Murdoch’s Iraq War

“Mysteries” of the Iraq War are getting exposed: Rupert Murdoch, the media Moghul, pressed Tony Blair, the British prime minister, to hasten joining the Iraq War. Murdoch did it on behalf of the US Republicans. And, the war took over 100,000 lives.

It is not only the interests behind waging the war, but also the principles and interests bourgeois press uphold, and the secretive and conspiratorial way bourgeois democracy works, lies are fabricated, readers are informed, and mass psychology is manipulated are being divulged.

The Guardian, British newspaper and AFP, news agency, reported the facts. The news reports said:

“Rupert Murdoch took part in an ‘over-crude’ attempt by US Republicans to push Tony Blair into action before the invasion of Iraq, the former British prime minister’s ex-media chief claimed [Alastair Campbell…].

“Alastair Campbell said the News Corporation media baron warned Blair in a phone call of the dangers in delaying signing up to the March 19, 2003 invasion, as part of an attempt to speed up Britain joining the military campaign.”

Campbell’s assertions were made in The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq, diaries from his years at Blair’s side.

The news reports said:

“Campbell suggested Murdoch made moves to help the right-wing Republican Party of then US president George W. Bush before the March 18 vote in the […] House of Commons on deploying troops to Iraq, which was passed.”

Citing Campbell the news reports said:

On March 11, 2003, Blair “took a call from Murdoch who was pressing on timings, saying how News International would support us […]”

The reports said:

“‘Both TB [Tony Blair] and I felt it was prompted by Washington, and another example of their over-crude diplomacy. Murdoch was pushing all the Republican buttons, how the longer we waited the harder it got.’

“Campbell said Murdoch’s intervention came ‘out of the blue’.

“‘On one level (Murdoch) was trying to be supportive, saying ‘I know this is a very difficult place, my papers are going to support you on this’. Fine.
“‘But I think Tony did feel that there was something a bit crude about it. It was another very right-wing voice saying to him: ‘Look, isn’t it about time you got on with this?’”
The news reports said:

“Gordon Brown agitated so aggressively against Tony Blair – demanding a departure date soon after the 9/11 attacks – that Downing Street concluded in 2002 that the then chancellor was ‘hell-bent on TB’s destruction’.

Murdoch’s “worldwide contacts through the businesses that” he operated should not be missed while going through the news items.

However, in his witness statement to the Leveson inquiry Murdoch said: “As for the three telephone calls with the then prime minister, Tony Blair, in 2003, I cannot recall what I discussed with him now, […] or indeed even if I spoke with him at all. I understand that published reports indicate that calls were placed by him to me. What I am sure about is that I would not in any telephone call have conveyed a secret message of support for the war; the NI titles’ position on Iraq was a matter of public record before 11 March 2003.” His famous declaration: “I’ve never asked a prime minister for anything.” He cited “four articles from the Sun and the News of the World which illustrated their ‘pro-war stance’ before 11 March 2003 when the main phone call took place.”

The media Moghul’s company termed the assertion that he lobbied Blair over the Iraq War on behalf of the US Republicans as “complete rubbish”. It said: “Furthermore, there isn’t even any evidence in Alastair Campbell’s diaries to support such a ridiculous claim.”

It should be mentioned that News International is News Corp.’s British newspaper arm, publishing The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times. Blair faced a challenge getting his Labour Party lawmakers to back UK’s involvement. Many of them rebelled. (“Murdoch pushed Blair on Iraq: ex-media chief” and “Rupert Murdoch pressured Tony Blair over Iraq, says Alastair Campbell”, June 16, 2012)

Already known is the Bush – Blair 2003 Iraq memo or Manning memo, a secret memo of a meeting between Bush and Blair. The historic meeting took place on January 31, 2003 in the White House. The memo, written by David Manning, Blair’s chief foreign adviser, showed that the US had already decided on the invasion of Iraq at that point. Manning participated at the meeting.

The memo showed Bush and Blair made a secret deal to carry out the invasion regardless of whether WMD were discovered by UN inspectors. The fact contradicts statements Blair made to the British parliament that Saddam Hussein would be given a final chance to disarm.

Existence of the memo was made by Philippe Sands in his book Lawless World. The New York Times collected the memo and confirmed its authenticity.

Then, there is the Colin Powell case. While arguing for invading Iraq Powel claimed that Saddam was hiding a secret biological weapons program. Powell dramatically and confidently held up a vial he said could contain anthrax during his presentation of the Iraq case at the UN in 2003. But, later, the claim proved bogus.

Powel relied on information provided by an Iraqi defector. The defector was code-named “Curveball”. CBS News identified Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi as “Curveball”. Rafid made the false claims to German intelligence officials. The US used the claim that ultimately turned a lie. But the Empire used the false information to start the war. The UN inspectors found no evidence of a biological weapons program, which was claimed.

In interviews with The Guardian, Rafid told the way he sought asylum in Germany and wanted to see an end to Saddam’s regime. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that […]”

The “story” of falsehood and fabrication doesn’t end there.

Citing Britain’s The Independent, Thomas Ferguson, Senior Fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, wrote: The Independent news report “buries forever all claims that the US, the UK, and other governments did not have oil on their minds as they prepared to invade Iraq.” He referred to a book that drew on more than a thousand secret government documents. These show meetings between the UK government and British oil companies in the run up to the war. “These demonstrate that all the denials in London and Washington that policymakers were not concerned about oil as they invaded were as false as the famous cover story about weapons of mass destruction.” These also show that all the governments were negotiating over rights to oil long before the invasion and that they were working closely with their companies. Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force was reviewing documents on Iraqi oil well before the attack on 9/11. (“Oil-Soaked Politics: Secret U.K. Docs on Iraq”)

So, the profit issue emerges. The Iraq war brought profit to all interested: weaponeer, supplier, infrastructureer, defense contractor, mercenary companies, and a section of media and politicians.

According to MSN Money, Halliburton’s KBR, Inc. division made $17.2 bn in the desert war in the 2003-2006 period, which was one-fifth of KBR’s total revenue for the 2006 fiscal year. Halliburton was involved with construction and maintenance of military bases, oil field repairs, and infrastructure rebuilding projects in the country.
Veritas Capital Fund/DynCorp, the private equity fund, gathered $1.44 bn through its DynCorp subsidiary by imparting training to new Iraqi police forces. The company is termed by many as a ‘state within a state’.

Through repair, maintenance, etc. work in Iraqi oil fields the Washington Group International gathered $931 mn in the period 2003-2006. Through the work of munitions disposal the Environmental Chemical got $878 mn by the end of fiscal 2006. The Aegis of the UK made $430 mn. (“25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers”)
And, after the Bush Blair, Murdoch, Halliburton war business where Iraq stood?

Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Pentagon correspondent quoted Mohammed Abdullah, an Iraqi in his Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq: “They said they came to liberate us. Liberate us from what? They came and said they would free us. Free us from what? We have traditions, morals, and customs. We are Arabs. We’re different from the West. Baghdad is the mother of Arab culture, and they want to wipe out our culture, absolutely.”

Iraq now stands devastated, a bold sign of Naked Imperialism (title of a book by John Bellamy Foster). Parts of life in the land have been wiped out. Does imperialism have the power to restore what has been lost in Iraq? It’s incapable. Imperialism’s devastating power lacks power to create and nourish life and nature. Iraq is one of the monuments of destruction imperialism has constructed in many parts of the world.

Of Birds, Rivers And Greed

Greed leaves no place for singing birds and murmuring rivers. Maximizing accumulation is the force that drives greed. Appropriating nature and labor is the cheapest way greed finds for maximization of accumulation.

But birds sustain a living ecology. Rivers flow to the same destination: sustain life.

Birds and rivers are required also for cruel appropriators as the greedy group loves only their sustenance, and a living ecology is needed for sustenance, and birds and rivers are part of ecological system that help sustain life. But turning inconsiderate to life and ecology, to birds, rivers, air and soil is the irony of appropriation. Thus appropriators are directly in conflict with ecology.

Facts from almost all lands, from the North and the South Hemispheres reveal the trend: onslaught on ecology.

In Europe, according to a Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme survey, 36 species of farmland birds including the skylark and the meadow pipit have declined in their number: from 600 million to 300 million between 1980 and 2009. Britain is one of the worst suffering countries by losses to its farmland birds. The EU enforced farming policies are the catalysts for this catastrophe. Destroying hedgerows, wetlands and meadows has “contributed” to this bird-massacre.

What's the “holy” reason for the destruction? It's more and more; more profit.

