From The Socialist Alternative Website-Libya: No to Western Military Intervention — Victory to the Libyan Revolution—Build an Independent Movement of Workers and Youth!

Markin comment:

The question of the hour is the question of the defense of Libya against the international cabal of imperialist military forces arrayed against it. It is no longer about like or dislike Quadaffi (I am using this spelling of his name since I have seen about seven variations in the media). It is no longer like or dislike the rebels. This action is now controlled by the imperialist cabal and we have a side. Against the U.S.-led (formally or not) imperial forces (and their allies). A victory, another victory for world imperialism here just makes our task that much harder. I am placing commentary today as I find it on the Internet from sources that argue along those same lines. The imperialists and their allies have already “spoken” loud and clear.

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No- Fly Zone!

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Libya: No to Western Military Intervention — Victory to the Libyan Revolution—Build an Independent Movement of Workers and Youth!
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Mar 19, 2011
By Robert Bechert

The UN Security Council’s majority decision to enact a militarily-imposed ‘no-fly-zone’ against Libya, while greeted with joy on the streets of Benghazi and Tobruk, is in no way intended to defend the Libyan revolution. Revolutionaries in Libya may think that this decision will help them, but they are mistaken. Naked economic and political calculations lay behind the imperialist powers’ decision. It is not a lifeline that could ‘save’ the revolution, in the real sense of the word, against Gaddafi. Major imperialist powers decided that they wanted now to exploit the revolution and try to replace Gaddafi with a more reliable regime. However the Libyan foreign minster’s announcement of an immediate ceasefire has complicated imperialism’s position.




Faced with a rapid eastwards advance of Gaddafi’s forces, many in eastern Libya seized hold of the idea of a no-fly-zone to help stem this tide, but this is not the way to defend and extend the revolution. Unfortunately, the revolution’s initial drive towards the west, where two-thirds of Libyans live, was not based on a movement, built upon popular, democratic committees that could offer a clear programme to win support from the masses and the rank and file soldiers, while waging a revolutionary war. This gave Gaddafi an opportunity to regroup.


The growing support for a no-fly-zone was a reversal of the sentiment expressed in the English language posters put up in Benghazi, in February, declaring: “No To Foreign Intervention – Libyans Can Do It By Themselves”. This followed the wonderful examples of Tunisia and Egypt, where sustained mass action completely undermined totalitarian regimes. The Libyan masses were confident that their momentum would secure victory. But Gaddafi was able to retain a grip in Tripoli. This, at least, relative stabilisation of the regime and its counter-offensive led to a change in attitude towards foreign intervention that allowed the largely pro-Western leadership of the rebel ’Interim Transitional National Council’ to overcome youth opposition to asking the West for aid.


However, despite the Gaddafi regime’s blood-curdling words, it is not at all certain that its relatively small forces could have launched an all-out assault on Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, with around a million living in its environs. A mass defence of the city would have blunted the attack of Gaddafi’s relatively small forces. Now, if the ceasefire holds and Gaddafi remains in power in Tripoli, a de-facto breakup of the country could occur, returning to something like the separate entities that existed before Italy first created Libya after 1912 and which Britain recreated in the late 1940s.



Fighters in Benghazi


Whatever the immediate effect the ‘no fly zone’, any trust placed in either the UN or the imperialist powers threatens to undermine all the genuine hopes and aspirations of the revolution that began last month. This is because the powers that have imposed threatened military action are no friends of the Libyan masses. Until recently, they were quite happy to deal with, and pander to, the murderous Gaddafi ruling clique, to maintain a ‘partnership’, especially concerning Libya’s oil and gas industries. Indeed, the day after the UN took its decision, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal lamented that “the close partnership between the Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s intelligence service and the CIA has been severed” (18 March, 2011). The Journal reported “according to a senior US official” the previous ‘partnership’ was “especially productive”.


Now, having lost former dictatorial allies Mubarak, in Egypt, and Ben Ali, in Tunisia, imperialism is trying to take advantage of the popular uprising in Libya to both refurbish its “democratic” image and to help install a more “reliable” regime, or at least a part of Libya. As before, North Africa and the Middle East, with its oil and strategic location, are of tremendous importance to the imperialist powers.


This reveals the absolute hypocrisy of the main imperialist powers, which have shamelessly supported repressive dictatorial regimes throughout the Middle East for decades. At the very same time that they were deciding the No Fly Zone, the same powers did absolutely nothing to prevent Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies’ increasingly brutal suppression of the majority of the Bahraini population and their attempt to ferment sectarianism. Within 12 hours of the UN decision, the armed forces another regional ally, Yemeni, ally shot dead at least 39 protesters in the capital city, Sanaa. The UN was only able to take its decision on Libya because the Arab League supported a no fly zone, but of course these mainly reactionary rulers say nothing about repression in Bahrain, Yemen or other Arab countries.



Gaddafi and Sarkozy in the past


Cameron and Sarkozy’s “concern” for Libya is at least partly motivated by domestic unpopularity and the hope that a foreign success will strengthen their standing. Cameron clearly hopes for a boost similar to that which Thatcher enjoyed after her victory in the 1983 Falklands war. But Thatcher achieved a quick military victory - the no fly zone operation will not will produce a similar military win. Sarkozy, after the disaster of his Tunisia policy that led to the resignation of the French Foreign Minister, needs a “success” to lift his low poll ratings as next year’s Presidential election looms closer.


Gaddafi zig-zags
Despite the imperialist powers’ recent rapprochement with Gaddafi, the tyrant always remained an unreliable ally. Throughout his nearly 42 years in power, Gaddafi zig-zagged in policy, sometimes violently. In 1971, he helped the Sudanese dictator, Nimeiry, crush a left coup that took place in reaction to the earlier suppression of the left, including the banning of the one-million member Sudanese communist party. Six years later, Gaddafi proclaimed a "people’s revolution" and changed the country’s official name from the Libyan Arab Republic to the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah. Despite the name change and the formation of so-called “revolutionary committees”, this was not genuine democratic socialism or a move towards it. The Libyan working people and youth were not running their country. Gaddafi remained in control. This was underlined by the increasingly prominent role that many of his children played in the regime.


Nevertheless, since 1969, on the basis of a large oil income and a small population, there was a big improvement in most Libyans’ lives, especially in education and health, which at least partly explains why Gaddafi still has some basis of support amongst the population. Even while there is growing opposition to the Gaddafi clique, especially amongst Libya’s overwhelmingly young and educated population, there is also fear about who might replace him and opposition to anything that smells of foreign rule. The revolutionaries’ widespread use of the old ruling monarchy’s flag was bound to alienate those who do not want to return to the past and was used by Gaddafi to justify his rule. Flying the old flag also risked alienating Libyans in the west of the country because the former king came from the east and had no historic roots in the area around Tripoli.


But these factors are not a complete explanation as to why Gaddafi was able, at least temporally, to stabilise his position. While there was a popular uprising in eastern Libya, Gaddafi was able to maintain his position in the west, where two-thirds of the population live, despite large protests in Tripoli and uprisings in Misrata, Zuwarah and a few other areas.


Role of the working class
Unlike in Egypt and Tunisia, the working class in Libya has not, so far, begun to play an independent role in the revolution. Furthermore, many workers in Libya are migrants who have fled the country in recent weeks.


The absence of a national focal point which, for example, the Tunisian UGTT trade union federation provided (despite its pro-Ben Ali national leadership), complicated the situation in Libya. The huge revolutionary enthusiasm of the population has not, so far, been given an organised expression. The largely self-appointed ‘National Council’ that emerged in Benghazi is a combination of elements from the old regime and more pro-imperialist elements. For example, the Council’s foreign spokesman, Mahmoud Jibril, the former head of Gaddafi’s National Economic Development Board, was described by the US Ambassador, in November 2009, as a “serious interlocutor who ‘gets’ the US perspective”.





It is easy for Gaddafi to present these people as a threat to Libyan living standards and agents of foreign powers. At the same time, this propaganda will have only a limited effect, as population’s living standards worsening and unemployment increased (standing at 10%) since from the end of the 1980s oil boom and the start of privatisation back in 2003.


Gaddafi’s use of the threat of imperialist intervention did gather some support and if the country becomes divided may gain more. How long this can sustain Gaddafi is another question. In addition to anti-imperialist rhetoric, Gaddafi made concessions to maintain support. Each family has been given the equivalent of $450. Some public sector workers have been given 150% wage increases and taxes and customs duties on food have been abolished. But these steps do not answer the demands for freedom or end the growing frustration of Libya’s youthful population, with an average age of 24, over the regime’s corruption and suffocating grip.


Around the world, millions of people follow, and are inspired by, the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East. These events inspired protests against the effects of the continuing capitalist crisis in many countries. Some of those welcoming the revolutionary events in the region may support the UN’s ‘no fly zone’ but socialists argue that it is primarily made in the interests of the imperialist powers – the same powers that no nothing substantially to restrain the repressive actions of Gulf states against mass protests in their countries.


But what then can be done internationally to genuinely help the Libyan revolution? First of all, trade unions should block the export of Libyan oil and gas. Secondly, bank workers should organise the freezing of all the Gaddafi regime’s financial assets.


The ‘no fly zone’ will not automatically lead to the overthrow of Gaddafi, in fact, like Saddam Hussein, the Libyan leader could entrench his position for a time in those parts of the country he controls. As the experience of Egypt and Tunisia shows, the key to overthrow dictatorships is the movement of the working masses and youth.


