Why is Trump bombing Syria

Well, there we have it. The liberal chickenhawks should be cheering Trump's airstrikes against the Syrian regime. They've finally got what they wanted. The Donald has just done what Obama wanted to do back in 2013, though the administration dropped the idea of 'punitive strikes' because it lacked a clear strategy and the support of major allies. By contrast, Trump has no such restraint and has gone ahead anyway. This is a senseless display of state violence and no good will come of it.

Not that this signals a major change in US policy, the Trump administration has made clear it does not support regime change in Syria and the US has been bombing Syria for three years now. What changed last night was the target of the bombing. It was the first time the bombing campaign directly targeted the regime as part of official policy. It may reflect a shift in the struggles over policy in the US government, but not a break with history.

In fact, it is a sign of continuity after Steve Bannon was kicked off of the National Security Council. This is the end result of Michael Flynn being booted out of the administration for not disclosing his meetings with the Russian ambassador. The deviation from the traditional leadership of the Pentagon was not meant to last. Intelligence leaks and a media hysteria have allowed the old order to reassert itself. These 'punitive strikes' are not a humanitarian intervention. Rather the strikes represent the consolidation of Pentagon aims.

It's been apparent for some time now that the US has no coherent strategy in Syria. Obama may have pledged political support for the Syrian opposition. This support was translated into limited supplies of arms and funds. However, the US and its allies could have moved against Assad much earlier. If the Israelis had mobilied forces on the Syrian border, the armed forces would have been split and thus left vulnerable to a rebel offensive. But this never happened.

There is evidence that the Russians floated the idea of Assad stepping down in 2012, but the Americans threw cold water on the idea. The US government was waiting for the regime to cave to the rebel opposition, so it could control the outcome of the war. The problem may have been that the US wanted to see Assad go and keep the Ba'ath regime in place. This is quite similar to the US position on Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War.

Eventually the American ruling class decided it was better to invade and dismantle the entire regime and replace it with a new client state. Al Gore was calling for a US invasion of Iraq in 1998, and in 2003 the Bush administration finally toppled Saddam. It's possible to imagine that the Syrian civil war will conclude with the defeat of revolutionary forces and the emergence of a weak, broken state dominated by Assad and Islamist groups.

Chomsky ponders Trump 'False Flag' Op

As you may know, I'm a big advocate of the work of Noam Chomsky. His writing and talks changed my political outlook. I discovered Chomsky when I was 17 and it quickly set me on the course to where I am today. Though I am no longer a left-wing libertarian, I am still a socialist and I think there are important lessons to be drawn from the anarchist tradition. Chomsky is a key figure in contemporary anarchism.

One of the main attractions of Chomsky's work is the level of moral clarity and intellectual honesty. He cuts through the bone to the marrow with precision. Going to the fundamentals of a political question is the cornerstone of radical thought. As an analytical critic Chomsky takes apart US foreign policy and unravels its claims before our eyes. It's a thankless task in many ways. Another side of this has been Chomsky's opposition to 9/11 conspiracism on the left.

Yet in a recent interview Noam Chomsky contradicts his past record on combating conspiracy theories. He suggests that the Trump administration may opt for a 'false flag' operation to save its right-wing agenda. When I first heard about this I didn't believe it until I read the Alter-Net interview. In his own words, Chomsky says: "I think that we shouldn't put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly."

I was very surprised to read these words and I even feared the old man may be losing his touch. If you want the full context, here it is for your judgement:

JF: Do you think there will ever be a moment of awakening, or a disconnect for Trump's supporters of his rhetoric and what he's been doing in Washington, or can this just keep going? 

NC: I think that sooner or later the white working-class constituency will recognize, and in fact, much of the rural population will come to recognize, that the promises are built on sand. There is nothing there.

And then what happens becomes significant. In order to maintain his popularity, the Trump administration will have to try to find some means of rallying the support and changing the discourse from the policies that they are carrying out, which are basically a wrecking ball to something else. Maybe scapegoating, saying, "Well, I'm sorry, I can't bring your jobs back because these bad people are preventing it." And the typical scapegoating goes to vulnerable people: immigrants, terrorists, Muslims and elitists, whoever it may be. And that can turn out to be very ugly. 

I think that we shouldn't put aside the possibility that there would be some kind of staged or alleged terrorist act, which can change the country instantly.

Now let's break this down. It's certainly true that the Trump administration is increasingly unpopular and isolated. President Trump's approval rating stands 35% - a historically low precedent for a new president. Even George W Bush only reached 25% at his lowest point, just as Nixon reached 36% after Watergate. In these conditions, it is plausible that the administration would want something, anything to shore up support for the government. But this is not the basis for a false flag operation.

I should add I'm not saying the US government has not been guilty of false flags in the past: the Gulf of Tonkin being the obvious example. It's now uncontroversial that the Johnson administration leapt on Tonkin to expand the war against Vietnam. It's also true that there are real conspiracies in history. Look up COINTELPRO or the Iran-Contra affair, if you want to see a real conspiracy in action. There are even questions around Pearl Harbour and the extent to which FDR provoked Japan.

So, what is the problem with Chomsky's points here? Professor Chomsky might be defended on the grounds that this was a throw-away remark - one line in a full interview, with little clarification. There are gradients of what a 'staged' or 'alleged' attack could mean. Many of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists accept the case that the Bush administration had "advance knowledge" and simply allowed the attacks to go ahead. A more plausible theory is that the administration was so incompetent that it failed to act on the information it had about the plot.

This is a long way from the Ickean dimension of reptilian lizards, the whackjob theory that the Twin Towers falling was CGI, or the blatant anti-Semitism behind the idea that it was all staged by Mossad. However, the view that the US government had some role in the 9/11 attacks still belongs to the conspiracists. Chomsky has dealt with these theories well in the past. He would point out that the 9/11 attackers were mostly Saudi citizens. If it was an 'inside job', it would make little sense to frame Saudi Arabia if the aim was to invade Iraq. This is still a major hole in the theories.

I have yet to hear an account of the 9/11 attacks which can account for this hole. Most conspiracy theorists don't even talk about it because it's outside the reach of their assumptions. The politics of conspiracism are uncritical of the surrounding world, in fact, the point of such theories is to reinforce passivity and provide excuses for inaction. Why try to change the world when the Illuminati run everything? They're all powerful. So any attempt to challenge them is doomed to failure. This is why there are no movements or parties based on these theories.