Ittefaq , a leading Bangla Dhaka daily, reported on May 24, 2012: Industrial wastes, including effluent and smoke from 16 re-rolling mills, 49 brick kilns and other industrial units including paper pulp, fertilizer, textile, dyeing, battery, rubber, plastic factories, more than hundred in numbers, are threatening life and occupation of around three hundred-thousand dwellers in Roopganj, an almost industrial area near the Bangladesh capital city Dhaka. The residents are not feeling safe with air and water. There is noise pollution. Wastes are being drained into the Sitalakkhaa and Baaloo, two rivers running through the area.

These two incidents, part of a process, one from an advanced capitalist country and another from a peripheral country, are not isolated facts. Now-a-days media around the world carry thousands of similar news and facts that unravel relations between the type of economy and defacing of the ecology and environment. Now-a-days ecological crisis threatening all forms of life in this earth need no explanation. Even masters of this on-going ecocide – the owners of capital – don't dare to publicly deny the crisis, their sin.

About two years ago, WWF, the international organization involved in the area of ecology, said in its Living Planet report: A second planet will be required by 2030 to meet our needs as over-use of Earth's natural resources and carbon pollution have become critical. If all human being in this world used resources at the same per capita rate as the US or the UAE, four and a half planets would be needed. More than 70 countries were exhausting their freshwater sources at an alarming, unsustainable rate. About two-thirds of these countries experience water scarcity ranging from moderate to severe. In 2007, the world's 6.8 billion humans were living 50% beyond the planet's threshold of sustainability. The report highlighted the rich-poor ecological gap. In 1970-2007, an index of biodiversity showed a world decline of almost 30%. In the tropics, it was alarming: 60%.

No brain with logic will claim that the acts are isolated from the world economic system: capitalism. “From the outset,” Joe Bageant, author of the book about working class in America Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War , writes, “capitalism was always about the theft of the people's sustenance. It was bound to lead to the ultimate theft – the final looting of the source of their sustenance – nature.” (“Our Plunder of Nature will End up Killing Capitalism and Our Obscene Lifestyles”, Countercurrents , July 13, 2010 )

“The main feature of capitalism is the seductive assertion that you can get something for nothing in this world.” (ibid.) Owners of this system, the capitalists, Joe continues, “hate any sort of cost.” They, he describes, “remain unimpressed by global warming, or melting polar ice caps, or Southwestern desert armadillos showing up in Canada , or hurricanes getting bigger and more numerous every year.”

These are the elites in control of the world environment in continents and countries. “Just before the economy blew out,” according to Joe, “these elites held slightly less than $80 trillion. After the blowout/bailout, their combined investment wealth was estimated at a little over $83 trillion. To give some idea, this is four years of the gross output of all the human beings on earth.”

This massive money power takes hold of political power. Owning this unimaginably monstrous money-political power system they put their footprint on ecology that is changing the planet's environment irreversibly.

This system, the masters of the system in the center, in the periphery, in between the center and the periphery, try their best to maximize profit by minimizing cost, by appropriating labor, robbing nature, grabbing everything within their reach, putting costs on public. Pollution, destruction of ecology and ruination of nature thus creep into public domain – a human concern.

Acts of the masters are turning into crime, crime against the planet, against posterity, against humanity.

The World Future Council leaders said: “These are crimes against the future … These are crimes that will not only injure future generations, but destroy any future at all for millions of people.”

The Council has called for appointing “ombudspersons for future generations”, “guardians appointed at global, national and local levels whose job would be to help safeguard environmental and social conditions by speaking up authoritatively for future generations in all areas of policy-making. This could take the shape of a parliamentary commissioner, a guardian, a trustee or an auditor, depending on how it best fits into a nation's governance structure.”

But questions are there: How far the ombudspersons can act where power structure, economy and political power is of, by and for polluters, grabbers, eco-murderers? If they can act, then, why do environment law/court/ministry/inspectors, depending on arrangement in countries, can't act? What will happen if polluters grab that proposed holy post as have happened in countries by different lobbies/interests/gangs? What's the guarantee that the proposed holy persons' observations/edicts/verdicts will be implemented? Are not there instances of trampling/violation of all basic, fundamental, moral, ethical, human, natural, principled rights/practices/conventions/laws/rules around the world, in countries?

Out of their sense of urgency the WFC leaders' suggestion sounds nice, but not functional. It's detached from reality, the socio-economic-environmental -political reality.

What's the reality?

An answer is provided by Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster in their seminal analysis What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism: A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (2011): Capitalism is a system that must continually expand, a system that, by its very nature, will eventually come up against the reality of finite natural resources, a system geared to expansionist growth in the search for profits that will inevitably transgress planetary boundaries.

By its very nature the system stands against ecology and environment as its only concern is profit, nothing else. Standing for environment will lead to questioning the ever hungry system.

Pushing 1 billion persons down to extreme poverty, and enriching a few, whose consumption is threatening the planet is one of the major “contributions” of the system. Other than the hungry and starved, there are energy poor, electricity poor, water poor, information poor, basic rights poor, safety poor, they are the poor masses deprived of honor and dignity, and there are the food rich, energy rich, electricity rich, water rich, information rich, luxury rich, power and privilege rich, resource rich, consumption rich, the rich few controlling everything.

Imbalance and inequity at this level can't sustain environment and ecology. The first one, imbalance and inequity, is linear, ever expanding while the later one, environment and ecology, demands diversity, tolerance, consideration, accommodation. Observance related to environment turns hollow and chattering if this aspect of political economy is ignored.

One of the books edited by Farooque Chowdhury from Dhaka is the recently published The Great Financial Crisis, What Next, interviews with John Bellamy Foster .

“United” They Fall: Grexit Haunts Conflicting Eurozone

Conflicting eurozone is searching conciliation while being haunted by the specter of Grexit – Greece 's exit from the eurozone.

At the just concluded G-8 summit the conciliation effort produced an ad hoc understanding, and the witness was an isolated Angela Merkel. A deeper dividing line ran through the communiqué the summit produced.

Now, as the specter of Grexit appears larger Merkel and co. is airing a plan for a smaller divide and a stronger union. Jörg Asmussen, the former German deputy finance minister and, at present, the German board member at the European Central Bank, a Merkel-voice, has floated the idea of a federalized political and financial union within the EU: a politically integrated eurozone splitting the Union into two, with the core forming a “banking, fiscal, and political union”, temporarily abandon its expansion plans in the Balkans and Turkey, and the European parliament wielding more extensive powers.

Is it the dream of the German capital? The idea simultaneously shows aspirations and limitations of a section of capital in Europe that aspires to be all dominant but lacks the power to dominate. Materializing the plan is an almost impossible task now.

Merkel finds herself increasingly isolated, a show of disunity, while she represents a capital adamant to impose its diktat on the weak – prey to powerful capital. In the G-8 summit, Barak Obama kept a hand of friendship on the shoulder of François Hollande, the socialist French president.

In the coming formal and informal meetings in Europe , Hollande will stand closer to Mario Monti, the Italian leader. And, David Cameron will play the second fiddle, which will be, at times, insignificant, and at times, will not sound sweet to Merkel's ears.

Hollande will push the Germans to accept the idea of growth measures and eurobonds. But that's not acceptable to the Germans. Herman Van Rompuy, the European council president, appeared to lend support to the German agenda while Italy and Britain  are expected to back Hollande.

These testify Merkel's further isolation in Europe , fractures in the continent, and conflicting interests that dominating capital fails to unify.

The G-8 summit found a seemingly adamant Merkel. But Obama's choice was conciliation as he was in need of that posture. The German position carries risk of aggravating European crisis that in turn may push up the US jobless number. Obama can't afford the number ahead of his election travel. Cameron tried to act as a conciliator between contending parties. The Anglo-American alliance jointly encountered the Merkel position. She had to make a retreat.

The German leader considered that it was not the business of the G-8 to tell the EU states the way to handle their economy. But the summit communiqué iterated the right of the super-group to discuss the state of the European economy, and the German opposition was by passed. The super-group signaled: Europe is yet not a German domain.

The communiqué committed the G-8 to “take all necessary steps” to strengthen their economies. It said: “ Greece should remain in the eurozone”.

The official document declared in its opening paragraph: “Our imperative is to promote growth and jobs.” For the time being, the communiqué stands as a document of victory for Obama and Hollande. However, differences on policy issues persist.

Trans-Atlantic interests and power equation thus got reflected in the communiqué. But Grexit continues to rock the boat.

Grexit is an interesting issue! It unites, and it divides, it makes unsure, and it makes stubborn. Behind closed doors, the prime actors threat Greece to evict while publicly they assure Greek's membership in the zone. A section is scared of Grexit while another section calculates possible losses in case of the exit.

The interests differ as they are not sure of the way to deal with the issues emanating from a sick economy that is threatening the continents' economies. A weak scars a strong! The fear of chain-reaction of the Greece syndrome is now haunting eurozone politicians.

