War All the Time.

The special place of British troops who fought in the Falklands in this funeral should surprise no one. It was the war that saved Margaret Thatcher in the 1983 General Election, without which the later battles over the mines, privatisation and the poll tax would've never been fought. Since the death of the 'Iron Lady' we have heard little of the truth of Thatcher's foreign policy. Only the snippets have made it through in a collage of sound bites cherry-picked and arranged by the media class as part of the Thatcher hagiography. We're reminded of the Falklands war, as it was her saviour in life, it is now her saviour in death. There has been little to no mention of the full range of Thatcherite foreign policy, only Ireland and South Africa are mentioned as negative examples of the decisions made by the Thatcher government. Little mention of Thatcher's subservience to American power, evident in her decisions to support Reagan's bombing of Libya and Bush's invasion of Panama to kidnap Noriega. No mention of Thatcher's support for violence around the world.

 

 

The Falklands was once adequately summarised by Jorge Luis Borges as a "fight between two bald men over a comb." It was hardly a noble stand for democracy against dictatorship, as the Thatcher government was supporting Pinochet at the same time. In fact the Chilean dictatorship was a major ally in the war with Argentina. It's plausible that the Thatcher government would've had little qualm with the Argentine Generals had the islands not been an issue of dispute. That can hardly be called 'principled' in any sense of the word. It was a convenient way to benefit from the nationalist fervour too often stirred by war. In his bid to displace anger over his economic policies Galtieri gave Thatcher the opportunity needed to distract from the economic crisis in Britain. The sons of the poor were sent to fight and die for even less than the islands themselves. For their victory the Thatcher government rewarded the country with a programme of privatisation and deregulation, the consequences of which we are still living with to this day.

 

A year before the Falklands war was to be waged Margaret Thatcher gave the nod to the KMS to start training and arming the Contras in Nicaragua. It was a part of Washington's policy of stamping out all opposition with death squads. The support for the Contras would later burst out into the open and expose the ugliness under the surface of America's wars for 'liberty' and 'democracy'. The only other foreign policy position that the press have praised has been Thatcher's stance on the invasion of Grenada. Supposedly the 'Iron Lady' was outraged by the operations conducted in a Commonwealth nation without consulting the British. Actually the outrage was rather timid and private, while the UK government stood in line and supported the invasion. It definitely isn't the case that the Thatcherites were making anything more than cold calculated decisions to keep in line with American foreign policy. As we will see, for the most part, Thatcher failed to differentiate herself from the American line on world affairs.

 

 

We are meant to look upon Margaret Thatcher as a strident anti-Communist who brought down the Berlin Wall with the Reaganites. Even the words the Communists tried to use against her were turned against them. The term 'Thatcherism' was originally deployed by the Communist Party of Great Britain, while 'Iron Lady' was a sobriquet of Soviet invention; it was Dennis Healey who dubbed her 'Attila the Hen'. Old Madge delighted in all of this. It was the only and best card to play of course. Unsurprisingly then 'Attila the Hen' was quick to attack the Soviet empire upon taking office in 1979. It was one of Thatcher's first acts to persuade the European Economic Community to put a stop to its shipments of food and powdered milk to the children of Vietnam. After that decision a third of all infants under five deteriorated and many were stunted. Perhaps the only journalist to document this in the West was John Pilger. He also kept an eye on Thatcher's support for the enemies of the enemy in a bid to support one dominion over another in the Cold War.

 

It was not enough that the US war in Indochina had killed maybe more than 3 million people. The children of Vietnam were guilty by virtue of being born into a Communist state that had dared to try and defy the American empire. When the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and overthrew Pol Pot it was the US - still bitter over its humiliation in Indochina - led the chorus of international condemnation. Quick to follow the Americans as ever the British were soon on the side of Pol Pot. It was a matter of supporting China's influence in the region over that of Russia. The Khmer Rouge claimed to be the legitimate government of Kampuchea, so the US and the UK supported their bid to hold onto their seat in the UN. The West withheld aid to Cambodia until the Vietnamese occupation came to an end. The argument was that the Vietnamese would not let the aid reach the Cambodian people. Meanwhile, Vietnam sent over 25,000 tonnes of food aid across the border to feed civilians.

Instead the US government piled on the pressure for the World Food Programme to send $12 million in food to the Khmer Rouge sitting across the Thai border under UN protection. As Pilger has noted, the US had been secretly funding Pol Pot in exile since January 1980. The extent of this support - $85m from 1980 to 1986 - was later revealed in correspondence to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Major government would admit in 1991 that the UK had provided the Khmer Rouge with SAS training from 1983. It was in a 1988 interview for Blue Peter of all settings that the 'Iron Lady' clarified her view of the Khmer Rouge "Pol Pot could not go back... but some of the Khmer Rouge of course are very different I think there are probably two parts to the Khmer Rouge there are those who supported Pol Pot and then there is a much much more reasonable grouping within that title 'Khmer Rouge'..." This should not shock the cold-eyed realists of the world.



