The US/ISaudi Ploy in Iraq Succeeds (At Least for Now)

Don't underestimate the wiliness of US Imperialism. The latest string of events in Iraq seems almost incomprehensible, US/Israeli/Saudi supported ISIS savages, defeated in Syria retreat into Iraq and run roughshod over the US trained military, loot billions of dollars of US military equipment, initiate a reign of terror against Iraqi minorities and threaten Baghdad. How could this series of events be orchestrated behind the scenes by the US and its minions?. It seems too Machiavellian even for Imperium Americana.

But look what has been accomplished by the cynical and diabolical use by the US/Israeli/Saudi Axis of ISIS storm-troopers in Iraq.

1. The Shiite hold on Iraq, an unintended consequence of the Iraqi War and occupation has been broken.

2. The Biden de facto partition plan for Iraq has been fully implemented. Kurdistan, a staunch ally of Israel, is being armed to combat ISIS militants. The Sunni triangle has been separated from central authority and Shiite Iraq is for all intents and purposes a rump state.

3. The al-Maliki government has been overthrown and a government more to the liking of the US/Israeli/Saudi axis can now be installed.

4. The IS initiated "humanitarian crisis" has allowed the US to portray itself as the "exceptional" protector of human rights in Iraq and "indispensable" savior of Iraq's minorities, who would have perished without US "humanitarian intervention." The US can now resume its role as suzerain over its Iraqi protectorate.

5. As a consequence of the above the Shiite Belt across central Mesopotamia from Iran to Syria and Lebanon has been broken, prohibiting an Iranian pipeline to Syria on the Mediterranean.

6. The establishment of the IS, its reign of terror over central Iraq, the barbaric mass murders reminiscent of Nazi extermination campaigns, the beheading of woman and children a la Japanese militarism during WW2, the actual crucifixion of Christians by ISIS, were all necessary collateral damage, needed to set the stage for what unfolded. Without IS atrocities none of what transpired would have occurred.

And what of the Iraqi Yazidi's? One day they are on the verge of genocide by IS. The next day Obama is lauding the US intervention as saving the day. A few bombing runs and the IS forces disappear into the woodwork and the Yazidi's are saved. Not to minimize the suffering of the Yazidi's and hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis at the hands of IS. But they were and are merely pawns in the game that the US is playing to be sacrificed when need be to further US/Israeli/Saudi hegemony over the Middle East.

Now that IS has fulfilled its mission expect to see it retreat towards Syria to be used as a reserve army of chaos whenever they are needed to enforce US/Israeli/Saudi hegemony over the region.

China as a Model for the Revival of the Soviet Union under Russian Guise

The main reason for the Sino-Soviet split was the 1956 CPSU 20th Party Congress in which Khrushchev denounced Stalin and proposed the revisionist policies of "Peaceful Co-existence" and "Party and State of the Whole People" The CPC, under the leadership of Chairman Mao, took exception to these policies and formulations and saw them as a betrayal of the vanguard role of the working class and a power grab by a new bourgeoisie within the Party.

At the time China and the Soviet Union were at very different stages of socialist develop and both were pursuing different policies, based to a large extent on the exigencies of the times and the challenge of US Imperialism which through the mechanism of the Cold War was trying by every means possible to contain and rollback the victorious march of socialism and the anti-colonial national liberation struggles after WW2.

China was emerging from a century of Western and Japanese domination which had destroyed the foundations of the nation and reduced it to the “sick man of Asia.” It desperately needed to rebuild its infrastructure and secure the people's livelihood. This could only be done by an intense period of war communism in which all the material and human resources of the country were mobilized in a military fashion to rebuild China through socialist construction. This was the heroic period of China's socialist revolution and required charismatic leadership and a national esprit de corps, similar to what prevailed in the US during WW2 and the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the Great Patriotic War under Stalin's leadership. The denunciation of Stalin was seen by the Chinese as a tacit denunciation of Mao, and the political line of the CPC.

The Soviet Union on the other hand saw itself as a developed socialist society in which the draconian measures employed under Stalin were no longer necessary. They also saw the need to redress the glaring examples of unlawful practices that had occurred under Stalin's rule, including illegal persecutions and prosecutions of innocent Communists and non-party individuals, as well as instances of unlawful collective punishment. The CPSU however did this in such a way as to demoralize Communists throughout the world and throw the Communist movement into disarray.

