the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jan 19, 2004
The contest for the presidential election now governs every move by the major players.
The general outlines programmed by Bush’s handlers for his re-election campaign are clearly visible. On all fronts, Bush will attempt to deny reality and try to get away with it.
Bush’s most important job in his campaign will be to pretend that the war in Iraq has gone away–in time for November. It’s why he has set a deadline of June 30 to choose a "new" government in Iraq–and why he has pulled a similar phony deal in Afghanistan. These will serve as a smoke screen to pretend that there can soon be a rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops–after the election, of course! Not a bit of it will be true–but that’s what smoke screens are for.
Bush will also pretend that the economy is recovering and doing well, that his tax cuts and deficit spending are working, and voters can have confidence that more jobs and a more secure future are just around the corner.
Of course this will require mounds of lies about such data as mass layoffs, unemployment, rising numbers of workers who quit looking for jobs that aren’t there, household debt, personal bankruptcies, and declining real wages. But the Bush team has had plenty of practice lying!
Bush will also attempt to run on his image as a God-fearing, morally engaged, far-sighted person. Opening this part of his show, he has so far offered to temporarily legalize Hispanic immigrants, offered a 1.5 billion dollar program to promote traditional marriage, and proposed sending astronauts to Mars.
Hopefully the Martians will avoid the increased oppression, hidden in the guts of his headline-making proposals, that Bush would visit on earthbound women and immigrants.
Bush’s lies and hypocrisy are obvious to the vast majority of Americans. It’s obvious that the war in Iraq is a real catastrophe. It’s obvious that the economy is tottering on the edge of collapse. It’s obvious that Bush mentioned Hispanics only in order to corral some votes, and it’s obvious that he mentions marriage in order to please those who want to impose fundamentalist Christianity on society.
If any candidate for president would thoroughly and completely oppose this garbage, the election would be no contest.
If any candidate said their first act in office would be to sign the order for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, their vote would be a landslide.
If any candidate promised that the money saved by withdrawing from Iraq would immediately be put toward hiring two million workers to rebuild this country’s roads, schools, and social services, their vote would be a landslide.
If any candidate pledged to raise the minimum wage to a livable $15 an hour, and to inaugurate national full-coverage health care, their vote would be a landslide.
But there aren’t major candidates proposing those things. There are only Democrats. And that’s not who the Democrats are.
The Democrats are like Howard Dean, who promotes an image of being against the occupation of Iraq, but has said troops can not be withdrawn immediately.
The Democrats are like Richard Gephardt, who says he is concerned about jobs but who proposes no more than increased corporate tax breaks and changes to NAFTA–as if those things could possibly generate any more jobs than what they already have–which is zero.
The Democrats are like John Kerry, who promotes himself as both a courageous war veteran and an experienced foreign policy statesman–and who has been in Washington inner circles for many years without providing any evidence that workers’ problems are on his high-priority list.
And finally the Democrats are like Johnny-come-lately General Wesley Clark, promoting himself as a no-nonsense general who can solve the Iraq problem–but, like Dean, avoiding any commitments about getting the troops out of there.
These are the Democrats who are being selected, by the big money behind the scenes, as challengers to Bush. In truth, they are selected on the same grounds that Bush has been selected: in their years of service in high positions, they have proved their loyalty to the interests of the ruling class. They have proved their ability to efficiently defend the wealthy and the order of their society.
The working class needs other leaders. The working class needs a party of those who can lead the fights that are necessary, if workers’ problems are to be solved. There is no such party today; there are no such candidates. But neither is there any reason for workers to try to choose among the available liars.
Jan 19, 2004
The governor of Maryland has just proposed a $30 per year fee on every home-owning family in Maryland, supposedly to pay for upgrades to sewage treatment plants. So this extra fee comes on top of raises already passed in some Maryland jurisdictions to increase water and sewage fees. In four years, the average family is paying 50% more in Baltimore City, where a billion dollars worth of repairs are needed for the aging water and sewage system. And it comes on top of our regular taxes, which are supposedly collected to cover things like sewage, roads, schools, fire, etc.
It’s certainly true that sewage pollutes the waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Twenty years ago, politicians from six jurisdictions, including the states of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, acknowledged the considerable pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and pledged to reduce it.