In the bid to support China mattered more than justice - which was not on the balance sheet of priorities. The deaths of 1.2 million people under Pol Pot were a price worth paying for extending China's reach and rolling back Russian influence. In the surrounding region the Thatcherites were a force of continuity and pledged support for Suharto in Indonesia. This support went as far as arming Suharto's troops to butcher the people of East Timor. The deals were overseen by minister Alan Clark, who had no concern for the consequences of his actions. Again, the justification for America's support for Suharto was to hold-off Communism. Sukarno was too left-ish and had to go, the CIA made sure of that in 1965 with the coup that installed Suharto for the next 33 years. The deaths of 200,000 people in East Timor didn't matter, neither did the deaths of more than a million people in Indonesia itself. It mattered not to Mr Reagan as little as it did to Mrs Thatcher.

 

This was a policy not contained nor unique to East Asia. It was the Thatcher government which violated Britain's neutrality in the Iran-Iraq war and began to sell as many arms as possible to Saddam in 1981. The American government had yet to remove Iraq from the terrorist list at that time. Once Iraq had been taken off the list (and replaced with Cuba) the Reagan administration threw total support behind Saddam. Before the Reaganites could fully align themselves with Hussein in 1982, Thatcher was sending Christmas cards to not just Saddam Hussein but Colonel Gaddafi. Together the Reaganites and the Thatcherites won over Saddam to the American side of the Cold War. That was before the standing of both Saddam and Gaddafi changed. Over 20 years later, as Jonathan Schwarz noted, the Iron Lady penned this line for an article "Saddam must go... It is clear to anyone willing to face reality that the only reason Saddam took the risk of refusing to submit his activities to U.N. inspectors was that he is exerting every muscle to build WMD."

 

We're living with the legacy of Thatcherism abroad and not just at home, it is very much alive and kicking. It's not just that we live with privately owned electric companies and a crippled labour movement. It was Thatcher's foreign policy which stands as the extension of the prescription of austerity, privatisation and deregulation. Financialisation and wars of aggression are not as far from one another as it may appear. Both were just as short-sighted as one another. It was the Thatcher-Reagan support for Iraq in its development of weapons of mass-destruction in the 1980s the Iranians reacted by re-opening the nuclear facilities that had been closed with the era of the Shah. We know how this ended for Iraq and we should be alarmed by the ongoing aggression demonstrated by the US and the UK towards Iran. It could all too easily escalate into a full-blown war and we know whose side we shall be on. And for that we may thank the departed.

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?

The Latest Series from Adam Curtis.

Here are the three episodes of the latest series by documentarian Adam Curtis, in full wholes and not in tedious 10 minute chapters, along with the articles I wrote on each episode and the series in recent weeks. I strongly recommend the work of Adam Curtis, whether it be his documentaries, his blog or his articles in the press. The commentary he has to offer is related to the areas of his focus back in Oxford, specifically: genetics, evolutionary biology, psychology, politics, sociology and elementary statistics. In his latest series of films he looks at the way we have come to believe that the old hierarchies of power can be supplanted with self-organised networks from the internet to the global economy. Today we dream of systems which can balance and stabilise themselves without the intervention of authoritarian power. In reality this is the fantasy of the machines, it is not indicative of nature and it is an insufficient means of changing the world for the good.

All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

Ayn Rand, Computers and Capitalism

Adam Curtis has offered a consistently fascinating and intelligent alternative to the realm of acceptable commentary in the mass-media. With the standard BBC accent Curtis comes across as just another Oxbridge liberal and, in all fairness, Curtis studied and worked at Oxford before he went to work in television which means he was born into a bourgeois background. But it is not the case that Curtis is a part of the Establishment and has been routinely attacked by the commentariat for his more controversial documentaries. In Pandora's Box he explores the dangers of the use of technocratic and supposedly rational theories in politics to run society, whether it be the social engineering of Bolshevik Russia or economic science in Britain. The acceptable commentary on monetarism in Britain is that it has been a successful way of controlling inflation and Curtis challenged this and pointed out that the money supply was actually on the rise by the time inflation was brought down to less than 3% in the 1980s.

In the conclusion of The Trap Adam Curtis calls for the reformulation of positive liberty in order to pursue radical change, which will not necessarily lead to tyranny and oppression as Isaiah Berlin argued. Before that in The Century of the Self Curtis argued that the average citizen has become a slave to their own desires, just as politicians have as well, in doing so we have forgotten that we can be more than that and that there are other sides to human nature. In The Power of Nightmares he concludes that the politics of fear will not last forever and leave the political class where it was left to concede that it has no ideas to offer the masses. For him the "War on Terror" is a grand narrative which was used to make sense of the world, it served the interests of politicians, journalists and terrorists in this way. The view of terrorism Adam Curtis put forward in The Power of Nightmares was criticised on the false grounds that he "implied" that al-Qaeda did not exist. It is clear that these are not the projects of just another Oxbridge liberal.