China in a similar situation after the death of Mao in 1976 refused to throw Mao under the bus. Many of his policies during the various mass campaigns up to and including the Cultural Revolution were severely criticized but Mao was recognized as the great and indispensable leader of the Chinese Revolution and the Chinese nation. His legacy was evaluated as 70/30. 70% correct, 30% incorrect and he is still today a revered figure throughout China. The CPC never reversed the verdict on Mao, even though the vast majority of persecuted Communists were rehabilitated after the overthrow of the Gang of Four. Even the victims of Stalin's purges, the great Bolsheviks such as Bukharin, Kamarov, Zinoviev and yes Trotsky are well evaluated in Baiku, the Chinese version of Wikipedia.

The Chinese have clearly stated in recent analyzes of the fall of the Soviet Union that the de-Stalinization campaigns initiated by Khrushchev and reinforced and expanded by Gorbachev 30 years later were crucial components of the ideological collapse that directly led to the Soviet Union's downfall. China has not done that and recognizes the fundamental need to maintain the mythos and ethos of Communist ideology under the leadership of the CPC. All the talk about China turning its bacl on Marxism-Leninism and Maoism is Western disinformation and propaganda meant to delegitimize the CPC and its leading role in China's socialist development.

What about “Peaceful Co-existence?” Isn't that a policy that the Chinese are currently pursuing? Hasn't the CPC embraced this concept under the post-Mao leadership? The answer is no. But some may say hasn't China pursued the policy of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence ever since the Bandung Conference of non-aligned nations in 1955? Yes and quite appropriately, but the essence of the Chinese concept of peaceful-coexistence is totally different than that of the Soviet Union. For the Soviet Union the idea of peaceful-coexistence meant that the two blocs, the socialist bloc and the capitalist bloc should co-exist and divide the world between them. They could battle it out in proxy wars and even send troops across borders to maintain or extend their spheres of influence, they could stage manage coups and support opposition forces in various countries that were in the throes of de-colonization, but it was all done in the context of the Cold War division of the Post-war world.

China's concept of peaceful co-existence was the polar opposite. It was based on non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and developing relations based on the principles of mutual aid and mutual benefit. This was and is a very different formulation than the Soviet idea of peaceful-co-existence which the Chinese saw as giving the US and Soviet blocs carte blanche to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations and impose their model of development on recalcitrant client states. China would have no part in that as it was seen to infringe on their own national sovereignty.

What about the formulation of the Party and State of the Whole People? Article 1, Chapter 1 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution states that “The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a socialist state of the whole people, expressing the will and interests of the workers, peasants, and intelligentsia, the working people of all the nations and nationalities of the country.” No mention of the leading role of the working class, just the assertion that their will and interests would be expressed. In contrast the 1982 Chinese Constitution, as amended in 2004 states in Article 1, Chapter 1 that, “The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.” While some may say this is merely rhetorical and that China is not even a socialist state, they are profoundly wrong. Read both Constitutions and see how they differ and how the Chinese Constitution clearly reflects the primary stage of socialism the Chinese acknowledge themselves to be operating under.

So how does this all relate to the question at hand? First it must be noted that Gorbachev clearly stated that he was a “child” of the 20^th Party Congress and that he wanted to follow its reforms through to the end. That is he thought Khrushchev's reforms were half measures and that the malaise of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s was that the measures Khrushchev initiated were not thorough going enough, hence Glasnost and Perestroika. But what this meant was the complete deconstruction of the Soviet Union and it's conversion into a bourgeois social democratic republic. Whatever Gorbachev's motives may have been, as is often said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Glasnost and Perestroika were a total surrender to the West and took de-Stalinization to its logical conclusion the complete and utter collapse of the Soviet Union and the states under its immediate hegemony. De-Stalinization became a coded phrase for de-Sovietization and the deconstruction of socialism.

China on the other hand never abandoned its roots, but built on them. The leadership re-evaluated domestic economic relations and the state of the world and opted for a greatly expanded NEP based on the objective conditions of China's domestic needs and the world balance of forces. It maintained its socialist legacy, and its sovereignty and pursued an independent developmental trajectory of its own choosing based on a combination of its rich cultural and historical legacy, an appreciation of the need to integrate into the global marketplace and the necessity of allowing certain capitalistic relations of production to take root in order to quickly develop the means of production so that China could accelerate its socialist construction, which in the era of US Financial Capitalism and US Imperialism was and is absolutely essential.