This summer, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation reported that the situation is worse. Forty% of the bay is dead–spots where nothing can grow, which is not only bad news for fish but also for people who fish, who swim, who boat or who like to breathe clean air.
Where does the pollution killing the Bay come from? Perhaps 20% of the pollution comes from water and sewage treatment. But twice that much–40%–of the pollution comes from agribusiness, especially the nitrogen and phosphorus from chicken manure waste on the Delmarva peninsula. And another 40% comes from new construction and the consequences of real estate development. But those interests–agribusiness and real estate–are not the ones in line to pay new fees.
Delmarva, which stands for Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, is home to a multi-billion dollar industry, producing more than three billion pounds of chickens per year. Following an outbreak of toxic pfisteria in 1997, the state of Maryland required agriculture to begin to change methods of dealing with nitrogen and phosphorus waste, which was running off the land and into the water, contributing greatly to the pollution and dead spots in the Chesapeake Bay. But this requirement was directed only to small farmers, not to the big poultry companies.
The current governor says he will ease the rules for the farmers. However, neither this governor nor the last one has ever talked about rules and regulations for the poultry companies, which employ more than twice as many people as the small farmers.
This enormous agribusiness–companies like Perdue and Tyson–have passed their chicken waste problem on to the farmers. The chicks are owned by the companies, but grown to the point of slaughter by the farmers. The corporations determine what the chickens are fed, and how they live, how long till they die, what price is paid wholesale for broilers and roasters. But the waste problem of nitrogen and phosphorus, densely produced because of the way the companies set up the industry, is left in the hands of the small farmers.
While the politicians produce sound bites for the evening news on cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, in reality they make the little guys pay. Meanwhile the big guys, the agribusinesses and real estate interests that make all the money, dump dirty polluted water all over us–and pay nothing.
Jan 19, 2004
A top aide to Congressman Richard Gephardt, Joyce Aboussie, threatened to have Missouri revoke the collective bargaining rights of public employees unless Missouri locals of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) stop aiding Dean against Gephardt. It seems Gephardt is all for unions–unless you endorse his rival!
Meanwhile, Dean’s opponents in Iowa point out that when he was governor of Vermont he contracted out government work to for-profit companies that paid less than government workers got.
The Democratic primaries certainly are irrelevant for workers, but they have one merit–they have revealed a little bit about the anti-worker stances of the two candidates the unions have endorsed.
Jan 19, 2004
Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s new governor, proposed seven billion dollars in cuts in social services and education for the 2004-2005 budget. These are huge cuts. What is most striking about this budget is how many of the cuts will affect children.
The biggest cuts are in health and welfare, almost three billion dollars. Schwarzenegger proposes to cut hundreds of thousands of children of the working poor from the state health insurance program, and to increase what those in the program will have to pay for vision services and dental. Thousands of children with cancer and other expensive medical conditions will not receive any aid. The 481,000 poor families with children still on public assistance will have their allowances slashed from $704 per family per month to $669 on average.
The next biggest cuts are to kindergarten through high school education. It will lose two billion dollars in one year. This translates into more students per teacher, fewer supplies and books–that is, worse conditions for students to learn.
Schwarzenegger says that these cuts are necessary in order to overcome the budget deficit–especially since he promised not to raise taxes. What he doesn’t now say is what he said in the campaign when he promised not to do anything "to hurt the children." That’s a promise he obviously has no trouble breaking.
Let him break his promise–to the wealthy! Raise taxes on the very wealthiest and the big corporations. Close all those billion dollar tax loopholes.
Schwarzenegger argues that tax increases on corporations will cost state jobs.
If that were true, then there should be plenty of jobs, since corporate taxes have been cut drastically. Today, they pay less in taxes in actual money than they did just 20 years ago, when the economy was much smaller and they made much lower profits.
Clearly, lowering their taxes didn’t create jobs.
Why should the politicians be allowed to protect the big companies while they attack the most vulnerable: the children! Those with the deepest pockets should shoulder the burden of the budget crisis. They created it!
Jan 19, 2004
Fifty-six% of U.S. adults fear they will become poor some day–this was one of the findings in a survey carried out by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
The survey also asked people what annual income they believed necessary for a family of four to meet basic needs, that is, to stay above poverty. Half of those polled said $40,000 or more.
The federal government’s definition of poverty is less than $18,400 for a family of four. Whoever dreamed up this figure never tried to feed, clothe, house and school two kids on $18,000 a year.