A revolutionary programme
Thus the fate of the revolution will be decided inside Libya itself. Its victory requires a programme that can cut across tribal and regional divisions and unite the mass of the population against the Gaddafi clique and for a struggle for a better future.


A programme for the Libyan revolution that would genuinely benefit the mass of the population would be based on winning and defending real democratic rights; an end to corruption and privilege; the safeguarding and further development of the social gains made since the discovery of oil; opposition to any form of re-colonisation and for a democratically-controlled, publicly-owned, economic plan to use the country’s resources for the future benefit of the mass of people.


The creation of an independent movement of Libyan workers, poor and youth that could implement such a real revolutionary transformation of the country, is the only way to thwart the imperialists’ plans, end dictatorship and to transform the lives of the people.

From The Internationalist Group Website-Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack!-Defeat U.S./U.N./NATO Assault!

Markin comment:

The question of the hour is the question of the defense of Libya against the international cabal of imperialist military forces arrayed against it. It is no longer about like or dislike Quadaffi (I am using this spelling of his name since I have seen about seven variations in the media). It is no longer like or dislike the rebels. This action is now controlled by the imperialist cabal and we have a side. Against the U.S.-led (formally or not) imperial forces (and their allies). A victory, another victory for world imperialism here just makes our task that much harder. I am placing commentary today as I find it on the Internet from sources that argue along those same lines. The imperialists and their allies have already “spoken” loud and clear.

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No- Fly Zone!

*********


Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack!
Defeat U.S./U.N./NATO Assault!

Defeat the Monarchist/Islamist Opposition, Cat’s Paw for the U.S.!
For Workers Revolution Against Qaddafi Police State!


MARCH 18 – Last night the United Nations Security Council voted by 10-0 (with Russia, China, Germany, Brazil and India abstaining) to launch military action against Libya in the guise of “protecting civilians.” After weeks of the Western media churning out war propaganda and liberals clamoring for “humanitarian” intervention, the U.N. issued a declaration of imperialist war. The alleged “humanitarian” concerns are the same kind of smokescreen used to justify the U.S./NATO attack on Yugoslavia in 1995 and 1999, as well as the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, supposedly (among other pretexts) to defend the Kurds and Shiites. The “no fly zone” and air strikes to bomb Libyan forces authorized by the Security Council resolution represent a major shift from what was a civil war between the brutal bourgeois Qaddafi regime in Tripoli and a monarchist/Islamist/pro-imperialist opposition in Benghazi. Now, in the face of the U.N. action and giving no political support to Qaddafi, revolutionaries and all opponents of imperialism are duty-bound to defend Libya while calling for the defeat of the U.S./U.N./NATO attackers.

Libya, a former Italian colony and then British protectorate, is a semi-colonial country under attack. Imperialist forces covet it for geostrategic reasons – vast high-quality oil deposits and key Mediterranean/African location – and wish to get rid of Muammar Qaddafi, with whom U.S. rulers have had an on-again, off-again feud for decades. Recently the Libyan leader had been cooperating with the U.S. “war on terror” against Islamists who also threatened his rule. But with popular uprisings and unrest sweeping the Near East and North Africa, Qaddafi’s CIA-backed opponents evidently figured this was a good opportunity to get rid of the erratic strongman who has sometimes been a thorn in Washington’s side. The result is the latest case of “humanitarian” imperialist aggression. Recall how the U.S. used the Haitian earthquake of January 2010 to occupy the hard-hit Caribbean island country. For poor and working people, imperialist occupation is always a greater evil. We don’t call on the U.S., U.N. and NATO to “aid the people” – they don’t and won’t – we demand they get the hell out, and stay out!

The situation in Libya is notably different from that in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere in the Near East where there have been mass plebeian uprisings for democratic rights against U.S.-backed dictatorships. In Libya, the initial protests were called by exile opposition groups tied to the CIA. In the ensuing civil war pitting Qaddafi’s Islamic-populist regime against a motley crew of monarchist, Islamist and pro-imperialist bourgeois forces along with some of Qaddafi’s own bloodiest (now former) henchmen, proletarian revolutionaries had no side. But with the U.N. vote, the rebels are now cat’s paws of imperialist forces, and we call for their defeat and for defense of Libya. At the same time, we continue to be for a revolution of the Libyan working people and oppressed groups (such as the Berbers) to bring down Qaddafi, denouncing not only his police-state repression but also his repeated collaboration with U.S. (and Italian and French) imperialism whenever he has been given a chance.

The fight against the imperialist assault on Libya is not limited to the North African country. Egyptian workers should oppose the imperialist invasion by blocking U.S. warships from transiting the Suez Canal. Tunisian workers should stop NATO warships from docking. In Bahrain, instead of appealing to the U.S. for aid, as protesters have been doing, any genuinely democratic overturn would not only bring down the U.S.-allied Sunni monarchy which has long oppressed the overwhelmingly Shiite population, but would also drive out the U.S. naval and air bases which are the linchpin for the imperialists’ operations in the Arab/Persian Gulf, as part of international workers revolution from the oil fields of eastern Arabia to the factories of Iran.

Much of the social-democratic left in the United States and internationally (including the International Socialist Organization and Socialist Alternative in the U.S., the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Appeal in Britain and their satellites) have been cheerleading for a supposed Libyan “revolution,” taking up the rhetoric of U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and more generally supporting the Libyan bourgeois opposition. Now they are in a pretty pickle as the U.S. and UK governments (with the support of the Labour Party “opposition”) launch military action supposedly aiding these same rebels. Other reformist leftists of a Stalinoid bent (such as Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation) have historically hailed Qaddafi, making the Libyan leader out to be some kind of anti-imperialist – forcing them into a mealy-mouthed position due to Qaddafi’s more recent alliance with Washington.

While the social democrats sport the Libyan monarchist red-black-and-green with a crescent and star in support of the rebels fighting for a pro-imperialist bankers’ and Islamists’ government, and the fornlorn Qaddafi apologists of yesteryear halfheartedly raise the green flag of Islamic populism (and crony capitalism), the communists of League for the Fourth International fight under the red flag to smash imperialism through international socialist revolution. ■

From The League For A Revolutionary Party Website-Why We Should Oppose the Imperialist War on Libya

Markin comment:

The question of the hour is the question of the defense of Libya against the international cabal of imperialist military forces arrayed against it. It is no longer about like or dislike Quadaffi (I am using this spelling of his name since I have seen about seven variations in the media). It is no longer like or dislike the rebels. This action is now controlled by the imperialist cabal and we have a side. Against the U.S.-led (formally or not) imperial forces (and their allies). A victory, another victory for world imperialism here just makes our task that much harder. I am placing commentary today as I find it on the Internet from sources that argue along those same lines. The imperialists and their allies have already “spoken” loud and clear.

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No- Fly Zone!

********
Why We Should Oppose the Imperialist War on Libya
by Steven Argue
Email: steveargue2 (nospam) yahoo.com (verified) 26 Mar 2011
[BBC Photo, March 22 Protest Against the Imperialist Attack on Libya, Philippines]
Click on image for a larger version

US / UN / NATO Hands off Libya!

End US Support for Dictatorships Across the Middle East and North Africa!

U.S. Out of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan!

Why We Should Oppose the Imperialist War on Libya

By Steven Argue

The Obama administration, already waging wars in the Middle East killing many civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, has launched yet another war on Libya. Cruise missiles and bombs from the U.S., Britain, and France have destroyed installations and, according to the Libyan press, caused many civilian deaths. The U.S. military has denied these deaths, but they have often made similar denials in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan before being proven wrong.

Without evidence, the corporate media of the United States has dutifully reported claims made by rebels that Gaddafi’s military used its jets to purposely bomb civilians. Yet, defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted on March 2nd that “we’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever” of those accounts. We are, after all, dealing with the same corporate media that presented the American people with Bush’s lies of “weapons of mass destruction” to sell another war to the American people.

To be sure, Gaddafi’s regime has been brutal in dealing with protesters, but this in no way differentiates Gaddafi’s government from numerous U.S. backed client regimes in the region. This includes the U.S. puppet regime in Iraq that on February 25, 2011 opened fire on a protest for jobs and services and an end to corruption. Gunfire from Iraqi forces killed 29 people. Three hundred people were arrested and many were beaten, including journalists who also suffered mock executions before being released. Yet, an American military spokesman responded to those crimes saying the response of Iraqi forces was “professional and restrained.”

Participating in the U.S. led attacks against Libya are the U.K., France, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Along with sending war planes for the U.S. led attack on Libya, the United Arab Emirates has also sent troops into Bahrain as part of military operations that have brutally attacked Bahrain’s pro-democracy movement. The protests are against the U.S. backed dictatorship of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. Those attacks have killed an unknown number of people and doctors have been arrested to prevent them from revealing casualties. Despite the brutal repression in Bahrain by the U.S. sponsored states of Bahrain, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, renewed protests are taking place in Bahrain as of this writing on March 25th.

While client regimes of the United States commit mass murder of civilian protesters in Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere, with U.S. supplied weapons, we are told that the U.S. led military attacks on Libya are to protect the lives of civilians.

Henri Guaino, one of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's closest aides, said March 21st that western air strikes against Libya were likely to last "a while yet".

French imperialism has been active in the region of North Africa for many years, including by supporting dictatorships in Niger friendly to French uranium mining companies that allow French mining interests to profit from Niger’s rich uranium mines at the expense of the environment, harsh exploitation of workers, and giving little in return to Niger for the country’s resource. Workers in these mines are not informed of the risks, not given basic protections, and not given treatment as they develop lung cancer. And despite Niger's rich uranium mines, the UN Development Program’s 2006 Human Development Index ranked Niger as the poorest country in the world. Sixty percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy is only to 45-years old, and adult illiteracy is 71%.