Social Networks, Resistance and the New Capitalism

Holism, White Whines & Multiculturalism

As a commentator Curtis is primarily concerned with the way ideas can effect the world, which would distinguish him from classical Marxists who would stress the role of the economic system in relation to ideas and the way the world is run. He is concerned with the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a few. The latest series of films challenges the ideas of the Left which originate in the counter-culture of the 60s. Since then have been fused with the ideas of the libertarian Right, so to eliminate race, gender and class in a radically individualistic conception of the world. For him there is a dire need for leadership and inspirational visions of a better world on the Left, to challenge power we need to go beyond self-organised networks of individuals. There is a lack of a grand alternative to capitalism right now, there are plenty of alternatives which are not articulated well and are left to stew in academic circles for a long time.

The thesis is reminiscent of the Žižekian call for serious collective acts, as well as an examination of old ideas like communism, critique of ideology and the reactualisation of Lenin. We should not be so fearful of power, but rather be willing to use power. Slavoj Žižek would also emphasise that there are times when we can and should just sit still. He has also suggested that the contemporary Left should "begin from the beginning over and over again." In other words, we should not attempt build further on the revolutionary epoch of the 20th Century and descend to the point at which we started and rethink what we are doing. After doing so we can once again attempt to ascend the High Mountain, to borrow a simile used by VI Lenin. Even after the disaster of the 20th Century we should reorganise and make another serious attempt at radical change, just as Samuel Beckett once wrote "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Africa, Barbarism & Civilisation

The Post-Politics of the Selfish Gene

Africa, Barbarism & Civilisation.

In the last installment of All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace we saw some of the horrors which Africa has been subjected to. The focus of the episode is on the Congo, which inevitably draws the focus to Rwanda, in the post-colonial era. Curtis shows us the way in which the Belgian documentarian Armand Denis explored Africa in the 1930s and made films to inform audiences in the West about Africa. In Rwanda he helped create the myth that the Tutsis were a noble race of people who originated in Egypt whilst the Hutus were a separate race of ignorant peasants. Actually the Tutsis were the dominant group, though the Hutus held some positions in government, but lived on the same land as the Hutus and neither saw the other as a different race. The myth was constructed to serve the colonial interests invested in Africa at the time. We may be reminded that in the trajectory of history, advances made in emancipation are also advances made in barbarism.

The Belgians brought scientists in to provide a defence of the myth. The scientists conducted some tests and concluded that the Tutsis (15% of the population) were the natural rulers, because they had larger brains and were more intelligent than the Hutus. The Tutsis and Hutus were made to carry racial identity cards to create a segregated system in which the Tutsis ruled. The arrangement was maintained for decades to benefit the Belgian Empire and white settlers in the country. In recent decades the Congo has become increasingly important in the age of globalisation, as corporations have flooded into the country to extract a wide range of resources. The Congo is particularly valuable because of its resources which include copper, uranium and coltan. It was Congolese uranium which was used to make the atom bombs, which were then used against Japan by the US, whilst copper became fundamental to running the Cold War. The value of coltan exploded in recent years because it is essential in the production of laptops, game consoles and mobile phones.

When the Congo first gained independence from Belgium in 1960, the country was ill-prepared for self-governance and Patrice Lumumba was elected. The country soon descended into chaos and Lumumba had to fight against rebel forces for control of the precious resources. The corporations active in the extraction of the valuable resources were unhindered by the chaos in the Congo, which left hundreds of thousands dead, terrorised and mutilated. The US feared Patrice Lumumba might side with the Soviet Union and with the help of the Belgians arranged a coup, he was kidnapped and killed before his body was dissolved in acid. Rwanda became independent in 1962, the Hutus fled massacre by the Tutsis after liberal Belgians had encouraged a Hutu rebellion against the Tutsis. Out of imperialist guilt the liberals called for rebellion in order to make amends. The only way to do so, for the liberals, was to ensure self-government for Rwanda and freedom for the individual over "racial divisions". To the horror of the liberals, the violence spun out of control as the Hutus looked upon the Tutsis as alien to them.

