Video: Biden's Macho Posturing is a Sideshow.

 

Richard Mellor

Biden claims he will seek retribution for the suicide bombing that killed 12 US Marines and a few hundred Afghani's. Retribution against Who? This macho posturing is another effort to shift blame for the catastrophe in Afghanistan away from the White House, the Pentagon and the US Congress. The Wall Street Journal reports today with a headline that the US "Carried Out an Airstrike Against Islamic State In Afghanistan."

The Pentagon says that this strike ""likely" killed "an extremist leader "described as a planner for the organization." If they knew who was planning it how come they couldn't prevent it? This is the usual US state department newsreel and in this instance we have to consider its legitimacy based on the fact that US imperialism has been forced to exit Afghanistan after 20 years, $2.6 million spent and thousands killed or murdered. As one meme put it, the US spent over two trillion dollars and 20 years after removing the Taliban in order to replace them with the Taliban.

Mercenary Boss Erik Prince Profiting in Afghanistan.

Screenshot. Source Newsweek

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Rahm Emanuel

 

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Erik Prince is a mercenary, mercenaries are basically hired killers. Prince is more than just an individual hiring himself out as a killer for whichever side will pay the most though. He has his own murder for hire business. He is the brother of Betsy DeVos, who was Donald Trump’s Secretary of Education. She is married to Dick DeVos of Amway fame. The whole rotten bunch of them are members of the billionaire club, a fortunate clan indeed.

 

Erik ran the mercenary outfit Blackwater that the US used in Iraq. As the Wall Street Journal points out: “Blackwater guards were convicted of killing civilians in 2014 while providing security for Americans during the Iraq war…..”  See New York Times October 2014. Donald Trump pardoned these killers.

 

The US government used a lot of these killers in Iraq, some 150,000 of them. They are not subject to the same protocols as regular troops the working class men and women who, for the most part, find the best opportunity for a decent life by joining the military----unless there’s a war on. That’s one of the reasons unemployment is a good thing for capital, a pool of fresh recruits as well as a source of pressure for those in employment that might be thinking about organizing to fight for better wages and conditions.

 

Some of us will remember the siege of Fallujah after four US mercenaries, sometimes referred to as “contractors” in the mass media, were killed and mutilated by residents of that city. The mighty US war machine inflicted severe punishment on the residents of Fallujah for their brutal retaliation. Many years on, children are still being born with deformities due to the chemicals and white phosphorous the US used in Fallujah. I commented on this event at the time as a US officer said on entering Fallujah that they “encountered a nasty bunch”. But there is no force on earth as nasty as US imperialism and the punishment it inflicts on those that resist its foreign interventions. It is as merciless when it comes to its own citizens.

 

Now prince says he is charging $6,500 a person form anyone his outfit can get safely into Kabul airport and on a plane. According to the reports Prince says it would cost extra to get people who have been trapped in their homes.  

 

Jen Psaki the White House press secretary, “denounced” Prince when she was asked a question about it. The Wall Street Journal:  “I don’t think any human being who has a heart and soul would support efforts to profit off people’s agony and pain if they’re trying to depart a country and fearing for their lives,”

 

Some of the world’s most notorious killers have been given safe haven in the US, the Shah of Iran was one of them. Quite a few have resided in the White House. Even Trevor Noah of the Daily show blamed Biden, Trump, Obama and the now cuddly killer, George W Bush for the catastrophe in Afghanistan though he stops short of blaming them directly for the deaths of thousands of people including 2500 Americans. Michelle Obama has referred to George W Bush as her “friend” and “partner in crime.” Do you think she actually likes him? Of course not. These folks know what class solidarity is and they practice it fully.

 

US prisons are full of people who have not inflicted anything like the violence and devastation on society that the examples in this commentary have. Erik Prince, like most of them, walks free and has lots of money.

 

Justice in class society is injustice for the working class.

 

More on Erik Prince: https://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2014/01/blackwater-and-erik-prince-merchants-of.html

 

Fallujah: https://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2014/01/fallujah-us-marines-further-allegations.html

US Meddling in Afghanistan Goes Back Much Longer than 20 Years.

Drone Strike. US Dropped More Bombs on Afghanistan than any other year in 2019

Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired
8-16-21

GED/HEO

 

As the US withdraws after a 20-year occupation, it is astonishing, though not surprising to witness the rapid collapse of the US puppet regime in Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban offensive. The US, through the overwhelming dominance of air power, toppled the Taliban after the attacks of September 11^th 2001 and this feudal bunch of religious fanatics are back in the driver’s seat.

 

It is equally astonishing to read the comments of other world leaders, officials whose governments participated in or supported the invasion. The boy from Eton, Britain’s Boris Johnson and whose government supplies the Saudi’s with weapons, remarks that, “We don't want anybody bilaterally recognizing the Taliban”.

 

Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken blames the Afghan security forces the US spent a trillion or two training, that it is the result of their “inability” to “defend their country”. It’s all their fault. Canada’s Trudeau is “heartbroken” and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison reminds us that “freedom is always worth it whatever the outcome.” I’m sure poor Morrison has suffered terrible pain through this 20 years of occupation wondering if freedom will prevail if they kill enough people.  For US capitalism this is an embarrassing moment that will undoubtedly undermine US global power and influence on the world stage.

 

There’s an awful lot they won’t have to remind us about though because they never told us in the first place.

 

But I am old enough to remember a few things about Afghanistan and the Taliban. I was still at work when the Taliban came to power in 1996 thanks to US military aid, made possible through US cooperation with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). Part of this US cooperation effort was financial support for the religious schools, the Madrassas preaching a violent, fanatical form of Islam. The US provided the textbooks hoping to increase anti-Soviet feeling by creating a more radicalized, fanatical Islam.