Despite their crocodile tears for the people of Libya, the French capitalists, as well as the British, and American ones participating in this war, have their eyes on better profiting from Libyan oil through their stated desire to overthrow the regime of Maommar Gaddafi. In addition, they are seeking to eliminate an example of where an anti-imperialist revolution took control of the oil wealth of their country to pay for things like subsidized food, fuel, and transportation, as well as free healthcare, housing, and education. Programs that raised life expectancy to 74 years where it was only 50 years under the U.S. backed dictatorship of King Idris, and raised literacy from 20% under King Idris to present figures under Gaddafi of 88.4% literacy for adults 15 and over and 99.8% literacy for youth between 15 and 24 years of age.

Despite social democratic mythology around social programs in France, programs that were in reality won through the militant struggles of the French working class, France remains both a capitalist country and an imperialist country. French workers have won a better standard of living than the American working class, but those gains are now more and more on the chopping block due to the world capitalist crisis. In France, as in the U.S., the capitalists are trying to make sure that it is workers who pay for the economic crisis rather than the capitalists.

As we face austerity around the world, millions of working class dollars, taken through taxes, are being squandered by waging war on Libya. The United States has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the war on Libya. Each of the Tomahawk missiles fired cost between 1.5 and 1 million dollars. So far at least 124 Tomahawk missiles have been fired. Fuel for war planes also costs about $10,000 dollars per hour. The U.S. portion of the war against Libya will cost billions of dollars. The bill for France and Britain will also be high. Like the billions the United States has already spent in its occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, this will not help the American working class, but it will line the pockets of the military contractors at tax-payer’s expense. One could point out how many school teachers this money could keep employed, how many lives could be saved by providing healthcare, how many jobs could be provided by rebuilding crumbling infrastructure and building a green economy, or how much needed housing this money could provide, but our capitalist government has no intention of increasing the money spent on those things anyway.

This U.S. led intervention in Libya, taking a particular side in the civil war there, makes Libya the seventh country (at least) where U.S. troops are presently directly participating in war. Those countries are Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia, and Iraq as well as Colombia where U.S. troops and military aid are propping up the Colombian death squad government.

In addition to military attacks, the United States and Europe have carried out the largest seizure of assets in history against Libya and are carrying out full scale sanctions on all industrial and consumer goods as well as financial transactions. Similar sanctions were carried out by the United States against Iraq in the 1990s killing 1.5 million Iraqis, most of them children.

Taking hypocrisy to its usual heights, the U.S. government is carrying out the military and economic attacks on Libya in the name of “protecting the lives of civilians”. To be sure the Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi has massacred civilians in their attempts to put down an uprising against Gaddafi’s rule. This, however, does not differentiate Gaddafi’s behavior in any way from U.S. backed dictators in the region like those in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq, and the recently overthrown dictatorships of Hosni Mubarak and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Egypt and Tunisia. Nor does it differentiate Libya from Israel where U.S. military aid is used to murder protesters and Palestinian civilians. On top of that, the killing of civilians does not differentiate Gaddafi’s activities from those of Mr. Obama in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

This is, after all, the same U.S. government whose troops have been slaughtering civilians, men, women, children, and journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan with impunity to defend the corrupt, murderous, and repressive governments that the U.S. has installed in those countries.

As much of the left already knew, and as Wikileaks documents confirmed, the war crimes of U.S. imperialism in Iraq and Afghanistan are extensive. Released by Wikileaks were 90,000 documents on the war in Afghanistan and 350,000 on the war in Iraq as well as helicopter gunship video that shows U.S. troops nonchalantly mowing down two journalists, first aid respondents, and children with machine gun fire. The perpetrators of these crimes are not being punished, even with video proof of the cold blooded murders revealed. Instead, the military brass are prosecuting Bradley Manning for allegedly releasing the video.

Also included in these documents are details of executions at U.S. checkpoints, the torture of detainees, and the crimes of U.S. “Task Force 373”, a team of professional assassins responsible for numerous massacres in Afghanistan. These atrocities started under Bush and have continued, without pause, under Barrack Obama.

In addition to the brutal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, in the last decade the U.S. government overthrew the democratically elected government of Haiti in 2004 through direct military intervention installing a government more friendly to the starvation wages paid by U.S. corporations, overthrew the democratically elected government of Honduras in 2009 installing a death squad regime (Obama’s coup), and carried out a coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela in 2002 that was defeated through a popular uprising of the working class that split in the military. .

Now the U.S. government, along with France, Britain, and any client Arab regime they can drag along behind them, are attempting to orchestrate “regime change” in yet another country. In their crosshairs is the regime of Col. Muammar Gaddafi and what is left of the revolutionary changes he brought to Libya with the 1969 overthrow of the U.S.-backed monarch King Idris who ruled Libya from 1951 to 1969.

It was largely due to Gaddafi’s 1969 revolution that the OPEC oil embargo happened. Gaddafi’s leadership played a critical role in securing oil money from the United States, Europe, and Japan for the poor countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Yet, it was only Iraq and Libya who reinvested that money back into programs that benefited their people. The U.S. backed Saudi Arabian monarchy and the Shah of Iran, on the other hand, invested in the west and conspired to rob the majority of people of their resources in the interests of a few elite in their countries and in the interests of imperialist owned oil companies.

Iraq is already suffering for their “crime” of spending oil money on the people, money that the imperialist oil companies see as squandered potential profit. For spending that money on people’s needs like education and healthcare their country is now occupied, over a million people are dead as a result of the imperialist invasion, millions have been made refugees, and much of their economy has been destroyed through privatization and other “free trade” measures.

In Libya, under the U.S. backed dictatorship of King Idris, over 80 percent of the population of Libya could not read or write. With the anti-imperialist Gaddafi revolution and the socialization of much of the oil industry, illiteracy was dramatically reduced by the early 1970s. During this time the Libyan government used the country’s vast oil resources to carry out profound economic and social development, including big improvements in nutrition, healthcare, education, and a massive water project. Life expectancy in Libya was 74 years by 2008 while it was only 50.5 years under the U.S. backed King Idris in 1968.

In comparison, another oil rich country in Africa that did not have an anti-imperialist semi-socialist revolution as Libya did, Nigeria, continues to have a life expectancy of 46.9 years today. In Nigeria the foreign oil companies Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Total, Agip, and Addax Petroleum make massive profits from Nigerian oil without any oil money returning to meet the needs of the Nigerian people. And instead of the U.S. government militarily intervening against the brutally repressive dictatorships that have ruled Nigeria, governments that have even executed environmentalists for complaining about the activities of the oil companies, the U.S. sends these Nigerian governments military aid.

Despite the gains made in the Libyan revolution, Libya has never been a socialist country. Economically Gaddafi’s semi-socialist reforms like the nationalizations of foreign owned oil companies and banks did benefit the working class, but Gaddafi also allowed for a problematic private capitalist economy and capitalist class to continue to exploit the working class. Even worse, some of the semi-socialist gains of the 1969 revolution are being dismantled by Gaddafi himself through IMF-dictated austerity programs and privatization with neo-liberal reforms like privatization lining the pockets of foreign capitalists. Still, much of the oil sector is under state control and public funds still pay for things like subsidized food, fuel, and transportation, as well as free healthcare, housing, and education.

Besides never overthrowing capitalism, Gaddafi’s system has also never had another important ingredient for building a truly socialist society. That ingredient is workers’ democracy. As in Stalinist societies as well as under Gaddafi’s bourgeois regime, without the ability of the working class to freely express ideas and vote on them, the working class does not have power. There has been no such thing as free expression under Gaddafi’s rule. Instead, Gaddafi carried out what he called a “cultural revolution” in 1973 where Gaddafi openly proclaimed, “We must purge all the sick people who talk of Communism, atheism, who make propaganda for the Western countries and advocate capitalism. We shall put them in prison.” Amnesty International reported on Marxists, Trotskyists, and members of Islamic Liberation being rounded up and jailed, many of them executed. In addition, books that went against Gaddafi’s “cultural revolution” were burned.

Despite major problems, women’s rights have advanced under Gaddafi, with women, for the most part, officially granted equal economic, social, and political rights. Where there was once a lot of discrimination in education, Libyan girls today have good educational opportunities and their illiteracy level is near zero. Still, Libyan women have not made the advances for women’s rights made in Soviet Central Asia, China, or even in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. A truly socialist society would not mistreat victims of rape, as Libya does, by prosecuting them on charges of fornication and adultery. Women’s participation in the economy in the 1970s was 6% compared to 22% participation today. Of course this is far better than under the U.S. imposed Mujahideen / Taliban counterrevolution of Afghanistan where women were completely stripped of their rights due to U.S. intervention. It is also much better than the U.S. backed Saudi Arabian dictatorship where women are not even allowed to do things like control their own funds, drive, or walk in public without a male escort. Life for Libyan women has improved since the overthrow of the U.S. backed King Idris, but obviously being better than what U.S. imperialism imposes on women is a pretty low standard.

Along with IMF austerity and privatization, the Gaddafi dictatorship has moved much closer to U.S. imperialism by officially supporting the so-called U.S. “war on terror”. In addition, in the 1990s, Gaddafi expelled Palestinians from Libyan territory and black African immigrants face discrimination in Libya as well.

