Iraq, the American Mission, from the Beginning — “Falluja – The Hidden Massacre”

The Massacre that took place in the city of Falluja in 2004 and how the authorities respond to that.

The Legacy of the American ‘Mission’ — “Iraq: Living With No Future”

By Dahr Jamail, TomDispatch.com

26 March, 2013

Back then, everybody was writing about Iraq, but it’s surprising how few Americans, including reporters, paid much attention to the suffering of Iraqis. Today, Iraq is in the news again. The words, the memorials, the retrospectives are pouring out, and again the suffering of Iraqis isn’t what’s on anyone’s mind. This was why I returned to that country before the recent 10th anniversary of the Bush administration’s invasion and why I feel compelled to write a few grim words about Iraqis today.

But let’s start with then. It’s April 8, 2004, to be exact, and I’m inside a makeshift medical center in the heart of Fallujah while that predominantly Sunni city is under siege by American forces. I’m alternating between scribbling brief observations in my notebook and taking photographs of the wounded and dying women and children being brought into the clinic.

A woman suddenly arrives, slapping her chest and face in grief, wailing hysterically as her husband carries in the limp body of their little boy. Blood is trickling down one of his dangling arms. In a few minutes, he’ll be dead. This sort of thing happens again and again.

Over and over, I watch speeding cars hop the curb in front of this dirty clinic with next to no medical resources and screech to a halt. Grief-stricken family members pour out, carrying bloodied relatives — women and children — gunned down by American snipers.

One of them, an 18-year-old girl has been shot through the neck by what her family swears was an American sniper. All she can manage are gurgling noises as doctors work frantically to save her from bleeding to death. Her younger brother, an undersized child of 10 with a gunshot wound in his head, his eyes glazed and staring into space, continually vomits as doctors race to keep him alive. He later dies while being transported to a hospital in Baghdad.

Nepal: CPN-Maoist on the struggle vs comprador capitalists, Indian expansionism, and US / multipolar imperialist system

	CPN-Maoist names new principal enemy
	by KIRAN PUN, MYREPUBLICA.COM
	Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist Chairman Mohan Baidya KATHMANDU, Nov 1: In a major policy shift, the CPN-Maoist, the breakaway faction of the UCPN (Maoist), has named a combination of political, bureaucratic and ´comprador´ capitalist elements ´protected and guided by Indian expansionists´ as its principal enemy. According to a political document presented at its central committee meeting by party Chairman Mohan Baidya this past week, the main contemporary contradiction of the Nepali people is with compradors, bureaucrats and capitalists guided and protected by Indian expansionists. The newly-formed Maoist party also said that a significant change in the political and social situation seen during the past two years had compelled the party to redefine its principal enemy. Defining of a principal enemy in a communist party´s official document carries special significance because all the activities of such a party are designed and executed to defeat the “principal enemy”. According to commentators, this latest process of redefinition floated by the CPN-Maoist demonstrates a major shift from a policy adopted two years back when the UCPN (Maoist) party was united. The party had then defined Indian expansionists blended with domestic reactionary forces as the party´s principal enemy. Further explaining the nature of the presence of the principal enemy in different state organs, the CPN-Maoist said that a section of all major political parties including the UCPN (Maoist), Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and Madhes-based parties are protected and guided by Indian expansionists.

Why are Indians resisting economic reforms?

As the government tries again to push for foreign direct investment, we ask what is spurring massive social resistance.

Inside Story, al Jazeera, 21 September 2012

India’s coalition government is once again facing political turmoil over new economic reforms approved last week.The plan includes opening up the country’s aviation and lucrative retail sectors to international investors.

The reform plan has sparked nationwide strikes supported by opposition parties and trade unions who say the move is a “betrayal of democracy”.Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, has justified the decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retailers. He said: “I believe that these steps will help strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times… I urge all segments of public opinion to support the steps we have taken in the national interest.” India has taken a number of steps to curb its rising budget deficit, starting with efforts to reform the retail sector. The government wants to allow foreign investment in retail trade, allowing chain-stores like Tesco and Walmart to open megastores.

The Marikana Mine Worker’s Massacre – a Massive Escalation in the War on the Poor

by Ayanda Kota, in the Thinking Africa: Frantz Fanon blog

8 August 2012

It’s now two days after the brutal, heartless and merciless cold blood bath of 45 Marikana mine workers by the South African Police Services. This was a massacre!  South Africa is the most unequal country in the world. The amount of poverty is excessive. In every township there are shacks with no sanitation and electricity. Unemployment is hovering around 40%. Economic inequality is matched with political inequality. Everywhere activists are facing serious repression from the police and from local party structures.

Mining has been central to the history of repression in South Africa. Mining made Sandton to be Sandton and the Bantustans of the Eastern Cape to be the desolate places that they still are. Mining in South Africa also made the elites in England rich by exploiting workers in South Africa. You cannot understand why the rural Eastern Cape is poor without understanding why Sandton and the City of London are rich.

Mining has been in the news in South Africa recently. Malema, a corrupt and authoritarian demagogue who represents a faction of the BEE elite, has been demanding nationalisation. Progressive forces inside and outside of the alliance oppose Malema because he represents the most predatory faction of the elite and is looking for a massive bail out for his friends who own unprofitable mines. What we stand for is the socialisation, under workers’ control, of the mines. We also stand for reparations for the hundred years of exploitation.