 

On taking power, Taliban representatives came to the US, to Houston to be exact. They were there to meet with representatives of the UNOCAL corporation that was a major player in the efforts to build a gas pipeline through Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean bypassing Iran. One of UNOCAL’s consultants was Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad, an Afghan American who served as US ambassador to the UN under George W Bush, and served as an envoy to Afghanistan under Pompeo and still, under Biden’s secretary of state Antony Blinken. Khalilzad, said in May 2021 after the plan for US withdrawal was announced that, “I personally believe that the statements that their forces will disintegrate and the Talibs will take over in short order are mistaken,”. Oops! And one can acquire considerable wealth working for the US government. You rarely have to be right about anything when it comes to warmongering as long as your lads don’t die in large numbers. US imperialism's wars are unpopular and it is a small section of US society, workers and poorer families who arwe bearing the brunt of these ventures.

 

There was a lot of talk in the media about the cruelty of the Taliban (without stressing that US taxpayer money was behind them) in particular their treatment of women, but an oil pipeline trumps women’s rights, “The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban’s policies against women and children “despicable”, appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract.”, wrote the Daily Telegraph in December 1997. The Taliban representatives were getting the royal treatment in Texas.

 

It is no secret that the US government has supported and armed some of the most despotic violent regimes on the planet. Overthrowing governments that want to determine to some extent their own national policy and own their own natural resources is par for the course and any force, no matter how reactionary, is worthy of US support when it comes to profit making and the Taliban was no exception.

 

The official US position was that the CIA had trained and funded Afghanistan’s Mujahideen as a response to the Soviet Union’s invasion in December of 1979. It was at this time that the US recruited Osama Bin Laden. Around 40 million Muslims lived in the Soviet Union and destabilizing the Soviet Union was US capitalism’s prime objective. In an interview with US president Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1998, he said that CIA money to the Mujahadeen began before the Soviet invasion. Brzezinski:

 

“The reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

 

When the interviewer asked Brzezinski if he regretted arming and giving advice to religious fundamentalists and “future terrorists” Brzezinski replied, “What is more important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold war?” (my added emphasis).*

Oh, how they long now for the relatively peaceful co-existence of the Bi-polar Cold War world when US imperialism and the Stalinist totalitarianism of the Soviet Union existed side by side, willing to make deals here and there and keep things balanced.

 

Much of this information about the role of US capitalism and its imperial ventures is known, including by many workers. And by this I mean known in the general sense. But there is a strongly held belief that we must not discuss politics, a belief propagated by the US ruling class for whom politics is life as it should be. The truth is that politics is life. It’s not simply about sticking a piece of paper in a ballot box every four years to elect candidates from, in our case, one of the two capitalist parties to determine which section of the US ruling class will govern society and plunder the world’s resources until the next election. It’s about what we do every day. It’s about critical thinking, questioning, understanding history with a working class perspective in mind. “Question Authority” is a great statement and very popular here in the U.S.  Unfortunately, that popularity is more often than not limited to a bumper sticker on a car.

 

Politics determines where you live, whether you can have shelter, transportation, education health care and so on. Politics, and in particular, the absence of the working class from it, has led to the present situation in Afghanistan and untold misery, poverty and death for its people.  Imagine what the US worker has had to do without due to political decisions to spend two or three trillion dollars in Afghanistan over 40 years. Imagine what that half that figure would have accomplished if it were spent in helping the people of Afghanistan rather than bombing them. As one person reminded me yesterday, the US dropped the largest ever non-nuclear bomb on Afghanistan. It was heard miles away, “I hope America’s adversaries are watching & now understand there’s a new sheriff in town,” tweeted Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina in response to that bomb and referring to Trump. That one sentence is a chilling example of the horrors the Native American’s faced in their dealings with the new colonial settler state.

 

The global competition between the world’s major capitalist powers (China is well along the capitalist road and will be engulfed in huge internal struggles in the period ahead) is threatening to destroy life as we know it. President “worker Joe” Biden has announced a “new period of ‘extreme competition’ with the People’s Republic of China”. BusinessWeek 8-9-21. But US workers have no reason to enter in to any extreme competition with Chinese workers or any other workers including in the domestic marketplace.

 

Workers and the middle class cannot benefit from competition either on the job or between countries as workers. Biden’s competition with China and the competition between any of the ruling classes of different countries is not our business. We are appealed to merely as observers and as part of a team we are not members of.

 

The global environmental crisis is verging on the point of no return. It is politics, working class politics that is absent.  The politics of the world’s billions of people who live by our labor power alone if they have the luxury of work and haven’t fallen in to the ranks of the dispossessed and starving, victims of centuries of assault by the so-called free market. This is what can change society and offer our children and grandchildren an alternative to the madness of the market.

 

As for Afghanistan, the situation may have been different were the working class in the US and other western democracies to have supported the pro-Soviet government of Mohammad Najibullah, I am not that well versed in all the details. This could have been done critically with friendly attempts to influence change there; but a break from the class unity with our own capitalist class is the only way that can occur. The US is concentrating its efforts in the competition for global domination with the Chinese Stalinists and for them, Afghanistan has entered the history books.

 

If we want to delve in to why Afghanistan is where it is and how a bunch of guys in sandals forced the most powerful economic and military power to exit their country, we have to pull our heads out of the sand, do our own research and come up with our own solutions as to what’s the best road for our class.

 

This ignominious exit by US imperialism is similar to Vietnam but in a very limited way. In Vietnam the good guys won. But in Afghanistan there are no “good guys” Successions of US presidents and regimes saw to that.

 

*“The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan” Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski in Le Nouvel Observatoeur 15-21 January 1998. Quoted in War and Globalization by Michel Chossudovsky ISBN 0-97311109-0-2

International Call – Pakistan: Release Ali Wazir

 International Call – Pakistan: Release Ali Wazir, withdraw false police cases

Ali Wazir. Member of the National Assembly lost 16 family members to Taliban Terrorists

On May 26, 2019 a peaceful procession in the Waziristan region led by Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar, both Members of National Assembly (MNAs), was fired upon by army men, leaving at least 13 dead and over forty injured.

Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were elected as Members of the National Assembly (MNA) in the general elections held in 2018. They are also leaders of the Pashtun Defence Movement/Pashtun Tahfuz Movement (PTM), a mass social movement that emerged two years ago.

The PTM demands an end to military operations in the region bordering Afghanistan. This region is inhabited by ethnic Pashtuns. Their demands have brought them in conflict with the country’s powerful military. For the last two months, the military spokesperson has been passing threats to the PTM. Besides, the media were publicly advised by the military not to give any coverage to the PTM.

