danger was too great at that stage. Also, significant action was taken by Iraqi oil workers striking against the privatisation of oil facilities in Basra.
Arguments developed between the Iraqi government and US about how the oil fields could be developed. None of these arguments centred on improving conditions for ordinary Iraqis, but who gets the biggest share of the oil wealth, the Iraqi regime or the oil companies. In an attempt to develop the oilfields, on 2 January 2009 the Iraqi government offered a new deal to oil companies wanting to invest in Iraq, offering them $2 for every barrel they extracted after their original investment costs had been met. The major oil companies initially rejected these terms out of hand, demanding complete control over production and payments of $25 per barrel! However, the Chinese National Petroleum company was keen to gain a foothold in Iraq and get its hands on some of the vast reserves. It induced BP, its partner in Iraq, to develop the Ramaila oilfield near Basra on the Iraqi government terms. As a result of this other companies, not wanting to see the Chinese government gain all the most lucrative contracts, accepted contracts on the initial terms. These companies are mainly state-owned but include Shell and Exxon.
However, some members of the Iraqi parliament are now challenging these contracts, no doubt wanting to get their own hands on this oil wealth but also feeling the pressure from ordinary Iraqis angry at seeing jobs and the oil wealth leaving Iraq. As Brigadier Marriner, the British defence attaché at the British embassy in Baghdad mused: "As a senior American politician said, 'If this was not about oil in 2003, it certainly is now." This is the background to the current elections. The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is widely distrusted in Iraq. Iraq is judged as the fifth 'most corrupt' country in the world by Transparency International. US president Barack Obama is desperate for these elections to be held and to show some thin veneer of democracy. The Iraq war and occupation has already cost the US government over $707 billion. At a time of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s and with a US government debt of 12% of GDP, Obama urgently wants to limit the cost of this war with the aim of an ultimate withdrawal. But this cannot be at any cost. They want some form of stable regime that they can work with and one that will not stand in the way of the increasing exploitation of the oil wealth by private oil companies.
What these elections are not about is offering any dramatic improvement in the lives of ordinary Iraqis. All of the parties contesting the elections support the maintenance of capitalism and the ensuing cuts and privatisations that flow from this, while the wealthy elite enrich themselves at the workers' expense. Unfortunately for Obama a spanner has been thrown into the works with the banning of about 500 of the 6,000 candidates and 15 of the parties by Iraq's accountability and justice commission. Many of these are Sunni candidates and some have links to the banned Baath party. There is a fear that this could lead to an upsurge in sectarian violence and a boycott of the elections by sections of the Sunni-Arab population. These elections will only serve to underline the majority of Iraqis' feelings towards the political process. As a retired agriculture professor in Baghdad recently said: "Most people don't trust the politicians now. They know they're backed by some outside power, and the biggest power is the Americans, so whoever the Americans back will win."
The conditions that most Iraqis face are a clear reminder that the war and occupation were nothing to do with improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Unemployment stands at around 50% and about four million Iraqis are displaced. Alongside the fear that many Iraqis feel with the upturn in the bombing attacks, the conditions that many Iraqis face are brutal: 1,730 square kilometres of land are contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance, making 11% of all water supplies inaccessible. Access to clean water is critical yet 15% of households are not connected to the public water network and in some areas 73% of the population have no access to safe water. The number of women dying in childbirth is 300 women per 100,000 births in Iraq compared to 140 women per 100,000 births in neighbouring Iran. Yet prior to the years of western sanctions and then the invasion and occupation, Iraq had one of the more advanced health systems in the region.
Nearly a quarter of the population lives below the official poverty line of $2.20 a day and in just under 10% of districts in the country acute malnutrition in children - newly borns to five years old - runs at over 10%. Overcrowding in housing is also a massive problem with 13% of housing in urban areas occupied by ten occupants or more. There is a shortfall of two million houses. There is evidence that the suppressed workers' movement is struggling to improve the conditions for Iraqi workers, however small these steps forward may be. The beginning of 2010 saw a strike of hotel workers at the Rasheed hotel in the green zone in Baghdad over a risk bonus. This followed on from a strike of leather workers which was successful in winning a 25%-30% safety bonus for 1,500 workers in the state-run enterprise of leather industries. Previous to that there had been an 18-day strike of 4,000 textile workers. There is evidence that the suppressed workers' movement is struggling to improve the conditions for Iraqi workers, however small these steps forward may be. The beginning of 2010 saw a strike of hotel workers at the Rasheed hotel in the green zone in Baghdad over a risk bonus. This followed on from a strike of leather workers which was successful in winning a 25%-30% safety bonus for 1,500 workers in the state-run enterprise of leather industries. Previous to that there had been an 18-day strike of 4,000 textile workers.