Jan 19, 2004
When the government issued its latest job report, the unemployment rate appeared to have gone down two-tenths of one percentage point. Bush was quick to brag that his tax cuts were working to bring about job growth.
There’s one little fly in Bush’s big pot of snake oil, however. The number of people working decreased in December by 54,000. Not only did manufacturing continue to cut jobs–as it has for the past 40 months; so did retail and financial services. The official unemployment rate went down only because so many people were unable to find a job last month that over 300,000 of them gave up looking.
In the real world, they were still unemployed and still scraping to find a way to survive–moving in with relatives or friends, or even ending up in the street.
Bush says his tax cuts affected unemployment. If so, it was only to help put more people into a desperate situation.
Jan 19, 2004
On January 7, President Bush offered a proposal that supposedly would give legal status to immigrants in this country illegally. He proclaimed, "We see millions of hard working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive undocumented economy." And he asserted that his proposal would change that.
Bush says that undocumented workers in the United States could get a permit letting them work here legally–but only if their boss will vouch for them. They can stay in the country–but only if they can keep their job. In other words, if they speak up, if they dare try to organize and demand even a nickel more, the boss will fire them and they’ll be put out of the country. In other words, they will continue to be "condemned to fear and insecurity."
This proposal was aimed at attracting a bigger Hispanic vote for Bush since many Hispanic citizens have relatives and friends here without papers. In 2000, Bush got only 35% of the Hispanic vote. Bush’s advisers think that if he can bring this up to 40%, he can win.
He’s obviously hoping that Hispanics won’t look at the proposal itself–only his words. But many can already see this offer for what it is–not real legalization. It’s only an offer to be used, abused and discarded.
There are some people really satisfied with Bush’s proposal however–all the employers of illegal workers. They have gotten used to employing undocumented workers, who are forced to work at the minimum wage or even lower. But they don’t like the inconveniences of occasional INS raids. So they want their workers to be "legal"–while continuing to be in a precarious situation. All the more so, since the lack of rights for part of the working class makes it much easier to force the rest of the working class to accept lower wages.
Illegal immigrants need full legal rights, so that they can’t be tossed out, so they’re free to organize and to fight back for decent wages and conditions–and so the working class isn’t divided against itself. This obviously is not Bush’s aim.
Jan 19, 2004
The U.S. media tell us the new Afghan constitution is an important democratic development bringing relief and a better future to the Afghan people who have suffered so much. It is put forward as proof of the beneficial results from the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks, when the U.S. army chased out Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who were running the country. The Afghan constitution is supposed to set a democratic example for the coming constitution of Iraq, where the U.S. also has to deal with a very divided country, without a democratic past.
As for democracy, we need look no further than the way the constitution was cobbled together. The people on the loya jirga or traditional council that wrote the constitution were landlords and tribal leaders the U.S. carefully approved. They were not representative of the Afghan people.
The U.S. was careful to see that the man it had already put into the "presidency," Hamid Karzai, would continue. He emerged with strong powers, while the new parliament will have only a weak ability to counter his actions. In addition, the two vice presidents are to be appointed by the president, not elected with their own base in another part of the population. This gives Karzai’s ethnic group, the Pashtuns, the most important ethnic minority in the country, domination over the central government and leaves the other ethnic groups–all of whom are smaller–with little national power. Instead they will get control over the provinces where they are dominant.
This new constitution may encourage the other ethnic groups, dominated by their local warlords, to make a fight over the control of the central government, which has been set up to exclude them from power. This is not a recipe for democracy–it is a recipe for an ethnic civil war.
U.S. imperialism has plenty of experience playing on ethnic divisions, including in Afghanistan itself. During the years the USSR was there, the U.S. gave heavy financial support and arms to the various fundamentalist warlords in Afghanistan fighting against the USSR. Today the U.S. is giving armed support to some fundamentalist ethnic groups who are willing to fight against the Taliban, who still remain in Afghanistan, and against others warlords, like Gubbuldin Hekmayar, who have taken up arms against the Karzai regime. In order to minimize the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan, the U.S. finances and arms these friendly ethnic groups and their local warlords, letting these strong men run their provinces as absolute dictators.