Serious political action and theory requires hard work. It requires commitment. Naturally the online 'truthers' have jumped on Chomsky's comments, while the remarks have left many of Chomsky's friends and fans perplexed. I am not alone in this regard. Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook has criticised Chomsky's comments. Here's what Cook posted on his Facebook page:

One doesn't need to be convinced that Bush-Cheney or the US security services were implicated in 9/11 to see that there is a deep problem with Chomsky adopting his new position. He has previously suggested in different places both that a major false-flag operation in the US would be almost impossible to conceal and that it is a waste of the left's energies, and its credibility, to indulge in this kind of speculation. 

That was at least a plausible position for him to adopt. But it is entirely inconsistent with his new position that we should expect Trump to carry out a false-flag operation and even accuse him of intending to do so before it occurs.

I have no doubt that Chomsky was right to argue that conspiracy theories are a dead-end for the left. So it's disappointing to read these comments, even in their full context. This isn't a reason to discard everything Chomsky has ever written. Demanding infallibility is unrealistic and ultimately puerile and rather conservative. Let's be mature about this. Furthermore, it is more in line with Chomsky's free thinking to disagree with him than it is to blindly follow him.

Interview: Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

Last week, the United States and Iran signed a long-awaited deal on the latter’s nuclear programme. The agreement will set limits on the Iranian nuclear programme, including a strict inspection regime, and massive reductions to the uranium stockpile for the next 15 years. In exchange for this Iran will be freed from the economic sanctions imposed against it. This deal raises new hopes and fears around the world. It also raises many questions, so we decided to contact Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson on the subject.

Lawrence Wilkerson was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff in the second Bush administration. He was also Associate Director of the State Department’s policy planning staff under Ambassador Richard Haass. Prior to this Wilkerson served for over 30 years in the US armed forces. He is also a veteran of the Vietnam war. During the First Gulf War he worked closely with General Colin Powell in the first Bush administration. Today Lawrence Wilkerson teaches at the College of William & Mary on Government and Public Policy.

White: By some observers at least the nuclear deal has been welcomed as a break with the tensions of the recent past. Does this new deal represent a bold shift in US-Iranian relations?

Wilkerson: It has the potential to be so. There is no guarantee that it will shift relations dramatically—particularly if certain members of Congress continue to try to foul the deal. But if the basic requirements of the deal are adhered to by both sides, over time some trust will return to the relationship. At the same time, if other overlapping and even common interests, such as the defeat of ISIS and a political solution to the Syrian civil war, are achieved by common effort, the relationship could prosper and evolve more positively. Moreover, if an improved Iranian economy causes more democracy in Iran, that too could help the relationship become fuller and warmer. It is long overdue for the U.S. to mellow its support for dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia and to develop a more nuanced and balanced approach to the Persian Gulf region. An improving US-Iran relationship could be a big part of such a change.

White: In many ways the Obama years resemble an extension of the second Bush term. This deal may be an exception. Why do you think the Obama administration has pursued this deal?

Wilkerson: Primarily for the same reason that it pursued better relations with Cuba: the time is long past for talking to potential enemies rather than attacking them, overtly in war or covertly in secret CIA operations. But specifically with regard to Iran, there is no answer to several huge challenges in the Persian Gulf region and in southwest Asia in general without Iran. Iraq, Syria, nor Afghanistan will find any stability without Iran’s assistance. Likewise, the situation of Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt will be problematic without ultimate Iranian acquiescence. At the end of the day, Israel’s security cannot be reasonably guaranteed either without tacit Iranian buy-in. Washington understood all these realities when Iran was the US proxy in the region, under the Shah from 1953 to 1979. Nothing has changed since then with regard to Iran’s power in the region; so, to ignore this reality today is truly unwise.

White: In 2010 Turkey and Brazil tried to broker a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme and the US government vetoed it. Does the new deal suit the US because of the strict inspection regime?

Wilkerson: That potential deal in 2010 was a good one and Washington was unwise to turn it down. Doing so delayed a good deal for five years. But now that we have a good deal, we should pursue it with vigor. The current deal allows the most intrusive inspection regime in the history of the NPT. Frankly, I am surprised that Iran is allowing so much. Cheating on any deal is possible, of course; but cheating within the parameters of this deal will be very difficult—and, more importantly, I have every confidence that we would detect such cheating in time to take appropriate action.

White: We’ve seen the Republicans come out in vocal opposition. Likewise, there have been signs of conservative scepticism within Iran. To what extent do you think the new deal is threatened by right-wing forces on both sides?

Wilkerson: I believe the Republicans in particular but some Democrats as well—Democrats who get a great deal of their political funding from Jewish Americans—will try to derail the deal. I feel the President has the votes to veto any adverse legislation or resolutions by the Republican congress and not have his veto overridden. But such moves would weaken the deal by showing less than solid support for it. I am hoping that the national interest—which is well-served by this deal—will override political gain with enough members of Congress to keep this from happening, but I am not certain my hope is going to be fulfilled. From my position as chief of staff to Secretary of State Powell in 2002, I saw how the Congress sabotaged the deal with north Korea, the so-called Agreed Framework. I know they can do it again. I just hope they don’t. I will be working to ensure that, as much as possible, the American people don’t let them do it. As for the Iranians, there are certainly groups that harbor people opposed to the deal as well—groups such as the IRGC, the al-Quds Force, and certain radical mullahs around the Ayatollah. But Ayatollah Khamenei has given President Rouhani the lead on this deal and if the economic picture is to be improved, he must continue to do so. I believe that is sufficient incentive for him to keep these oppositional elements in check.

White: The Israeli government and the Saudi royal family seem to be united in opposition to the nuclear deal. Does the split in the US political class represent a clash over regional interests?

Wilkerson: I’m not sure how the two thoughts in your question are related—except to interpret the question as meaning, do regional splits produce U.S. political splits? Not as much as some pundits try to insinuate. Most of the opposition to the deal—from my party, the Republicans—is simply political opportunism. My party has both houses of Congress and is salivating over the White House in 2016—or, rather, was. With Trump taking the early lead in the polls and with this very successful deal with Iran, my party has been set back a bit. So, its opposition to the deal has more politics in its fabric than substantive security concerns. They want the President to look bad and will do almost anything to achieve that purpose. That said, yes, the fact that this strange alliance between Tel Aviv and Riyadh has developed and that the Gulf Cooperation Council is buying billions of dollars of LockheedMartin’s BMD, and that Iran is on the “other side of this equation”, does cause political line-ups here in the US. So you have Republicans lined up supporting dictators with oil, Israel doing the same, and arguably the most democratic country in southwest Asia, Iran, being cast as their common enemy. Politics does make for strange bedfellows….