What is clearly lacking throughout Iraq is a non-sectarian mass workers' party that will fight for workers' rights and for the defence of public services, though these struggles can be part of the process of developing such a party. This party needs to develop a programme that can begin to take the struggles of the Iraqi people forward. Its programme should include the democratic ownership by the people of Iraq of the major companies that dominate the economy and it should use the wealth of these companies, including the vast natural resources, for the benefit of the people of Iraq as a whole. A big issue in Iraq is the national aspirations of the Kurdish population. Consciousness varies in different parts of the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, with support ranging from autonomy to outright independence. We need to support the right of the Kurdish population to self determination up to and including independence if that is what the majority of the population democratically decide.
It is no surprise that control of the oil reserves plays a part in this situation as well. The Kurdish area of Iraq sits on 5% of the world's known oil reserves - the 6th largest in the world. There are growing ethnic tensions between the Arab, Turkoman and Kurdish populations. On the Arab/ Kurdish border known as the 'trigger line' there are 130 violent attacks a month. Many in Iraq, particularly in the government, do not want to see the separation of Iraqi Kurdistan - concerned at the loss of the oil wealth in the country. However there is also pressure from neighbouring states, in particular Turkey, which is completely opposed to an independent Kurdish state of Iraq for fear of the effect this would have on the Kurdish population in Turkey. In the Kurdish area in Iraq there is a growing mood amongst the population against the established Kurdish capitalist parties, the PUK and KDP, who many see as corrupt and not committed enough to national independence. Both the PUK and KDP have a history of perpetrating outrages against one another, including a catastrophic Kurdish civil war in 1993-1998. A new political force Gorran ("movement for change") made a significant breakthrough in the elections to the regional parliament in July last year, winning 25 seats on an anti-corruption platform. Gorran, however, is not a workers' organisation. It is headed by former PUK leader and media owner Nawshirwan Mistefa, who wants to 'modernise' the Kurdish region based on a free market economy. The current situation shows the urgent need for an independent Kurdish party that is able to connect the national liberation aspiration to the social liberation of workers and poor people.
In post-Saddam Iraq, the US government was hoping to dramatically increase output under the control of predominantly US oil companies. To try to achieve this aim Paul Bremer, Bush's chief representative in Iraq in the year following the invasion, under the guise of removing all members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from their positions, sacked oil technicians, engineers and administrators leaving behind only a skeleton crew of Iraqi oil workers to manage the existing production. Bremer was hoping that private oil companies, eager to exploit the oil wealth, would come in with their workforces to take over. Some companies did, but attacks on oil pipelines and facilities increased from 200 in the first two years of occupation to 600 in 2007. In part this was in response to Bremer ripping up agreements over access to oil by the local population. The major oil companies weighing up the risks decided the danger was too great at that stage. Also, significant action was taken by Iraqi oil workers striking against the privatisation of oil facilities in Basra.
Arguments developed between the Iraqi government and US about how the oil fields could be developed. None of these arguments centred on improving conditions for ordinary Iraqis, but who gets the biggest share of the oil wealth, the Iraqi regime or the oil companies. In an attempt to develop the oilfields, on 2 January 2009 the Iraqi government offered a new deal to oil companies wanting to invest in Iraq, offering them $2 for every barrel they extracted after their original investment costs had been met. The major oil companies initially rejected these terms out of hand, demanding complete control over production and payments of $25 per barrel! However, the Chinese National Petroleum company was keen to gain a foothold in Iraq and get its hands on some of the vast reserves. It induced BP, its partner in Iraq, to develop the Ramaila oilfield near Basra on the Iraqi government terms. As a result of this other companies, not wanting to see the Chinese government gain all the most lucrative contracts, accepted contracts on the initial terms. These companies are mainly state-owned but include Shell and Exxon.