All bank-interests have united to threat the Greek voters. They are now warning Greece , and manipulating Greek politics so that pro-austerity politicians turn winner in the coming election. Their message is point blank: Voting for Syriza, the radical left coalition opposing austerity and bankers, will be a dangerous gamble.

In the task of warning the Greek voters Cameron has lent his voice to Merkel. He has issued a warning. In Chicago , he said: “We now have to send a very clear message to people in Greece : there is a choice – you can either vote to stay in the euro, with all the commitments you've made, or if you vote another way you're effectively voting to leave.”

A drama of denial and assertion preceded the Cameron-warning. It was reported that in a telephone conversation with Karolos Papoulias, the Greek president, Merkel suggested Greece hold a referendum on euro membership as part of the general election. But Merkel's spokesperson denied the report. However, the Greek interim Prime Minister Panagiotis Pikrammenos's office stated that the chancellor had presented the proposal during a telephone conversation with Papoulias. “It is true”, said a Greek government spokesperson.

Cameron and the German leader stood together. Grexit has united.

Jens Weidmann, the Bundesbank president, warned Europe 's central banks not to increase their exposure to Greece because of political uncertainty there before the elections. Is it a banker's way of bargaining or putting pressure on client?

Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said Greece had to elect a government that continued to adhere to the international bailout program. “If Greece … wants to remain in the euro then they have to accept the conditions. Otherwise it isn't possible. No responsible candidate can hide that from the electorate”, Schäuble said. Ken Clarke, the British justice secretary, has warned: Greece will face a disastrous future, and may be forced to leave the euro if it votes for “cranky extremists”. A direct instruction to voters!

More threats to the Greek voters are there. Martin Schulz, the European parliament president, said a €130bn rescue package reached with international creditors in March could not be renegotiated. “ Greece […] shouldn't self-destruct”, said the German politician. “We want Greece to remain part of our family, of the European Union,” said Jose Barroso, European Commission president. “That being said, the ultimate resolve to stay in the euro must come from Greece itself.” The EC is insisting that Greece must honor the austerity measures. Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg , said: The coming election would be Greece 's last chance. If Greece fails to form a government that respects the conditions for previously agreed to financial aid to Greece set by the EU, IMF and the ECB, “then it is over”.

Jean-Claude Trichet, the former European Central Bank president, argued that eurozone states should be able to declare fellow members bankrupt, and take over their tax and spending policy. But the idea was dismissed by economist Nouriel Roubini as “totally undermining national sovereignty”. Roubini has missed the already undermined national sovereignty in Greece and Italy . [One can now easily perceive the way poor countries in the periphery are dictated, threatened, and manipulated, the way their sense of national honor is trampled. Junior employees from countries in center ask these peripheral countries: “Do it.”]

The threats, warnings, etc. reveal the higher level of stake in Greece with about €400bn in external debts. “Officially”, a press report says, “eurozone governments say they're not talking about a Greek exit. But it's a different story behind closed doors. Finance ministers meeting in Brussels last Monday threatened to evict Greece .”

Exact Greexit-chain reaction is unknown to all. There are assumptions and fears: From market melt down to political backlash to bankruptcies to recession, and a lot will follow.

The European sovereign debt crisis has also become a banking crisis. Spain is on the brink. The country can uncork bigger problem. The crisis has been exacerbated by the revelation that the Spanish deficit is larger than previously feared, putting pressure on its sick banking sector. Merkel summoned her Spanish counterpart, proud, conservative Mariano Rajoy, to meet her.

Banks in Italy and Portugal are in “solidarity” also. All of them are facing risks. They may drag down the German banking system. Britain is heavily exposed to the crisis. The US will not be immune to the Greek disease. The US Fed is becoming increasingly concerned about the situation in Europe .

Rating agency Moody's has already downgraded 26 Italian and 16 Spanish banks. Spanish banks were sitting on €148bn of bad loans in March. The proportion of bad loans of Spanish banks has risen to an 18-year high.

Fitch has put three Cypriot banks on rating watch negative. Fitch warned that Cypriot banks remain highly sensitive to Greece-risk.

A loss of confidence in the banks will be catastrophic. Fear of a full-scale bank run is high. The consequences will be serious.

Deposits in Greek banks have already come down by almost a third. Greek savers are withdrawing euros from their bank accounts. Recently, in a single day, about €900 million was withdrawn. The Greek banks, according to an analyst with Moody's, have become “economically insolvent”.

The European Central Bank has confirmed that a number of Greek banks have now been cut off from its refinancing operations.

Wealthy individuals in crisis-hit countries are moving billions of euros to areas they consider safer. There are signs that section of French rich are moving to London .

“And now”, Paul Krugman writes, “comes the moment of truth.” (“Apocalypse Fairly Soon: The Moment Of Truth In Europe ”, The New York Times , May 18, 2012 )

Terming the euro as a “grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union” Krugman assumes: “[T]he euro as a whole would blow up. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs — both economic and, arguably even more important, political — could be huge.”

He echoes the already widely expressed fear: “[A] euro breakup would have negative ripple effects throughout the world. For the biggest costs of European policy failure would probably be political.”

Euro was one of the biggest projects of capitalism in Europe . Now, a significant portion of capitalism in Europe – the eurozone – is struggling within, with self. Its intricate inefficiency is now coming out to view of the common persons. It's not its tragedy, it's one of its attributes. It dreams to encompass all and everything but it doesn't know to control the forces it nourishes and unleashes. Contradictions it is confronting now were created by none, but itself. It has widened the extent and consequences of the contradictions, to far flung areas, crossing oceans.

In the continent, it is barbarously waging a class war not only against labor, but also against broader society, not only in a single country, but in countries, and crossing the continent, it is endangering not only poor countries, but also its class allies – the uncouth rich – in those poor countries. It's its capacity that undermines its legitimacy. It's its power, a power that can try to survive only at the cost of others, class enemies and class allies.

It is intervening in countries' political system, and it is propagating non-interference. It is dictating countries, and it is propagating democracy. It's standing on fault lines, and it's sure of its destiny.

Grexit , Spain , Italy , Portugal , and euro-disunity and euro-unity are facilitating further shifts in the continental plates.

Protests In Spain Greece France And Britain

Eurozone is in turmoil. Protests in different forms, from election verdict to marches, against bankers are razing countries in Europe while an indefinite-Greece is making euroscape scene blurred.

Bankers are uncertain with the Euro-situation as they train the continent appearing sick. There is voters rejecting bankers, there is near-unprecedented police protest questioning profit, there is politics of people standing opposed to politics of bankers. It is like a torch alighted with the Parthenon Marbles in Greece and being relayed to Britain while the bankers yet don’t know the equation of politics with debt and austerity. The Euro-financial crisis and Euro-political problems are reacting with each other.

Peoples in France and Greece have rejected austerity measures in national elections, local election in Italy has conveyed the same message, Greece is nourishing its democracy in a political deadlock, people including police in Britain have demonstrated opposing austerity measures, Indignados are marching in Spain shadowed by banking crisis, a government in the Netherlands has collapsed, financial measures in Ireland and Portugal are being questioned, French economy is ailing. This is the reality in the continent.

Each political move and whisper, peoples’ each expression in Europe is making London’s FTSE 100 index, New York’s Dow Jones Industrial Average, Germany’s blue chip DAX index, the Paris stock market, the European EuroStoxx, Asian markets, Greece’s exchange jump or dance or sleep. None of these likes the political developments in France and Greece. Uncertainty dominates the continent.

Klaas Knot, governing council member of European Central Bank, said the risk of a double dip recession had become reality in Europe. De Nederlandsche Bank, the Dutch central bank, in its latest semi-annual risk report on the Dutch financial sector has warned that with an unresolved eurozone crisis Europe faces a lost decade: a longer period of stagnation. Weak economic growth, lower consumer spending, inadequate investment could create the scene. Countries in the periphery are turning vulnerable with weak public finance and economic performance, and frail banking sector. The Bank of France in its latest economic forecasts has warned that the French economy is part-way through a six-month period of stagnation.

Citing a poll, Bloomberg reported that 57% of its 1,253 investors, analysts and traders assumed that at least one country will abandon the euro by year-end. However, a Reuters poll found 35 of the polled 65 economists hoped that Greece will be in the euro at the end of 2013.

But the Greek-eurozone situation is near-hopeless. Public and politics often nullify pundits.

Concern over the Greece stalemate has been expressed by the Institute of International Finance. The IIF represented Greece’s creditors in its debt deal. If Greece were to quit the euro, the IIF’s members would be hit with huge losses. French bank BNP Paribas has calculated the impact of a Greek exit on its economy: an assumed Greexit would wipe out 20% of Greek GDP, push up inflation by 40-50%, and send the country’s debt/GDP ratio jumping to over 200%. A Greexit would be bluster to the Euro banking sector.