White: The US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter remarked that the “military option” remains on the table. What did you make of this remark?

Wilkerson: Just what he said. If the deal falls apart—specifically, if Iran cheats, breaks out and heads for a nuclear weapon—the military option is not foreclosed. Frankly, I believe saying it outright is stupid; but then this administration has not been the brightest bulb on the block when it comes to its rhetoric.

White: As a longstanding ally of Assad in Syria, as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran has been demonised by the West. Yet Iran stands as the only state with an interest in actively combating Islamic State. How valuable would Iran be as an ally?

Wilkerson: I think “ally”, formal or informal, is a step too far at the present moment—even though, as I said, Iran was our formal ally for over a quarter century. Gaining Iran’s assistance in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in ending the brutal war in Syria, with the defeat of ISIS, and with a number of other problematic situations in the region, would be a real plus, and not just for the US but, more importantly, for this very troubled region. As I said before, these situations will not be managed in a positive way without some assistance from Tehran. It’s that basic. The reality of this US-Iran deal may be more vital in this respect than in its more immediate nuclear aspect.

This interview was conducted in July 2015.

Anti-Semites for Israel.

The younger Bushman has crawled out from under his rock to speak to speak at a fundraising dinner today with tickets going from $100 to $100,000. For the latter you can get a VIP pass for twenty guests to see the anointed one, have your picture taken with him and get a copy of Decision Points autographed. This would not be a noteworthy event if it weren't for the fact that the event is being held by the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute. If that sounds odd here's a little clarification, the Institute's stated mission is to convert world Jewry to Christianity in order to bring about the Rapture. No doubt this is in accordance with the view that the End Times will mean burning in an everlasting lake of fire for all Jews (except for 140,000 Jews who are converted to Christianity). This is just one strategy for those on the Christian Right in its Armageddonist fantasies.

We should not be surprised to find a confluence of this level of fantasy and anti-Semitism. Even if we accept their professions of love for Israel as genuine we should not buy into the assumption that the Jewish state and the Jewish people are synonymous. Faiths and cultures are far too complex generally to be confined to a body national. The history of Christian anti-Semitism is too often whitewashed in an era where Israel seems mired in perpetual conflict with its neighbours and the Palestinians. The Roman Catholic Church only rescinded its accusations of deicide against the Jews in 1965, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. European societies have long found the presence of the apparently unsettled and rootless rather troubling. No wonder then anti-Semitism often combines with anti-Roma sentiments. The solution for some European Christians was to resituate the Jews as rooted citizens, either by stripping them of their Jewishness or by relocating them entirely.

 

Even in the liberal Christian states of the 19th Century the problem was that the Jewish tradition was not easily confined to the realm of an individuals' rights and freedoms. Traditions are communitarian rather than individualist. In the past this meant effective conversions and later it led to the proposals of the Nazi Party to relocate European Jewry to Madagascar. By contrast the Muslim world had little beef with Jews as a people without a land, it was once the state of Israel was founded (and the way in which it was founded) that the problems really heated up. In this way we find that the Christian anti-Semites have a vested interest in a Jewish state as a solution to their problem. You find this with people like John Hagee, a televangelist who has even suggested that the Holocaust was a part of God's plan to turn the Jews back toward Israel. This is not an exceptional case.

 

That old mountebank Pat Robertson wrote a book of conspiratorial fantasy in which the Jews play a role in a new world order set up. Then there was Billy Graham who was caught on tape to President Nixon (another remarkable bigot) agreeing that the Jews have a 'stranglehold' on the American media and referred to a 'synagogue of Satan'. And of course, you can't forget Jerry Falwell, the spiritual godfather of the Moral Majority, who once stated that the anti-Christ is among us and that he is an adult male Jew. Yet all of these men professed support for Israel and pledged a great deal of political support for the Israeli government in wars from 1967 onwards. One of the prerequisites for the Rapture is that the Jews return to Israel. The compatibility of this restorationist agenda with anti-Semitism should not be ignored. Evidently, Judeophobia is not unique to the Old World. It's a country where hotels once bore the label 'restricted' to mean they wouldn't take in Jewish guests.

 

Given that George W Bush gave up Johnnie Walker Black for the Nazarene we may not be so shocked that he is at least sympathetic to the most fervent depths of nuttiness. This is one of the main sources of votes harvested by the GOP machine (not that Bush much needed votes). The former President is in good company as the last big speaker was Glenn Beck, the same man who tooted a horn for Elizabeth Dilling's crackpot tirades against Jews and Communists. Let alone the way he scapegoated Hungarian-Jewish banker George Soros as a 'puppet master' of the Left. In the end Beck lost his platform at Fox after he started to cost them advertising dollars and the dip in ratings. He had gone too far for Abe Foxman, but never too far for the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute who gave Beck its Defender of Israel award and then chowed down on a mighty hog-roast. Seriously treif scenes.

Mailer's Conservatism.

Question: It was much more clean when you were an anarchist. We knew what that meant. But Left-Conservative?

Mailer: I have to redefine the term for myself every day because on its face, we have an oxymoron. But, it does have meaning for me. I think there are elements in the remains of left-wing philosophy (which has not had all that many new ideas for the last 30 years), that are worth maintaining.

Question: Such as?

Mailer: The idea that a very rich man should not make 4,000 times as much in a year as a poor man. On the other hand, I am not a liberal. The notion that man is a rational creature who arrives at reasonable solutions to knotty problems is much in doubt as far as I’m concerned. Liberalism depends all too much on having an optimistic view of human nature. But the history of the 20th century has not exactly fortified that notion. Moreover, liberalism also depends too much upon reason rather than any appreciation of mystery. If you start to talk about God with the average good liberal, he looks at you as if you are more than a little off. In that sense, since I happen to be—I hate to use the word religious, there are so many heavy dull connotations, so many pious self-seeking aspects—but I do believe there is a Creator who is active in human affairs and is endangered. I also believe there is a Devil who is equally active in our existence (and is all too often successful). So, I can hardly be a liberal. God is bad enough for them, but talk about the devil, and the liberal’s mind is blown. He is consorting with a fellow who is irrational if not insane. That is the end of real conversation.