However, some members of the Iraqi parliament are now challenging these contracts, no doubt wanting to get their own hands on this oil wealth but also feeling the pressure from ordinary Iraqis angry at seeing jobs and the oil wealth leaving Iraq. As Brigadier Marriner, the British defence attaché at the British embassy in Baghdad mused: "As a senior American politician said, 'If this was not about oil in 2003, it certainly is now." This is the background to the current elections. The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki is widely distrusted in Iraq. Iraq is judged as the fifth 'most corrupt' country in the world by Transparency International. US president Barack Obama is desperate for these elections to be held and to show some thin veneer of democracy. The Iraq war and occupation has already cost the US government over $707 billion. At a time of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s and with a US government debt of 12% of GDP, Obama urgently wants to limit the cost of this war with the aim of an ultimate withdrawal. But this cannot be at any cost. They want some form of stable regime that they can work with and one that will not stand in the way of the increasing exploitation of the oil wealth by private oil companies.
What these elections are not about is offering any dramatic improvement in the lives of ordinary Iraqis. All of the parties contesting the elections support the maintenance of capitalism and the ensuing cuts and privatisations that flow from this, while the wealthy elite enrich themselves at the workers' expense. Unfortunately for Obama a spanner has been thrown into the works with the banning of about 500 of the 6,000 candidates and 15 of the parties by Iraq's accountability and justice commission. Many of these are Sunni candidates and some have links to the banned Baath party. There is a fear that this could lead to an upsurge in sectarian violence and a boycott of the elections by sections of the Sunni-Arab population. These elections will only serve to underline the majority of Iraqis' feelings towards the political process. As a retired agriculture professor in Baghdad recently said: "Most people don't trust the politicians now. They know they're backed by some outside power, and the biggest power is the Americans, so whoever the Americans back will win."
The conditions that most Iraqis face are a clear reminder that the war and occupation were nothing to do with improving the lives of ordinary Iraqis. Unemployment stands at around 50% and about four million Iraqis are displaced. Alongside the fear that many Iraqis feel with the upturn in the bombing attacks, the conditions that many Iraqis face are brutal: 1,730 square kilometres of land are contaminated by landmines and unexploded ordnance, making 11% of all water supplies inaccessible. Access to clean water is critical yet 15% of households are not connected to the public water network and in some areas 73% of the population have no access to safe water. The number of women dying in childbirth is 300 women per 100,000 births in Iraq compared to 140 women per 100,000 births in neighbouring Iran. Yet prior to the years of western sanctions and then the invasion and occupation, Iraq had one of the more advanced health systems in the region.
Nearly a quarter of the population lives below the official poverty line of $2.20 a day and in just under 10% of districts in the country acute malnutrition in children - newly borns to five years old - runs at over 10%. Overcrowding in housing is also a massive problem with 13% of housing in urban areas occupied by ten occupants or more. There is a shortfall of two million houses. There is evidence that the suppressed workers' movement is struggling to improve the conditions for Iraqi workers, however small these steps forward may be. The beginning of 2010 saw a strike of hotel workers at the Rasheed hotel in the green zone in Baghdad over a risk bonus. This followed on from a strike of leather workers which was successful in winning a 25%-30% safety bonus for 1,500 workers in the state-run enterprise of leather industries. Previous to that there had been an 18-day strike of 4,000 textile workers. There is evidence that the suppressed workers' movement is struggling to improve the conditions for Iraqi workers, however small these steps forward may be. The beginning of 2010 saw a strike of hotel workers at the Rasheed hotel in the green zone in Baghdad over a risk bonus. This followed on from a strike of leather workers which was successful in winning a 25%-30% safety bonus for 1,500 workers in the state-run enterprise of leather industries. Previous to that there had been an 18-day strike of 4,000 textile workers.
What is clearly lacking throughout Iraq is a non-sectarian mass workers' party that will fight for workers' rights and for the defence of public services, though these struggles can be part of the process of developing such a party. This party needs to develop a programme that can begin to take the struggles of the Iraqi people forward. Its programme should include the democratic ownership by the people of Iraq of the major companies that dominate the economy and it should use the wealth of these companies, including the vast natural resources, for the benefit of the people of Iraq as a whole. A big issue in Iraq is the national aspirations of the Kurdish population. Consciousness varies in different parts of the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, with support ranging from autonomy to outright independence. We need to support the right of the Kurdish population to self determination up to and including independence if that is what the majority of the population democratically decide.