Now, it seems, Europe’s central bankers are preparing for exit of Greece from the eurozone. German central bank chief Jens Weidmann has warned: No new aid to Greece if bailout commitments are not kept by Athens. The Irish central bank chief Patrick Honohan doesn’t consider a Greexit would be fatal to the euro. EU Economic and Monetary Commissioner Olli Rehn is confident: Europe is “more resilient” to a possible Greexit.

Greece: People against creditors

Verdict of the Greek people suffering under creditors’ command has been proclaimed in the last election: Reject the arrangement of making bankers richer.

But, the mainstream politicians, mostly rejected by the people, are united in opposing the people’s verdict: reject creditors’ conditions – austerity. Under warnings from the IMF, the German Chancellor and the European Commission these politicians are exhausting their energy to form a coalition that would toe to the creditors. The deadline is May 17. Karolos Papoulias, the Greek president, is now striving to forge a coalition so that an immediate election can be avoided. This exercise – overturn people’s verdict – is the bourgeois democratic practice. Already three bigger parties – the centre-right New Democracy, far-left bloc Syriza and socialist Pasok – have failed to form a government.

A fresh poll, almost inevitable, is expected to be held by June 17 at the latest. A second election would change the Greek political dynamic that in turn would react in bankers’ headquarters.

Creditors in no phase of human history are concerned with plight of common persons. Greece is losing 922 jobs a day. The unemployment rate rose to 21.7% in February. In terms of number, it was more than a million. In the 15-24 age group, the rate was a record high: 54%. In February 2010, it was 15.2%. This forms a mirror of bailout-austerity measures imposed by creditors, and one of the central issues shaping politics in the country.

The European Financial Stability Facility, the €700bn bailout fund, has agreed to pay out the scheduled €5.2bn to Greece. As part of the bailout deal more than half of it will effectively be returned to the European central bank and other eurozone central banks within a week. Athens also lacks cash for salaries. As first installment, €4.2bn will be delivered and the fate of the rest will actually be decided by political development in Greece, a warning to the people: behave as the creditors command, otherwise, salaries and wages will be withheld.

Creditor created panic is driving the actors in the on-going political drama in Athens. But the people have defied the EU-IMF lordship. Aleka Papariga, the Communist Party general secretary, has called for new elections “to put an end to the mockery of” forming coalitions. While reiterating her party’s position to stay out of any government that might be formed she accused Syriza of irresponsibility and of undergoing continuous mutations. She added: “Under a leftist disguise it attempts to convince the people that workers and capitalists can coexist and prosper.” Syriza avoids taking a clear stance on NATO membership and major foreign policy issues, said Aleka. Adventurism sometimes is a powerful attraction.

Coming days will intensify political turbulence in Greece that will be nervously monitored in Brussels, and in eurozone capitals.

France: Aspiration will be compromised

Compromise will be the political mantra of Francois Hollande, the new socialist avatar of France. His jubilant supporters around the Palace de la Bastille thought history was in the making as he once declared the world of finance was his “real enemy”. But the reality under capital’s command is different.

Hollande will make his promised visit to Berlin within hours of his swearing-in for talks with Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor. Merkel is ready to welcome the moderate socialist with “open arms”. She said Franco-German cooperation was “essential for Europe”. The French leader also perceives the reality. Bank interest will enforce a compromise. Agenda of the Berlin meeting is nothing new: the old eurozone crisis and reaffirmation of the Franco-German partnership, which will flow along the undercurrent of competition.

Hollande adhering to status quo will turn Merkel’s competitor-ally. His election promise was: renegotiate the eurozone’s fiscal pact, the Merkel-Sarkozy brainchild. But the German leader is stubborn: no re-opening of the pact. Hollande favors joint EU investment in major projects while Merkel’s choice is structural adjustments to labor markets and pensions. Hollande prefers boosting growth with more funds to the European Investment Bank. Volition of the stronger economy shall prevail.

However, bankers are going to consider the issue of growth along with their loved austerity. Voters have alerted the bankers.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has invited EU leaders to a special summit on growth this month. It will be followed by a “growth pact” to be adopted at the EU summit in June. Merkel and Hollande will join together. It’s not only a compromise of the two leaders; it’s also a compromise with reality. It’s a lesson all bosses everywhere decline to learn; but, reality isn’t obedient to bosses’ dictates.

With the electoral promise to “change the destiny of France” Hollande now faces an ailing economy in home: faltering growth, coiling public debt, sick industries, record unemployment. The French voters rejected rightist policies. It was their protest. The French socialist’s electoral promises include creating 60,000 new jobs in education, tax those earning over €1million euros a year with a 75% rate. But he will have to encounter obstacles difficult to circumvent.

Britain: For public, not for profit

In England and Wales, police officers held one of the biggest demonstrations in recent times. Their demand: halt cuts and privatization of the service, and full industrial rights. There banners proclaimed: “Police for public, not for profit”. Their number: More than 30,000, claimed the Police Federation. Family members also joined the marchers.

Citing the participants, the British press said: There is anger as the rank and file officers face cuts to their pay, pensions and changes to their working conditions. A press report quoted one detective constable: “Our problem is we don’t have a union, so this march is the strongest action we can take. I think there are a lot of us wanting full industrial rights, and the right to strike.”

The incident is significant as it shows the way anger accumulates, fault line appears, expression gets organized, and expression denies to getting subdued. It’s a process within society. It’s not that Lenin was there, and he sent Bolshevik agitators there. Rather, there is an incident, now exposed, of “love” and betrayal – police officer infiltrating environment movement, etc. acting as falling into love with activists and continuing with following phases, provoking novice activists, then, betraying, and, then, getting exposed, then, at last, finding himself abandoned by all his loved, and, standing before a court of law. Elites and their lackeys in all lands are incapable to learn from incidents of “love” and betrayal, incapable to learn from struggle of the masses, which is not dependent on individual’s wishes.

There in Britain the emerging issues are, as one writes, mammoth wealth, the forgotten section of the society, “growing gap”, “democratic deficit”, “the cabinet stands accused of being divorced from normal people”, “fractures run deeper”, “the worsening plight of swaths of our society [flying] under the national radar”, eroding support for the homeless, victims of domestic violence, those with mental health problems, the elderly and alone, children in broken homes, “the spectre of a forgotten Britain becoming reality”. Serious questions shall emerge if one adds the way a section of media played with public mind by hacking telephones, by collaborating with powerful politicians, the way it made money and propagated its ideology. A careful scrutiny of the incident may impress upon that Lenin told very little about shameless, corrupt bourgeois press. But the revolutionary told brute facts now being confirmed by the incidents in Murdoch’s empire.

These incidents are influencing the British society, influencing the common people’s perception; but the bankers are training their might for further plundering, for further cuts.

Spain: Indignados again

Indignados are again on the march. Their slogan: “We need to take back all the wealth and redistribute it fairly”. They are in tens of thousands. Scores of cities across Spain are holding protests against politicians and bankers. It is one-year anniversary of the movement.

There is government crack down on the protest. Police is not going to tolerate encampments of the protesters. The time period for protest has already been dictated by the authority. One shouldn’t forget: It’s bourgeois democracy.

With youth unemployment at 50% in Spain the movement’s call for social justice, wealth distribution, human rights and peace is universal. Stop proposed budget cuts in health and education is one of the major demands of the Indignados. The demand has deeper root in the society. But, bankers and their political friends decline to recognize the root.

People in Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the UK are also participating in the movement.

However, the Spanish elites have their agenda. Promoting the collaboration between bankers, real estate lords and state further Bankia, the country’s fourth largest bank, has partly been nationalized. Most shares of Bankia were once sold to ordinary persons. Now, the ordinary share holders face large losses. Spain’s banks have already consumed about €16bn of public funds. Within the next few months they will hopefully consume another €50bn. It’s bankers’ boon.

It’s not a footnote: Nazis in Greece

Near-economic-disaster, common persons’ desperate condition, servitude by mainstream political leadership, sale out of democratic principles, weakness in political education, are fuelling rise of Nazis in Greek politics.

History tells capital, at times, needs help of Nazis, and capital embraces the help. At times of crisis, capital takes draconian steps. Nazis/fascists act as capital’s obedient tool to impose these steps. The Nazis create an environment of fear. They threat press as a step of muzzling down freedom of expression. At times, Nazis are taken casually, are considered tactical ally, and are appeased, only to get annihilated by the Nazis.