These threats and media black out translated into a tragic reality on May 26. On the one hand, the peaceful procession was fired upon. On the other, media unanimously reported that the PTM activists led by Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar attacked a military check post and ensuing violence claimed the lives of three protestors besides injuring three soldiers.

Ironically, video footages ---filmed through mobile phones---have emerged. These videos clearly show that Ali Wazir and Mohsin Dawar were fired upon from behind. While people were falling to bullets, Ali Wazir, instead of running to safety, went back to help an injured comrade. As he approached his comrade, near the checkpost, he was arrested by the military.

The next day, he was produced before the Anti-Terrorism-Court and remanded for eight days. Meantime, the entire opposition in the Parliament has demanded his release. He suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure.

There have been unconfirmed allegations of torture as well. In the event, even if he is released for now, his life remains threatened. Like the rest of the PTM leadership, he has been subjected to a vicious hate propaganda. He is being portrayed by the mainstream media and the military as a foreign agent, a traitor, and a terrorist.

Fact of the matter is, the PTM staunchly believes in non-violence while 16 members of Ali Wazir’s family, including his siblings and father, were assassinated by the Taliban owing to his family’s opposition to the Taliban. He emerged as a symbol of anti-Taliban struggle before the rise of the PTM.

We urge you to sign this petition for these democratic demands:
(1) The urgent release of Ali Wazir and his PTM comrades
(2) An end to vilification campaign against the PTM leadership
(3) Withdrawal of fake police cases under anti terrorist laws against Ali Wazir and the PTM members.

First signatures:
Serge Aberdam, historian, France
Gilbert Achcar, Professor, SOAS University of London, Britain
Badrul Alam, Communist Party of Bangladesh-ML(CPBML), Bangladesh
Aabida Ali, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Karamat Ali, Secretary, National Labour Council, Pakistan
Victor Amarilla, Socialist Convergence (La Verdad), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Alia Amirali, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Lionel Aymard, militant associatif, syndical et politique, France
Olivier Besancenot, spokesperson, NPA, France
Anthony Bobo, NPA, France
Pascal Boissel, President of the Union syndicale de la psychiatrie, France
Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance, Australia
Orallo Carlos, Socialist Workers Party, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Jose Castillo, National Directorate of the Socialist Left, Argentina
Fathi Chamkhi, Popular Front, Member of the Parliament, Tunisia
Gérard Chaouat, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Terry Conway, Socialist Resistance, Britain
Philippe Corcuff, universitaire, Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Lyon, France
Randolf S. David, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of the Philippines
Alex De Jong, Co-Director IIRE Amsterdam
Sushovan Dhar, Radical Socialist, India
Felicity Dowling, National Secretary, Left Unity, Britain
Bernard Dreano, cofounder of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly international network
Penelope Duggan, Editor International Viewpoint
Lujan Echeverria, Professional Center for Human Rights, Argentina
Patrick Farbiaz, Ecologie Sociale, France
Tiago Ferreira, sociologist, Spain
Elea Foster, Fourth Internationalist, Greece
Pascal Franchet, President, CADTM-France
Franck Gaudichaud, Lecturer in Grenoble Alpes University, France
Sébastien Guex, Professor, Lausanne University, Switzerland
Laurent Gutierrez, professeur, member of the PCF and la Riposte, France
Anne Gutierrez-Vigreux, Conseillère Municipale de Longvic, France
Bouhbib Hamid, University Teacher, Algeria
Alex Hinno, Member of the Comunitat Palestina de Catalunya, Catalonia
Helena Hirata, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), France
Robert Hirsch, trade-unionist (retired), member of Ensemble !, France
Norbert Holcblat, economist, France
Maral Jefroudi, Co-Director IIRE Amsterdam
Imran Kamyana, Editor of the online Urdu magazine Roznama Jeddojehad
Harsh Kapoor, founder and editor South Asia Citizens Web (SACW), India
Sheema Kermani, Artist, Pakistan
Dr Lal Khan, editor Asian Marxist Review, Pakistan
Pierre Khalfa, Member of the Copernic Fondation and of the Scientic Council of Attac, France
Stathis Kouvélakis, Reader in Political Theory, King’s College, Britain
Carlos Lordkioanidse, Former detainee disappeared, Argentina
Michael Löwy, Emeritus Research Director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, France
Carlos Loza, Survivor of the clandestine detention center ESMA (School of Mechanics of the Navy), Argentina
Amna Mawaz Khan, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action, USA
Christian Mahieux, International Labour Network of Solidarity and Struggles
Jan Malewski, editor Inprecor
Gustave Massiah, Cedetim, France
Gippò Mukendi Ngandu, Sinistra Anticapitalista, Italia
Diego Z. Neri, editor, Bandiera Rossa website, Italy
Olivier Neveux, University Professor, ENS de Lyon, France
Pablo Odriozola, Survivor of the clandestine detention center “Azopardo”, Argentina
Victor Ottoboni, Secretary of minutes and press of the Union of Tire Workers of Argentina
Ugo Palheta, sociologue, Assistant professor, Lille University, and director of the online magazine Contretemps, France
Jaime Pastor, Professor, Political Sciences (Spanish State) and editor of the magazine Viento Sur
Patrice Perret, responsable syndical retraité, France
Joël Pottier, NPA, France
Christine Poupin, spokesperson, NPA, France
François Preneau, trade-unionist, member of Ensemble !, France
Awais Qarni, Central Organizer Revolutionary Students Front(RSF), Pakistan
Asia Rahman, Politician for Vänsterpartiet (Left Party), Sweden
Victor Rodrigues, PCF, France
Xavier Rousselin, Ingénieur Divisionnaire de l’Agriculture et de l’Environnement, France
Dr Taimur Rehman, General Secretary, Pakistan Mazdoor Kissan Party, Pakistan
Hans-Peter Renk (solidaritéS), conseiller général (Le Locle), Switzerland
Pierre Rousset, ESSF, France
Olivier Salles, Ensemble !, France
Catherine Samary, economist, France
Edgard Sánchez, PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores), México
Patrick Saurin, member CADTM-France
Sukla Sen, Peace Activist, India
Soren Sondergaard, Member of the Parliament, Denmark
Dr. Farooq Sulehria, Assistant Professor, Beaconhouse National University Lahore, Pakistan
Arlette Tardy, NPA, France
Mansoor Tareen, organizer of PTM-Sweden
Farooq Tariq, spokesperson, Awami Workers Party, Pakistan
Juan Tortosa, solidaritéS, Switzerland
Eric Toussaint, CADTM International Spokesperson
Josette Trat, sociologue, France
Anwar Ul Haq, economist, Pakistan
Zafar Ullah, Member of Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, Islambad, Pakistan
Miguel Urbán Crespo, Member of the European Parliament, Spanish State
Roseline Vachetta, former Member of the European Parliament, France
Achin Vanaik, Retired Professor of International Relations and Global Politics, former Head of the Department of Political Science and former Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, India
Christian Varin, Fourth International
Marie-Christine Vergiat, Member of the European Parliament, European Left, France
Pedro Vianna, poète, enseignant au mastère Mobilité humaine Universitat de Valencia (Espagne), ancien juge assesseur à la Cour nationale du droit d’asile, France
Nora Zaldua, Massacre Commission of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Susana Zaldua, Massacre Commission of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Philipp Zehmisch, Laal Hartal, Lahore, Pakistan
Muhammad Zubair, Member Fairness Committee, Magna international, Toronto, Canada
and hundreds of other signatures...
To sign, fill the ESSF “contact” form:
Put your name, “title” (function, organisation) and country, mentioning “solidarity withAli Wazir”.
http://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?page=contact

