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"Civil Wars" in Iraq, Palestine & Lebanon: Who Benefits?

The "War on Terror" is now spiraling into (the promised and feared) regional conflagration. Sparkling new talking points about a "civil war" and the "responsibilities" of occupation. First in Pakistan and Iraq, then Lebanon and Palestine, intra-ethnic/religious fighting is now a recognizable pattern. In each country, unsigned assassinations and sectarian bombings have commenced. In one (should be) famous incident, British SAS commandos were caught red-handed in Basra, dressed like Arabs with a car full of explosives and remote detonators.

Instead of what's been called the Salvador option, it's starting to look more like the Africa Option. Surround the resources with mercenary armies and destabilize the rest of society with permanent militarization, terror and fratricidal wars armed and cultivated from the imperial centers of Europe and North America. Get the oil from the Persian Gulf like the diamonds from Africa, and let the "natives" slaughter each other.

Making sense of what is happening in Iraq and the larger Arab world is increasingly difficult, with the mainstream media unreliable for both its narrow coverage and smothering blanket of imperial ideology. Getting a handle on events is more important than ever, with incoming Democrats a-okay with a troop increase and leading sections of what's supposed to be an anti-war movement taking marching orders from the Democrats (by way of the CPUSA ).

In other words: some sections of the "anti-war" movement is not even opposing the war!

Larry Everest has been writing an informative and detailed analysis of the so-called War on Terror that's worth the time to read.

The High Stakes in Iraq – For Them... And For Us:
• Part 1: The Crossroads in Iraq – Why the U.S. Went to War
• Part 2: Quagmire

Previous by Everest: There Is No War on Terror | The Baker Commission: Desperate Straights, Deep Divisions, Dwindling Options

I've also posted Jonathan Cook's must-read meditation on US and Israeli designs in full below. Cook argues that a provoked series of civil wars may be part of their plans for strategic domination in the region.

Day of Solidarity with the People of Oaxaca

An ad hoc network of activists in New York has taken up the Zapatista call for a day of actions in solidarity with the popular struggle in Oaxaca on Friday, December 22. Organizations, collectives and individuals are encouraged to plan autonomous actions, and to join gatherings at the Mexican consulate and later at Rockefeller Center (remember Diego Rivera!).

Download Oaxaca/NYC Solidarity Flyer

For more information, check:
El Enemigo Comun
Friends of Brad Will

Or for background on the conflict and the voice of the people themselves, check the website of the Popular Assembly of Oaxaca (APPO)

 

Gaddar: The Fela of South Asia

NPR ran a profile of Gaddar, who I can only call the Fela of South Asia, an "Indian man who can barely finish a sentence without breaking into song."  He was once a soldier in the Naxalite movement, but has brought art to the science of revolution. Listen.

Additional list of songs

Pinochet is dead, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is not

Augosto Pinochet died yesterday, despised by the people of Chile and the world for his trail of torture, repression and service to capitalism as military dictator.

Lesson #1: All dictators die, but they don't take class dictatorship with them.

Lesson #2: The state is not neutral. When the popular front leader Salvador Allende was elected president of Chile (in the prototype of a "peaceful revolution,") Pinochet was the tool for a US-engineered coup d'etat on September 11, 1973. Allende was more afraid of the people than he was of the military, and by refusing to arm the workers of Chile – they were left defenseless when the terror came. Allende was among the first to die, but thousands were killed, mutilated, raped and disappeared in the coming years. The best of the generation were cut down or driven into exile. It was a blow that the revolutionary movements of the Southern Cone have yet to overcome.

Without state power, all is illusion. Without a people's army, the people have nothing.

Celebration and concern among Maoists regarding developments in Nepal

No revolution in the twenty-first century can be propelled forward without taking proper lesson from the experiences of great revolutions and counter-revolutions of the twentieth century. From this point of view, our party has been giving plenty of importance to the questions of defense, application and development of the fundamental principles of MLM. —Prachanda

Major institutions from the international communist movement are beginning to speak on developments in Nepal.