On the other hand, conservatism has its own deep ditches, its unclimbable walls, its immutable old ideas sealed in concrete. But lately, there are two profoundly different kinds of conservatives emerging, as different in their way as the communists and the socialists were before and after 1917, yes, two types of conservatives in America now. What I call “value conservatives” because they believe in what most people think of as the standard conservative values—family, home, faith, hard work, duty, allegiance—dependable human virtues. And then there are what I call “flag conservatives,” of whom obviously the present administration would be the perfect example.

I don’t think flag conservatives give a real damn about conservative values. They use the words. They certainly use the flag. They love words like “evil.” One of Bush’s worst faults in rhetoric (to dip into that cornucopia) is to use the word “evil” as if it were a button he can touch to increase his power. When people are sick and have an IV tube put in them to feed a narcotic painkiller on demand, a few keep pressing that button. Bush uses evil as his hot button for the American public. Any man who can employ that word 15 times in five minutes is not a conservative. Not a value conservative. A flag conservative is another matter. They rely on manipulation. What they want is power. They believe in America. That they do. They believe this country is the only hope of the world and they feel that this country is becoming more and more powerful on the one hand, but on the other, is rapidly growing more dissolute. And so the only solution for it is empire, World Empire. Behind the whole thing in Iraq is the desire to have a huge military presence in the near-East as a stepping stone for eventually taking over the world. Once we become a twenty-first century version of the old Roman Empire, then moral reform will come into the picture. The military is obviously more puritanical than the entertainment media. Soldiers can, of course, be wilder than anyone, but the overhead command is a major pressure on soldiers, and it is not permissive.

Question: Who in American politics is a value conservative?

Mailer: Someone like Taft would be a good example of a value conservative. Eisenhower, probably, a gentle value conservative. More recently? Reagan, I think, was not. I will say that I don’t think Reagan ever had an original idea in his life. I once sat next to him, as near as I am sitting to you, at a lunch for eight people. This was in 1972 at the convention that nominated Nixon for the second time. I spent the entire meal trying to figure out a tough question to ask him. I always found that if you meet someone’s eyes, a good question can come to mind. And for two hours he sat there, perfectly calm and pleasant and kept making jokes and talking. It was a lightweight conversation. The physical impression of him was that he had about as much human specific density as, let’s say, a sales manager for a medium-sized corporation in the Midwest. That kind of modest, mild, well-knit heft was in his bearing. During those two hours, he chatted with all six Time reporters at the table, and his eyes never met mine. I found myself unable to come up with that tough question as a result. It became a matter of decorum. The mood was too genial. It occurred to me after he became president that he probably, if he could help it, never spent time talking to anyone who was of no use to him. An instinctive climber who scaled the face of success with great skill: that was his gift, if you will. He was surrounded by people who had many powerful ideas and who illumined him to the point where they could wind him up and then he could do his special stuff. At the time, he had an enormous impact on value conservatives because they thought he was one of them. I suspect he had about as much to do with them as a screen star does with an agricultural laborer.

A Criminal Decade for Afghans.

A toast to Freedom?

We have been in Afghanistan for 10 years now, though the US has interfered in Afghan affairs for closer to 30 years. It is almost common knowledge that the US intervened in the 1980s and backed the Mujahideen to fight the Russians who had invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Actually it was the Carter administration that put together $500 million to set up the Mujahideen in 1978 to counteract the Saur Revolution. The fundamentalist regime of General Zia-ul-Haq was more than welcome to assist the Americans in the bid to prevent Afghanistan from falling under the Iron Curtain. The support for General Zia-ul-Haq went as far as to support the radicalisation of Pakistani society, Jihadist manuals were actually printed at the University of Nebraska before being distributed throughout Pakistan. The consequent sympathy for Islamism in Pakistan combined with bureaucratic incompetence and institutional corruption is what kept Osama bin Laden safe in the country for so long. The horrible war which has now touched Pakistan as well as Afghanistan, for lack of a better word, cannot be understood without this context.

The Poodle's reward.

In the beginning we were told this is the "fight for freedom" and we were told "we will see freedom's victory" in the end. There is little mention of the facts about the people who run Afghanistan now. It is a narco-state where 50% of the economy is "black", which means that the cultivation and trafficking of drugs accounts for half of the Afghan economy. The war lords who cultivate and smuggle drugs out of the country are the same people who slaughtered 50,000 people in a 4 year bid to takeover Kabul in the 1990s. The war lords were won over to "our side" with truckloads of cash and guns. For years now these thugs have gotten away with the mass-rape of women, girls and boys. There is no serious commitment to the reconstruction of the country, instead the Karzai government is allowed to wallow in corruption while the ordinary Afghan goes without universal health-care and education. The Afghan people are only permitted a role of ratifying the position of President Hamid Karzai as the country is occupied and trashed.

The purpose of the invasion was never to overthrow the Taliban, the US had supported the Taliban for years and had provided billions of dollars in support of the regime. Then after 9/11 came the demands from George Bush that the Taliban has to hand over Osama bin Laden to the Americans. The Taliban agreed provided that the US put forward evidence (which is normal procedure for an extradition) and the US then proceeded to bomb Afghanistan without any international authorisation in October 2001. Ironically, the following year Bush and Blair were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. It is worth noting that there were 5 million Afghans on the verge of starvation in the country at the time and, as the bombing commenced, it looked as though the number could rise to 7.5 million. Thankfully the war has not led to starvation on a huge scale, but that does not excuse the immoral nature of the war. Unless we think that it was a sensible idea for Russia to station nuclear missiles in Cuba and point them at the US because it didn't lead to a nuclear war.

The Long Ride to a Free World?

The attacks of September 11th 2001 provided an opportunity for the US to drive a wedge into the Islamist movement, which was actually highly critical of the "new approach" al-Qaeda had taken to attack the far enemy rather than one of the many near enemies. If there had been a serious operation to apprehend the suspects then a wedge could have been driven into the Islamist movement, Osama bin Laden would have been isolated and the threat of terrorism could have been decreased. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the chief strategist of al-Qaeda, wrote then that the aim of the group was to lure the US into an over-reaction in which it would "wage battle against the Muslims." So that the US would be left vulnerable in a horrible drawn-out conflict while the long divided Islamist movement could be brought together against the West. The plan worked out as the US and UK jumped at the opportunity to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. There have since been attacks against cities across Europe, from Sweden to Spain.