Pakistan: it’s not cricket

by Michael Roberts

Pakistan has 200 million people and 105m of them were registered to vote in today’s general election.  This makes it the fifth largest democracy and second largest Muslim democracy after Indonesia in the world.

Who won?  Well, it seems that voter turnout was unchanged from the last election in 2013, at just 53%.  So the ‘no vote’ party was the biggest winner.  But a relatively new party has won the most seats in the National Assembly.  This is Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) or Pakistan Justice Party, led by Imran Khan, a former international cricketer (the sport inherited from British colonial rule and godlike in the Indian sub-continent, muslim and hindu alike).


Khan’s party has defeated Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League.  Sharif was the former prime minister of Pakistan before he was convicted of corruption.  Sharif’s family came under judicial scrutiny over the Panama Papers. After disqualifying Sharif from holding public office the Pakistan courts was sentenced him to jail and he absented himself to the UK.  Just before the election he came back to Pakistan to start a 10-year jail sentence.  This martyrdom, as he sees it, was designed to increase the chances of an election victory for his party now led by his brother.  But this risky move appears to have failed.

Pakistan is one of the most unequal countries in the world.  Just 22 families control 66% of Pakistan’s industrial assets and the richest 20% consume seven times more than the poorest 20%.  Both the names Khan and Sharif mean ‘ruler’ or ‘noble’. According to a 2013 study, 45% of all holders of office across Pakistan came from family ‘dynasties’, moving from one party to another with bewildering rapidity, with their political direction decided by whom the military establishment selects.

Khan has won because he had campaigned for several years on ‘fighting corruption’, for which the previous two main parties of government, the Muslim League and the People’s Party (led by the Bhutto dynasty), were notorious.  The anti-corruption message has won over sufficient voters, mainly middle class.  Khan appealed to this layer as a more ‘secular’ candidate (not surprising considering his personal affairs).

Although, the PTI’s support comes from the urban middle classes, in the election he aligned his party with smaller extreme religious parties in order to try to gain a majority, stepping back on equality and ‘social’ issues.  Moreover, he is regarded as the new favourite of the military, which wishes to continue its policy of backing the Taliban in Afghanistan and allying Pakistan with China against India.  China is now Pakistan’s largest foreign investor.

Khan claims he wants to ‘depoliticise’ the police and establish ‘law and order’ in a violent crime-ridden society; to ‘improve health and education’ through bringing health insurance to 70% of the population. Yet in no way is Khan sympathetic to the interests of Pakistan’s working class or rural farmers.  He is set to follow the dictates of the IMF as the ‘solution’ for Pakistan’s continuing economic failure.  And that means his policy ‘aspirations’ will never be met.

The reality is that Pakistan’s stuttering economy is entering yet another period of slump and crisis after a short boom.  The IMF’s last report reckoned that Pakistan was growing at 5-6% a year. But this was only being achieved by cheap money policy from the central bank, fiscal spending and a rising current account deficit.

Foreign exchange reserves have fallen to just 2.3 months of imports as the authorities tried to support the currency despite the deteriorating economy.  The trade deficit and upcoming FX debt repayments will double external financing needs, taking a further toll on foreign exchange reserves.  Pakistan will soon require an IMF funding package to pay its way, and with it, will follow yet another period of ‘austerity’.

Although there has been some improvement in human development indicators in Pakistan since 2010, youth enrolment in higher education and skills training remains very low. In health, stunting is chronically high among children under five years of age, with 44% in this age group being either severely or moderately stunted.  A large proportion of the population still does not have access to piped water at home or toilets linked to a sewage system.

There is little in public funds available to deal with these problems because the rich pay little or no tax.  Less than 1% of the country’s working population file income returns. Of the 72,000 or so firms registered in 2016, less than half filed returns. And of those that filed returns, half paid no tax at all. Pakistan aims to increase tax collection to 15% of GDP by 2020.  But growth in direct taxes is actually slowing because of a sustained reduction in corporate taxes. Most taxes are indirect i.e. through consumption purchases, which hit the poor the most.

Investment by the capitalist sector is just 11% of GDP (and falling), with another 4% from the public sector.  This compares with China at 45% or even most less developed countries at over 20%.  Most income held by the rich goes into real estate and financial assets (much of it spirited abroad).

Exports make up just 7.6% of the country’s GDP. That’s nearly 17 percentage points less than than the average for middle-income countries overall. What the country does export tends to be low-value-added products, like cotton and rice. Pakistan is the 115th most competitive nation in the world out of 137 countries ranked in the 2017-2018 edition of the Global Competitiveness Report.  As a result, Pakistan relies on an ever-decelerating flow of remittances and outside funding, which makes it highly susceptible to external shocks.