My thesis is that Soviet Union could have done the same, but its always easy to criticize from hindsight. The dynamic in the Soviet Union was very different than in China for a multitude of historic and cultural reasons. Nonetheless Russia can now get on the same track as Chinas. There used to be talk of convergence between the East (Soviet Communism) and the West (US Capitalism). Now maybe there needs to be talk of convergence between Russia and China, or perhaps more to the point Russia beginning to emulate more of the Chinese model of economic development. Actually, the Soviet Union continues on in the PRC, many of the PRCs practices can be easily adopted and adapted to Russian reality. China for instance has shied away from Maoist totalitarianism and pays homage to its rich cultural legacy, reinterpreted to met its contemporary ideological needs. Much the same can occur in Russia. For instance China talks about the need to develop “socialist spiritual civilization” and “socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

The West's abandonment of Russia, it's refusal to see Russia half way, the turning of its back on Russia's attempts to integrate with the West and the West's attempts to denigrate and stigmatize Russia and its civilization may be an unintended gift. It may free Russia to regain its identity and pick up where it left off in 1991. So its not a question of Red (socialism) or White (traditionalism) its a question of merging the two into a new dynamic whole.

US Imperialism, Enemy of the World's People

What has the US accomplished anywhere in the world where they have set their stinking, dirty feet? Nothing but death and destruction. What is left in its wake are destroyed nations and broken people. The countries that the US has destabilized, invaded or otherwise intervened in are listed at the bottom of all international surveys. It usually takes 20 or more years, an entire generation, if they are left alone, for these countries to recover.

Let's take a look region by region.

South America. While the US largely controlled the politics and economies of the South American republic throughout most of the twentieth century democratic, nationalist upsurges were common. When in the late 1960s and 70s left-wing populism began gaining strength US sponsored military dictatorships were imposed on Chile, Brazil, Argentina and most other South American countries with devastating consequences, including the disappearance and likely torture and murder of tens if not hundreds of thousands of political opponents. It was only after the ascent of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and US distractions in the Middle East that the tide began to turn.

Central America and the Caribbean. A similar tale of woe can be recounted going back to the 1950s and extending to the present. The military coup and genocide in Guatemala, the Contra wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador, to the more recent coups in Haiti, Honduras and elsewhere have resulted in failed states dominated by corrupt governments in league with drug cartels and criminal gangs, resulting in the mass exodus of the region's youth. Those countries that resisted such as Nicaragua and El Salvador were eventually successful in regaining their sovereignty, but at what cost, unnecessarily imposed by Yanqui Imperialism?

 Southeast Asia. The human toll resulting from the wars in Indochina from the 1950s through to the 1970s was millions of dead and countries laid waste by carpet bombing, the direct results being anarchy in Cambodia and the vast exodus of displaced people from Vietnam in the late 1970s and 1980s. In Indonesia millions were massacred as a result of a CIA supported coup in 1965 and the war against East Timor in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Only now are the scars of US intervention being healed. And to what effect was our intervention other than the destruction of one country after another and the traumatization of an entire generation?

 South Asia. Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Need I say more. Our destabilization efforts have led to the blow-back that has enmeshed the US in futile wars and military interventions for decades on end leading to 9/11, the "war on terrorism" and the the waste of trillions of US taxpayer dollars that have not only devastated the countries we target but our own country starved of the resources to rebuild our infrastructure and develop our economy.

The Middle East and North Africa. Give me a break, 'nuff said.

 Oh, I could go on about the destruction of economies in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and Yugoslavia. Or the turmoil in Africa, all brought to you and sponsored by US Imperialism, but I think the reader gets the gist of what is being said.

 US Imperialism, the enemy of the world's people.

Reactivating...10, 9, 8....

I've decided to reactivate this blog and place my FB posts and comments here for easy reference. I may backlog it as well so I can access previous posts at FB and elsewhere. Stay tuned.