It is difficult to ignore the strategic value of Afghanistan and Pakistan in the battle for control of energy resources in the region, which has yet to conclude and we have to bare in mind the superpowers in waiting (e.g. China and India). Logically any pipeline from India would have to pass through Pakistan and Afghanistan in order to reach the nearest sources of oil and gas in Iran or Turkmenistan. The problem is that India could feasibly turn to Iran for oil and gas, but the US wants to isolate Iran and would prefer it if the Indians turned to Turkmenistan. Afghanistan is situated close to major energy producers in Central Asia and the Middle East, it shares a border with Iran and therefore could be used to "contain" it's independent neighbour. The possibility of a Central Asian energy network which would exclude and isolate Iran is quite appealing to the US. To the chagrin of the Americans, Iran has managed to extend its influence in Iraq and Afghanistan in spite of the continued efforts to marginalise Iran in world affairs.

Talking Tough, Talking Bullshit.

Only when some of "our lads" are killed in battle are we allowed to criticise the war. So the deaths of over 40,000 Afghans would be fine so long as no American or British troops died along the way. The assumption is that this is a noble war against terrorism, which has to be fought to secure the West from further terrorist attacks. The line goes "If we don't fight them over there, we will be fighting them over here." The same argument was used by the US government to defend it's war against the Vietnamese, President Johnson stated "We have to stop the Communists over there [Vietnam] or we'll soon be fighting them in California." This is perverse because American and British troops are effectively dying in Afghanistan to raise the threat of terrorism in the US and the UK. As the war has been escalated it has spilled over into Pakistan, so now the possibility of a state with nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamists has increased. Protection of Western civilians and prevention of the spread of terrorism has nothing to do with the Afghan War.

The war in Afghanistan has nothing to do with freedom, democracy or anything as sanitary as self-defence. Not so much as a thought of the Afghan people has ever passed through the minds of the war-pigs and chickenhawks who decided to start this war. We are only allowed to question the war because "our lads" are suffering, which might explain there is little ink and camera film used to cover the slaughter of thousands of Afghan civilians. The vast majority of the people who have been killed in Afghanistan were the victims of the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, not the defenders of Osama bin Laden. We have to concede that the backlash has come from the victims of war, the Taliban now represents a small element of the armed opposition to the occupation. The war itself has made the West hated even more than it was before 9/11 and neither George Bush nor Tony Blair will have to live with the consequences of such hatred. It was Jean-Paul Sartre who said "When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die." Think Bush. Think Blair. Think of Obama and Cameron. Forgive none of these bastards.

Support our Dupes?

Get Cheney!

Behold the unremitting and unrepentant Dick Cheney, who is about to publish his memoirs. The book is yet another attempt to festoon the Bush legacy with a little more than the long list of disasters, outright megalomania, disregard for human life and all assorted fuck-ups. This is the man who ran the White House for at least 5 years as the Vice President to George W Bush. The man who ordered torture with such ice-cold ease, only Henry Kissinger topped him in the monstrous tasks he delegated. Dick Cheney lives and breathes war, he's a ultra-nationalist driven by an obscene desire to defend the ceaseless expansion of the American empire. The reign of Cheney and Bush shocked the world in its blunt arrogance and shameless embodiment of everything wrong with the United States. No doubt Cheney would remind us that we all 'owe' our freedom to the Americans for fighting Fascism and Communism to the bitter end. The jingo is blind even when confronted with a wall of mirrors.

 It was the Bushites who rammed the USA Patriot act through Congress. The act gave the state the power to monitor phone-calls, emails, medical records, credit card bills, bank records and even library records. The NSA are currently building a national database the size of a city to house the data raked in. The preference for the NSA over the CIA goes back to the struggle within the Nixon administration between Kissingerian realists and what we might deem 'idealists'. The CIA adhere to a realist vision of foreign policy which is ruthlessly pragmatic in the defence of American interests. Where Henry Kissinger wanted detente with the Soviet Union the guys like Cheney wanted to continue the Cold War no matter what. Perpetual war for perpetual peace is the name of the game for Cheney and friends. The point for the interests that Cheney served is not victory over 'good' or 'evil', but the endless accumulation of capital secured through the military-industrial complex. Cheney and Rumsfeld are joined at the hip, the two of them are ruthless in their goals and managed to strip Henry Kissinger of his position in government back in the 70s.

Since 1949 the US has spent over $7.1 trillion on its military budget, today it accounts for 50% of military spending in the world and over roughly the same period of time the US has "intervened" in over 70 countries around the world. In the service of this war machine which also props up a large share of the American economy, Cheney was willing to go to extraordinary lengths. Cheney and Rumsfeld pushed for a way to recreate a new Cold War with China as the major 'enemy' to be defeated. Of course the military-industrial complex and the energy industry approved of this proposal, but it would have significantly lowered the American standard of living if it had been pursued and "Corporate America" was well aware of that. So the plan of a new Cold War was not followed through, Colin Powell was quick to nudge George Bush in that direction and see it would not materialise. Sadly the entire administration was complicit in the re-declaration of the "War on Terrorism" which has seen more than a million people slaughtered in Iraq for oil.

It was in 2007 that Dick Cheney urged President Bush to bomb Syria as he learned the country could possess a nuclear reactor. It was other advisers who thwarted this plot, as in the other cases. Note the hold Cheney had over the Oval Office was weakened considerably as Donald Rumsfeld and a lot of the neoconservatives were booted out in 2006. The second Bush term was comparatively moderate as a result. The President is only as good and wise as the advisers who surround him. For years Cheney managed to spoon-feed Bush information which he "cherry-picked" without the consultation of the CIA and gathered directly from raw data. This brings us back to Cheney's pernicious relationship with the CIA. The supply-side economics prescription which Cheney has backed for decades in government posts, as well as in Congress and as a capitalist, led to financial crisis and the current stagnancy the global economy has experienced. It was the process of deregulation that Cheney accelerated which led to the BP disaster.

Now it turns out Dick Cheney kept a preemptive signed resignation letter in a locked safe for all the years he served in the Bush administration. Only the President and a single member of Cheney's personal staff knew of the letter's existence. He claimed the letter might have been necessary due to his history of health problems, which is a reference to the heart which runs on pure radical evil to the extent that it almost destroys itself on a regular basis. I find it more likely that Cheney was fully aware of the depravity in which he indulged in as a fitting expression of who he is and what he believes. The resignation letter was drawn-up early on because he expected an enormous backlash against the administration. Sadly the widespread opposition and outrage over his government did not suffice for him to step down at any point. The ongoing freedom of this wretched creature is itself a vindication for Anacharsis, who saw laws as cobwebs capable of keeping the weak entangled but flimsy when confronted with the strong. When he finally does die of an enormous heart attack all we can say is that it would've been better had he never lived at all, but it would be better if we just take a silent and steamy piss on his grave.