In the interests of gathering a developed assessment of what is up and to facilitate discussion:

Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist): The Worker #10
This is the most comprehensive political and strategic statement so far from the CPN-M, published in their party magazine and distributed internationally. It includes a number of articles analyzing domestic and international issues, from leaders and politically allied organizations from the region and the RIM. These articles have been posted to the web by an independent Maoist collective in the United States.

A World to Win News Service (CoRIM): Nepal Maoists and Government Sign Peace Agreement
This careful explication of the terms of the peace agreement has a notably restrained tone. It comes from the CPN-M's comrades in the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, of which they are a participating member. This article is posted in full below.

People's March: Exclusive Interview with Communist Party of India (Maoist) spokesperson on Nepal Developments
Dated Aug. 6, 2006, this critical assessment of the peace accords comes from one of the CPN-M's closest companion organizations. Leading a people's war in neighboring India, the CPI (Maoist) is a co-participant with the Nepalese in the CCOMPOSSA, a political coordinating body of South Asian Maoists.

Analytical Monthly Review: People's Victory in Nepal, U.S. and Indian Reactions
Short analysis from the Indian companion magazine to Monthly Review here in the USA.

In the comments below, a comrade has posted a joint press statement from Aug. 8 by the Communist party of Nepal (Maoist) and Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the recent debates between two parties. They have also released statement condemning the brutal attack on Lebanon.

Cell phones – Even worse for security than you thought

RedFlags is syndicated on the Indyblogs roll, and I check in from time to time to see what other Indymedia-identified bloggers are up to. Delete the Border, one of the more active sites, had a post that confirmed every paranoid assumption I ever had about cell phones (before a job with Indymedia, ironically enough, compelled me to buy one).

Not only are cell phones effective positioning devices, that say where you are and where you have been, but the feds (and likely largely police departments like the NYPD) have the ability to turn on your microphone and listen to you even when you aren't making a call.

This auto-bugging is amazing. Even if you power your phone down, that doesn't turn the microphone or broadcasting off. The only way to deal with it is by taking out your phone battery. Even then... who knows. Read the original article.

Leslie Feinberg's Lavender & Red, a history of communists and LGBT liberation

Serving as long-time editor of Workers World newspaper, Leslie Feinberg is perhaps best known for writings on transgender liberation, including the novel Stone Butch Blues about a working class transgendered lesbian in Buffalo, NY. Workers World has been running a lengthy history of the LGBT movement's intersections with, and conflicts within, the communist movement. With around 80 installments  so fa you can learn something new every day.

Click here for the complete archive of Leslie Feinberg's Lavender & Red

Or start with the same chapter I did: Sexual Freedom vs. Fascism in Germany

And now for something completely different...

I'll just post this one without introductory commentary, except by way of historical introduction.

Here's  an American professor of Marxism (at NYU no less!), giving a lecture in Havana in 1991 as Cuba went into a complete economic collapse with the end of Soviet subsidies resulting from their own disintegration as a contending world power.

The topic of this lecture? "A Pedagological Battle Plan to Check the Spread of Skepticism in Cuba." A daunting task if ever there was one... Prof. Ollman is not detered, and begins by way of what he learned in Russia from a fundamentalist American preacher himself just returned from Siberia... Read on...

Clamor Magazine folds up, citing financial reasons

One of the most successful publishing projects to develop in the aftermath of Seattle, Clamor Magazine, has announced that they can no longer afford to publish. Produced in Ohio (!), Clamor served as the politico-cultural magazine for the (predominantly white, DIY) anti-capitalist movement over the last few years.

Josh Breitbart, a core volunteer with Clamor and the Indypendent, wrote an assessment that generated some discussion among radical publishers on NYC Indymedia. The Closure of Clamor

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