As Khan takes over (with the military behind the scenes) Pakistan is facing another balance of payments crisis.  The Pakistan rupee is diving as a result as FX reserves run out.

Without Chinese investment and funding, the crisis would already be upon the Pakistan economy.  The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a collection of infrastructure and trade projects, valued at up to $63bn.  It has become the centrepiece of China’s $1 trillion-plus Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). From shoddy ports and expressways to inefficient power plants, the Chinese-funded CPEC aims to resolve many of the shortcomings that have stifled Pakistani manufacturers. The flow of loans to Pakistan has surged since 2015.

All this means that the Pakistan ruling elite must choose between the IMF for future funding or rely on the ‘goodwill’ of China.

Over to you, Imran Khan.

Pakistan: Violence Against Women. A "Ray of Hope?"

This article was originally published in Dawn.  Dawn is Pakistan's oldest and most widely read English language paper.

Ray of hope?

Zofeen T. Ebrahim
December 08, 2017

The writer is a freelance journalist.

In a country where women get raped, gang-raped or killed for ‘honour’; where many more at the slightest provocation are subjected to other forms of horrendous violence that result in life-altering injuries, there is a ray of hope. The Punjab government’s Violence Against Women Centre (VAWC) in Multan which opened recently, has come at a time when rights groups contend that violence against women has increased manifold.

Based on media reports, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recorded over 2,500 cases of violence — sexual, domestic, burning and kidnapping — against women in 2016. Verbal, physical and psychological and online violence remains under the radar.

The opening of the centre — manned by a trained, all-women team — in March has opened the floodgates: it has received more than 1,300 cases in only nine months, that too from merely three tehsils of Multan district.

Experts contend this is the tip of the iceberg: Violence against women (VAW) remains hugely underreported and among the most misunderstood of crimes. Many women cannot brace themselves to reveal the brutality they suffer, not only because it is ugly and uncomfortable to talk about, but also because of the stigma attached to it. No wonder the percentage of reported rape is so shockingly low. Moreover, institutionalised misogyny in the criminal justice system means that the conviction rate for even instances of such violence that are reported remains dismally low at 1-2.5 per cent.

The launch of the centre for VAW has opened the floodgates.

The choice of Multan by the Strategic Reform Unit (SRU), a think tank set up by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, as the location for the first centre appears a sound one: the incidence of VAW in southern Punjab, an agricultural belt steeped in age-old patriarchy, is perhaps more pervasive than anywhere else in Pakistan.

However, the centre cannot be compared to the Darul Amans, or shelter homes for women, run by the provincial social welfare departments. At the Multan centre, survivors are provided with legal, medical, forensic and psychological support, as well as counselling, post-trauma rehabilitation and shelter, under one roof. This will enable women to rebuild their lives and bypass the fragmented justice system with its web of never-ending court-kutchery procedures.

Rights experts have lauded this effort. They say that when a woman wants to report violence, she typically has to go from one government department to another to register her complaint, not only being made to recall the horror of the incident at every step, but also having to deal with misogyny and bias along the way. Maliha Zia Lari, associate director of the Karachi-based Legal Aid Society, expressed the hope that the VAWC staff is more specialised as that would mean women would be less likely to be exposed to “elements of potential exploitation”.

Over the years, Pakistan has come up with several laws that provide protection for women, yet none have so far been implemented in letter and spirit. The justice system, too, is archaic. Ms Zia says that lack of quality education and training, delays in due process, high fees and a litigious system compound the situation.

The SRU sought the help of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School to come up with standard operating procedures that have been enforced at VAWC, and which are consistent with international human rights standards.

In many South Asian countries, different departments of government that deal with violence against women work in silos and rarely, if ever, collaborate. Fact-finding and sharing of information is rare too. At the VAWC, special software connects all the departments and tracks all developments.

The VAWC came about after the furiously debated Punjab Protection of Women Against Violence Act, 2016, was enacted, says Salman Sufi, the force behind this ambitious project. However, this centre will only provide support to the people in Multan. The Punjab government plans to set up three more such centres in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Faisalabad by March 2018 and, eventually, one in each of the province’s 36 districts.

It is hoped that the centre, in its functioning, will offer a blueprint that can be emulated across the country. Punjab’s SRU should actively engage with various political parties, rights groups and government officials from other provinces. In fact, being the first of its kind in the region, it can even be a model for other countries in South Asia and beyond.

However, sustainability requires that the VAWC not end up as a personality-driven institution that crumbles without the team leader’s hand on the wheel. As a statutory body with a set of clearly spelt-out SOPs, it is hoped the centre not only flourishes but that it encourages women to report without fear the violence perpetrated on them.

The writer is a freelance journalist.

zofeen28@hotmail.com

Twitter: @zofeen28

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2017

They are all monsters - Kerry, Obama, Clinton, Karimov.

Kerry greets Karimov, monster who boils his opponents alive. 

Sean O'Torain.

The staggering hypocrisy and the lies. They are all monsters. I am talking about Obama, Clinton, Kerry, Karimov - the lot of them. Now you maybe think I am being a bit hard here. And who is this Karimov? Well, please read on.

Karimov is the President of Uzbekistan. He has held that position for a quarter of a century, even though the country's constitution says he should have stepped down after two terms.

Kerry the US secretary of State, has just visited and met with this person. Hilary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State, also met with him. This is part of building connections with regimes which are useful to US corporations' interests.  The US wants Uzbekistan's help in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and in building a five nation trade block in Central Asia. Obama is fully behind his secretaries of state meeting with this monster. He describes it as part of the US policy of building links with regimes that "champion the values of who we (that is the US) are." Let us have a look at these values of this regime of Karimov which Obama, that slick, vicious, capitalist politician says are the same as those of the US. Is he speaking in our name when he says what he does about Karimov?