Mobutu Sese Seko emerged out of the violence as the dictator of the Congo in 1965 with the vital support of the CIA. Mobutu changed the name of the Congo to Zaire, he set about to loot millions of dollars from the country whilst the industrial infrastructure collapsed. To maintain his power Mobutu reverted to anti-Communism and anti-imperialist rhetoric, which functioned to marginalise some of the old links to Belgium and strengthen fresh ties to the US. It is significant that Mobutu was keen to stamp out all symbolic remnants of Belgian rule, while he strengthened the hold of the Americans over Zaire. All opposition was quickly killed off and at a much deeper level Mobutu killed the liberal dream of a democratic Africa. Zaire became a place where other dreams went to die. Nazi rocket scientists had taken America to the moon but their job was over, Mobutu brought them into Zaire to build a launch pad on a plateau in the jungle and build a space programme for the country. The German scientists only succeeded in crashing a few rockets into the countryside.

In 1967 Western mining conglomerates backed a campaign of violence in Zaire in a bid to create a separate state based on the concentration of minerals in the East of the country. The corporations sent in white mercenaries and the mission to build a new state soon turned into racist violence as the conflict spilled over into Rwanda. The forces loyal to Mobutu then crushed the rebellion and responded with violence against whites, with looting and violence. At the time Dian Fossey was in the mountains, she aimed to prove that there were deep connections between human beings and primates through evolution. Fossey was detained by the soldiers where she was imprisoned for a fortnight, it is not clear what happened in that time though she told some people she was gang-raped by the soldiers. Eventually she escaped to create a new camp at which she could continue to study gorillas. Fossey then retreated to a isolated existence and tried to protect the gorillas at all costs, which went as far as to kidnap Africans and to humiliate them. The local people began to hate her.

Over 30 years later the ruling Hutus set out to exterminate the Tutsis and the West resorted to the old racist line that the Hutus and the Tutsis were ancient races in conflict. So the massacres were a result of an incomprehensible antagonism, it was only incomprehensible because the Western media were unwilling to recognise the consequences of our actions. The racial identity cards then helped the Hutus wipe-out the Tutsis. As the Tutsis fought back, the Hutus fled into Zaire and Western aid agencies came to the rescue of the innocent victims but found themselves protecting mass-murderers. The Tutsis then invaded the camps and Mobutu then sent troops in to stop the fighting, but they just joined in the looting and Mobutu fell from power. The boom in the West fueled a rise in commodity prices throughout the world, the value of minerals in the Congo skyrocketed. Then troops from Zimbabwe, Angola, Uganda, Chad and Libya to seize the precious resources. Behind them Western companies and consumers were looking for new goods, whilst 4 million people were slaughtered between 1998 and 2003.

The idea of a democratic Africa had died in the Congo, but another liberal idea was born there. The idea that we are not different or superior to animals, we are linked to them in nature and we should recognise that fact. This was the idea which was born out of the research Fossey was committed to, which would further undermine the Enlightenment view of human beings as separate and distinct to animals. Fossey was murdered in 1985 she had become a part of the Western tradition of brutalising Africans for the sake of an ideal which is beyond the comprehension of such primitives. We might use the term post-traumatic subject to describe Dian Fossey, possibly even to excuse her brutality towards the Other as an expression of that trauma. If we are to do so we cannot help but note that there is a condition of permanent trauma in the Congo. In contrast to the Western notion of a post-traumatic condition where in a woman is raped and then may have some hope of moving on. In the Congo women are raped and then raped again, and again and so on, there is no hope.

We should bare in mind that the material conditions amassed through the exploited toil by the impoverished can provide the conditions for the development of civilisation. It is not that barbarism comes before civilisation, the relation between barbarism and civilisation is synchronous rather than sequential. Not every change will arrive peacefully, in fact change often arrives drenched in blood. The conditions created by slavery have enabled capitalism. In a sense it could be said that the horrors of slavery were necessary, though that is not to say that those horrors should just be forgotten. The tragic history of Africa in particular cannot be acknowledged with the great debt of Western civilisation to Africa being acknowledged also. The debt owed by liberalism to slavery and feudalism is hardly, just as the existence of class society is barely made today, if ever, recognised especially by liberals and conservatives. The view of history as Progress is much more popular among that crowd, because it avoids debts and leaves no room for interventions.

Long Live the Miners!

So far from God, so close to the US.

The joyous moment that the 33 miners emerged from a collapsed mine in Copiapó served to disrupt the usual line of depressing events spoon-fed to us by the media. I recalled the words of Salvador Allende as I watched the events unfold "Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers!" It's not all poverty and war, famine and guilt-trips of the imperial past. However as easy it may be to view the events in Copiapó like this, fed to us on wide-screen TVs from our sofas in comfort. There is a bigger story unfolding in Latin America and not all of it is an uplifting masturbatory experience for our journalists either. The disaster that could have entombed those men is common in Chile, on average around 40 miners die every year due to the poor standard of working conditions. The dangerous conditions are a side-effect of a ruthless economic system that was imposed over the Chilean people by General Pinochet, who seized power in a US-backed coup of September 11th 1973 - a 9/11 forgotten outside of Latin America.