While Gaddafi has done much to cozy up to U.S. imperialism, those changes have not been enough for the U.S. imperialists who demand a world of complete puppets like the Mubarak dictatorship of Egypt and unhindered access to oil wealth for profit, as they have in Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. The extent to which Washington has moved against the Gaddafi regime means they have found someone better to do the job of oppressing and exploiting the Libyan people.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has recognized the rebel government of the Transitional National Council (TNC) based in Benghazi. That recognition came after meeting with both Mahmood Jibril, a former member of the Gadaffi regime and now Prime Minister of the Transitional National Council’s government, and senior TNC representative Ali al Issawi, who was Gaddafi’s economy minister who headed up the country’s privatization and austerity programs.

On March 9, 2011 Chairman of the TNC and former Minister of Justice under Gaddafi’s regime, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, formally called for the “no fly zone” over Libya, in effect calling for imperialist war against Libya. These calls have been coupled with TNC calls for air-strikes against forces of the Libyan government clearly making the TNC a cat’s paw for the current imperialist attacks on Libya. In addition to calling in foreign intervention, the rebels have also harassed immigrant workers and killed at least 100.

The rebel government offers no real alternative for Libya’s plebian masses. Instead of fighting against privatization and foreign imperialist control, rebel government representatives Jalil, Issawi, and Jibril represent the dismantling of the gains of the 1969 revolution through imperialist intervention and the privatization of the Libyan economy for the gain of imperialist corporations. They have given a direct invitation for military intervention in a country that suffered so much under imperialist control during the time of King Idris (1951-1969). And have in fact raised the flag of King Idris as their official flag.

The one potential redeeming quality one could find in the program of the TNC is their assurance that they are fighting for democracy. But with so much backing from imperialist countries like the United States, we should always ask, “Democracy for whom and for what purpose?” That is the same question that the imperialists always ask before they decide to either support a democracy or to overthrow it. The only form of “democracy” the U.S. government ever supports is “democracy” where it is the wealthy who rule. “Democratic” or not, if the TNC was not purely counter-revolutionary in terms of its planned use of oil money, the United States would not be supporting it. Whether democratic or a dictatorship, countries that spend their oil wealth on the people have always been seen as enemies by U.S. imperialism. Two examples of U.S. interventions against such democracies can be seen with Iran (1953) and Venezuela (2002).

In 1953 the democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a CIA orchestrated coup. The reason? Mosaddegh had nationalized Iranian oil wells that had been under the control of British Petroleum. That CIA orchestrated coup installed the brutal capitalist dictatorship of the Shah of Iran. With U.S. backing the Shah’s brutal totalitarian regime ruled for quarter of a century torturing and killing leftists and union leaders while allowing western oil companies to profit from Iranian oil and leaving nothing to the Iranian people.

Likewise, the U.S. government was involved the 2002 one day overthrow of Hugo Chavez. Chavez, opposed to the privatization of Venezuelan oil, was instead spending oil money on education and healthcare while his policies were also reducing unemployment and poverty. A U.S. backed coup put privatization advocate Pedro Carmona in power. Immediately after taking power Carmona’s coup also dissolved the elected National Assembly. Democracy was, of course, not the goal of U.S. imperialists who see Chavez as a hindrance to U.S. corporate interests in South America.

Showing her usual hypocrisy, representative of U.S. imperialism Hilary Clinton stated that “Gaddafi doesn’t approve of democracy.” But the election of Obama didn’t end the never ending U.S. imperialist war against democracies that help the poor and working class. In fact, the Obama administration played a central role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Honduras, replacing it with a death squad government that, among other things, murders union leaders and journalists. The “crimes” of the elected Zelaya government Obama helped overthrow? Zelaya raised the minimum wage and had friendly relations with the Chavez government of Venezuela.

Likewise, the U.S. continues under the Obama regime to prop up the worst dictatorships in the world, including the worst dictatorship in the world, the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Support for that monarchy includes a recent $60 billion dollar arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. It also includes silence from the U.S. government as the Saudi Arabian monarchy guns down protesters in the streets and sends troops into Bahrain to help put down the popular rebellion taking place there. Similar silence was heard when the U.S. backed dictatorship in Yemen gunned down pro-democracy protesters.

In addition, the U.S. also provides Israel with three billion dollars in military aid every year that has been used repeatedly to slaughter civilians. And in neighboring Egypt, the U.S. propped up the repressive torture regime of Mubarak with 1.3 billion dollars in military aid every year, aid that continues due to the fact that no real revolution has occurred in Egypt and the same old repressive military remains in power. At the same time, continued struggles by the Egyptian and Tunisian working classes and the building of revolutionary parties there could lead to real revolutionary change. Revolutionary change in Libya, as in Egypt and Tunisia, will not be led by forces in alliance with U.S. imperialism.

The regressive counter-revolutionary forces of the Transitional National Council (TNC) are now the cat’s paw of an imperialist war against Libya. Therefore Liberation News opposes absurd slogans like Socialist Action’s "Victory to the Workers' and Peasants' Uprising Against Qaddafi!" (March 6, 2011). Instead, Liberation News, while giving no political support to Gaddafi, calls for the defeat of imperialist intervention in Libya, including the defeat of all agents of that intervention like the TNC. Yet a number of nominally Trotskyist groups have voiced their support for this supposed “revolution” including Socialist Action (US), the Socialist Workers’ Party (US), the Freedom Socialist Party (US), the International Socialist Organization (Socialist Worker newspaper), Socialist Appeal (Britain and elsewhere), and Socialist Alternative.

On the other end of the extreme are those organizations that have, at least in the past, given uncritical support to Gaddafi’s Libya. These include the Stalinist Workers’ World Party (WWP) and its Stalinist offshoot, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), as well as the Healyite Workers League (U.S.) which, after implosion of its parent group in Britain, the Workers Revolutionary Party, formed the Socialist Equality Party, better known for its World Socialist Website (WSW).

The Stalinist WWP / PSL tendencies moved away from Gaddafi when Gaddafi joined the so-called U.S. “war on terror” and carried out neo-liberal reforms in Libya, but their political tendency did give political support to the bourgeois regime of Gaddafi while Gaddafi was killing Marxists and others to silence political opposition. While these Stalinists have changed their position on Gaddafi as Gaddafi moved closer to imperialism, they never retreated from giving full political support to the brutal bourgeois regime of Saddam Hussein.

Likewise, the forerunners of the nominally Trotskyist WSW gave full political support to Gaddafi while he was murdering Trotskyists. They even went so far as to promote Gaddafi’s writings. In return, Gaddafi funded their newspaper. In addition, these renegades from Trotskyism turned over the names and photos of Iraqi communists to the murderous regime of Saddam Hussein. In return, Saddam Hussein funded their newspaper. Such opportunism has no place in the Trotskyist movement. David North, current leader of the WSW, was an active leader of the Workers League when this was all taking place. North’s anti-working class opportunism has not stopped. Today North goes by the name of David Green in his business affairs, and while his WSW website opposes unions, David Green is the president of a twenty five million dollar a year non-union printing company, Grand River Printing & Imaging.

The Trotskyist program of Liberation News stands firm in giving no political support to either the pro-imperialist rebellion under the TNC government and monarchist flag, nor to Gaddafi’s erratic and brutal bourgeois regime with its green flag of Islamic populism and semi-socialist reforms, but we do stand resolutely in defense of the national sovereignty of Libya against imperialist attacks and call for a military defeat of all U.N./U.S./French and U.K. attackers of Libyan sovereignty. Imperialist intervention will bring nothing but bloodshed and new dictators friendly to U.S. corporate and strategic interests. While opposing imperialism we advocate workers’ revolution in Libya to bring down Gaddafi’s repressive police state government, to bring rights to the oppressed Berber nationality, to socialize the entire economy to meet human and environmental needs, and to enact an internationalist socialist program that fights against imperialist intervention and exploitation in Libya, North Africa, the Middle East, and throughout the entire world.

U.N. Authorization for War

The U.N. has given the green light to the U.S. led war against Libya as well as backing economic sanctions. This is the same U.N. that is currently occupying Haiti, defending the U.S. imposed coup government and U.S. owned garment companies that pay starvation wages. It was also under a U.N. resolution that U.S. enforced sanctions killed 1.5 million Iraqis in the 1990s. In the 1950s the U.N. carried out a war in Korea killing three million people in defense of the U.S. imposed capitalist dictatorship of Syngman Rhee, a dictatorship that executed hundreds of thousands of leftists and suspected leftists. While some liberals whined about the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan being unilateral actions, socialists were clear that we opposed imperialist intervention in those countries whether or not it was carried out under a U.S. or a U.N. flag.

Countries that sit on the U.N. Security Council have the ability to veto resolutions, but none that sit on that body did so when it came to the war resolution against Libya. Among those who could have vetoed the resolution, but abstained, were Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia. The fact that capitalist countries like Germany, Russia, Brazil, and India didn't take any real stand against this imperialist war is no real surprise any more than it was that Stalinist China did the same.

China, after refusing to use their veto against this imperialist war resolution ran a commentary in the Communist Party’s main newspaper, the People’s Daily, that complained, “The military attacks on Libya are, following on from the Afghan and Iraq wars, the third time that some countries have launched armed action against sovereign countries”. They go on to say that in places like Iraq "the unspeakable suffering of its people are a mirror and a warning." No doubt. But China's failure to stand-up to U.S. imperialism in the U.N. is further indication of the need for a working class political revolution in China that overthrows the repressive Stalinist bureaucracy and brings workers' democracy, an end to capitalist inroads into the socialist economy, and the establishment of a revolutionary government that has an internationalist working class program opposed to supporting the wars and exploitation of U.S. imperialism. This is the Trotskyist program on China.

Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, Cristina Ferdinez, President of Argentina, Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, and Fidel Castro have all opposed the U.S. / UN / NATO aggression against Libya. Unlike countries that abstained on the question of military force against Libya, however, none of the countries they represent have veto power in the United Nations. This exposes the completely undemocratic nature of the UN. Those who bring U.N. flags to anti-war protests should stop doing so. The U.N. flag represents undemocratic imperialism, war, and starvation sanctions.

Opposition to the War in the U.S.

Ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Dick Lugar has argued that Obama needs to seek a declaration of war in order to carry out a war against Libya. Further more he states:

"With the Arab League already having second thoughts, and Turkey nixing NATO taking over, today there are even more questions. We also have to debate how all this effects the Saudis, Bahrain and Yemen. The facts are that our budget is stretched too far and our troops are stretched too far, the American people require a full understanding and accounting, through a full and open debate in Congress."

While Dick Lugar’s opposition to Obama’s war and call for democratic debate is welcome, his hesitations on the war are based on his desire to have debate among the representatives of the American ruling class in congress on whether or not a war in Libya is really in the interests of U.S. imperialism. His objections are not on the basis of what is in the interests of the working class of the United States nor the interests of those working classes suffering under the yoke of U.S. imperialism. In fact, despite rare coincidences like this, those interests are in general diametrically opposed to the positions of Dick Lugar.

Taking up the question from the left of the spectrum of American bourgeois politics is Democrat Congressman Dennis Kucinich who states:

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

"While the action is billed as protecting the civilians of Libya, a no-fly-zone begins with an attack on the air defenses of Libya and Gaddafi forces. It is an act of war. The president made statements which attempt to minimize U.S. action, but U.S. planes may drop U.S. bombs and U.S. missiles may be involved in striking another sovereign nation. War from the air is still war.

"Congress should be called back into session immediately to decide whether or not to authorize the United States’ participation in a military strike. If it does not, the action of the President is contrary to U.S. Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution clearly states that the United States Congress has the power to declare war. The President does not. That was the Founders’ intent,"

The “founders’ intent” was actually nothing noble, it was slavery, the slaughtering of Native Americans, the exploitation of workers, and of giving the vote solely to rich white men. Granted, Obama as imperial president isn’t playing by certain rules that would force a more democratic debate on the question of going to war. But the problem goes far beyond whether or not Obama is playing by the rules. The problem is in part a political system that gives representation only to the wealthy. And the problem is an entire imperialist system constantly at war.

In the 2004 presidential election Dennis Kucinich portrayed himself as an anti-war candidate of the Democrat Party. Yet on his web site the Kucinich campaign stated that Kucinich:

“…supports a strong and efficient military. He believes that the current practice of procuring ever more costly weapons has the effect of weakening military readiness. As the cost of new weapons systems rise, the cost of merely replacing aging weapons with new ones becomes prohibitively expensive. As a result, U.S. military forces shrink, while they become at the same time more expensive to maintain and more prone to failure.”

So Kucinich advocates more frugal and efficient spending on imperialist terror and murder. With the United States government at war in a number of countries and propping up dictatorships around the world to further U.S. corporate interests, a strong and efficient U.S. military is not in the interests of the world's working class, nor in the interests of the U.S. working class and the working class youth sent off to war.

Kucinich’s failure to see the consistent problem with U.S. imperialist wars was also spelled out sharply in his vote granting Bush the use of force against Afghanistan.

Like Lugar’s opposition, Kucinich’s is welcome, and like Lugar, nobody should look to Kucinich as a leader in the struggle to end U.S. imperialist wars.

As opposed to building a political alternative to the war policies of the Democrat Party, Kucinich’s main role is to draw those of us fed up with that corporate owned party of imperialist war right back into it. Kucinich makes this point clear when he states, "The Democratic Party created third parties by running to the middle. What I'm trying to do is to go back to the big tent so that everyone who felt alienated could come back through my candidacy" (Counter Punch, April 2003).

Yet that “big tent” of the Democrat Party Kucinich speaks of is one that, despite its name, is not democratic. It is a tent dominated by big capital and the politicians subservient to it. It is under this tent that the ruling class would like to swallow up the legitimate opposition of the people towards war and turn us into the water boys for the “responsible” politicians of the Democrat Party.

Not content with trying to herd those of us to the left of the Democrat Party back into that wretched bourgeois swamp, Kucinich also supports political repression against us. Kucinich voted for a resolution before congress that falsely claims, “Mumia Abu-Jamal stood over Officer Faulkner and shot him in the face, mortally wounding him…” Yet this is not what the actual eyewitnesses said. For instance, eyewitness William Singletary says, "Mumia Abu-Jamal didn't shoot Daniel Faulkner. The passenger in the right-hand side of the Volkswagen [that Faulkner had stopped] got out of the car and shot him." ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006) For more on Mumia’s case see: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/07/19/18436405.php

Cases like those of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier are a blatant frame-ups meant to scare and silence leftists who know we could be the next Mumia or Peltier. Unlike Kucinich, those of us not working to preserve this unjust system say: An injury to one is an injury to all! Free Mumia Abu-Jamal! A vote for Kucinich is potentially a vote for your own execution.

As opposed to supporting the least evil of those who oppress us, revolutionary socialists start from the necessity of building something different than the established bourgeois parties. Mass protests in the streets against wars can be helpful, as can be organizing soldier’s resistance against the wars and pickets to stop the shipment of war armaments. But the need to build a revolutionary workers’ party in the United States is critical.

In the fight against imperialist wars in the United States we come up against the fact that much of the peace movement retains illusions in the Democrat Party, the same party propping up dictators, carrying out coups, and sending U.S. troops to war. Many of those who are not Democrats are part of groups that are not about putting a new revolutionary leadership forward, but are instead all about pressuring the hopelessly capitalist and imperialist Democrat Party from the left. These groups include the Green Party, most of this country’s nominally socialist groups, and a myriad of anarchist individuals and formations.

Other groups that are clear about the need to build a revolutionary party, specifically the Spartacist League and the Internationalist Group, drop the ball on a number of essential questions, not the least of which being the question of climate change. Those groups are, unfortunately, unaware of the critical need to attempt to stop the capitalists who are rapidly causing the destruction of the Earth and human civilization in their insane drive for massive immediate profits.

Liberation News is instead clear about the need for a revolutionary party that fights for workers’ power, the smashing of imperialism through socialist revolution, and the building of an egalitarian socialist society with workers’ democracy that produces for human and environmental needs rather than profit. We call for the organization of such a party and ask all who agree to join us in the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party.

Subscribe free to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Or subscribe free at this mirror site (the other one may be temporarily down):
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Liberation-News/

Contact about interest in the League for a Revolutionary Workers Party
Revolution_updates (at) yahoo.com

For upcoming protests against the war on Libya:
United National Antiwar Committee
http://nationalpeaceconference.org/

NATO: America's Imperial Tool - by Stephen Lendman

Markin comment:

The question of the hour is the question of the defense of Libya against the international cabal of imperialist military forces arrayed against it. It is no longer about like or dislike Quadaffi (I am using this spelling of his name since I have seen about seven variations in the media). It is no longer like or dislike the rebels. This action is now controlled by the imperialist cabal and we have a side. Against the U.S.-led (formally or not) imperial forces (and their allies). A victory, another victory for world imperialism here just makes our task that much harder. I am placing commentary today as I find it on the Internet from sources that argue along those same lines. The imperialists and their allies have already “spoken” loud and clear.

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No- Fly Zone!

*********

NATO: America's Imperial Tool
by Stephen Lendman
Email: lendmanstephen (nospam) sbcglobal.net (verified) 26 Mar 2011
naked aggression
NATO: America's Imperial Tool - by Stephen Lendman

In 1999, Nobel laureate Harold Pinter called America's bombing and dismemberment of Yugoslavia "barbaric (and despicable), another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile (to consolidate) American domination of Europe."

Against Iraq and Afghanistan it's to dominate Eurasia, and against Libya for greater regional hegemony, including resource control, privatization of state industries, new Pentagon bases for future imperial wars, and deterring any democratic spark from emerging.

Obama lied saying:

"United States forces are conducting a limited and well-defined mission in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster."

In fact, he caused a humanitarian crisis by killing civilians, the situation worsening daily as deaths and destruction increase.

"We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize (stated) objectives," he added.

False.

Giving NATO operational no-fly command is a ruse. NATO is the Pentagon, America's missile to reign death and destruction on targeted nations directly or through proxies. Washington planned, orchestrated and leads naked aggression on Libya. The announced handover changes nothing. European allies are more pawns than partners. They mostly go along to get along.

America remains in charge for what promises to be a protracted, destructive, expensive war to replace one despot with another. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, it'll likely cost billions of dollars at a time homeland needs are neglected to hand America's wealth to Wall Street, other corporate favorites, and militarists for endless wars - lawless naked aggression each time.

Moreover, humanitarian intervention is cover for mass killing and destruction. The more the better to assure corporate crooks huge contracts to rebuild, then on to the next war, and the next one, ad infinitum, America's addiction, the major media its cheerleading chorus.

NATO, An Alliance for War, not Peace

Established in April 1949, NATO calls itself a "political and military alliance for peace and security." In fact, it was more for offense than defense. Cold War hysteria was contrived to incite fear and assure an arms race for corporate enrichment. Napoleon once said, "Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest."

Until the Soviet Union dissolved, communism was the alleged enemy. Today it's terrorism, as bogus now as then. Both, however, were used for hugely profitable imperial wars from Korea to Libya to numerous proxy ones, as well as trillions of dollars for military readiness - in fact, scandalous amounts in America without enemies for justification since WW II.