Karimov keeps power by shooting down hundreds in the streets. He keeps power by crushing human rights. He keeps power by refusing to answer questions from journalists about human rights. When Kerry was there meeting with him at a joint press conference, a Washington Post writer asked about human rights, and the journalist was put out of the room by a combined bunch of Uzbek and US thugs. They were no doubt upholding the "values of who we are." Of course, in the secret, so called diplomatic papers of the US government, it is a different story. Wikileaks published one such document written by the US embassy in Uzbekistan. And it should know. This document stated that the regime was a "nightmarish world of corruption, organized crime, forced labor in the cotton fields and torture." But that is not the worst of it; not even near the worst of it.

The ISIS group seeking to create a state in the Middle East is quite correctly and unconditionally condemned for beheading its prisoners and burning some of them alive. The Saudi regime, which beheads far more prisoners than ISIS, is of course not condemned, as the US government wants them and their oil, and they, of course, "champion the values of who we are." And they are also good friends of the Bush gang. But back to the Karimov gang. What does Karimov do to his opponents? Its even worse than beheading. At least that is quick. No. He boils them alive. Boils them alive!!! Its almost unbelievable. And Kerry and Obama supports this monster claiming to do so in the name of the American people. Jesus, the Obamas and Kerrys and Clintons would make you sick.

What did Kerry say when was in Uzbekistan? He actually praised the Karimov regime which boils people alive. He praised it for "what it does to preserve its history and culture, and some of the architecture," and compared this to ISIS and "what it is doing in the world today."

These people like Kerry, Obama, Clinton, and before them the Bushes, who represent the US capitalist class, have been and are systematically destroying the Middle East. And they are doing so claiming their murderous actions represent the will, "the values" of the American people. While this is going on, the US trade union leaders support the Obamas, the Clintons, the Bushes, and the Kerrys.

There is not hope from there, from this bunch of cowardly trade union, pro capitalist bureaucrats.  It is up to the American working class. The American working class must get off its ass, open its mouth, speak and take action. These US political monsters and the American corporations they represent do not speak for or act in the interest of the American working class. Unless these monsters and their actions are stopped, then there will be more and more hatred built against the American people. And it will not just be hatred in foreign lands. This will find a way to express itself on US soil.  Security in the US means ending the US imperialist slaughter abroad and the supporting of regimes of torture abroad.

Pakistan: International Women's Day Statement from AWP

Awami Workers Party Message on 104^th International Woman’s Day - 8 March 2014

AWP

7 March 2014

We Say No to Religious Fundamentalism, Privatization and Feudalism:
They Collude Together to Kill, Exploit and Oppress Women
Farooq Tariq
General Secretary
Awami Workers Party

First of all, we condemn the co-option of the woman emancipation question by neo-liberal economic and political forces through the ahistorical and de-contextualized ’celebration’ of Women’s Day as another opportunity to further the neo-liberal development agenda. We want to remind the masses and women in Pakistan that the UN and the NGOs have got nothing to do with the ideological origin of international women’s day. The 8 March International Women’s Day came from Clara Zetkin, a socialist, at the Socialist Second International (and not from the ’advocates of human rights’) in order to celebrate the movements of women garment workers in the US in 1857 and then in 1908 for their rights as workers.

The Second International (1889–1916), was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. Among the Second International’s famous actions were its (1889) declaration of May 1 as International Workers’ Day and its (1910) declaration of March 8 as International Women’s Day. It also initiated the international campaign for the 8-hour working day.

While many of our demands relate to the state and its economic policies, we also see a need to combat the deep-rooted patriarchy that is embedded in our (and many other) societies. We understand that the patriarchal elite, along with the capitalist/economic elite, both of which happen to be predominantly male; both these forms of privilege are unacceptable, oppressive, and create a system in which a life of dignity is a ’luxury’, available only to those who agree to trample upon the lives and opportunities of their working brothers and sisters.

The Awami Workers Party celebrated the 104^th International Woman’s Day by holding its Women Convention on 2 March 2014 to prepare the Party’s position and statement of intent on the woman question, which has already been announced on 2 March 2014. We remain committed to mobilize the entire Party to struggle for equality, development and emancipation of women. The AWP believes that the oppression of women is a political, social, legal and economic question of the first priority.
We celebrate the struggles of and by women, and salute the women from working classes who are constantly at war with the exploitative system and struggling for social justice, gender equality, development and emancipation.

We are deeply concerned about the rise of religious fundamentalism is Pakistan which is affecting the basic right of women such as: right to life, education, health care, and employment. It has also reinforced the pre-existing patriarchal violence against women. The religious fundamentalist-friendly government of PMLN is endangering the lives and rights of women, reinforcing patriarchal institutions and cultural values, by negotiating with the terrorists and accepting their demand to further define the state ideology as a theocratic state. This engagement with fanatics will certainly obliterate whatever little rights are guaranteed to women by the law and the constitution.

We cannot allow fundamentalist political parties and military establishment, their subsidiary terrorist organizations to define and drive the country on the pretext of security and stability in Pakistan, as it is detrimental to women emancipation in Pakistan. We reaffirm our commitment to the struggle for separating religion from the state and politics

The new liberal agenda of Muslim League (PMLN) government has resulted into policies of privatization and withdrawal of subsidies, which have hit women the most as women are the last ones to receive benefits and the first one to loose rights and resources. We reject the sale of public properties, public services, essential infrastructure such as energy, health, education, and transport such as railway and PakistanInternational Airlines (PIA). We also reject the PMLN government’s recent no-extension policy for federal government employees, which will certainly hit white-collar workers, mainly women in PIA, schools, hospitals and other offices.

We demand for re-nationalization of electricity distribution system and reinstatement of subsidy for power sector to improve daily lives of millions of women and working conditions of home-based workers.

We have seen the worst forms of labour exploitation and oppression of women in areas, which are under direct feudalistic control. In addition to worst forms of labour exploitation, wehave witnessed feudal/tribal jirga/pachayat endorsing sexual violence against women, forced marriages, child-marriage, gifting women for dispute settlement. To abolish feudalism, the AWP has moved the Supreme Court to implement the land reforms introduced by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto through Martial Law Regulation 115 of 1972 and the Land Reforms Act, 1977. The plea also urges the court to nullify the 1990 judgment of the appellate bench of the Federal Shariat Court declaring land reforms un-Islamic. We condemn the feudal of Punajb who have colluded across political party and become a legal party against this constitutional petition, main PMLN and PTI. We call upon provincial governments, mainly Sindh and Baluchistan governments to express legal solidarity with AWP and supportthe constitutional petition for land reforms, as this is detrimental for social and gender justice in Pakistan.