The General ruled Chile by state-terror and torture on an industrial scale, which included a network of concentration camps for unionists and dissidents, while degenerate politicians stood back and watched in Britain and America. At the same time Pinochet crafted an economic system drawn up by economists at the University of Chicago, it was based on a utopian vision of the free-market. The junta led by Pinochet swiftly chopped public spending down by 50% and in doing so destroyed Chile's fledgling welfare state, handing over hospitals, pensions and schools to the market. Regulations of business were quickly cut down and land reforms were reversed, for the benefit of logging companies and at the expense of Chile's indigenous population. At an enormous social cost to Chile there was an "economic miracle", never mind the thousands butchered and the millions dispossessed.

The current government in Chile is a direct result of Pinochet's reign, President Piñera is one of the billionaires who was enriched by the changes made under Pinochet. Piñera controls chunks of mining, energy and retail industries. The dominant party, the Coalition for Change, is partly a brain-child of Jaime Guzman, one of Pinochet's advisers who helped draw up the new constitution of Chile in 1980. 30 years on and Pinochet's constitution is still a constraint on the Chilean polity, shaping policy and containing policy-makers to the realms of the dictatorship formed almost 40 years ago. Officially Chile is a democratic society but it is still a long way from the vision of Salvador Allende, who had a democratic mandate to seek economic reforms that suited the people of Chile and not the ruling class. The status quo in Chile was not established democratically and has no mandate.

Chile is a vital country for the US in plans to reaffirm the Washington Consensus subvert the democratic reforms being pursued in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Naturally Piñera is an ally of his Colombian counterpart Juan Santos and Alan Garcia, the President of Peru. Both Santos and Garcia are responsible for slaughtering campesinos (peasants) in their own countries supposedly as part of a campaign against terrorism. In reality Santos and Garcia have been committed to "social cleansing", in other words, the mass-killing of human beings unnecessary in the economy. Good company for a sycophant of the Northern hegemon. It was in 1823 that Secretary of State John Quincy Adams declared that the US was to dominate the Western hemisphere. Domination by the US has been a disaster for th region and it is only in recent years that independence seems a realistic possibility.

The Heirs of Revolution.

At the same time as all of this, a wave of emancipatory fervour is rushing across Latin America marking a major shift in the political trajectory of many countries. The nature of this revolutionary shift is not new. It's roots go back deep in history, to the wars of independence fought by libertadores like Simon Bolivar against the empires of Spain and Portugal. The revolutionaries of 18th Century France and 17th Century England would resurrect the ways of the dead to glorify the new cause. The French took up the names and slogans of the Roman republic, the English seized the language of the Old Testament. Similarly the revolutionaries of Latin America are draped partly as Christian radical, left-nationalist, communist and libertador. The heirs of past revolutions include Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Lula da Silva and Rafael Correa among other leaders.

The most famous shifts witnessed were in Venezuela with the election of Hugo Chavez and Brazil with Lula da Silva. The leftward shift away from neoliberalism to democracy, welfarism and economic integration. Chavez was a highly popular leader in Latin America for over a decade and was keen to dismantle the system of exploitation and empower Venezuela's poorest citizens. Lula, on the other hand, did not confront and dismantle the neoliberal machine in Brazil, though he did make important changes in terms of welfare and foreign policy. Daniel Ortega returned to public office in Nicaragua 16 years after the Sandinista movement was decimated by the Contras, a terrorist group backed by the US. In Paraguay Catholic Priest Fernando Lugo was rushed into office by the grass-roots, bringing down a one-party state that had been in power for 60 years. It would appear that the United States is finally losing control of it's "backyard".

The most interesting instance of change in Latin America is happening in Bolivia where Evo Morales, an indigenous man of humble origins, was elected by a grass-roots socialist movement. Morales has called on developed countries to respect the Kyoto Protocol and make serious steps towards combating climate change. A new constitution has been drawn up, which stipulates a 5,000 hectare limit on the land an individual can own. Greater autonomy has been devolved to a regional level. Morales has criticised the "War on Drugs" and has been acting to distinguish between the uses of coca, since it is used traditionally not as cocaine but for medicines and tea. The teaching of indigenous languages has been introduced to schools under his government, the gas industry has been nationalised and there has been a 50% rise in the minimum wage.