Strategically intervening under US control, NATO, in fact, threatens world peace and human survival. In November 2010, Robert Griffiths, general secretary of Britain's Communist Party (CPB) said:

Under NATO, "(a) global military and reconnaissance infrastructure is being created to support US, British and western European big business interests, especially energy, financial and armaments monopolies." What began "as a cold war provocation against a non-existent Soviet threat (now) invent(s) or exaggerat(es) threats from so-called failed or rogue states, Islamic fundamentalism and cyber-terrorism."

Petre Ignat, general secretary of the New Communist Party of Romania, called for NATO's disbandment, saying:

"We cannot and will not recognize such a murderous alliance, with such a horrible track record....which includes the murder of thousands of innocent civilians in places like Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. We cannot and will not recognize an alliance which, through its aggressive policy of expanding East and setting up new military bases there, through its gross interference in other countries' internal affairs, through its gross violation of international law, can only increase the likelihood of an inter-imperialist war between Western imperialism and emerging capitalist powers, like Russia."

Its original member countries include America, the five (1948) Treaty of Brussels states (Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg), Canada, Portugal, Italy, Denmark and Iceland. It's now expanded to 28 states and dozens of partners, threatening world peace and stability.

Membership, however, is a bonanza for Western and Israeli weapons industries as current members and entering states must maintain modern arsenals to state-of-the art readiness, despite no enemies except ones Washington creates to wage wars.

On April 4, 2009, NATO's 60th anniversary, a major international demonstration was held in Strasbourg, France under the slogan, "No to War - No to NATO." Participating organizations included peace groups, global justice movements, trade unions, students, and others against NATO's aggressive military and nuclear policies.

Rather than providing security, NATO has been an obstacle to world peace. In a public statement, the Strasbourg coalition said:

NATO "is a vehicle for US-led use of force with military bases on all continents, bypassing the United Nations and the system of international law, accelerating militarization and escalating arms expenditures."

Its member countries account for up to 80% of all purchases, used for imperial wars called "humanitarian intervention."

"To achieve our vision of a peaceful world, we reject military responses to global and regional crises," real or contrived. "We refuse to live under the terror of nuclear weapons, and reject a new arms race." World security depends on peaceful cooperation and coexistence, impossible to achieve under NATO.

Today, bogus threats are used to justify its existence, including "terrorism," instability, arms trafficking, and proliferation of ballistic missiles, nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, mostly in Western and Russian arsenals.

Moreover, new justifications are exploited, NATO citing:

"Key environmental and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity and increasing energy needs (that) further shape the future security environment in areas of concern to (member states) and have the potential to affect significantly (their) planning and operations."

In addition, other areas, including the "ability to prevent, detect, defend against and recover from cyber-attacks (and) assessing the impact of emerging security technologies."

At the same time, NATO pays lip service to "creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons" when, in fact, members like America proliferate them. Hypocritically it then states, "As long as there are nuclear weapons in the world, NATO will remain a nuclear power" because Washington, Britain and France won't abandon them.

Rick Rozoff runs the Stop Nato web site:

"an international email news list that examines, from an adversarial position, the expansion of (NATO) and affiliated and allied military blocs into and throughout Europe, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, Central and South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, Africa, the so-called Greater Middle East and beyond."

As explained above, he calls NATO "the first attempt in history to establish an aggressive global military formation," comprising one-third of world nations as members or partners on five continents. Stop NATO's purpose is "anti-militarist, international and internationalist." The ultimate aim is survival.

NATO wars, in fact, are America's for greater reach. Against Libya it's to control the only North African Mediterranean state outside its partnership, and only one of five African states not under AFRICOM.

Replacing Gaddafi with a subservient puppet will assure its entry, giving Washington unchallenged Mediterranean Basin dominance, a strategically important waterway bordering three continents. Securing control over Iran, Syria and Lebanon successfully will achieve overall regional hegemony.

NATO's European dominance and eastward expansion especially threatens Russia. Its new Military Doctrine listed "main external threats of war" concerns, including:

-- NATO's global expansion, including to Russia's borders;

-- destabilizing nations and regions;

-- deploying foreign forces on territories and adjacent waters bordering Russia and its allies;

-- deploying offensive strategic missile systems targeting Russia;

-- militarizing space;

-- deploying strategic non-nuclear precision weapons;

-- interfering in the internal affairs of Russia and its allies;

-- proliferating weapons of mass destruction, including missiles, related technology, and nuclear weapons;

-- violating international agreements;

-- not ratifying and implementing others on arms limitations and reductions; and

-- escalating armed conflicts and using military force in areas bordering Russia and its allies.

As a result, at the February 2010 Munich Conference, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said:

After the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact dissolved, "a real opportunity emerged to make the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) a full-fledged organization providing equal security for all states of the Euro-Atlantic area. However, the opportunity was missed, because the choice was made in favor" of expanding NATO eastward, threatening Russia and its allies.

For example, Yugoslavia's 1999 bombing violated international law and NATO's charter "when a group of OSCE countries....committed aggression against another OSCE country." Again in August 2008 in the Georgian - South Ossetian conflict "in violation of the Helsinki Final Act," prohibiting use of force. US-led NATO, in fact, proliferates it globally, Libya its latest adventure, threatening the entire region and beyond.

A Final Comment

It's no exaggeration calling NATO a global menace, waging war, not peace. It should be abolished, dismantled, not expanded. Today, it reserves the right to use nuclear weapons unilaterally in violation of the 1996 International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling stating:

"....the threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law applicable to armed conflict, and in particular the principles of humanitarian law," despite no "comprehensive and universal prohibition."

Operating lawlessly and recklessly as America's "missile," NATO threatens world peace, stability, security and survival. Disbanding it is more important than ever. Besides millions of Iraqi and Afghan victims, how many Libyan deaths are needed to prove it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen (at) sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
See also:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

From The International Communist Party Website-No to imperialist military intervention in Libya!

Markin comment:

The question of the hour is the question of the defense of Libya against the international cabal of imperialist military forces arrayed against it. It is no longer about like or dislike Quadaffi (I am using this spelling of his name since I have seen about seven variations in the media). It is no longer like or dislike the rebels. This action is now controlled by the imperialist cabal and we have a side. Against the U.S.-led (formally or not) imperial forces (and their allies). A victory, another victory for world imperialism here just makes our task that much harder. I am placing commentary today as I find it on the Internet from sources that argue along those same lines. The imperialists and their allies have already “spoken” loud and clear.

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No- Fly Zone!

********
No to imperialist military intervention in Libya!
by PCInt
(No verified email address) 25 Mar 2011


Since Saturday, March 19, a US-led military coalition, including, besides English and French Forces, participation by Canadian, Italian, Spanish, and other countries, commenced the bombardment of military installations and concentrations of troops loyal to the Gaddafi government. The stated purpose of this military intervention which has been endorsed by the Security Council of the UN and the Arab League, is to get government forces off the offensive against the rebels, in order to avoid a “massacre of the civilian population”.
But when real massacres of civilians occurred at the beginning of the revolt, the authorities of all these countries responded with total silence. When information on the killings began to filter out of Libya, they were content with their hypocritical ritual admonitions, begging the Libyan government to exercise “restraint” and to avoid using “disproportionate” violence. It is Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi who betrayed the origin of this attitude, when he said he had not called Gaddafi asking him to stop the repression “because he did not want to disturb him”: the European governments did not wish to “disturb” the Libyan government when it was fighting to restore its order in blood!

With the unceasing onslaught of the revolt despite the repression, to the point of appearing to threaten the regime, the major Western imperialist countries began to put pressure on Gaddafi and his allies with freezes of financial assets, arms embargoes, etc. At the same time, according to reports in some newspapers (1), discreet talks were undertaken, especially by the Americans, with certain fractions of the Libyan power; the aim was not to help the rebels to topple the regime, but to implement a Tunisian or Egyptian solution: the sidelining of Gaddafi to save the regime itself. Indeed, this regime was engaged for several years in close collaboration with U.S. imperialism (the fight against Islamism) and European imperialism (the role of border guard and the blockage of African immigrant workers). Also it is a significant supplier of oil, not to mention a lucrative market, thanks to income received from oil, for the capitalist enterprises of many countries.

The evolution of the internal situation, marked by the governmental counter-attack in particular through the use of Nigerien and Chadian mercenaries and the obstinancy of the Gaddafi clan to yield anything, made this solution impossible. At the instigation of the British and French governments, the United States and other imperialist powers of the Security Council of the UN, this modern den of thieves, and the Arab League (from Egypt to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates), this set of states each more authoritarian and repressive than the other, finally gave the green light to Western military intervention in favor of “democracy”. At the same time all these defenders of democracy were busy endorsing the Saudi military intervention to crush the rebellion in Bahrain and the massacre of dozens of protesters by the government of Yemen!

* * *

The rebel movement in Libya, born on the wave of revolts that has shaken neighboring countries since the beginning of this year, undoubtedly mobilized the proletarianized masses of the country against poverty, oppression and repression; but it also, as was inevitable, expressed the aspirations of bourgeois and petit-bourgeois factions, layers or “tribes” marginalized by those close to Gaddafi, to capture a larger slice of the pie and of the power. It is this representatives of bourgeois layers who have installed themselves as leaders of the insurgents and who have been recognized by Sarkozy as “legitimate representatives of the Libyan people”. It is no coincidence that the leading representative of the so-called “National Council” of Benghazi is Al Jeleil, Gaddafi’s former Minister of Justice who in this capacity is responsible for countless arrests and arbitrary detentions. It is no coincidence either that the insurgent authorities allowed pogroms against African immigrant workers to proceed in Benghazi...