With 21 seats and 7% of the votes the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn is now threatening journalists, demanding that journalists should stand up when its leader enters a press conference, wanting to seal Greek borders with landmines, and promising to “rid the country of their stench” – immigrant workers. The neo-Nazi leader Mihaloliakos praises Hitler while his followers use an ancient symbol resembling the swastika as its logo, learn from books on Aryan supremacy, and are linked to racist attacks on immigrants. Greek journalist Xenia Kounalaki wrote that Greeks should ignore Golden Dawn. She has been threatened: She should “watch her back”. The mayor of Nemea Vangelis Andrianakos has also received threats from the Golden Dawn.

But, all these are not the concluding parts of the incidents in the continent as capital there still occupies space for manipulation. A lot of dramas still are to be staged there as contradictions are yet to sharpen further.

Agitating Argentine Oil

Argentine hydrocarbon-initiative is now agitating capital. It is more agitating to capital-interests as it energizes a trend – national control over national resources. To these interests, it’s “Chavez model”. It seems these interests are being haunted by a Chavez-spirit. A section of mainstream is making almost similar claim.

Capital disapproves people’s rights over people’s resources. Argentina’s move related to local oil company Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (State Petroleum Reserves, YPF), controlled by Repsol, Spanish oil and gas company, is thus creating furor among all concerned with capital.

In mid-April, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Argentinean president, introduced a bill in congress that would give Argentina a 51% stake in YPF, the largest oil producer in the country. Cristina said the measure is aimed at recovering the nation’s sovereignty over its hydrocarbon resources, and it “is not a model of statism”. Governors of oil-producing provinces have already withdrawn about 15 oil leases, representing 18% of YPF’s crude production. They complained the company failed to keep its promises to develop them.

Declaring exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons “national public interest” in order to “guarantee economic development with social equity” Cristina’s bill says building up the country’s supply is a priority. The bill proposes that out of the YPF controlling stake taken over, 51% will be held by the central government and the rest will be distributed to the oil-producing provinces. The government will not extend its hands to the 17.09% of YPF shares traded on stock exchanges. About the 25% stake held by the private Argentine Grupo Petersen is undecided.

Legislative process for recovering of sovereignty will be completed within weeks. There is widespread public support to the initiative: referring to opinion polls the Buenos Aires daily La Nación informed 80% support. A number of opposition lawmakers supported the move. The movement for the recovery of Argentina’s energy sovereignty is also in “complete agreement”. People celebrated the move.

But people and capital-interest don’t move hand-in-hand. The EU turned furious; the European block condemned Argentina’s move; the EU parliament called for Argentina-sanctions; and one conservative member of the European Parliament questioned whether Argentina should be allowed to remain in the G-20. The European Commission warned that nationalizing YPF would be bad for investment climate in Argentina, and said the EC backs Spain, Argentina’s largest foreign investor.

Opposition also came from the usual circle. Robert Zoellick, the World Bank president, and Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, strongly criticized the Argentine initiative. “It is mistake and the wrong thing to do”, Zoellick said. Felipe Calderón, the Mexican president, said nationalization plan would only damage chances for investments in Argentina and hurt Repsol, in which Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex holds a 10% stake.

Spain got confused with the US position. A State Department spokesperson explained remarks made earlier by Hillary Clinton, who said that she wanted to study the matter before commenting on it. “She spoke about the need for diverse markets, and certainly that’s one of our core beliefs: diverse energy markets,” the spokesperson said. José Manuel García-Margallo, the Spanish foreign minister, felt disappointed about the US position.

Regular expression is there. The Spanish establishment condemned the move. Soraya Saenz de Santamaria, the Spainish deputy prime minister, reaffirmed “keep looking for new measures” to put pressure on Argentina. The Spanish foreign minister said Spain would respond with “forceful measures”. But he refrained from elaborating. José Manuel Soria, the Spanish industry minister, assured “there will be more actions against Argentina”. In an interview with a conservative Spanish daily, Soria said Spain “will not be announcing the measures; it will just adopt them and keep moving.”

Spain has already decided to limit the import of Argentine biodiesel. A trade war, it seems, is being initiated by Madrid. Spanish newspapers report the EU could boycott Argentine soy and meat, two of Argentina’s biggest exports. Probably, the dream is to strangulate Buenos Aires and teach Cristina a lesson. Mosaddegh-memory is fresh in masters’ minds.

Rating agencies joined the move to warn Argentina. Standard and Poor’s, the famous rating agency with questionable past, downgraded Argentina’s economic and financial outlook to “negative”, after the YPF-initiative. Fitch warned Argentina of “diplomatic isolation” and shortages in foreign direct investment in key sectors – energy, utilities, and telecom.

As capital’s sentinel mainstream media was not silent. In an April 20 editorial The Washington Post observed “The [Argentine] president’s further lurch toward the left […]”, which it said “is bad news”. It echoed the conservative voice: remove Argentina from the G-20 and replace by Chile. (“Argentina’s president rejects stepping into the future”) It seems they are the lords of the world to do and undo everything.

There are more harsh and crude voices. Repsol Executive Chairman Antonio Brufau said the measure “will not go unpunished” and threatened to “take all legal actions within its reach.” Spanish officials predicted Argentina risks becoming “an international pariah”. In a responsible tone, Cristina reciprocated: “This president is not going to answer any threat, is not going to respond to any sharp remark. I am a head of state and not a hoodlum.”

It’s “resource nationalism”, the mainstream considers. The world business and investors smell risky situation. To a section in the mainstream, Cristina’s initiative is nothing but an attempt to cover up domestic problems.

However, the song of condemnation failed to echo in all the corners of the world. Voices of solidarity reverberated. Venezuela’s foreign ministry and the state oil company expressed support to Argentina’s move. The company expressed its willingness to help strengthen Argentina’s oil industry: “Venezuela puts all its technical, operational, legal and political experience of Petroleos de Venezuela at the disposition of the government of Argentina and its people to strengthen the state oil sector”. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, said: “It is an issue between Argentina and Spain.” Daniel Ortega, the Nicaraguan president, expressed solidarity: “President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner … is exercising the right of the State of Argentina to defend its patrimony.” He rejected the EU’s reaction, saying the EU has acted with “arrogance, bravado and thuggery against the decision of a sovereign people and government in Argentina.” “What we can advise the EU is that they should stop their bullying, stop the threats. Look for dialogue, negotiate with the Argentinean government and look for a way out where the legitimate rights of the people of Argentina are recognized,” Ortega said. Jose Mujica, the Uruguayan president, told he respected Argentina’s decision, saying “it falls within the framework of sovereignty, whether you like it or not.” Regarding the EU’s condemnation and threat, Mujica expressed “solidarity with Argentina, in good and bad times” and lashed out at the “arrogance of wealthy Europe.” Haroldo Lima, the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency, hailed the move as “excellent news for Latin America.” He called the decision “historic” and said “it was not against Spain... It was not against anyone. It was in favor of Argentina.” Chilean officials reacted cautiously. Chile government was studying the effects on Chilean investments in Argentina, in particular in one of Repsol’s wells. However, the Chilean opposition Socialist Party, hailed the move as sovereign action saying that as an independent nation, Argentina “has the right to decide how to exploit its natural resources for the benefit of its citizens.”

Seemingly to increase pressure on Argentina, US Senator Richard Lugar, member of the Subcommittee on Latin America, asked questions on Argentina during a congressional hearing. A report from Hillary Clinton reviewed the Argentina-IMF relation and trade “barriers”, restrictions on remitting of benefits and dividends overseas, implemented by Argentina.

Argentina is having a difficult relation with the IMF. The US considers Argentina is obliged to submit its economic statistics to be validated by the IMF, and US will support the IMF. Citing a report La Nación informed the US is “most disappointed” as Argentina having suspended such annual submission since 2006.

Once again, the battle line has been drawn. Trenches are being dug. Two interests stand opposed to each other, and a trend turns stronger providing example to peoples and ruling elites in other countries.

Argentina has a version different from that of the Repsol, Spain, EU and Co. The country’s petroleum production fell 27% between 2001 and 2011 turning the country an importer of oil. Repsol was not producing enough oil to meet the country’s needs. This year Argentina estimates to import more than $10 billion worth of gas and LNG, almost equal to the country’s trade surplus last year although it is an oil-producing country, and it was self-sufficient for over two decades. This exposes the efficiency of Repsol, and also of private capital.

“We are the only country in Latin America, and […] in practically the entire world, that doesn’t manage its own natural resources,” Cristina mentioned as a burning fact. Argentina’s proven reserves have fallen by 50% since 2001, although YPF has not posted losses because it has spent so little on reinvestment. The company more than doubled its sales since 1999, making net profits of nearly 16.5 billion dollars since then, and distributing dividends of 13.2 billion dollars. Argentina had a deficit of $3 billion last year partly due to energy imports. The center of gravity of the EU’s position is clear.

The oil company, YPF, was privatized in two stages, in 1993 and 1999, under the former president Carlos Menem. Since then the state has held less than one percent of the shares of YPF.