In the northeast and the south, areas where the U.S. can’t find anyone to support it, 10,000 U.S. soldiers continue bombing operations against the population. Operation Avalanche just led to the deaths of 15 children. The effect of this bombing policy is to push the population to support the fundamentalist guerrillas, who seem to be gaining, judging by the increasing number of attacks in big cities like Kandahar and Kabul.
Once again imperialism has lit the fuse of an ethnic powder keg. When it explodes, it will be a disaster for the Afghan people, just as the ethnic powder keg of ex-Yugoslavia was 12 years ago.
Jan 19, 2004
One day last week, a news flash handed out by the Bush administration made the rounds of the media. The headlines proclaimed that "weapons of mass destruction" had been found in Iraq.
And then the story disappeared as had every previous news flash about finding such weapons.
Because, of course, like all the previous ones, there was no reality to it, no "weapons of mass destruction" found–only another concocted media event to hide the disaster going on in Iraq.
Jan 19, 2004
The U.S. government is pulling its own specialists in weapons detection out of Iraq. The team of 400 was assigned to scour Iraq to find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. They have found nothing.
This comes as no surprise, but it adds one more back-handed admission to the stack of proof. The deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, plus the deaths of hundreds of U.S. soldiers, were based on lies.
With the recall of the weapons specialists, part of the charade is over. But the lying and dying continue.
Jan 19, 2004
Over the last couple years with the second Intifada, small groups of Israeli reservists have refused military service in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on moral grounds. Usually they were given mild sentences of several weeks in prison. The regime was trying to avoid drawing any attention to the "refuseniks."
But recently another level of opposition has emerged, coming from a handful of teenagers refusing to perform the 2-3 years military service required of almost all Israelis, men and women, after graduating from high-school. A military court sentenced five teenagers to one year in prison for such refusal.
This harsher sentence is a sign that the Israeli regime now wants to make an example of such opposition and hopes to nip it in the bud.
But for everyone who opposes the Sharon government’s brutal repressive policies against the Palestinian people, the stance taken by these teenagers is also a hopeful sign. It shows that not all Israelis support the brutal regime headed by Sharon.
Jan 19, 2004
During 2003, 40,000 army troops who had put in their full enlistment time were prevented from leaving military service under something called a "stop loss" order. This includes 16,000 in the National Guard or reservists.
So when is the all-volunteer army not voluntary?
When the military brass is sent to take over other countries but can’t find enough volunteers.
* * *
Although bribes of up to $10,000 are offered for re-enlisting for three years in Iraq or Afghanistan, the armed services are not finding enough takers. Apparently, even bad job prospects in the U.S. look better than the chance of losing life, limb or sanity in Iraq.
Jan 19, 2004
In December, Miami Judge Richard Margolius presided over trials of protesters who had come to the rally sponsored there by the AFL-CIO in November. The AFL-CIO targeted a meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), to protest the extension of NAFTA. NAFTA, according to them, means the loss of U.S. jobs.
The judge stated that he saw "no less than 20 felonies committed by police officers during the demonstrations.... I probably would have been arrested myself if it had not been for a police officer who recognized me."
Police in riot gear and police with rifles blocked many would-be demonstrators from even getting close to the area of planned rallies. Senior citizens, union members and young people attending the rally were sprayed with pepper gas, tear gas and rubber bullets. Taser guns were used to shoot darts attached to 15 feet of wire, thereby hitting protesters with 50,000 volts of electricity. The police singled out victims at random.
Over 200 non-combative protesters were arrested and hundreds were injured. A public radio reporter was strip searched by police. Some protesters were sexually assaulted in the jail.
The funding for this crackdown came from the same bill that gave 87 billion dollars for the war in Iraq. Also in that bill was eight and a half million dollars, to pay for security during the Miami FTAA talks.
Apparently there is no such thing as "free speech" once protesters single out the interests of the ruling class. If their interests are questioned, then it is perfectly okay to use the cops and the anti-terror laws against protesters, no matter rights we are supposed to have of "free speech.".
* * * * *
Many ordinary protesters attended the rally out of the false assumption that agreements like NAFTA and the FTAA are what causes jobs to be lost in the U.S.
Union officials and politicians say U.S. manufacturing jobs are going to other countries to divert attention away from the fight workers need to make right here at home to protect their jobs.