The proletarians have nothing good to expect from the murderer Gaddafi, or the imperialist coalition, but nothing either from the provisional government which was assembled under the colors of the ancient kingdom of Libya. In reality the workers in Libya, both natives and especially immigrants (migrant workers, from Egypt, Tunisia, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian subcontinent, represent half of the proletarians of the country by some estimates), have suffered, and will suffer the worst consequences of repression not only from Gaddafi’s militias, but also from clashes between various factions and now the imperialist military intervention.

The war unleashed against Gaddafi, even if it is “limited” for the moment to aerial bombardment is a war of imperialist plunder, like its predecessors in Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. The wave of revolts which shook the regimes which used to be solid allies of the Western imperialists has at the same time sharpened the contradictions and conflicts between the great capitalist powers, at a time when the economic crisis forces each of them to defend its own interests ever more harshly against those of its competitors. The crisis of the Libyan regime has precipitated all the greater and lesser states into pushing their pawns forward, shattering the facade of unity of the “international community” . The “Libyan affair” has provided an opportunity for Britain and France to try to dictate the law in the Mediterranean – while entrenching themselves more firmly in a country rich in oil; the United States, while now maintaining a low profile once again demonstrated to their allies that they were still the real masters; tagging behind Italy, Spain and Canada are present to claim their share of the spoils, while Egypt does not want to be shut out of what's happening to one of its neighbors and the UAE is content to take a back seat in order to have a free hand at home. On the other hand Germany, Russia or China do not look at all favorably upon this Americano-Anglo-Franco action ...

The proletarians have interests diametrically opposed to those factions and bourgeois states that are competing in this bloody fray. They must not support a weaker bourgeois state against the all powerful imperialists, they must not support the bourgeois states experiencing aggression against “aggressor” states: all the bourgeois states, all the bourgeoisies are as one against the proletarians and wage a permanent struggle, sometimes “peaceful”, sometimes violent against them. In war as in peace, they are exploited, oppressed and suppressed, they experience misery, poverty and death in the workplace. Whatever the government, they can count only on their own forces, on their own struggle, on their own organization to defend themselves. And they must reserve their solidarity for their class brothers of all countries, and not for the bourgeois. This solidarity, this struggle and this organization can become possible only by breaking all ties with all bourgeois States, organizations and orientations, whether religious or secular, democratic or nationalist.
The class party embodies the struggle of the proletariat of all countries against capitalism and bourgeois power; it is the organ necessary to centralize the proletariat and to lead its struggles to revolutionary victory. This party does not exist today, except in terms of theory and program, as there is no generalized class struggle in all countries.

But the revolts like those that break out today in the Arab countries and those that will break out tomorrow, demonstrate that the incurable economic and social contradictions of capitalism are at work and they push the workers, including those in the major imperialist countries, to resume the path of real revolutionary struggle against capitalism. Tens of thousands of migrant workers fleeing Libya were greeted fraternally by their Tunisian brothers: this is a small sign of proletarian internationalist solidarity. This is the path which the class struggle will take once again and through which the revolutionary Communist party will be reborn, basing itself on the teachings of Marxism and the lessons of the great struggles and workers' revolutions of the past.

The planes, aircraft carriers, submarines and ships of the western armada mobilized in the seas and skies of Libya will not stop the wave of revolt that is now beginning to spread to Syria and Morocco; it may perhaps mark a pause, but the struggle against all the dams built up by the ruling classes will inevitably be reborn. Until the proletariat, having paid enough of its sweat and blood to fatten the capitalists, launches itself into the only war worth fighting: the class war against all the bourgeoisies, starting with that of his own country!

International Communist Party

www.pcint.org

(1) See the “Wall Street Journal” 3/09/11

From The Pages Of "Workers Vanguard"-"Wisconsin: Defend the Unions Through Class Struggle!"

Click on the headline to link to an American Left History post, dated Saturday, March 19, 2011,From The Wisconsin War-Zone- Despite The Court Reprieve The Fight For A General Strike Of All Labor In Wisconsin Is Still Directly Posed-And Solidarity Actions By Those Outside The State- Wisconsin State AFL-CIO Get To It.

Workers Vanguard No. 976
18 March 2011

Labor Tops Derail Anger, Promote Democrats

Wisconsin: Defend the Unions Through Class Struggle!

MARCH 13—Republican Wisconsin governor Scott Walker has thrown down the gauntlet to the entire labor movement, signing a law stripping the state’s public workers unions of their right to bargain for their members. This is an open attempt to destroy the public sector unions, which are similarly under attack in Ohio, Indiana and other states. The law dictates that pay increases—the sole issue on which the unions are now permitted to bargain—may not exceed the cost of living index unless approved by a statewide referendum. Workers’ contributions toward their health care and pensions will be dramatically increased, meaning an effective pay cut of 8 percent on average. Wisconsin’s Democrats, who put up a show of stalling the vote on the union-busting bill by fleeing the state, had earlier stated their support to all the key economic take-backs, as had the state’s labor officialdom.

The labor movement must beat back this wage-slashing, union-busting attack. Six years ago in Indiana, collective bargaining rights were abolished for state workers, leading to a decline in union membership from 66 percent to 7 percent of the eligible workforce. What is and has been needed is strike action to close Wisconsin down. Many workers have shown their determination to wage such a fight. Tens of thousands have repeatedly rallied to defeat the anti-union onslaught. Across the U.S., private sector unions have joined in demonstrations against similar legislation and cutbacks, which are designed to make working people pay for the economic depression—a crisis caused by the capitalists’ insatiable drive for profits. National polls indicate that broad swaths of the population, hammered by the economic crisis, are opposed to the anti-union attacks.

Occupation of the Wisconsin State Capitol by protesters drew worldwide attention to Madison, but to date there has been no strike action. Why? The pro-capitalist trade-union leadership has been working overtime to divert workers’ militancy into Democratic Party electioneering, centrally through a campaign to recall Republican legislators as well as Walker.

This was made clear at a 100,000-strong demonstration in Madison yesterday mainly organized by the AFL-CIO. After the farmers, after local Democratic officials, after the folk singers and a parade of speakers from the “Fab 14” state senators, after the preacher pronounced, “Amen,” and the crowd was dispersing—only then did a few labor officials speak. And when they did, they urged Wisconsinites to channel their energies into the recall of eight Republican senators who backed the governor and into pressuring the capitalist courts to overturn the bill. Not a word was uttered from the podium about mobilizing labor’s strike power. Spartacist comrades put up a banner and held signs highlighting the need to break with the Democratic Party and build a revolutionary workers party, selling most of our literature to people who sought us out because of our hard stand against the Democrats.

The labor bureaucracy’s service to the Democrats and prostration before anti-union laws are a recipe for defeat. Virtually every gain of the labor movement, including the very right for unions to exist, has been achieved through class struggle against America’s capitalist rulers. The Democrats, deceptively promoted by union leaders as “friends of labor,” are simply the other major party of U.S. capitalist rule. The union bureaucrats are core cadres of that party, assuring that the unions they lead provide votes for its candidates and millions of dollars in dues money to electoral campaigns.

For that reason, the Democrats seldom seek to bust the unions outright. But they are no more averse than Republicans to leading savage attacks on the wages and benefits of working people in the service of the bosses. In fact, Walker was elected governor in a contest against the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee, who supported cutting back public employee benefits. The mother of anti-union legislation, the Taft-Hartley Act, was passed in 1947 over the veto of Democratic president Harry Truman, who knew full well that the veto would not withstand a Congressional override. Notwithstanding the Democratic Party’s pledges to abolish Taft-Hartley, the law survived several administrations, during which the Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress.

Barack Obama, as a candidate for the presidency, promised to walk picket lines to defend union rights. Once elected as Commander-in-Chief of the American imperialist order, he quickly moved in collaboration with the auto bosses and the United Auto Workers misleaders to lead the assault that reduced the UAW—once the symbol of union power in this country, with a peak membership of 1.5 million—to a shell of its former self. Obama went on to launch a war against teachers unions by endorsing the wholesale firing of Central Falls, Rhode Island, high school teachers last year. Recently, a presidential spokesman repeated his boss’s “indictment” of the legislation in Wisconsin as an effort “to denigrate or vilify public sector employees.” This is equivalent to complaining that Hurricane Katrina was bad for tourism.

Scott Walker promised to create a PATCO moment for Wisconsin’s public sector unions, that is, to destroy them. Ronald Reagan’s unchallenged destruction of the PATCO air traffic controllers union in 1981, utilizing a plan drawn up by his predecessor, Democrat Jimmy Carter, set the stage for a ruthless capitalist offensive against the unions and the working class as a whole. It didn’t have to be that way. Labor could have beaten back the union-busters by shutting down the airports. The power to do this was in the hands of unions like the IAM machinists, which organized the ground crews. There was plenty of sentiment in labor’s ranks to fight to defend PATCO, as seen in the massive 19 September 1981 labor demonstration—half a million strong—in Washington, D.C. But IAM president “Wimpy” Winpisinger, a leader of the Democratic Socialists of America, refused to call solidarity strike action, leaving individual workers to decide whether to honor or cross PATCO picket lines.