It is no surprise that control of the oil reserves plays a part in this situation as well. The Kurdish area of Iraq sits on 5% of the world's known oil reserves - the 6th largest in the world. There are growing ethnic tensions between the Arab, Turkoman and Kurdish populations. On the Arab/ Kurdish border known as the 'trigger line' there are 130 violent attacks a month. Many in Iraq, particularly in the government, do not want to see the separation of Iraqi Kurdistan - concerned at the loss of the oil wealth in the country. However there is also pressure from neighbouring states, in particular Turkey, which is completely opposed to an independent Kurdish state of Iraq for fear of the effect this would have on the Kurdish population in Turkey. In the Kurdish area in Iraq there is a growing mood amongst the population against the established Kurdish capitalist parties, the PUK and KDP, who many see as corrupt and not committed enough to national independence. Both the PUK and KDP have a history of perpetrating outrages against one another, including a catastrophic Kurdish civil war in 1993-1998. A new political force Gorran ("movement for change") made a significant breakthrough in the elections to the regional parliament in July last year, winning 25 seats on an anti-corruption platform. Gorran, however, is not a workers' organisation. It is headed by former PUK leader and media owner Nawshirwan Mistefa, who wants to 'modernise' the Kurdish region based on a free market economy. The current situation shows the urgent need for an independent Kurdish party that is able to connect the national liberation aspiration to the social liberation of workers and poor people.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Blair & Brown have blood on their hands
The real legacy of the war in Iraq has been exposed this week. This, together with the appearance of Tony Blair in front of the Chilcot inquiry, has reignited anger over the Iraq war. Many people are rightly sceptical about the outcome of Blair’s hearing—it will not be the grilling the majority wants. But the lies and horror of the war continue to seep out. An official Iraqi study found more than 40 sites across the country were contaminated with high levels of radiation and toxins. These are the result of the use of depleted uranium shells by US and British forces in Iraq. Iraq’s energy resources continue to be sold off. The Iraqi government has signed a deal with oil giants Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell PLC to develop a major oil field in the south of the country. This gives ownership of the oil fields to the companies for 20 years. There are an estimated 8.6 billion barrels of oil in West Qurna.The oil giants will pay the Iraqi government $1.90 for each barrel of oil they extract. But when this is refined and sold on the world market it will fetch $78 a barrel at present prices.
George Bush and Blair’s war has left a trail of destruction. There are 4.5 million Iraqi refugees inside and outside the country. Electricity supplies have dropped dramatically in Baghdad.In 2008, 61 percent of Iraqis said that they believed that the US military presence made the security situation worse. Many want the occupiers out of their country as soon as possible.The price for the Iraq war has been paid by the one million killed - the estimate of the most credible surveys. Blair is responsible for this - and Gordon Brown signed the cheques. On Monday at least 36 people died in coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad and in shoot-outs between security forces. The police threat to impose a ring of steel around the Chilcot inquiry on Friday when Blair appears is another attempt to protect the guilty. Undaunted the Stop the War Coalition organised a whole day of events outside the inquiry. They include a protest in the morning, then speeches, performances and music throughout the day. A naming of some of the many war dead was also to be held. Those reading the names included members of Military Families Against the War, who have lost loved ones in Blair’s wars. The Iraqi people deserve a voice in this inquiry, to tell their side of the story. As they have been deprived of this right, it is the role of the anti-war movement to make Blair’s appearance a nightmare.
Tony Blair should be tried for his crimes against Iraq—and the legacy the war has left there. million Iraqis have died, leaving millions orphaned and widowed. The war and occupation have made as many as four million people into refugees. The whole infrastructure of Iraq has been devastated by the occupation. Our heritage has been looted and destroyed, the environment has been poisoned and vital water sources have been lost. Iraq used to be the breadbasket of the region—now once fertile lands are in danger of being transformed into a desert. Children are growing up suffering from disease and deformities. Sectarianism has been elevated to all state institutions and the country is dangerously fragmented. Corruption is rife; government officials have been caught taking bribes of millions of dollars from foreign companies. Iraq’s precious oil resources have been auctioned off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile the profits of private security companies have soared. Ordinary Iraqis who have suffered the most from the illegal war and occupation are left to cope with living under the threat of violence. Unemployment now stands at 50 percent in a country where infrastructure has been shattered. Yet despite everything the Iraqi people will continue with their determined struggle to reject the occupation and build a democratic, free Iraq.'