With respect to women’s basic needs, we demand for drastic reduction in military budget and considerable increase in the budget to ensure free public education and health services. We further demand removal of all anti-women systems and policy perspectives form health and education services through modernizing and secularizing health and education services in Pakistan.

Finally, we understand that it is the system of elite rule, which is the root cause of the multiple burdens that oppresses and exploits women, as workers, as unemployed housewives, as the urban and rural poor, as students, as professionals, as poor farmers and fisherfolk. This system uses patriarchal and conservative ideologies and violence to maintain the status quo. We reject this system because it defends an economic system based on the supremacy of “private profits” over “people’s needs”.
To significantly reduce and ultimately eradicate the multiple-burdens of exploitation and oppression faced by women, we reaffirm our struggle for socialism. We believe that this can be achieved.
We call upon all the progressive organizations and movements in Pakistan to form solidarity with AWP in supporting the struggle for women emancipation and oppressed.

US foreign policy: Drone attacks and assassinations a disaster

This is an interesting interview and report on the continued drone attacks in Pakistan and the murder of Pakistani civilians by the US government. While many of us would agree that US foreign policy is at the root of anti-Americanism and the best recruiting tool for al Qaeda, this foreign policy is driven by the struggle for markets and competition between the nation states; it is not simply a product of stupid individuals although there are different levels from the more rational to the insane among the the strategists of US capitalism.

US capitalism is still the most powerful force on the planet but  it is in deep crisis.  Its economic system is broken as is its body politic.  The present economic crisis and Obama's failures for which he is attacked from the right that offer Reagan as a comparison, is different from the Reagan era that followed a deep recession in that the society is still mired in debt.  Under such conditions lenders are unwilling to lend and borrowers wary of borrowing. US Capitalism is stuck in a rut.

On the international stage, US capitalism has lost ground as it faces increasing competition from China and the BRICS.  It has spent billions building bases all over the world particularly in central Asia in an attempt to surround China, its greatest threat and preserve its world dominance.  The new base to be built in Darwin Australia that will allow for rapid deployment forces is aimed at curbing China's influence.  This all has to be paid for and the war against US workers at home is an attempt to put the working class on rations to do just that.

In the video the interviewee refers to Petraeus' success in Iraq but Iraq is far from a success.  The Kurds in the north are increasingly pushing for more territory and their own separate nation state. This is something the Turks on the northern border will never allow having some 15 million Kurds in Turkey.  The divisions between the three groups that make up Iraq will intensify in the period ahead.  Iraq is not over by any means.

Also, if Israel or the US attacks Iran this will lead to an even worse situation as the whole region will be further destabilized and the price of gas most likely will skyrocket. With regard to events is Syria, there is an interesting article about Syria and the Arab League's intervention in the Asia Times. Worth a read.

Striking Kazakhstan workers massacred by riot police

The video above shows the breaking up of Kazakhstan's independence day celebrations by striking oil workers.  The totalitarian regime and its US backed dictator has responded ruthlessly to oil workers fighting for the right to unionize. An oil worker and the daughter of a Union organizer was murdered some months ago. 

Friday, the  Kazakhstan riot police killed some 70 workers according to reports although it has been difficult to determine as cell phones and other means of communication with outsiders was cut off.
Chevron is closely tied to the dictator and his family with the oil company in question being owned by a relative.  You can read more here.

US Afghanistan ally. Another mass murder degenerate.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday pardoned an Afghan woman serving a 12-year prison sentence for having sex out of wedlock after she was raped by a relative.

Karzai's office said in a statement that the woman and her attacker have agreed to marry. That would reverse an earlier decision by the 19-year-old woman, who had previously refused a judge's offer of freedom if she agreed to marry the rapist.

Her plight was highlighted in a documentary that the European Union blocked because it feared the women featured in the film would be in danger if it were shown.

More than 5,000 people recently signed a petition urging Karzai to release the woman. She had the man's child while in prison and raised her daughter behind bars, which is common among women imprisoned in Afghanistan.

A statement released by Karzai's office says that after hearing from judicial officials, the decision was made to forgive the rest of the sentence she received for having sex out of wedlock, a crime in Afghanistan. The presidential statement did not say when the woman was to be released or how much prison time had been pardoned.

The woman told The Associated Press in an interview last month that she had hoped that attention generated by the EU film might help her get released. With the film blocked, she said that she was losing hope and considering marrying her rapist as a way out. She said her attacker was pressuring her to stop giving interviews.

About half of the 300 to 400 women jailed in Afghanistan are imprisoned for so-called "moral crimes" such as sex outside marriage, or running away from their husbands, according to reports by the United Nations and research organizations. Fleeing husbands isn't considered a crime in Afghanistan.

The EU welcomed the woman's release.

"Her case has served to highlight the plight of Afghan women, who 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime often continue to suffer in unimaginable conditions, deprived of even the most basic human rights," the European Union's Ambassador and Special Representative to Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, said.

He said the EU hoped the same mercy would be extended to other women serving similar terms. Usackas said he planned to raise the issue of Afghan women's rights at an international conference on Afghanistan Dec. 5 in Bonn, Germany.

Some of the most severe restrictions women faced under the Taliban, like a ban on attending schools and having to have a male escort to venture outside the home, were done away with when the radical Islamic movement was driven from power in 2001. But Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative and male-dominated society, meaning women are still sold to husbands and rights enshrined in law are often ignored in practice.

China: Riot police called in to quell protest over land grabs

From Radio Free Asia:

Chinese authorities called in 3,000 riot police at the weekend to quell a mass protest by villagers who attacked an industrial park in southern Guangdong province over a longstanding land dispute, according to police and news reports.

The attack by several thousand villagers, armed with petrol bombs, clubs and stones, was sparked by reports that an official had illegally sold their rice paddy land for conversion to an industrial zone in Zhongshan city without compensating them.

Zhongshan police said in a statement that residents of Yilong Village "attacked" the park on Saturday by "smashing, looting and setting fire" on the facility.