The main exceptions are Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Chile, Colombia and Peru. In Mexico and Colombia the most recent elections were rigged to anoint people like Juan Santos. Since Brazil is no longer willing to be America's outpost of subversion, Colombia and Peru are replacing Brazil as a hub of American military might in the region. There have been serious attempts to stamp out democratisation. Last year in Honduras a cabal of politicians and generals overthrew Manuel Zelaya, and with the support of the Obama administration, installed Pepe Lobo as President. Most recently Rafael Correa was kidnapped by police whilst trying to negotiate with the striking police officers. It may have been a coup attempt but it's too soon to say. But overall it would seem that the US is losing total control as in 2002 a coup against Hugo Chavez failed when the people of Venezuela rose up against the authoritarian regime that had been installed by Washington. Democracy is not taken for granted in Latin America.

The White Man's Burden?

"Take up the White Man's burden--
In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,

And work another's gain." - Rudyard Kipling

The Iraq war, just like other wars waged by Western powers, was commonly criticised for the loss of life on the side of the aggressors. The implication of this is that the only reason this war is "wrong" is because "our boys" are being killed by the "enemy". The war is fine, but the deaths of soldiers fighting on our side are not. Not only is this approach completely immoral in itself, it reinforces the ideological assumptions of Western "superiority" which presupposed the invasion of Iraq. Turning the West into a benevolent civilised power in the world and the rest of the world into a realm of savages that need to be contained and guided for their own good - the "White Man's Burden". Thus, George Bush's famous question "Why do they hate us when we're so good?" Of course, there are legitimate grievances behind terrorism that go back decades in the Middle East. But that's another matter unrelated to the invasion of Iraq.

From 1979 to 2003 Iraq was governed by Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party, with the full support of the United States government right up until the mid 1990s. It was the neoconservatives, political allies of the oil industry and self-proclaimed "democratic revolutionaries", who had wanted to march on Baghdad since oil prices increased from $13 to $40 a barrel during the First Gulf War. It is these hawks who wanted the fall of the statue of Saddam Hussein, a great moment of optimism for many Iraqis, to become the indelible symbol of the invasion and the "moral basis" on which it was fought - bringing democracy and freedom to Iraq. But that is unlikely given the massive opposition to the war and occupation based on moral principles and an understanding of the historical context of the war.

Saddam Hussein seized power in 1979 by usurping the position of his cousin Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr and purging the Ba'ath party of all opposition - accusing his rivals of being involved in a plot with the Syrian regime to annex the Iraqi Republic. This was a time of great political upheaval in the Middle East, which had emerged from the Six Day War and the failures of Arab nationalism - the rise of a corrupt authoritarianism in Egypt for instance. From these social conditions sprouted Islamism, which was exemplified by the toppling of the Iranian dictatorship through revolution and the establishment of an Islamic Republic. Hussein had the full support of the US government as he presented himself as a counter-agent to the new regime in Tehran. It's likely that Hussein feared, as did the US, that the revolution could spread to Iraq and possibly other major oil-producers.

"Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought." - Rudyard Kipling

Naturally, the military support provided by the US came at a massive human cost. The war between Iraq and Iran raged for a decade and left almost 1 million people dead on both sides. But the US government also turned a blind-eye to Saddam's domestic crimes - which they would later use to "justify" the invasion. In 1982 Saddam Hussein survived an assassination attempt as he visited the Shi'ite town Dujail. Around 400 people were detained following the attempt in Dujail, an unknown number of them were tortured and around 148 were later executed. The homes, buildings, orchards and farmland belonging to the convicted mere razed. The families of the convicted were exiled. The Hussein regime later launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds, which began in 1986 and ended in 1989, while American politicians sat back and pretended to be oblivious.

In 1988 alone, in the poison gas attack on Halabja, 5,000 Kurds were killed and 11,000 were injured. That same year, around 182,000 Kurds were slaughtered in Northern Iraq. This was combined with a policy of "Arabization" in which Kurdish communities were torn apart by the state and poor Arabs were brought into Northern Iraq with the promise of cheap housing. Contrary to popular belief the US support for Saddam went on after the First Gulf War, which may mean their support of him had little to do with containment of Iran. There were several uprisings across Iraq, including one engineered by al-Qaeda, which were suppressed through the use of air-strikes that were authorised by the US in spite of a no-fly zone officially imposed over Iraq. The Clinton administration implemented further economic sanctions against Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through starvation whilst empowering the hold of Saddam Hussein over the population.

 

But it is not enough to simply condemn the crimes of Saddam Hussein and the Western powers that enabled his regime. If we just condemn and do not act, we reassert the notion that the West is "superior" in our all-powerful status in the world. Instead of Kipling's imperial "White Man's Burden" - that as superior beings we are obligated to "civilise" the uncivilised - we reassert this "superiority" by insisting on our guilt without acting to redeem ourselves and correct past injustices. So we apologise for our complicity in past crimes and then go on to turn a blind-eye to them once more. Take Jimmy Carter, regarded by some as a "heroic liberal" and is attacked as an anti-Semite, for his critique of Israeli foreign policy but throughout his term he did nothing to help oppressed peoples and actually supported genocide in East Timor. Thus, we must put a stop to imperialist wars or we are no better than the hawks who engineered them with such gusto.