Obama kills Osama.

The Justice Done.

Osama bin Laden has finally been wasted, at his notably immodest hideout, in Pakistan by US forces. For a long time he was the international personification of Islamist Terror for around a decade. A signifier of pure and radical evil in the West, the name itself was enough to conjure up the images of the Twin Towers crashing down after the planes struck. Osama stands out from the 52 children of Mohamed bin Laden, a multimillionaire who built 80% of roads in Saudi Arabia and died in a helicopter crash in 1968. In a sense Osama bin Laden personifies the contorted base and superstructure of Islamism. A son of the Saudi bourgeoisie, born to privilege and luxury as a result of capital accumulation which would have been impossible without the close relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia. The contradiction between the economic base of corporate oligarchy and the ideological superstructure of radical Islam is evident in the surroundings of which he was found. Only the face of Islamist Terror could hide in a mansion less than a mile from Pakistan's Sandhurst.

The BBC is eager to remind us that the ideas of Osama bin Laden are not dead, we ought to keep in mind that the ideas are not his own. It was Sayyid Qutb who advocated the formation of  state with all the advances of Western science and technology, but it would be purified of the decadence of liberalism through a strict adherence to a radical interpretation of the Qu'ran. These conclusions Qutb made after his travels in America throughout the 1940s and upon his return to his native land of Egypt he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Brothers supported the revolution led by General Nasser, a bourgeois nationalist committed to a non-aligned secular model of development. The CIA had trained the security services of Egypt. By 1954 Sayyid Qutb was imprisoned for his political activities, he was tortured and suffered a heart attack in his time in prison. The experiences of prison radicalised Qutb even further, he concluded that the possessive individualism of the West was a barbarous infection.

All the means of combating the spread of jahiliyyah in Egypt were justifiable and leaders like Nasser could be killed justifiably because he was no longer a Muslim according to Qutb. The Nationalist regime tried Qutb for treason and then executed him to set an example. The radical writings inspired a young doctor, another aristocrat, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 1981 Zawahiri helped organise the assassination of Sadat, for his corruption and compromise to Israel. The Propaganda of the Deed was intended to provoke a mass-uprising against the Nationalist regime in Egypt. There was no such uprising in support of a Islamist state, Sadat was merely succeeded by Mubarak. In prison al-Zawahiri was tortured and he began to blame the Muslim masses for failing to rise up against the corrupt regime in Cairo. He went on to conclude that the masses had been corrupted and were no longer Muslims either. For him the slaughter of politicians, infidels and even ordinary Muslims would be necessary in order for Islamism to be realised in a country.

Once Ayman al-Zawahiri was released from prison he went to Afghanistan to help the resistance to the Communists and Osama bin Laden had moved there in 1979 for the same reason. The two of them would become heavily involved in the radical wing of the Mujahideen, which had been founded in 1978, just before the Soviet invasion, with money provided by the Carter administration. The flow of money to the Mujahideen was increased under Reagan, it was funnelled through Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Incidentally the regime of General Zia ul-Haq initiated the radicalisation of Pakistani society in the 80s and we are still seeing the consequences today. The corruption in Pakistan is the reason that Osama bin Laden managed to hide there for so long. The US not only funded but trained the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan, ironically Osama bin Laden personally thanked Prince Bandar for securing the assistance from the Americans. Over 30 years of war has reduced Afghanistan to a backward narco-state, it was once a modern and forward-looking country.

The Terror of War.

The name bin Laden was rolled out on the news soon after the attacks on the Twin Towers took place on September 11th 2001. The televised images were horrifying and surreal. How could such a thing happen to America? When the attacks hit home, I had just got back from school to find the horrible news on telly. Looking back, my reaction is quite interesting. I immediately changed channel. The reason: I took the sight of people fleeing from an enormous dust cloud must be something to do with Israel-Palestine. The constant fighting over patches of sand seemed a wearisome issue at the time, an unsolvable conflict which had gone on forever and would go on forever. When my mother informed me of the dreadful truth, that the people in those towers were American and not the fresh victims of a conflict going back 60 years. At first I thought the planes must have flown into the Towers by accident somehow. No one would dare attack the beloved America, the land which brought us The Simpsons and Coca-Cola. It had to be an accident.

In the wise words of Hunter S Thompson "The Towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for peace in our time, in the United States or any other country." Soon the old men with grey hair were on TV and we were all assured that there would be justice. George Bush re-declared the "War on Terrorism", a declaration originally made by Ronald Reagan, the words of Thompson were proven deadly accurate. The justifications for warfare against "rogue states" were reminiscent of the words picked by LBJ "We have to stop the communists over there [Vietnam] or we'll soon be fighting them in California." Only the Western victims of terror mattered and the Persian Gulf War had demonstrated that the invasion of a country could be executed without major casualties (on our side). Don't mind the thousands of Iraqi slain, particularly civilians and the hundreds of thousands more who would be brutalised by economic sanctions.

The invasion of Afghanistan followed as the Taliban refused to extradite Osama bin Laden to the US, but would do so on the condition that there was evidence put forward. It is strange that the US seems perfectly capable of extraditing Julian Assange for rape, but not a man who was responsible for terrorism on an international scale. The regime in Kabul had been propped up on cash from Saudi Arabia and the US. Even radical Jihadists condemned Osama bin Laden at the time, so there was a chance to divide the Islamists and secure the extradition through unscrupulous methods not alien to the chickenhawks. Nevertheless, the invasion went ahead as the British and Americans were fully aware the military strike could lead to the deaths of over 7 million people just through starvation. It was not part of a reaction to 9/11. The war has united the Islamist movement against the West and the threat of private-terrorism increased sharply. Even more so after the invasion of Iraq.

We do not know if the invasion could have been avoided given the concentration of power in the US and the convergence of interests in favour of war. The bombing of Afghanistan killed civilians and was executed to demonstrate the might of the US. From the standpoint of neoconservatives it might have been seen a necessary war to be fought in order to take Iraq later on. The American people had to be brought together in a fight against a common enemy, which morphed from bin Laden to the Taliban in a couple of weeks. The value of Afghanistan is strategic as the country is situated on the edge of the oil spicket of the world. Not just the Middle East, but also Central Asia. The way in which India seeks to power it's growing economy is relevant here, rationally there could be agreements between India and Iran to run a fuel pipeline through Pakistan. The US wants to isolate Iran and force the Indians to make a deal with Turkmenistan, which would require a multi-billion dollar pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.