Egypt's Only Out: A Progressive Military Strongman

The Egyptian Revolution continues unabated. It is nowhere near it's climax. It must inevitably move from sparing over which brand of neoliberal capitalism will lord it over the masses of Egyptians, to who will be Egypt's saviour. For Egypt's revolution to be successful, under the present circumstances, a new Nasser must emerge.  Otherwise Egypt will burn as its politicians fiddle over who will preside over the continued failure of neoliberal neo-colonialism to succor Egypt's teeming masses. Privatization of the remaining public sector, more austerity in the form of reductions in subsidies for food and fuel and the further elimination of vital social services will not cure Egypt's ills but only exacerbate them. No one on the political stage be they Mubarak hold-overs, the Muslim Brotherhood or the plethora of liberal bourgeois/social democratic politicians can solve Egypt's problems as they all recycle the same policies dictated by the US, the EU, the IMF and the World Bank. The only question in the minds of the modern day neo-imperialists is who can best implement those policies.

In order for the US neoliberal corporatists to continue their rule the Egyptian people have been fed pablum about "democracy" being the panacea for all the social and economic injustices they suffer. "Free and Fair Elections" and "The Rule of Law" are all well and good but tell me are elections, "Free and Fair" when they are rigged from start to finish by the corporatists who control the process? When has the "Rule of Law" been anything more than a rationale for class warfare by the 1% against the 99%? We have an election fetish in this country and we try to foist it on one and all, no matter how inappropriate it may be.

The Egyptian people need social and economic justice, for most of them it is a life and death struggle just to put food on the table. Electoral politics will not give them what they need, it will just shift the deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. The last ruler who did anything for the Egyptian people was Nasser. His successors betrayed his legacy and imposed neo-colonial, neolibralism to replace Nasser's Pan-Arab Socialism. Why are the Egyptian people so praiseful of the military's role in ousting Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood? Because they know that only the military can save Egypt. But not Mubarak's military, rather the military of the people that lays dormant within its ranks.

What Egypt needs is not "democratic elections" which will replace one brand of neolibralism with another, they need someone in the Armed Forces to emerge, like Nasser to take the bull by the horns, Chavez style, to wrest control away from the neoliberals, be they of the autocratic Mubarak type, the Islamist Morsi type or the Liberal Democratic ElBaradei type. Yes, you heard me right, a progressive military strongman who can rally the troops, retire the generals and implement an Egyptian New Deal a la FDR. Bourgeois Democracy is just that, democracy for the bourgeoisie, aka the big capitalists and their political henchmen, in other words the classic Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie. Yes it does exist, in the USA, in the EU and in semi-colonial countries throughout the world. It is entrenched and will not exist stage left unless escorted off stage by the armed forces of the people.

I am confident that there are forces in the military who are planning what I suggest. How could they not be there, given that every Egyptian knows the history of their nation and the role Nasser played? The Army can forestall the inevitable by only one means, obtaining the financial means to ameliorate the socioeconomic crisis that Egyptians are facing with the collapse of tourism, and foreign and domestic investment. In this regard the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as a last deperate measure, have pledged 8 billion dollars  in immediate aid to the beleaguered Egyptian government (which they denied to Morsi) to tide it over the immediate crisis. Will this be enough to placate the people and send them home from Tahrir Square and elsewhere? Such stopgap measures however can only forestall the inevitable. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have no intention of being perpetual donors to save Egypt from itself. Egypt will eventually have to sink or swim and it is doubtful that adherence to Western neoliberal policies will allow it to stay afloat.

The New Egyptian Revolution: And Now for the Rest of the Story

A little historical review is warranted when discussing the current situation in Egypt as nothing there makes sense if not seen in an historical perspective. In 1952 King Farouk I, Britain's playboy Egyptian satrap, was overthrow by the Free Officers' Movement. Col. Gamal Abdal Nasser rose to prominence and by 1954 was the supreme leader. Nasser and his acolytes represented the first wave of the Arab Revolution. It was nationalistic and secular in nature and led to the emergence of like minded movements such as the PLA and governments as in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen. One of Nasser's first major projects was the Aswan High Dam which would provide electricity for Egypt's industrialization and control the flooding of the lower Nile Valley to increase agricultural yields. The US was planning to help build and finance this mega-project. But Nasser, pursuing a non-aligned foreign policy, had good relations with the Socialist Bloc and the USSR. In 1956 he recognized the People's Republic of China. This infuriated the US which was still trying to isolate, undermine and overthrow the PRC so we retaliated by reneging on financing the Aswan Dam. Nasser responded by nationalizing the British controlled Suez Canal which precipitated a joint British, French, Israeli invasion of the Sinai and the bombing of Cairo. The US and USSR in a rare bout of cooperation got the tripartite force to withdraw. 