Related Links:

The White Man's Burden

The Trap - What Really Happened in Iraq

Slavoj Zizek on the Iraq war

Christopher Hitchens on the "Axis of Evil"
On War, Empire and Resistance - Tariq Ali
Bush in Babylon - Tariq Ali

The Price of Haitian Liberty.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

Pat Robertson recently claimed that the earthquake Haiti suffered was for the best, because it will lead to greater development and change in Haiti. The prominent Christian fundamentalist also claimed that the earthquake was a result of a Faustian pact, made between by the Haitian revolutionaries in order to liberate their country from the French. The implication being that chattel slavery was a practice blessed by God which only the Devil could undo. Robertson pointed to the consistent pattern of tragedy and failure in Haiti as evidence for a "curse" as a consequence of such a pact. It is unsurprising that this came from a man who once agreed with Jerry Falwell that 9/11 was the fault of the ACLU, as well as lesbians and abortionists, and later called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez. Despite all of this, his statement reflect a general attitude in the Western media. In the media, Haiti is often discussed as if it is cursed, the earthquake is just one of many tragedies to strike the island over the last two centuries. But the country's history, which tells a quite different story, is rarely explored for the sake of public consumption.

The Republic of Haiti may seem an insignificant country in 2010, the economy is in tatters and society has been decimated by crime, the political system is corrupt and often resorts to violence to get it's way. Too many people have forgotten Haiti was the first independent Black Republic. A nation-state which had been liberated by slaves from white supremacy, in a revolution based on the same ideals espoused by French revolutionaries - liberté, égalité, fraternité. The Revolution that began in 1791, and with the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, had snatched Hispaniola from the hands of the wealthy colonialists and slave-masters by 1804. The goal was to turn the island into an autonomous state of free and equal citizens, working together for the good of society, that would not be exploited. Unfortunately, after over 200 years of political turmoil, Haiti is now branded a "failed state" by the hegemons of the United States and Europe. The accomplishments of the Haitian revolutionaries were undermined by a series of dictators, but external forces hold some responsibility, to say the least, for the "difficulties" Haiti has endured.

The "Curse" of Black Jacobinism.

In using the sword against their oppressors, the slaves of Haiti had "become" Jefferson's universal human beings. Despite this, the colonial powers did not just accept Haiti as a sovereign nation equal to their own. The Vatican avoided signing a concordat with the first Black Republic until 1860. The American government refused to even recognise Haiti until 1862. The French soon punished the Haitians for deposing their masters. The former slaves had to compensate their former masters, and in the end Haiti had to pay 150 million francs - the equivalent of $21 billion - in reparations to French slave-masters. This in itself is an appalling perversity. The Haitians had to pay to avoid an embargo, the same kind which the US imposed on Cuba after the fall of Batista. In order to repay such an enormous "debt", Haiti had to lend money from banks in France, Germany and America. The aim of all this was to destroy the positive example of Revolutionary Haiti and crush the spirits of slaves everywhere. By 1900 Haiti was spending 80% of its national budget on repayments. The US first "intervened" militarily in Haiti in 1915, occupying and effectively ruling the country until 1934. During the American occupation, revolts by the people were crushed with extreme force and several politicians were executed or exiled from the island. The colonialists were successful in their wish to destroy the "contagious" example that Haiti might have become. Finally, in 1947 Haiti had managed to pay off 60% of the "debt". Over the next nine years, Haiti was plagued by instability, disasters both natural and man-made, the theft of relief funds and military coups. It was in 1956, that a new leader, who would leave Haiti sinking with debt and dead bodies, was elected.

In 1956, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier took office as the President of Haiti. He would rule for 15 years, leaving thousands dead and the country driven further into ruin. Duvalier had been elected on a black nationalist platform, characterised by populist rhetoric against the mulatto elite. The Haitian state itself was always effectively dominated by powerful elites, the 200 years since the Revolution has not changed that. The country has a long history of despotic regimes going right back to the Revolution. The most horrific and infamous of which was the Duvalier regime, under which a kleptocratic family dominated Haiti for 30 years. This brutal dictatorship sustained itself through violent repression, using a oprichnik-like militia known as the Tonton Macoutes to terrorise the masses - to not just crush opposition, but to crush the possibility of an opposition.