What Justice Done?

It took 10 years to kill this man, though the extent to which the "War on Terror" was about capturing this man seems highly suspect. In death he has secured a second term for Obama, who has finally accomplished one of his election promises to kill Osama bin Laden and may have made the demagogues calling for Obama's birth certificate look irrelevant. We should remember that it was the idle threats bin Laden made in 2004 which secured a second term for the Bushites. In other words, the financier of international terror had earned a swift burial at sea from the Americans. No doubt the conspiracy theorists will be typing vigorously. The de facto leadership of al-Qaeda are still at large, the organisation has lost a useful financier and prominent ideologue. The former of which will be easier to replace than the latter. Despite the superficial role of bin Laden, the Taliban have sworn revenge and al-Qaeda may have acquired a useful prominent martyr.

The Republicans will seek to vindicate the Bushites of such criminal indulgences as kidnapping and torture at secret prisons around the world, as well as the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The Democrats can forget about the lessons of the Bush administration and it will be up to the American people to force the US government to change. The United States of Amnesia at it's finest! Revenge is the word for it and far more appropriate than justice as the latter would require a degree of self-reflection and presuppose a lack of double-standards. If the US were to pull out of Afghanistan and leave the Iraqi people to decide the trajectory of their country it might mean more than simple vengeance. It would mean even more if the Bush administration faced trial for the crimes committed in the name of freedom and democracy. After all the Bushites are guilty of the supreme international crime - unprovoked aggression - established at the Nuremberg Tribunal.

There is something surreal about the death of bin Laden, a man who had avoided capture for 10 years and in the end was killed. There were theories that he had been killed or died years ago. Some even thought he had never existed or was not involved in 9/11 in any way. The corpse was buried at sea after it was not accepted by Saudi Arabia. It would have been the appropriate burial ground for a man who bought into the obscurantist Wahhabi brand of Islam, a puritanical reading of the Qu'ran propagated to protect the heart of capitalism in the Middle East. The assassination of Osama bin Laden has come at a vital moment for Obama, it will provide a 'boost' for Americans who are looking at huge austerity measures and economic turmoil. The impact of the man's death - which has even boosted the stock market - is far less noticeable in Europe where there are no gatherings of people chanting nationalistic slogans. Possibly because in Europe there is the stark perception of what the American government has done since the tragedy of 9/11.

The greatest victory of Islamism would be the self-destruction of Western values as a reaction against itself, a sadomasochistic method if there ever was one. The proponents of liberal interventionism, from American neocons to Blairites, are so eager to fight radical Islamism to defend Western values and the Judeo-Christian civilisation. Not only are the warriors on terror profoundly anti-Christian in their rejection of Christianity as a universalist doctrine and reversion to Paganism. The terrorists are prepared to destroy this world for love of another world, the counter-terrorists are ready to destroy the Free World out of a hatred of the Muslim Other. From waging illegal wars to legalising torture, the greatest infringement on freedom and democracy, made to defend freedom and democracy. This is a contradiction internal to late capitalism, the explicit need for a violence in the defence of freedom against violence and in doing so freedom is lost. After the "War on Terror" Americans should inquire what was it the US was fighting for?

Shame on You, Mr Blair!

A Journey is the title of the self-serving piece of narcissistic trash churned out by Tony Blair, like so many other lies, for the "rabble" to feast upon. Clearly, Mr Blair is not content with the Medal of Freedom from George Bush, the £20 million he has amassed since he left office or his cushy job as Peace Envoy to the Middle East. No, it is not enough for him, he must play a part in crafting his own legacy. Blair can't help himself, he must distort the truth further for the sake of self-glorification. Mr Blair would prefer it if we, the people he despises, were to remember him as a "progressive" for implementing the minimum wage, working tax-credits, repealing Section 28 and devolving power to Scotland and Wales. These were just tokens, symbolic gestures, Blair threw to the "rabble" to look like a "progressive". Blair is less proud of banning fox hunting, which he boasts of sabotaging in his book, and coming up with the Freedom of Information act, because it enables journalists to ask annoying questions.

The donation Blair has made to British troops is also a token, a symbolic gesture of caring to help the image. Of course, in donating the proceeds to soldiers Blair does not absolve him of the role he played in engineering a blood bath in the Middle East. There is no compensation for the 1 million-plus Iraqis slaughtered and the 4 million displaced because of the decision made under him. If we lived in a civilised society the Blair cabinet and the Bush administration would be in the Hague. He would rather we forgot about Iraq and Afghanistan, rather we remember him as a great man for bringing peace to Ireland and the Balkans. But we the people, whom he harbours such contempt for, should not forget him as the neoconservative who opposed tighter regulations of banking whilst supporting a campaign of violence in the Middle East.

In 2007 Blair was driven out of office, he was succeeded by the much loathed Gordon Brown, just one year short of meeting Thatcher's record of 11 years in power - a goal so petty we know it must have consumed him. In retrospect it was sad to see Blair leave office so prematurely, as we were denied the pleasure of his downfall and had to "make-do" with Brown. He has only resurfaced recently to peddle copies of his mediocre book, which Richard Seymour described as "Blair's fat little compendium of pseudo-revelations, attacks on personal acquaintances and colleagues, self-justifying circumlocutions, political polemic, and narcissistic reflections, comes with its own self-destruct button." In which Blair compares himself to Lady Diana, as she was as manipulative as he is apparently, and remarks that he felt "armoured and able to float above the demonic rabble tethering at his limbs."

Recently, when being interviewed by Andrew Marr, Blair appeared glib as always. He was keen to come across as the maker of right decisions and humble enough to admit a few faults. The "right decision" being the invasion of Iraq, the "fault" being the ban on fox hunting. But it would be a gross understatement to say that Blair is "out-of-touch". As the old Poodle is now to the Right of Nick Clegg on foreign policy and to the Right of David Cameron on ID cards, civil liberties and immigration. Blair even claims that Brown lost the election because he deviated from the "New Labour programme" and insisted that the Labour Party has to be open to "successful people", like himself obviously. This Poodle has even gone so far as to back the Con-Dem Coalition in the cuts agenda they are pursuing, further demonstrating that his loyalty to the Labour Party is little more than a shallow tribal instinct. The only thing "red" about Tony Blair is the blood under his fingernails.