If U.S. jobs were being lost to other countries, the number of jobs in other countries should be growing. But according to a 2003 Wall Street Journal study, other countries, just like the U.S., have lost manufacturing jobs. China has lost 15% of manufacturing jobs in the last seven years. In Mexico, the maquiladoras, just across the border, lost 21% of manufacturing jobs in the last two years.
Overall, U.S. jobs are not going to other countries. Jobs are going to the bosses’ drive for getting more work out of fewer workers–all around the world. Everywhere the problem for workers is the same.
No doubt most of the protesters went to Miami to oppose corporate greed. But to do that means to fight here against the bosses who get rid of jobs week after week by pushing workers to work harder, faster, and more unsafely. Unfortunately, protesters sustained injuries following an AFL-CIO leadership whose goal is leading the working class down a blind alley.
Jan 19, 2004
Last week the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, made some trouble for the Bush administration. He publicly rejected their plans for a caucus-style election to a new interim assembly, to be held by June 30, calling instead for direct elections.
The question is how to hold elections to a new assembly that would take the place of the current Iraqi Governing Council. This current Governing Council is made up of delegates who were hand-picked by the U.S. occupying authority.
The Bush plan is for every province, or "governorate," to hold caucuses made up of carefully selected delegates. These caucuses would then choose the governorates’ representatives to the governing assembly.
These caucus delegates who would elect the assembly would be chosen in a very complicated process whose details nobody can really explain. What it comes down to, though, is that the current Iraqi Governing Council–which was chosen by the U.S.–would choose them.
That’s right: In the U.S. plan, the folks the U.S. hand-picked will be choosing who will "democratically" choose the next Iraqi government. One U.S. puppet government would choose the next U.S. puppet government!
So why change? Only so Bush, in his own re-election campaign can claim that there are "elections" in Iraq–so things must be getting better.
Of course, the Ayatollah al-Sistani has his own reasons for publicly opposing Bush’s plan right now. The Shiites make up over 60% of the Iraqi population, so his political forces could easily control direct elections–and exclude everyone else from power. Not only that, but he can read the U.S. electoral calendar, too. He knows full well that Bush wants some show of Iraqi elections before the U.S. elections. Holding back, showing some opposition now might easily get al-Sistani a better deal in another month or so.
The problem for the U.S. is not whether either plan is democratic. Under the current circumstances, neither plan could be. The problem for the U.S. is how best to control the new government without appearing so openly in control. The new government in no way will mean an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Bush himself admitted that when he said that one of the first things the new government must decide is the status of the American armed forces there. Bush wants a new government that will invite them to stay–giving cover to the continuing occupation.
Faced with al-Sistani’s opposition, Bush’s representatives are trying right now to tweak their system, to make it what they call more "open and transparent." As the New York Times said last week, "the new hope in Washington... was in effect to make the caucus system look more democratic without changing it in a fundamental way."
So that means they will try to cut some kind of a deal with al-Sistani. Bush wants an election in Iraq so bad, he could even agree to some form of "direct, democratic" election, if they have an "understanding" with al-Sistani. After all, the U.S. has a lot of practice in pretending their puppets are democratically elected heads of state. They pretended for years that there were democratically elected governments in South Vietnam–in order to carry on a war against the whole Vietnamese population.
In any case, there sure is something transparent about these elections–transparently undemocratic!
Jan 19, 2004
The Bush Administration has trumpeted the fact that it’s planning on extending time and a half for overtime to millions of workers. But when employers complained about increased costs, the Labor Department advised employers to make a "payroll adjustment," that is, a pay cut in the hourly wage, so that the total pay for the day including overtime would be what they are paying now without time and a half!
Jan 19, 2004
Workers at Chrysler’s Warren Truck Assembly Plant in Warren, Michigan, finally accepted a new contract, which they had originally turned down in November with a 90% NO vote. One of their main objections to the contract is that it effectively gave away two weeks of their vacation time, by scheduling vacations on changeovers.
After the November vote, local union officials began to spread scare stories about how the plant might have to close if workers did not show more cooperation with the company. Rumors began about not getting a new product for the plant; or that giving up vacation choices would be compensated by adding a third shift to reduce the heavy overtime.
Workers on the line threw these threats and promises back in the leadership’s face whenever officers or representatives appeared. The union leadership used a new trick. They set up a new vote, on a slightly revised contract and also a strike deadline–for December l9, just before Christmas! On December 24 the plant was scheduled to begin a week of Christmas vacation, and then to be closed for three weeks for new construction.