Emboldened by the decimation of private sector unions—a product of the prostration of the labor leadership to the dictates of the capitalist order—state governments under both Democratic and Republican administrations are threatening the hard-won gains and even the very existence of public employee unions. The Wisconsin law proscribes the dues check-off system and mandates yearly union recertification elections in the hope that workers will refuse to pay their dues and abandon their unions. We oppose the capitalist state abolishing dues check-off or intervening in any other way into union affairs. At the same time, it is in labor’s basic interest that union representatives, and not the bosses, collect union dues. This money should go toward building strike funds and otherwise supporting workers struggle, not be squandered to fund Democratic Party candidates. There must be a fight for the complete independence of the unions from the state agencies and political parties of the capitalist enemy.

The mass demonstrations in defense of Wisconsin’s public sector unions have moved various ersatz socialist organizations to respond to calls for strike action. In the case of the International Socialist Organization (ISO), this has meant issuing a few mealy-mouthed criticisms of the union bureaucrats while simultaneously supporting their pro-Democratic recall campaign. An 11 March editorial in the ISO’s Socialist Worker emphasizes: “The Republican senators should be recalled—and Walker, too.” Even while chastising union officials for “demobilizing and disarming” workers, the editorial disparages the call for a statewide strike as “unlikely to get very far,” advocating instead “pickets before work or noontime marches.” This is the kind of “activism” that would bring smiles to the bosses’ faces, as it neither stops operations nor challenges anti-strike laws.

The ISO is at one with the labor bureaucracy, which has itself made perfectly clear that the recall effort is counterposed to preparing the unions to wage the strike action that is necessary to defeat the union-busters. This comes as no surprise, as the ISO, along with the many other fake “socialists,” seeks not the overthrow of the system that is based on the exploitation of labor but its reform.

Wisconsin workers realize, correctly, that they are treated as if they have no rights. Anesthetized by decades of labor’s passivity enforced by capitalism’s labor lieutenants, in the face of repeated attacks by the bosses, workers must be won to the understanding that such treatment is not an aberration but the very essence of the capitalist “democratic” order. That order enforces through its state power the democratic right of the rulers to exploit and repress the toiling masses. The cops, falsely portrayed by many reformists as fellow workers, now close off the Capitol in Madison to demonstrators and will not, if the unions strike, be hesitant to employ force against the picket lines. The courts will quickly move to proscribe militant class struggle. And the “friends of labor” in the Democratic Party will promise reform while supporting the forces of law and order.

Many workers fear that strike action can only result in further losses. While it will not be easy to defeat the arrogant rulers’ union-busting drive, playing by the bosses’ rules is a sure guarantee of defeat. It requires the mobilization of the mass strength and solidarity of the working class to prevail against the capitalists’ attacks. As we wrote last issue in “All Labor Must Fight Assault on Public Workers Unions!” (WV No. 975, 4 March):

“Two possible roads lie before the working class. There is the bureaucracy’s acceptance that the workers must ‘sacrifice’ to preserve the profits and rule of American capitalism, which has led to disaster. Or there is the class-struggle road of mobilizing the power of the working class in the necessary battles against the capitalist masters. In the course of such struggle, under a leadership that arms the working class with an understanding of the nature of capitalist society, the workers will become imbued with the consciousness of their historic interests as a class fighting for itself and for all of the oppressed. Such consciousness requires a political expression. That means the fight to build a multiracial revolutionary workers party whose purpose is not only to defend the working class against the menace of its own devastation but to rid the planet of the source of that devastation, capitalism itself, and the state that preserves it.”

Once Again On Libya-Statement of the International Executive Committee of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)-Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack!

Markin comment

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack! Down With The U.S.-Led Imperialist Coalition! Down With The NATO No Fly-Zone! Saudis Out Of Bahrain!


Statement of the International Executive Committee of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)

Defend Libya Against Imperialist Attack!

The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) calls on workers around the world to take a stand for military defense of semicolonial Libya against the attack begun yesterday by a coalition of rapacious imperialist governments. The French, British and U.S. rulers, in league with other imperialist governments and with the blessings of the sheiks, kings and military bonapartists of the Arab League, wasted not a moment in acting on the green light given by the United Nations Security Council on Thursday to slaughter countless innocent people in the name of “protecting civilians” and ensuring “democracy.” French air strikes were quickly followed by U.S. and British missile attacks, while Egypt’s military regime is providing arms to the Benghazi opposition forces. From Indochina and the Korean peninsula to the U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan today, the “democratic” imperialist rulers wade in the blood of millions upon millions of their victims. Recall that Britain and France historically carried out untold massacres in the Near East, Africa and the Indian subcontinent in order to pursue their colonial subjugation of those areas. Recall that Italy, now providing the use of its air bases for the attack, is responsible for the deaths of up to half the population of Cyrenaica in eastern Libya during its colonial rule prior to World War II.

Prior to the current attack, the conflict in Libya had taken the form of a low-intensity civil war, heavily overlaid by tribal and regional divisions, between the Tripoli-centered government of strongman Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi and imperialist-backed opposition forces concentrated in the country’s eastern areas. Workers Vanguard No. 976 (18 March), newspaper of the U.S. section of the ICL, noted that “Marxists presently have no side in this conflict.” But as the article continued: “In the event of imperialist attack against neocolonial Libya, the proletariat internationally must stand for the military defense of that country while giving no political support to Qaddafi’s capitalist regime.” The civil war in Libya has now been subordinated to the fight of a neocolonial country against imperialism. Every step taken by the workers of the imperialist countries to halt the depredations and military adventures of their rulers is a step toward their own liberation from capitalist exploitation, impoverishment and oppression. Defend Libya against imperialist attack! U.S. Fifth Fleet and all imperialist military bases and troops out of North Africa and the Near East!

Recall that the slaughter of well over a million people in Iraq began with the imposition of a UN-sponsored starvation embargo and a “no fly zone” in the 1990s. The latest action by the Security Council, including the neo-apartheid South African regime led by the African National Congress, underscores yet again the character of the United Nations as a den of imperialist thieves and their lackeys and semicolonial victims. The abstention by the representative of China, a bureaucratically deformed workers state, gave tacit approval to imperialist depredation, emboldening the very forces which seek to overturn the 1949 Chinese Revolution.

The crocodile tears shed by the imperialist rulers and their media mouthpieces over the Libyans killed by the Qaddafi regime during the recent wave of protests stands in sharp contrast to their muted response to the continuing massacre of protesters in Yemen—whose dictatorship is a key component of Washington’s “war on terror”—and their ongoing support to the Bahraini kingdom, which hosts the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet. To aid in crushing mass protests, Bahrain last week invited in troops from the medievalist and theocratic Saudi monarchy, a key bulwark of U.S. imperialist interests in the region. In the eyes of the imperialist rulers, Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority and the Yemeni masses are less than human, with no rights they are bound to respect.

Numerous social-democratic leftists, typified by the United Secretariat (USec) and the British Cliffite Socialist Workers Party, have done their part to prepare the ground for imperialist massacres in Libya by cheering on the so-called “Libyan Revolution.” Having urged support for the cabal of pro-imperialist “democrats,” CIA stooges, monarchists and Islamists that comprise the Benghazi-based opposition, these reformists now feign to balk at imperialist military intervention in support of the opposition. The New Anti-Capitalist Party, constituted in 2009 by the USec’s French section, signed a call for a demonstration yesterday demanding that the Benghazi outfit be recognized as “the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people”—which French ruler Sarkozy had already done! At the same time, those left groups that have promoted illusions in Qaddafi’s “anti-imperialist” pretensions—such as the Workers World Party in the U.S.—seek everywhere and at all times to chain the working class to a mythical “progressive” wing of the bourgeoisie.

We pledge today, as we did at the time of the U.S. Reagan administration’s bombing of Libya in 1986, to “undertake every effort to propagandize the need for the world working class to take the side of Libya” against its imperialist enemies (“Under Reagan’s Guns in Libya,” WV No. 401, 11 April 1986). In the pursuit of profit and domination, the same capitalist ruling classes that brutally exploit the working class “at home,” only to throw workers on the scrap heap during periods of economic crisis, as today, carry out murderous imperialist attacks abroad. The struggle against imperialist war cannot be conducted separately and apart from the class struggle. Only socialist revolution can overthrow the system of capitalist imperialism which breeds war. Our path is that of the October Revolution of 1917, led by the Bolshevik Party of Lenin and Trotsky, which was a beacon of revolutionary internationalism for the proletariat everywhere. We struggle to reforge the Fourth International as an instrument that can lead the working masses, from the Near East to the imperialist centers, forward to new October Revolutions and a world socialist society.

—20 March 2011

Reflections from the Quantico War-Zone – The Rally for Private Bradley Manning-March 20th 2011.

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the rally at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on March 20, 2011 in support of alleged Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning.

Markin comment:

Quantico was like a war-zone with more police than you could shake a stick at. All in order to show that old-time radicals, Veterans for Peace, codepink women, assorted Quakers, little old ladies in tennis sneakers, little old men in tennis sneakers and others out to protest the outrageous treatment of alleged whistleblower Private Bradley Manning were some threat to civilized society. Damn Obama and his crowd. Free Bradley Manning!

Reflections from the Quantico War-Zone – The Rally for Private Bradley Manning-March 20th 2011.

Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of the rally at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on March 20, 2011 in support of alleged Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning.

Markin comment:

Quantico was like a war-zone with more police than you could shake a stick at. All in order to show that old-time radicals, Veterans for Peace, codepink women, assorted Quakers, little old ladies in tennis sneakers, little old men in tennis sneakers and others out to protest the outrageous treatment of alleged whistleblower Private Bradley Manning were some threat to civilized society. Damn Obama and his crowd. Free Bradley Manning!