Things are starting to change but not for the better. Khulubuse Zuma, the president’s nephew and Zondwa Mandela, the former president’s grandchild, and many others with close family ties to politicians have become mining tycoons overnight. China has joined the bandwagon as well, plundering our resources.

Frans Baleni, the General of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) earns R105 000 a month. NUM has become a route into high office in government and even to places on the boards of the mining companies. The union is rapidly losing all credibility on the mines. It is clear that it is now co-opted into the system and is part of the structures of control. It is the police that take NUM to address the workers. Baleni’s betrayal of the workers has made him a very rich man – a rich man who condemns and tries to suppress the struggles of the poor. It is no surprise that workers are rejecting NUM, trying to build an alternative union or acting on their own without any union representing them. The workers are right to chase the NUM leaders away from their strikes.

The Marikana Mine is the richest platinum mine in the world and yet its workers live in shacks. Most of the slain workers are rock drillers, the most difficult and dangerous work in the mine. They do the most dangerous work in the mine and yet they earn only R4 000 a month. Through the blood and sweat in the mines they do not only produce wealth that is alienated from them, they also produce the fat cats, which wine and dine on naked bodies and call that sushi.

South Africa’s Lonmin Marikana mine clashes killed 34 and at least 78 people were injured!

Published on Aug 17, 2012 by antonis20032002
Uploaded by Antonis Ashiotis: http://www.facebook.com/antonisashiotis

Philippines: “Shatter the illusion of the ‘righteous road'”

[This article from Ang Bayan by the Communist Party of the Philippines, takes a look at the current Aquino regime’s cultivation of petty-bourgeois illusions (of progress and reform) and support for the Philippines’ comprador relations with the US.  It argues that only through breaking with the US can corruption be ended, and can progress and reform take place.  The article does not speak to the Philippines’ relations (today and in the future) with other imperialists who wait in the wings, nor to whether the democratic struggle it promotes is linked to socialist revolution–and if so, if this is a distant prospect or one that is more contemporary.  In a period when some parties internationally have de-linked the democratic struggle from socialist revolution, this question deserves the attention of revolutionaries everywhere. — Frontlines ed.]

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Editorial, Ang Bayan, August 07, 2012

Under the guidance of its imperialist master, the Aquino regime is relentlessly conjuring the illusion of the “righteous road” and has been pouring in funds, lavishing attention and providing personnel to deceptive showcase projects.

This is an indication of the depths of the crisis of the ruling system. The regime wants to deceive the people, create false hopes of a better life and nip in the bud their determination to put an end to the rotten exploitative system.

These programs are particularly aimed at winning over the middle sectors of society, including the urban and rural petty bourgeoisie, using the framework of “good governance.”

It is crucial for the ruling classes to “gain the trust” of the petty bourgeoisie to maintain the stability of the ruling system. The petty bourgeoisie are forcibly isolated from the movements of the toiling masses and distanced from the path of revolutionary change. They are inundated by glittering propaganda and enticed through idealist slogans that are attuned to their dreams of making it big even as they partake of “concrete changes” as individuals, without disturbing the current order of things and abandoning their personal dreams.

Schools, the mass media and the internet are awash with the Aquino regime’s propaganda and programs to hoodwink and seduce the petty bourgeoisie. Their closest partners in this sinister endeavor to mobilize the petty bourgeoisie for attention-grabbing but limited housing, education and health programs are agencies appendaged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), the US Agency for International Development (USAID) or the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

Who can unite Libya if Gaddafi falls?

21 Aug 2011 19:31

By Michael Georgy, Reuters

NALUT, Libya, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Libyan rebel Husam Najjair seems more concerned about the possibility of rebels turning on each other when they try to take control of the capital Tripoli than the threat posed by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi.

“The first thing my brigade will do is set up checkpoints to disarm everyone, including other rebel groups, because otherwise it will be a bloodbath,” said Najjair. “All the rebel groups will want to control Tripoli. Order will be needed.”

His comments pointed to the biggest question that will be asked as the endgame appears to be nearing in Libya — is there one unifying figure who can lead Libya if the rebels take over?

Right now the resounding answer seems to be no.

Is Philippine President Aquino promoting ties of dependency on the U.S.?

New Philippine President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy" Aquino III and new US ambassador to Manila Harry K. Thomas Jr.

 

By CenPEG | 08/16/2010

By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)

Those who are watching the first 100 days of the new administration can now start focusing their lens on President Benigno S. Aquino III’s coming visit to the United States in September – his first major official foreign trip. The decision to make the U.S. as his maiden foreign destination is not only symbolic but will have far-reaching implications not only on foreign policy but also on the so-called special relationship between a former colony and a superpower. In the long run, it will have broad implications on the Filipino people.

Of course, the presidential spokesperson says Aquino III, together with other heads of state, is going to address the United Nations General Assembly when it convenes next month. The more important agenda, however, pertains to the event that will happen at the White House and other meetings with high U.S. officials. The new president will make a courtesy call to the world’s most powerful leader – a traditional ritual performed by the Philippines’ past presidents from Manuel Quezon to Ferdinand Marcos and until recently, Gloria M. Arroyo who made several visits to Washington, DC.