A strike during these weeks would cost the workers their holiday pay and their unemployment benefits, while posing no risk to the company, since the time was scheduled down any way. It was a sort of lock-out arranged by the workers’ own representatives!
But the new contract proposal did make one change: workers would have to use up only one week’s vacation, not two, during changeovers.
Workers were furious at these strong-arm tactics, and rightly so. Their own representatives had acted not as workers’ leaders, but as management’s enforcers. Nonetheless, faced with the threat of being locked out for Christmas, workers did vote to accept this deal.
Nevertheless, the workers had gained something in this whole affair. More exactly, they gave up less–one week of vacation time, not two.
But the workers’ most important gain is in laying the base for further defense of their interests. It was their activity–and not the union’s negotiations–that gained something. For many, it was the first time they felt the strength that comes from making a fight, all together. Workers also brought into the open how far union officials have gone in choosing to represent management first and their own union members last. The workers’ action revealed how things really stand.
Those who stood up and helped to organize the fight can find ways to carry on from here. Even if we accept the official vote count, it means that 27% of 2900–that is, 783 workers–did not yield, even up against the threat of a Christmas strike. These determined workers can be the core of a real change, if they discuss the situation with other workers, to widen their connections–and be ready for next time.
And they can put themselves forward as leaders at Warren Truck Assembly.
Jan 19, 2004
As of January 12–nearly four months after the national UAW contract was signed–only one of 26 local union contracts has been approved at Chrysler plants, plus one at Toledo Jeep.
It seems to be getting harder to find ways to trick workers into believing false promises–or cave in to false threats.
Jan 19, 2004
The ink was barely dry on the contract. Workers at Farmer Jack grocery stores in Michigan had just given up 5% of their pay, under the threat that Farmer Jack would close 13 stores if they did not.
Then Farmer Jack turned around and announced it was closing three stores and converting the other 10 to deep-discount, few-job stores.
It’s hard to see what the workers gained from their 5% pay cut!
On the other hand, it’s clear what A&P gained. The Farmer Jack chain of 106 stores in Michigan and Ohio is owned by A&P, which includes more than 643 stores in the U.S. and Canada. From 2001 to 2002, A&P revenues dropped 180 million dollars–while Farmer Jack revenues rose by 26.7 million.
The workers gave up pay and face losing jobs, not because Farmer Jack is in trouble, but because A&P wants to pad its bottom line.
Jan 19, 2004
A new book called The Price of Loyalty raises a scandal about the Bush administration. The book by reporter Ron Suskind relies heavily on records of Paul O’Neill, former head of the Alcoa Company conglomerate and the first Treasury secretary under George W. Bush.
O’Neill states that Bush’s goal from his first day in office was to invade Iraq. Eight months before 9/11, the question in Bush’s Cabinet and in the National Security Council was not whether to invade–but how to get it done. In other words, how could the government persuade American citizens to support an invasion? Eight months later, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers would provide the cover they were searching for, to make their lies about weapons of mass destruction appear credible.
No official, including O’Neill, has openly confessed that the purpose of sending an invasion force halfway around the world was to take command of Middle East oil fields. But O’Neill is clear about several things. Eight months before 9/11, the occupation of Iraq was already on the agenda. One memo from that time is titled, "Plan for post-Saddam Iraq." It describes occupying forces, war crimes tribunals, and the disposition of Iraqi oil. Another memo, dated March 5, 2001, is titled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts." This includes a map of oil exploration in Iraq, and which oil contractors from other countries had contracts for which oil fields.
Saddam Hussein did not have to go because he was a bad guy. The U.S. government keeps the world well supplied with bad guys–under firm U.S. control. Saddam became a problem only when he began to sign oil deals with European and Russian interests, against the wishes of the U.S. oil companies. O’Neill’s account and the book’s published memos can hardly be more clear.
But if O’Neill, together with the book’s many other anonymous sources, disagreed at first with planning an invasion, they remained very silent until now. Why now? Why are these very highly-placed, wealthy, influential people just now airing some dirty Bush laundry? O’Neill is not a closet Democrat. Nor does he need money–as a past CEO of Alcoa, he’s got more than he’ll ever need. Moreover, his corporate and government experience puts him inside the world’s most elite wielders of money and power. Why lift a corner of the curtain behind which his own elite operates?