Buenos Aires accuses Repsol of sucking YPF’s profits out of the country instead of investing in Argentina’s future. Repsol has used its profits to fund investments in Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea and North Africa. If this policy continues – draining fields dry, no exploration and practically no investment – “the country will end up having no viable future, not because of a lack of resources but because of business policies,” said Cristina.

Aníbal Fernández, an Argentine Senator, said the government “will pay the real price […] of YPF and not what Repsol’s chairman wants.” Repsol chairman has a bargain tag in his bag. Argentina and Spain are now setting a price on the transaction.

Cristina said the real problem was not about foreign companies or their profitability, but the lack of investment. She cited her government’s positive relationship with foreign automotive companies. Italy’s Fiat and the US’ General Motors receive soft loans from the Argentine state to boost local production and keep workers in jobs, Cristina said.

Argentina has minimized Spain’s retaliatory decision to reduce bio-diesel imports. Argentina “is in condition to absorb” that production. “We won’t question Spain’s sovereign decision, no matter which one it takes. They are going to pay their businessmen a more expensive bio-diesel and I don’t know how that will impact their economy”, Cristina said. “We’re not going to appeal to the World Trade Organization nor are we going to complaint about the decision to block Argentine exports. We don’t act that way. We are […] very respectful of other peoples’ sovereignty”, she said. The difference between Argentina and the EU, the organization that is failing to manage its own affairs but always is delivering sermons to the Third World countries on democracy, etc., on the principle of non-interference is clear.

All interests are not happy with Cristina’s initiatives. Argentina has already issued legal warnings to banks involved in the Malvinas Islands’ oil industry. In 2008, Cristina nationalized Anses, privately run pension funds with many Spaniards’ investment. She also nationalized Aerolíneas Argentina airline, owned by a Spanish firm now bankrupt. An alliance of organizations, American Task Force Argentina, is making effort to resolve Argentina’s $132bn debt default in 2001.

The country is having resources that allure capital from other lands. Edison Investment Research, a research firm, has claimed that the Falklands stood to benefit from a $176bn tax windfall as the result of oil and gas drilling. Of the four major prospects under way, the largest, Loligo, potentially holds more than 4.7bn barrels of oil. Argentina has recently found huge unconventional oil and natural gas reserves. A few months ago, YPF announced a large oil find known as the Vaca Muerta field that Repsol officials estimated could yield four billion barrels. BP now produces 74,000 barrels of oil daily in Argentina. Its natural gas production is more than its European operations combined.

Argentina is the world’s main supplier of bio-diesel almost exclusively from soy oil, and the country produces bio-diesel “at a cheaper price than Spanish manufacturers”. Last year exports reached 1.7 million tons of which 700.000 tons, equivalent to 985 million dollars were exported to Spain. Around 120 British companies including HSBC, Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline are now operating in Argentina.

Initiatives, in many forms, within existing limitations including class equation and historical perspective, are there in Latin America. These are trying to assert sovereignty, claim fair share of resources. An emerging political stream is trying to change resource map in Latin America in favor of people. Political leadership’s acumen, its capacity to mobilize people, its management efficiency are vital questions related to managing resource. It’s a long, complicated struggle. Initiatives should not be brushed aside with rhetoric. At the same time, class composition behind initiatives should be taken into account. Bureaucracy, a bulky burden, is there. Instead of expecting a perfect set up one should find out the reality within which a leadership has to move. The leadership carries marks of history. Ignoring these factors will send one to frustration, and to adventurism.

The initiative is operating in a geopolitical reality, where Europe is struggling within, where EU’s options regarding Argentina are limited, where competition within a crisis-reality has put masters of the world in a difficult position, where masters are facing problem in their home-turf.

Argentina will be an experience useful to the countries and the movements struggling to recover people’s resources, assert sovereignty over public resources, and aspiring to challenge neo-liberalism in respective economy.

What’s America’s Biggest National Security Threat?

What’s the biggest threat to US national security? It’s neither Iran nor North Korea, neither China’s defense spending nor Russia’s missile system. Syria doesn’t have that capacity to appear the biggest. It’s the domestic issues related to economy that pose the biggest national security threat to US. Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, has made the observation in early-April 2012.

In an interview with The Daily Ticker Haass said: “The most important national security question for the coming year is actually the domestic set of issues that involves the economy.” “What we do to improve our schools, our infrastructure, what we do to reduce the budget deficit…this is going to be critical in years and decades ahead”, said Haass. (“America’s Biggest National Security Threat: U.S. Debt”)

In an increasingly global economy, Haass said, these policy failures and intransigence by lawmakers to seriously and vigorously tackle the budget crisis indicate a weaker US. “The United States right now has put itself in a position of some vulnerability. We’re vulnerable to the inflows of dollars, we’re vulnerable on the energy front, and the challenge for the United States in the national security realm is to do things that reduce our vulnerability to the decisions and behaviors be it foreign governments or markets.”

Almost similar was another observation. A few years ago, the US Directorate of National Intelligence in its 2009 threat assessment cited the global economic downturn as “the primary security challenge facing the US.” (Time, Sept. 11, 2009)

Neither CFR nor Richard Haass should be taken casually. The think tank is a responsible part of establishment and Haass is not a mindless member of the section he belongs to. The DNI observation that Time referred to is not part of a time killing talk-shop. Rather their observations are articulated after thorough exercises. These are macro views with eyes on far-reaching implications.

Economy of a country, no doubt, determines issues related to the country, its internal and external relations, its world-position, state of life of its citizens, its capacity to dominate or the opposite, etc. With a problem ridden internal situation any country turns vulnerable. The Great Financial Crisis (GFC) has intensified and widened domestic problems in many countries including US. Increasing hunger, poverty and rich-poor gap, annoying number and ratio of homeless and hungry children, finance-problem pressed schools, and debt burdened students are now not new news from the Empire, the richest land in the world. Mainstream admits all these facts although it declines to look at the root of the problems.

In 2011, Matthew Hartmann wrote in a commentary: More Americans than ever were living in poverty. “I have legitimate concerns about the future of this country […]” (“As Government Flirts with Shutdown, American Dream Again Questioned, Personal Reflections on the Great Recession”, Sept. 27)

Citing a report by the Joint Report Committee Hartmann referred the poverty level that rose in 46 states as a result of the Great Recession. He turned astonished: “Not even the nation’s capital was able to escape the influence of the Great Recession and, in fact, has become one of the hardest hit locations in this country.” Hartmann quoted the report: “[…] Washington also had the third highest poverty rate in the country, 19.2 percent, and the largest rise in the share of children living in poverty, rising 7.7 percentage points to 30.4 percent.” Similar data reflecting dire living condition for many in US are now in abundance.

Narrating experience Hartmann said: “[M]y own family has struggled over the past couple years because of the state of the economy. My father works at a high-paying medical job and yet struggles because we lost many investments when the Great Recession began.” His parents were renting after they lost their home. “[W]e’re living in very hard times”, he wrote. “What got me writing today was the revelation that the government nearly shut down again as it’s been threatening to do for the past couple of months. If our own federal government can hardly keep its doors open then I personally see it as a sign that our nation is still in a very precarious situation.” Possibility of shutting down a number of government departments is also old news.

State of teachers, students and class rooms, and as a whole, of education is being discussed by the mainstream in the Empire. A dismal picture comes to light. A recently released report by a Council on Foreign Relations Task Force found the not-so-well public school system that “threatens the country’s ability to thrive in a global economy and maintain its leadership role”. “[E]ducational failure”, the report said, “puts the United States’ future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk.”

Closure of many schools is reported in the mainstream media. ABC News reported closure of nearly half of schools and firing of hundreds of teachers in a district that “sent shockwaves through the country, and experts say this could just be the beginning.” There was “a $50 million budget shortfall”. In Detroit, a plan was announced “to close 45 schools in the next five years”. (“Budget, Quality, Population Issues Lead Cities to Close Schools: Is Yours Next?”, March 17, 2010) Mismanagement, failure to keep up with changing dynamics, declining enrollment, demographic shifts, budget deficits and draconian budget cuts are cited as reasons behind decision/plans for closing of the schools.