Protesters were to make their opposition to the war in Afghanistan clear at a meeting of world leaders in London this week. Top government officials planned to come together to restabilise the Nato occupation of Afghanistan. It is going so badly that key figures are proposing negotiations with sections of the Taliban. Gordon Brown is hosting the event which will include European leaders, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative in Afghanistan, explained the Taliban U-turn, saying, “If you want relevant results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority. I think the time has come to do it.” Eide wants the US to drop certain leading Taliban members from its list of terrorists in order to open up negotiations. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has also joined the call for talks saying there has been “enough fighting”. He believes Obama’s 30,000 strong troop surge will aid this process, weakening the Taliban and making them “look desperate”. He believes that this could lead to them looking to make peace. It is highly unlikely that this will be the result of the surge. The resistance to the occupation is growing in confidence. Last week the Taliban launched attacks in the centre of Kabul. Plans by the British military to launch a new offensive in the Helmand province will see the deaths of countless Afghans and British soldiers.
But US pressure on other countries to send more troops is having some effect. It was leaked this week that the German government plans to send a further 500 soldiers. This is despite their pledge to reduce troop numbers because of public opposition to the war. The conference is designed to apply more of this pressure, seeing more troops sent to kill and be killed. The war has wrecked the lives of Afghan people and will continue to do so while the occupation continues. The conference will also discuss Yemen—set to become a new front in the “war on terror”. The anti-war movement cannot allow this to happen. We must step up the pressure to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Only this can end the ongoing devastation. The Chilcot inquiry was set up to whitewash the Labour government’s lies over the 2003 Iraq war. But it isn’t all going to plan. The inquiry team is the embodiment of what the establishment refer to as a “safe pair of hands”. The chair is a former adviser for the intelligence services. Another member wrote a speech for Tony Blair justifying “humanitarian” war. Nobody in the inquiry cares to ask the Iraqis what they think, and no politicians will be prosecuted at the end of it. Nonetheless, the contradictions and contortions of the government over the invasion of Iraq are seeping out.
Two approaches have emerged from various politicians, spin doctors and lawyers. The first is to brazen it out with the “we did nothing wrong” line. The other is to blame somebody else. In the brazen camp sit Blair’s spin doctors, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell. Campbell is a teller of stories; contradictory and mutually incompatible. He told one version of events in his rather long diaries, another to the Hutton inquiry, and now a third at the Chilcot inquiry. This leads to absurdities. Campbell stands by the dodgy dossier, including the nonsense about Iraq being able to attack Britain at 45 minutes notice. Even chief spook John Scarlett, who “wrote” the dossier, admits it’s flawed. But not Campbell. He says no one sexed up the dossier in its countless rewrites. Campbell claims never to have been in the room when the rewrites he knew nothing about weren’t happening. Powell said that he joked with Campbell about how the Evening Standard newspaper would react to the dossier. The Standard reacted as it was meant to, putting the 45 minutes claim on its front page. Cabinet ministers have led the “not me, guv” school.
Former defence minister Geoff "Buff" Hoon has frequently been portrayed as a bit of an idiot. He used his appearance at the inquiry to reinforce that perception, presenting himself as being vaguely aware of what was going on, but not expecting anyone to actually tell him anything. This had the advantage of distancing him from all the key decisions about the war. His advisers no doubt told him, “Better a fool than a knave.” In contrast, Jack Straw said he was at the centre of everything - “If I had refused support, the UK’s participation in the military action would not in practice have been possible.” Straw had a plan, lots of plans. Though after hearing him it’s not clear if anyone other than Straw understood them. Especially when he says things like, “You’d think you’d got a kind of a deal, and then it would go back into this sort of extraordinary sort of beehive of the American system and you would have to wait until some of them, the bees, sniffed an odour from the great hive.” Straw stressed how hard it was for him to support the war. He hinted that anything difficult should be directed at someone else. He even suggested that the inquiry should ask a question to Robin Cook, who has been dead for five years.