The Once and Future Dalai Lama

Well, his Eminence the Dalai Lama is back in the news. One lucky fella, jet-setting around the world, hobnobbing with Hollywood and Washington elites, mouthing pious platitudes about peace, justice and the American way while sipping Pinot Noir with the likes of Richard Gere.

Of course the Dalai Lama historically was the God-King of a theocratic feudalistic mountain Shangri-la lording over skeletal serfs and indentured monks set off in monastic solitude to serve his every want and need. But that was in the past. Hey he didn't know any better in his previous incarnations. But with all those CIA subsidies that have sustained him over the years, he can still see the light at the end of the tunnel and envision an enlightened theocracy for his imagined rule over "Greater Tibet." Meanwhile, his US mentors still relish the notion of a splintered Chinese Empire reduced to rump status by the spinning off of its recalcitrant frontier regions.

But you say those evil Chinese invaded and are still invading Tibet and taking their land out from under their feet. Well, Tibetans are found all over China, because they are just as Chinese as other ethnic groups. China is a multi-national country that has affirmative action programs for its minority people and freedom of movement for all Chinese to settle anywhere in their own country. Sound familiar?

Flashback to 1875. Let's relive our past in light of our concern for the Tibetan present. OK if you live west of the Mississippi pack your bags and go home, for that matter any person of European, African or Asian ancestry should return to their respective home continents. Its 1875 and we have for years actively settled the area west of the Mississippi with ethnic Europeans. And now we are laying new rail links to make further settlement easier and faster. At some point, the majority of the entire US population may consist of ethnic Europeans loyal to Washington. If this happens, there will never be a free America. At least according to the apologists for the Dali Lama if they are to be consistent in their beliefs.

In actual fact, the US could care less about the Tibetan people, they are just pawns in the great game of Real Politique between East and West, and now between China and India. India lurks in the shadows as it now sees China as its main rival for economic and political hegemony in South Asia. The West, particularly the US, would love to see the dismemberment of China as it becomes more and more of an economic and political competitor. If Tibet were to obtain independence, then the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, traditionally inhabited by non-Han Turkic Muslims, would be next in line, leading to a situation similar to the breakup of the Soviet Union. That was the fond dream of western imperialism in 1989, when China was threatened with internal disintegration that was thwarted by the Chinese government’s unwavering response to the Tiananmen provocation.

Let there be no mistake, the call for Tibetan independence, the cultist Falun Gong movement, human rights campaigns and support for the arming of Taiwan, are all part and parcel of US attempts to destabilize, dismember and ultimately overthrow Chinese sovereignty leaving it as a rump state like Russia. China of course will have none of this and they would be incompetent fools if they acquiesced to these anti-China imprecations.

China is concerned about retaining Tibet as an integral part of the Chinese nation state primarily because of it strategic geo-political position. Throughout the 1950s and 60s first British and then US intelligence agencies recruited the Dalai Lama and his entourage to serve as a fifth column to probe China's sensitive southern flank. A western dominated Tibet would serve as a dagger directed at the heart of Chinese nationhood. Pro-independence Tibetans are no sweet innocents in all of this. They also have imperial ambitions. They believe in a "Greater Tibet" which includes not only Tibet proper but also the Chinese province of Qinghai, and portions of Yunnan, Gansu and Sichuan where there are outposts of Tibetan people.


China is, however, a self-avowed multinational country with provisions made for the autonomy of its national minorities. The Chinese constitution guarantees its minorities protection for their national identities, cultural traditions, and language as part of the family of nations that make up the People’s Republic of China. If these rights are not fully recognized and implemented it is the duty of the Chinese people of all ethnicities to see that they are. That is an internal problem for the Chinese people to solve without outside intervention, just as the denial of democratic rights to minorities in the US has been and still is a problem for the US people, not the Chinese, to solve.

The Chinese people take the principled stand of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations. Would that we followed their lead and retreated from our interventions in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Latin America and other regions of the world were we meddle in muddied waters to enforce our economic and political hegemony.

So if we are not prepared to return New Mexico, Arizona and California to the Mexicans, lands that we conquered and whose deeds we stole (and yes they should return their land in turn to the Hopi and other native people who had a spiritual civilization on a par with Tibetans) we should hold our tongues. Remember, we came and displaced the original inhabitants of the US. So go back east you men, both young and old, over the great waters, back to the continents from whence you came, and take your wives, mistresses and kids with you.