Adducing physicists a news report said: “The United States is at risk of ceding its leadership in science”. Five physicists expressed their worries about US’ scientific future saying that governmental funding for science research is in crisis, and not enough US students graduate with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math. The physicists were participating in a panel discussion in Atlanta at the April 2012 meeting of the American Physics Society. Pushpa Bhat, a physicist at Illinois’ Fermi Accelerator National Laboratory (Fermilab), lamented the lack of cutting-edge physics facilities in US. She was speaking at a press conference preceding the panel. She said: While many of the world’s best instruments including Illinois’ Tevatron particle accelerator used to be housed in US that frontier has moved elsewhere. Tevatron has shut down. Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek of MIT said: US “attracts students from all over the world. […] But […] we make it difficult for them to stay. I think for science, it’s a tragedy.” He cited immigration laws and cultural attitudes toward foreigners that “could be more welcoming.” “[T]he physicists acknowledged that scientists will have to confront a hard reality: There is simply less money for research in the current economy. Jim Siegrist, director of the Office of High Energy Physics in DOE’s Office of Science, agreed. ‘We need to find a way to do more science with a fixed amount of money’, Siegrist said.” Wilczek said “society doesn’t adequately value and recognize the economic benefits of basic science.” (“Crisis for US Science Is Looming, Physicists Warn”, Apr. 6, 2012)

These facts related to education and science lead to questions fundamental in nature. Answers to those questions will lead further to question related to the nature of the political economy that owns unimaginable resource, that once operated for longer period within favorable conditions, that has accumulated hundreds of years of experience but that now fails to provide adequate funds for scientific research and education, organize efficient management, keep up with shifting dynamics, that produces a society failing to adequately value science, etc.

Naturally, questions haunt: reasons behind declining enrollment, budget deficits, budget cuts, etc. How and why does an advanced capitalist economy fail to find required budget to keep its schools open and retain its teachers while it does not fail to find trillions of dollars to invest in speculation and billions of dollars for waging wars in distant lands that produce pain and tears in home and deaths and devastation in invaded society, and that leaves behind bitter memories and sense of hatred only? Is it that now basic science and a number of schools are not needed for making profit? Is it that the economy doesn’t need those schools and teachers? Or, is it the economy’s failure?
Referring a recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York Time and Washington Post said $36 billion in student debt belongs to Americans who are 60 or older. Some of them are still rassling with their student loans while others took on new loans as they resumed education later in life in hopes of effectively competing in labor market. Many are co-signatories for loans with their children or grandchildren to afford increasing tuition cost. More than 10% of these loans are delinquent. About 5% of the $85 billion delinquent student loans in the US is owed by borrowers in the age group 60 and over, and another 12% of the total is in the age group 50-59. The unemployment rate among America’s recent grads is high enough that compels them to live with parents.

It’s a difficult reality for the hard pressed section of a society. It’s also a part of the political economy of education that ultimately thrives on appropriating labor power of a society.

There is another fact. Laid off workers in the age group 55 and over, according to SmartMoney, are unemployed for an average of 53.6 weeks compared to just 39.4 weeks for those 54 and under. Older Americans are increasingly finding it necessary to keep working — because of the losses made by the GFC, and/or they still need to pay off credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and other debt. In 2001, just 13% of Americans in the age group 65 and over were employed. The percentage increased to 18% by last summer. Isn’t it the bitter reality of more work, generation of more surplus value, appropriation of more surplus value, and more hardship?

Width of the hardship can be gauged with a figure related to loss. “There are a hundred different ways of looking at the economy, and a million different statistics” wrote Rex Nutting. “But if you wanted to focus on just one number that explains why the economy can’t really recover, this is the one: $7.38 trillion. That’s the amount of wealth that’s been lost from the bursting of housing bubble, according to the Federal Reserve’s comprehensive Flow of Funds report. It’s how much homeowners lost when housing prices plunged 30% nationwide. The loss for these homeowners was much greater than 30%, however, because they were heavily leveraged.” (Rex Nutting, “How the Bubble Destroyed the Middle Class”, Market Watch, July 8, 2011)

After the burst, Rex wrote: “Most families don’t have any extra money to spend. […] The crazy thing is that our leaders aren’t even talking about this crisis. With the upper classes prospering and global markets booming, they don’t need the U.S. middle class any more. The market is up, profits are soaring, and the corporate jet is fueled and ready for takeoff.” His sarcastic comment actually unmasks the indifferent, cruel face of a political economy which bears the name capitalism: “And if the middle class can’t buy bread? Let them eat cake.”

Debt creates new chain, new moral standard, new disciplining tact as hassles and humiliation crown debtors’ lives. The GFC brought debt- reality to many debtors. “Debt collectors are getting desperate and dirty. Harassing phone calls, abusive language and physical violence are becoming a bigger part of business as debt collectors struggle to round up money from people who don’t have it. […] Complaints of harassment by debt collectors surged 50% to 67,550 in 2009, according to the Federal Trade Commission. […] The No. 1 complaint is repeated calls, and it is not uncommon for collectors to bombard consumers with back-to-back calls for days, weeks, months and even years. When debt collectors finally get someone on the other end of the phone, they are more likely to use nastier language. Complaints of debt collectors using obscene or abusive language spiked 35% last year. A 55-year old New York woman […] said a collection agent called her home repeatedly, personally attacking her and her husband. When she refused to answer the phone, the collector called her estranged sister, an ex-boyfriend and her husband’s ex-wife’s mother. ‘This guy was out of his mind and he kept calling and calling, telling me “you better talk to me, you deadbeat,”’ she said. ‘He was very threatening and the whole thing was just really unsettling -- it made you wonder who was going to show up at your door.’ She had reason to worry, since complaints of debt collectors threatening – or actually using – violence more than doubled last year, to 2,517. Keary Floyd, an attorney […] in Atlanta said that while most of his debt collection cases involve excessive phone calls, one of his recent clients recorded a disturbing phone conversation where a debt collector threatened that he or someone else would come to the client’s house to get the money in any way that he could. […] Other aggressive tactics that are becoming more common are debt collectors calling before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m., demanding more money than what is owed, revealing a consumer’s debt to a third party or threatening ‘dire consequences’ like prosecution, jail time, property seizure or job loss. (Blake Ellis, “Debt collectors sock it to consumers”, CNNMoney.com, July 9, 2010) A single question will haunt if all fundamental questions are bluntly kept aside: How does this debtor-indignity or creditor-power correspond to freedom and liberty which are a people’s driving spirit?

Since the onset of the GFC the number of city/county/municipality gone bankrupt or filing for bankruptcy is also not insignificant in the Empire. Finance, related politics and pulls of competing interests were at the root of these cases of bankruptcy/filing for bankruptcy. There are allegations of widespread corruption, bribery and fraud charges. The last few years came across a number of important names related to bankruptcy: Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital city, Alabama’s Jefferson County – home of Birmingham, the state’s biggest city and economic powerhouse, Stockton, California. In 2008, Vallejo became the biggest California city to file for bankruptcy. The city later emerged from bankruptcy. There is Central Falls, Rhode Island also.

Jefferson County’s filing for bankruptcy is the biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history. Harrisburg was having a crushing debt, listed about $458 million in creditors and claims, legal actions by creditors, and a power struggle. Stockton is the largest US city to file for bankruptcy. The city had the second-highest foreclosure rate in US and one of the highest crime and unemployment rates.

The bankrupt-situation with cost cutting, higher taxes and pension reductions puts pressure on health and safety services to citizens. The poor suffer the most. The situation also increases concerns in the $3.7 trillion US municipal bond market. A seemingly strange cycle: market bankrupts and bankruptcy trembles market!

But hardship, debt and gloom in the life of many don’t dominate everyone everywhere. Profit pervades powerfully, and lets a few to enjoy all the moments.

In the third quarter of 2010, corporate profits rode to a record height: $1.67 trillion. It was a 28% rise from a year ago. Non-financial US companies, according Fed, held $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September. And 7.4% of companies’ total assets were cash – the highest share since 1959. These cash-burdened companies announced $150 billion in stock buybacks in 2010. (Zachary Roth, “Record corporate profits not producing jobs”, Dec 10, 2010) Along with news of super-high profits cases of criminal and civil fraud including crimes of tax evasion, insider trading, mortgage lending and payment collection, false statements and public corruption are coming to public view.

There are war ventures that cost billions. Two economists including a Nobel laureate have already made a calculation of cost of only one such venture. There are others, declared and undeclared ones.

A reality full with contradictory segments – sick science research and education and well-oiled war efforts, haunted debtor and overwhelming creditor, poverty and profit – impregnate society with contradictions, intensify contradictions that appear threat in the long run. Fault lines in the base of the society widen, that in turn weaken status quo, and a question raises its voice: cui bono?, for whose benefit is it? who is the gainer? The louder the question will be the more insecure will be the status quo.

Freedom Is Not Class-Neutral

Freedom in all lands is captive to class interests. It’s historically impossible for freedom – freedom of will and of action – to get free from the clutch of its class content as freedom is not class-neutral. Economic content of freedom, moored in class interests, makes it biased, distorts its imagined universal appearance – a concept materialized only in utopia – and creates the need to anchor the concept in the solid base of science instead of a superfluous sand beach of imagination.