But former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull suggested that Straw had kept his doubts deeply hidden. He said, “This didn’t look like a man who was privately thinking, ‘This whole thing is flawed. I just don’t think this adds up’.” Underlying all this is the chaos of the last days of the Labour government. Blair is fighting a rearguard action to defend his reputation. Brown’s people will say that it was all very difficult, but everything bad that happened was because of Blair. The government’s lawyers will reveal that they thought the war was illegal, but could not stop it. Most witnesses will say that they wrestled with their consciences and their consciences lost. The inquiry gives us an insight into the world of lies and hypocrisy at the heart of the government. Decisions are made on sofas, not in parliament or the cabinet. Those in the loop make up lies to get the result they want and the outcome is the death of hundreds of thousands. The Chilcot inquiry will not hold the guilty to account for that. So whilst they all point the finger at one another, they have also pulled a trigger killing millions of innocent Iraqi civilians. And ultimately they've also shot the hopes of an election win in May. But as they bicker amongst the bodies we know this for sure. Each Labour member who either supported the unjust war or said nothing about it have blood on their hands. And no matter how much they attempt to scrub it off, that blood will remain an eternal legacy blemishing Labour eternally.
George Bush and Blair’s war has left a trail of destruction. There are 4.5 million Iraqi refugees inside and outside the country. Electricity supplies have dropped dramatically in Baghdad.In 2008, 61 percent of Iraqis said that they believed that the US military presence made the security situation worse. Many want the occupiers out of their country as soon as possible.The price for the Iraq war has been paid by the one million killed - the estimate of the most credible surveys. Blair is responsible for this - and Gordon Brown signed the cheques. On Monday at least 36 people died in coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Baghdad and in shoot-outs between security forces. The police threat to impose a ring of steel around the Chilcot inquiry on Friday when Blair appears is another attempt to protect the guilty. Undaunted the Stop the War Coalition organised a whole day of events outside the inquiry. They include a protest in the morning, then speeches, performances and music throughout the day. A naming of some of the many war dead was also to be held. Those reading the names included members of Military Families Against the War, who have lost loved ones in Blair’s wars. The Iraqi people deserve a voice in this inquiry, to tell their side of the story. As they have been deprived of this right, it is the role of the anti-war movement to make Blair’s appearance a nightmare.
Tony Blair should be tried for his crimes against Iraq—and the legacy the war has left there. million Iraqis have died, leaving millions orphaned and widowed. The war and occupation have made as many as four million people into refugees. The whole infrastructure of Iraq has been devastated by the occupation. Our heritage has been looted and destroyed, the environment has been poisoned and vital water sources have been lost. Iraq used to be the breadbasket of the region—now once fertile lands are in danger of being transformed into a desert. Children are growing up suffering from disease and deformities. Sectarianism has been elevated to all state institutions and the country is dangerously fragmented. Corruption is rife; government officials have been caught taking bribes of millions of dollars from foreign companies. Iraq’s precious oil resources have been auctioned off to the highest bidder. Meanwhile the profits of private security companies have soared. Ordinary Iraqis who have suffered the most from the illegal war and occupation are left to cope with living under the threat of violence. Unemployment now stands at 50 percent in a country where infrastructure has been shattered. Yet despite everything the Iraqi people will continue with their determined struggle to reject the occupation and build a democratic, free Iraq.'
Protesters were to make their opposition to the war in Afghanistan clear at a meeting of world leaders in London this week. Top government officials planned to come together to restabilise the Nato occupation of Afghanistan. It is going so badly that key figures are proposing negotiations with sections of the Taliban. Gordon Brown is hosting the event which will include European leaders, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Kai Eide, the United Nations special representative in Afghanistan, explained the Taliban U-turn, saying, “If you want relevant results, then you have to talk to the relevant person in authority. I think the time has come to do it.” Eide wants the US to drop certain leading Taliban members from its list of terrorists in order to open up negotiations. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, has also joined the call for talks saying there has been “enough fighting”. He believes Obama’s 30,000 strong troop surge will aid this process, weakening the Taliban and making them “look desperate”. He believes that this could lead to them looking to make peace. It is highly unlikely that this will be the result of the surge. The resistance to the occupation is growing in confidence. Last week the Taliban launched attacks in the centre of Kabul. Plans by the British military to launch a new offensive in the Helmand province will see the deaths of countless Afghans and British soldiers.