Whether he likes it or not, Tony Blair will go down in history for his part in the illegal invasion of Iraq and the shameful way in which he aligned himself with the Bush administration. He claims that aligning himself with the Bushites brought him closer to the American people, even though Bush was anointed by the US Supreme Court not the American people and out of a populace of over 300 million people only 50 million people voted for Bush. We should not forget that 'George the Anointed' and his policies only really benefited around 1% of Americans. It was the richest 1% of the population which gained $1.6 trillion under the Bush tax-cuts. So the invasion of Iraq, an act of aggression which would be condemned under the Nuremberg principles, is certainly not a crime perpetrated by the majority of the American people - the same is true of Britain. The responsibility lies on the members of the Blair cabinet and the Bush administration. To call these people "liars" would be to presuppose the false notion that they can even tell the truth.

In the Andrew Marr interview Blair proclaimed that it is moral to overthrow tyrants because they are tyrants. Though he was keen to point out exceptions, such as Mugabe, exceptions made along "pragmatic grounds". Of course King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Hosni Mubarak, dictators backed by Britain and America, were not examples of his choice. This is the principle which is supposed to vindicate Mr Blair of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the deaths of over 1 million Iraqis. Though he still claims that the invasion was down to Saddam's violations of UN resolutions over weapons of mass-destruction. Blair has backed away from a previous statement in which he "revealed" that he would have invaded Iraq even if he had known that Saddam did not have WMD. After realising that this is an indefensible position which leaves him vulnerable to even more criticism Blair backed away from it.

The Poodle also claimed that the invasion of Iraq was not for America, it was for Britain. The truth is that it was not for a country at all. The no-bid reconstruction contracts handed over to companies like Halliburton and Bechtel via executive agreements are evidence of this. It's been estimated that 80% of Iraqi oil has been seized by American and British energy corporations. Not only that, the economy of Iraq has been transformed - for the worst - with the public sector being decimated by a series of economic reforms known as "shock therapy". These policies were not the result of a "fledgling democracy" but were imposed through the Coalition Provisional Authority, which was made up of Americans and Brits. It was "shock therapy", which slashed the corporation tax down from 40% to 15% and has allowed multinational corporations to transfer 100% of their profits out of Iraq tax-free. The war Blair embarked on for Britain, was more like an armed looting spree by corporations.


Blair is not the first to bring out a book to set the record "straight", and he will not be the last either. George W Bush will be releasing his book Decision Points in November of this year. As Michael Moore once said, we live in fictitious times in which we have fictitious election results and fictitious governments who send the poor off to kill other poor people for fictitious reasons. Shame on you, Mr Blair! Though it is no surprise that these people are now attempting to sway and distort history in their favour. Let's hope that New Labour and its "noble lies" are dead now, the only way forward for the Labour Party is a return to its heritage of working-class radicalism. Nothing short of a trial in the Hague would be a moral end to this chapter in 21st Century politics. Sadly the chapter may outlive Blair and Bush, as the extremities of the past decade will reverberate throughout government for years to come.

Raping and Pillaging in Mesopotamia.

"I believe freedom is the future of all humanity." - George W Bush

Despite massive opposition around the world, the US led the invasion of Iraq with the expressed intent of removing Saddam Hussein - a vile and brutal dictator - from power, to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. Everyone knows that Iraq is a major oil producing nation, second only to Saudi Arabia, and many members of the Bush administration had worked in the energy industry. Oil, the black gold that flows below Iraq's sand and dirt, is the reason most often cited by the public for the invasion today. We now know that 80% of Iraqi oil has gone to American and British energy corporations. But there is another side to the invasion that is often ignored. The Coalition Provisional Authority initiated a wave of radical economic reforms known as "shock therapy". These reforms included the mass-privatisation of state industries and public services, followed by deregulation of the markets and a 30% cut in corporation tax. These same corporations were also permitted to transfer their profits out of Iraq 100% tax free.

The aim of this "shock therapy" was to create the ideal market economy. On which a flimsy brand of democracy would be predicated, as the power of the state had been largely handed over to the private sector. The corporations that were soon dominating Iraq's economy, were fed a diet of no-bid reconstruction contracts by the US government. For example, Bechtel received a $35 million contract which also covered costs up to $680 million. But Halliburton is the most infamous case, a company once run by Dick Cheney, as it received $10 billion worth of contracts through executive agreements. Halliburton was suspected of overcharging, using the money of American tax-payers to cover it's costs, but only $10 million of the $250 million contested costs were not covered by the US government. In a sense, the private sector consists of tyrannical organisations, known as corporations and businesses, in which leaders are unelected and answer to no one, except their shareholders. They act to maximise profit and minimise cost, regardless of the needs and wants of the Iraqi people.

It is these corporate tyrannies that stand in the way of the Iraqi people in pursuing goals that are rooted in traditional politics like nationalism and socialism. The brand of democracy, perhaps more appropriately labelled polyarchy, introduced to Iraq will most likely stifle any attempt at radical or progressive change. As the real power lies in concentrated wealth in Iraq and these corporations will give support to the politicians most hospitable to their needs and wants. We have already seen this in the form of the Constitution of Iraq, which was written by men chosen by the provisional government. This is the reason that the only piece of legislation remaining from the years under Saddam is that which restricts workers from unionising. Initially, it appeared that the Bush administration were aiming to install an iron-fisted government to rule Iraq that was probably not much different to the regime led by Saddam Hussein. In reaction to this there were mass-demonstrations orchestrated by Ali al-Sistani and his followers. The US government was trying to avoid a truly democratic Iraq and ignored the demonstrations, as a result the insurgency began.

These are the real reasons that the invasion of Iraq was a war crime, the pathetic liberal cop-outs that deem the war a "military blunder" are insufficient to condemn the war in it's depravity. The Nuremberg tribunal held aggression, in the form of invasion, as the supreme international crime. Under this umbrella falls all subsequent crimes, like the use of white phosphorous and other chemical warfare in Fallujah which has left hundreds of thousands horribly deformed. Let alone the number of Iraqis killed since the invasion, which is now over 1 million, and those who have been driven from their homes, who number around 4 million. If we want to continue to hold up the war against fascism as the great moral battle of the 20th century, we should at least have the decency to ensure that the Nuremberg principles are not trampled. For that reason, Bush and Blair should both be tried at the Hague. But also reparations should be made, Iraq should be reconstructed in accordance with the needs of the Iraqi people in mind - not in accordance with some utopian capitalist vision.