"Papa Doc" Duvalier formed the Tonton Macoutes in reaction to a coup attempt in the late 1950s, when he had yet to consolidate his power. Duvalier immediately exploited the rift between Cuba and the US, beginning in the late 50s. The populist rhetoric targeting Haiti's mulatto elite, which "Papa Doc" had ran on, concealed a reactionary agenda. The Duvaliers were explicitly anti-communist, the subject of political repression among the poor were suspected communists. Haitians who had an education were the immediate subject of suspicion; this led to the Haitian brain drain which the country has yet to recover from. By 1969, Duvalier had introduced the death penalty for the crime of "communist activities". Officially, the US government opposed the Duvaliers, but in practice they supported the dictatorship all the way because of their vehement anti-communism. By the time of his death in 1971, Francois Duvalier had supplanted members of the elite, who were "disappeared" or forced to emigrate, with loyal supporters of his family. His son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, a.k.a. "Baby Doc", would rule the country until 1986.

The Crisis and The Change.

In the words of Milton Friedman: "Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change." This is the logic currently at work in Haiti. A crisis offers opportunities, for the United States, to reshape the Haitian government and economy. The earthquake that has devastated Haiti is the worst to hit the island in nearly two centuries. The IMF did not waste time and quickly seized the opportunity, in a matter of days, to push through a loan of $100 million. Though, such hefty amounts of funds are needed in Haiti but the country is already heavily in debt. This loan also came with conditions, such as raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public employees except those making minimum wage and keeping inflation low. This is just an old story on a new day, the IMF took advantage of the devastation, and the trauma inflicted upon the people, to push through further neoliberal reforms.

This is nothing new to Haiti, or any developing country for that matter. Since the end of Duvalier rule in 1986, the US government, along with the IMF and the World Bank, has continued to interfere with Haiti's political and economic system. The democratic election of Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 was soon undone with a military coup backed by the first Bush administration. The IMF proceeded to impose "structural adjustments" on Haiti throughout the 1990s. Haiti's tariffs on rice were soon chiselled down from 35% to 3%, leading to massive rice-dumping from the US. The long-term result of such cuts on tariffs resulted in an increase in dependency on American agribusiness. By 2005, the effects of trade "liberalisation" could be seen in Haiti, three out of every four plates of rice eaten in the country had been produced by agribusiness in the US. There is plenty of money to made from Haiti, sweatshops where Haitians earn less than $2 a day are not uncommon.

These are standard practices, for multinational corporations and politicians, which have been refined since the 1950s. As detailed in the book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, it is corporations who send "economic hit men" into a country which has resources they covet and arrange a massive loan to that country (through the IMF or the World Bank). The loans end up going to developing infrastructure, which will benefit only a few rich people in that country as well as large corporations. The country is left with a massive debt which cannot be paid off, the "economic hit men" then negotiate to drive down the price of resources, such as oil, which can then be easily bought by corporations. This logic can be pushed further to allow countries like the US to build a military base in the country. But also to force the country to privatise electrical companies, schools, health care and, in the case of Bolivia, even water. The IMF and the World Bank might even offer to "refinance" the country's debt leading to yet more debt, with potentially higher interest rates and more radical "conditions". These "conditions", or structural adjustment policies, vary from currency devaluation, mass privatisation, deregulation and trade liberalisation (like the lowering of tariffs).

The "economic hit men" are not always successful in their pursuit of such goals. When they do fail, the "jackals" are sent in. These individuals are often trained and supported by the NSA or the CIA, they are usually used to overthrow or assassinate politicians who are in the way. During Aristide's second Presidency, began in 2001 and ended "abruptly" in 2004 after he had demanded France pay $21 billion in restitution to Haiti. At that time, the Haitian government had just put $57.4 million towards the state's debtors. The Haitian government had received $39.21 million to spend on education, health-care etc. from foreign assistance. At a time when Haiti was paying back more than it was receiving, when the country was in desperate need of $21 billion, that he was once again overthrown in another coup - this time backed by the second Bush administration through the CIA. If the "jackals" had failed in overthrowing Aristide, the final move may have been a full blown invasion by the US military.

As far as I am aware, $1.2 billion of Haiti's debt has been cancelled thus far. Though, the country still has $900 million in debt, which will be taken up to $1 billion and over by the end of this crisis. Almost half of that debt is owed to the Inter-American Development Bank, to which Haiti is scheduled to pay $10 million next year as part of the repayments. Recently, there has been even more talk of writing off Haiti's remaining debts. The Venezuelan government has written off the $295 million, in oil-related debt, Haiti owes to their country. This is a positive update, but on it's own it is not enough. It is imperative that the structure which has driven Haiti into such debts is changed, for Haitian poverty is down to neoliberal reforms. The structure and these reforms can only be reversed if the IMF and the World Bank are changed radically, which can only be accomplished by bringing about radical change in the West - particularly, the US.

Interesting links:
IMF to Haiti: Freeze Public Wages
Whitewashing Haiti's History
Haiti - The Broken Wing
Covering Haiti: When the Media is the Disaster
Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert
Why the US owes Haiti billions: The Briefest History
Confessions of an Economic Hitman