But US pressure on other countries to send more troops is having some effect. It was leaked this week that the German government plans to send a further 500 soldiers. This is despite their pledge to reduce troop numbers because of public opposition to the war. The conference is designed to apply more of this pressure, seeing more troops sent to kill and be killed. The war has wrecked the lives of Afghan people and will continue to do so while the occupation continues. The conference will also discuss Yemen—set to become a new front in the “war on terror”. The anti-war movement cannot allow this to happen. We must step up the pressure to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Only this can end the ongoing devastation. The Chilcot inquiry was set up to whitewash the Labour government’s lies over the 2003 Iraq war. But it isn’t all going to plan. The inquiry team is the embodiment of what the establishment refer to as a “safe pair of hands”. The chair is a former adviser for the intelligence services. Another member wrote a speech for Tony Blair justifying “humanitarian” war. Nobody in the inquiry cares to ask the Iraqis what they think, and no politicians will be prosecuted at the end of it. Nonetheless, the contradictions and contortions of the government over the invasion of Iraq are seeping out.
Two approaches have emerged from various politicians, spin doctors and lawyers. The first is to brazen it out with the “we did nothing wrong” line. The other is to blame somebody else. In the brazen camp sit Blair’s spin doctors, Alastair Campbell and Jonathan Powell. Campbell is a teller of stories; contradictory and mutually incompatible. He told one version of events in his rather long diaries, another to the Hutton inquiry, and now a third at the Chilcot inquiry. This leads to absurdities. Campbell stands by the dodgy dossier, including the nonsense about Iraq being able to attack Britain at 45 minutes notice. Even chief spook John Scarlett, who “wrote” the dossier, admits it’s flawed. But not Campbell. He says no one sexed up the dossier in its countless rewrites. Campbell claims never to have been in the room when the rewrites he knew nothing about weren’t happening. Powell said that he joked with Campbell about how the Evening Standard newspaper would react to the dossier. The Standard reacted as it was meant to, putting the 45 minutes claim on its front page. Cabinet ministers have led the “not me, guv” school.
Former defence minister Geoff "Buff" Hoon has frequently been portrayed as a bit of an idiot. He used his appearance at the inquiry to reinforce that perception, presenting himself as being vaguely aware of what was going on, but not expecting anyone to actually tell him anything. This had the advantage of distancing him from all the key decisions about the war. His advisers no doubt told him, “Better a fool than a knave.” In contrast, Jack Straw said he was at the centre of everything - “If I had refused support, the UK’s participation in the military action would not in practice have been possible.” Straw had a plan, lots of plans. Though after hearing him it’s not clear if anyone other than Straw understood them. Especially when he says things like, “You’d think you’d got a kind of a deal, and then it would go back into this sort of extraordinary sort of beehive of the American system and you would have to wait until some of them, the bees, sniffed an odour from the great hive.” Straw stressed how hard it was for him to support the war. He hinted that anything difficult should be directed at someone else. He even suggested that the inquiry should ask a question to Robin Cook, who has been dead for five years.
But former cabinet secretary Lord Turnbull suggested that Straw had kept his doubts deeply hidden. He said, “This didn’t look like a man who was privately thinking, ‘This whole thing is flawed. I just don’t think this adds up’.” Underlying all this is the chaos of the last days of the Labour government. Blair is fighting a rearguard action to defend his reputation. Brown’s people will say that it was all very difficult, but everything bad that happened was because of Blair. The government’s lawyers will reveal that they thought the war was illegal, but could not stop it. Most witnesses will say that they wrestled with their consciences and their consciences lost. The inquiry gives us an insight into the world of lies and hypocrisy at the heart of the government. Decisions are made on sofas, not in parliament or the cabinet. Those in the loop make up lies to get the result they want and the outcome is the death of hundreds of thousands. The Chilcot inquiry will not hold the guilty to account for that. So whilst they all point the finger at one another, they have also pulled a trigger killing millions of innocent Iraqi civilians. And ultimately they've also shot the hopes of an election win in May. But as they bicker amongst the bodies we know this for sure. Each Labour member who either supported the unjust war or said nothing about it have blood on their hands. And no matter how much they attempt to scrub it off, that blood will remain an eternal legacy blemishing Labour eternally.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