Even though it is always difficult to know why such people do what they do, it is sometimes possible to make a few reasonable guesses. For the U.S. elite, the big political problem today, overshadowing all others, is that the occupation of Iraq is not going well. The Bush administration gambled–and slipped into a quagmire they cannot yet control. It’s a botched-up job. If someone like O’Neill gets critical in public, it is a warning to this administration–and to whomever may replace it–that some part of the U.S. ruling class is very unhappy with the Bush performance thus far.
However, even though critical of Bush, it is not a warning that should give anyone hope about ending the occupation, freeing the Iraqis and bringing U.S. troops home. Nowhere in the book, or in any report about it, appears the consideration that Iraq’s oil should be Iraq’s to handle as its people see fit. Nowhere appears the conviction that Iraq should be governed by the Iraqis themselves, free from outside interference. Not at all. O’Neill’s new–and delayed–critique of the Bush administration is merely that they have fouled up the occupation. They have not established quick and easy access for U.S. companies to a free flow of Iraqi oil. In fact, the situation in Iraq remains so dangerous that no U.S. oil company has yet placed bids on future exploration contracts there!
If representatives of some part of the U.S. ruling class are beginning to put public pressure on this administration, it’s not because they disagree with invading and occupying Iraq. It’s because they want U.S. control to be imposed more cleanly, more powerfully, more thoroughly–more profitably.
Those whom O’Neill represents are not intervening in public in order to stop the occupation, the needless deaths, the virtual imprisoning of the Iraqi population within a ring of American troops. No. They are simply impatient to begin reaping the spoils of war.
Jan 19, 2004
As the war in Iraq rages, the use of secret operations is increasing–both by the U.S. military’s own "Special Forces" and by private military contractors, that is, hired mercenaries.
According to The New York Times, private military contractors have 20,000 mercenaries stationed in Iraq, and their numbers are growing.
In recent years, the presence of military contractors in U.S. wars and military operations has increased significantly. During the Persian Gulf War of 1991, one in every 50 people on the battlefield was an American mercenary, fighting under a contract. In Bosnia in 1996, that ratio was one in 10.
Government officials say they use private military contractors because it’s cost-effective. That’s a blatant lie–one thing military contractors aren’t is cheap. Precise figures are difficult to find due to the secretive nature of the industry, but figures that are known give an idea. The Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root, for example, received 2.2 billion dollars to provide "logistics support" to U.S. troops in Bosnia. DynCorp’s annual income is nearly two billion dollars. The global mercenary market is estimated at 100 billion dollars.
But using private contractors instead of enlisted troops does offer the U.S. government many advantages. The mercenaries don’t show in official troop figures, for example, which is very important for Bush in an election year when he keeps repeating that more U.S. troops will not be needed in Iraq. Nor do mercenaries show in death figures when they get killed.
The government can use private contractors in situations where it would be embarrassing to use regular military personnel. In 1995, for example, the U.S. government referred Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), a military contractor which employs dozens of retired U.S. generals, to the Croatian government. MPRI was hired to train the Croatian militia–which the U.S. government was officially not allowed to do due to a U.N. ban on aiding the warring parties.
Soon afterwards, the Croatian militia carried out "Operation Storm," one of that war’s most notorious acts of ethnic cleansing, driving over 100,000 ethnic Serbs from their homes and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians in the process. Later on, MPRI was hired by the Bosnian Muslim government also. The money came from Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, who deposited the money in the U.S. Treasury for MPRI to draw against. In Afghanistan, DynCorp has been providing security for President Hamid Karzai. DynCorp gained some publicity in the 1990s, after its employees were found to be running a sex-slave ring of young women and teenage girls in Bosnia.
Everything indicates that the U.S. will be relying more and more on such private contractors and their mercenaries in Iraq.
They will fit in very well with the vicious campaign the military is carrying out against civilians, like "Operation Iron Hammer," which involves bombings of neighborhoods, nighttime raids and mass arrests. And they’ll get along well with increasing numbers of Saddam Hussein’s secret police, whom the U.S. has also enlisted in this war against the population.
The Bush administration has been using mercenaries in Iraq not because they are cheap, but because they are very well-suited for the type of war being carried out against the Iraqi people.