The Oriental Daily, a Hong Kong newspaper, reported that 3,000 riot police were dispatched to quell the riot. Some blog posts said an equal number of villagers were involved in the protest.

The newspaper also said that villagers threw petrol bombs, and that some buildings were in flames.

Yilong residents accused the former secretary of their village of selling their land on his own and withholding the compensation from them, it said.

Burning factories

Photographs uploaded on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog, and other websites showed unconfirmed images of burning factories emitting plumes of black smoke, columns of black-clad riot police trooping through the village and crowds of residents engaging in stand-offs with the police and a nighttime sit-down protest, according to the South China Morning Post.

Blog posts also showed protest banners complaining about "weak and inept" officials, and claimed the protest came after government officials sold off village land for their own personal gain, the Hong Kong newspaper said.

The dispute had been simmering since August, leading to factories in the industrial zone halting production, Zhongshan police said, dismissing reports that some villagers had died in the riot.

Caixin Magazine, an online journal, reported that the Yilong residents had been standing watch in a basketball court near the industrial park for months, blocking factory workers from going to work.

RFA's calls to the Zhongshan Municipal Public Security Bureau and the Dongsheng and Xiaolan branches went unanswered Sunday.

Increasing unrest

Yang Lili of the D.C.-based China Information Center said that land disputes have caused increasing unrest in China in recent years.

"Although the land was sold, the peasants did not receive appropriate compensation," she said. "Local officials and village officials often take the bulk of the land sales to line their own pockets.

"The peasants not only lose their land that they rely on for survival, but they also don't receive the appropriate compensation, so it's from this that social conflicts have become more serious in recent years."

In September, thousands of villagers in Lufeng, another part of Guangdong province, rioted by ransacking government offices and overturning police vehicles in protest against land requisitions by officials.

Reported by Lin Ping for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Rachel Vandenbrink.

Copyright © 1998-2011 Radio Free Asia. All rights reserved.

Hilary Clinton admits the Taliban is the US's baby

As I stated in an earlier blog, would workers, had we an independent voice, have supported 7th century clerics in Afghanistan against the government of Mohammad Najibullah? I think not.  It was in Chevron's interests to support them, not ours.  Capitalists form allegiances with any force that defends, or appears to defend, profits.    In Afghanistan in was the Mullahs or a potential workers' regime, at the least a command economy, so bin Laden it was.  For more on this period and the struggle for the resources of central Asia read: War and Globalization by Michel Chossudovsky.

Another 18 "Militants" killed say official officials.

So another drone attack killed “18 Militants” in Pakistan the great free press of the western world tells us today. There is no “independent” confirmation as to who these people are say “Officials” It appears there's no independent officials to ensure that the official officials are telling the truth or that they're officials at all.

The same “officials” say that the first two missiles missed the vehicle the “alleged” militants were in. The BBC says that “It was joined by two more drones that fired six missiles, killing the four men who had abandoned the vehicle. All four were foreign militants, officials say.”

Well, that’s good. I trust that these people in these vehicles were on the way to the US to deprive me of my freedom so I should be happy.

There have been hundreds of drone attacks in Pakistan this year, many of them killing scores of civilians. Who knows who they’re killing. I Don’t know, do you? More importantly, do you trust the CIA, the folks responsible for these drone attacks and numerous assassinations and murders throughout the world of union leaders and the like, to tell us the truth? Remember, the CIA were the orchestrators of the Gulf of Tonkin lies that drew the US deeper in to the Vietnam fiasco at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives as well as thousands more American ones.

By the time they were done today, they killed “18 militants” officials tell us. Locals often claim that the dead are innocent civilians, one Pakistani man has even sued the CIA for killing his son and brother in a previous attack. We don’t need independent reports though, that’s why the pimps that pass for journalists are “embedded” with the official military. I mean, our government wouldn’t lie to us would it? I saw the Tillman Story and have followed that case and surely that young man died of natural causes. His parents accusations that the US government lied through their teeth about their son’s death is just plain un-American.

Pakistani authorities have complained about these attacks on their territory by unmanned US drones saying they increase support for the Muslim fundamentalists and the Taliban. The US media pretty much calls them all “Militants” now to avoid being accused of waging a war against Islam

Leaked cables by Wikileaks seem to confirm that behind the scenes the Pakistani government supports the attacks as it offs some of the opposition. This seems reasonable. But the slaughter of civilians by the drone attacks has increased support for the Taliban and strengthened their ability to strike back. There have been more and more suicide bombings in Pakistan of late and it is quite possible that the regime could be brought down, or the country break in to civil war. US foreign policy is failing in this area as it is throughout the world. It destabilizes every region in which it functions.

It is in a real quandry

Wikileaks reveals British government trains Bangladeshi death squads

Rapid Action Battalion

Wikileaks reports that the British government has been training what the BBC referred to as “death squads” in Bangladesh, have been confirmed by the UK government. Well, that’s a minor detail I wasn’t aware of. What with the US taxpayer’s funding one third of Pakistan’s military budget, it looks like the cheap labor and horrendous conditions in the sweat-shops of this part of the world will be there to stay.

We blogged about the recent Bangladesh strikes when three workers were killed by cops and/or gangs hired by the factory owners. Children, who are also forced to work in these factories despite laws against child labor were also beaten. The BBC reports that the this “Rapid Action Battalion” has been taught “interview techniques” and ”rules of engagement” It was set up to fight crime and terrorism. Striking workers are are guilty of both as far as the sweat shop owners are concerned.

The RAB for short consists of about 9000 men and has been accused of major abuse of human rights by opposition groups. The British government claims that the training focuses on human rights; this would include the right of factory owners to make profits and take whatever measures they can to protect that right I’m sure.

Human Rights Watch says the RAB has an "operating culture" of extrajudicial killings, which its members perpetrated with impunity, according to the BBC,  and the Guardian UK comments, “Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as "crossfire" deaths”. Pat Tillman, the US soldier and former football star supposedly died a crossfire death.  There is an epidemic of these type of deaths, particularly when the US/NATO alliance is involved. The Guardian released these latest Wikileak cables yesterday.

I can’t wait to read what Wikeleaks has on the banks.