Evaluating state of freedom without considering its historical perspective, and to be specific, without considering the dominating class interests in a society, its historical limitations, and its antagonism with contending classes, leads to nowhere but to a circle of confusion, to chattering, inactions or actions without aims or actions without identifying class leadership. The confusing analysis is embraced by dominating interests with a convulsive laughter.

No society was there in human history, where dominating interests had no freedom bridled and compelled to compromise by contending interests only. Dominated interests’ freedom was always curtailed, denied, ignored, and muzzled. State of dominated interests’ freedom has always depended on the state of the interests’ awareness, organization and struggle.

Thus, a polluter has all the freedom to pollute water bodies, ground water, air and soil, a foodster has all the freedom to put toxic substance in food marketed among the masses of people, an ideologue has all the freedom to propagate anti-people ideas, concepts, values, dreams and practices, an educator has all the freedom to instruct with counter-scientific ideas, a publicist has all the freedom to bring out whatever publication the gentle-person likes, an image builder has all the freedom to build up image hollow in essence, a bankster has all the freedom to flog inconsistent ideas, a profiteer has all the freedom to swim in a pool of profit, a section of politicians has all the freedom to deceive public and have a nice life without accountability, and they all have all the freedoms – economic, political, spiritual, etc. – to pool all the resources required to fulfill all their passion. So, there is their near-absolute freedom as absolute freedom is a void in nature and society, an imagination in a society unstable with antagonistic class interests. This process of near-absolute freedom of these interests denies freedom of the interests that stand opposed to them.

Dominated interests have no freedom or limited freedom or theoretically have all the freedom but essentially, practically and functionally have no capacity and mean to meaningfully engage with types of freedom – of expression, speech, etc., economic, political, etc. This reality quashes overwhelmingly propagated universal freedom. Dominated interests can have all their freedom of expression, etc. codified but may not own the time to rest and reflect that can allow the interests access required information, analyze those, identify impediments to freedoms and tasks to realize those. It’s not that always there will be a law banning freedom of expression. A reality bombarded with sort of ideas can keep dominated interests inactive in reflecting and formulating ideas upholding self-interests.

Dominated interests – the poor, the tormented, the working people, the under classes – have all the freedom to live in and live with poverty, ignorance, corruption and deceit for generations, have all the freedom to pass all their “blissful” days without information essential for analysis and survival, have all the freedom to sale their body organ – kidney – for a little cash to those wealthy buyers having all the freedom to fly into Bangladesh from some other country as Monir Moniruzzaman, assistant professor of anthropology at Michigan State University, found in his study “‘Living Cadavers’ in Bangladesh: Bioviolence in the Human Organ Bazaar” (Medical Anthropology Quarterly, vol. XXVI, issue 1). In a corner in this strange world, as Reuters reported on March 19, 2012, girls have all the freedom to sale their honor and consume steroids to have a lot of male consumers. Yes, the girls like the girls from erstwhile Soviet Union and eastern Europe are free to earn in a free market, in capitaldom, not in“serfdom”. It’s a freedom “bestowed” upon the daughters of destitution. In a place in this world, employers have “the power to deny prescribed birth control pills to any female employee unless she provides proof she’s not using it for […] birth control.” It’s the freedom of authority and employer and non-freedom of a section of female employees!

Freedom turns a confusing concept as interests interpret in respective ways. “The first is”, Franklin D. Roosevelt said in his message to the US Congress in January 6, 1941, “freedom of speech and expression […] The second is freedom […] to worship […] The third is freedom from want […] The fourth is freedom from fear […]”. Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address in 1801 mentioned “freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of persons under the protection of the habeas corpus, […]”. The Truman Doctrine mentioned “freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.” “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men” was a slogan of the Free Soil Party, antecedent of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party. To a section in society, cars are synonymous to freedom. To some, types of freedom are the physical freedom, the political freedom, and the mental and spiritual freedom. A section finds two types of freedom: negative and positive freedom. Another section identifies four types of freedom: “Freedom from” or “negative freedom”, “Freedom to” or “positive freedom”, “Autonomy”, and “Freedom from domination”. William D. Gairdner classified freedom as Internal Freedom, Self-Freedom, External Freedom (“freedom from...”, “negative freedom”) Political Freedom (“freedom to...”), Collective or "Higher" Freedom (“positive freedom” or “freedom for”) and Spiritual Freedom. (“Six Kinds of Freedom”, July 4, 2006) A classification finds three types of freedom: Freedom 1: freedom from external impediments (essentially a political concept), Freedom 2: freedom from internal impediments (usually part of discourse on issues of psychology, personal morality and religion), and Freedom 3: autonomy and democracy (interpreted in a political sense). Economic freedom is sometimes defined as: “Secure rights to property (legally acquired); Freedom to engage in voluntary transactions, inside and outside a nation's borders; Freedom from governmental control of the terms on which individuals transact; and Freedom from governmental expropriation of property (e.g., by confiscatory taxation or unanticipated inflation).” (Steve H. Hanke and Stephen J. K. Walters, “Economic Freedom, Prosperity, and Equality: A Survey”, The Cato Journal, vol. XVII, no. 2) A section in society perceives freedom as freedom of capital and its kin. Freedom of capital is the essential message Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom carry. Assassinating or planning to assassinate statesmen and politicians including Lumumba, Nasser and Castro, as BBC reported on March 17, 2012 (“Licence to Kill: When governments choose to assassinate”), is exercised by a section of dominating interests including Anthony Eden, once a British prime minister, which is part of a political fight waged by the interests, and this political fight is part of the interests’ political freedom. The interests don’t expect and shall not allow exercising the same political freedom by its contending classes. Freedom of “corporate personhood”, of MNCs, and their power to manipulate, encroach and subjugate all public freedoms just wipe out all types of freedom of all, not only of the dominated section of society. A real world tells: Freedom, political, economic, etc. is not universal.

Now-a-days, indicators on freedom are abounding: “Freedom in the World” of the Freedom House, “Democracy Index” of The Economist, “Index of Economic Freedom” of The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, indices of Reporters Sans Frontiers and the Canadian Frasier Institute, the Polity data series, claimed to be indirectly of the CIA. Each of these uses varying measures and weight: It’s probably not surprising that The Heritage Foundation and WSJ emphasize on investment and financial freedom in their index. (Lockerz, “A New Use for Freedom Indicators?”, Democracy & Society, Sep 27, 2011) Indicators measuring capitalism and political freedom assess degree of capitalism; economic, trade, investment, business, and financial freedom; private investment; competition in domestic banking; competitive markets; lack of interest rate regulation; legally protected private ownership of the means of production; legal enforcement of contracts; price controls; collective bargaining at central level; etc.

Labor shackled to wage, poor mortgaged to misery, common people fettered to destitution, masses sold to servitude are denied entry in freedom. This makes freedom an unspecified, confused concept. Without specifying class character and content of freedom a mere mention of freedom turns into a pretension and prattle only as “something” like universal freedom conceals class freedom and dominant autocracy in all its forms – ideological, political, economic. Exercise of freedom by the masses is completely different from the terms of freedom determined by dominating interests that ignore the fundamental question of class freedom and freedom of humanity.

A flaw will command an analysis of the state of freedom in a society if the analysis completely concentrates on freedom-space granted by dominant interests to the dominated. It is the dominated interests’ awareness, organization, maturity and struggle that ensure its freedom. Yearning for freedom of dominated interests and simultaneously looking up for freedom-space grants by dominant interests is a foolish, childish, impractical and ineffective aspiration carrying no weight and meaning in political, economic, social and cultural life.

Our Bangladesh is a bright example. The glorious days of language movement in 1952, of 1969 mass upsurge, the December-days of 1990 are only a few of many examples as ordinary Baangaalees compelled hostile forces to bow down, and the common persons enjoyed freedom to the level they could achieve through their organization and struggle. They had not waited for amplitude of those dominating interests. A despised field marshal and a despised general, Ayub and Yahya, knew it best. Our glorious days of 1971, the period We the People of Bangladesh organized and waged our Great War of Liberation is an undeniable example of achieving freedom. Noble and crimson bright those days were. People’s pain, supreme sacrifice and valor glorified all the freedom-minutes of that long period.

During those valiant periods the dominated section waging struggle and war did not beg freedom, did not appeal to any autocrat, to any donor, did not seek advice from any foreign diplomat, did not hand over the task of defining agenda for freedom to donor driven NGOs, did not mortgage consciences to any group of persons posing wise and claiming civil society. During those days of the glorious war under classes even challenged property relation to some extent in some parts of the country. During those days red with people’s blood the masses repudiated retrogressive, sectarian ideas, politics and politicians, and embraced broader, advanced vision.

Only pointing fingers of accusation to this political party or to that party for infringement of freedom-space will carry no practical message if freedom related elementary information are not disseminated among the masses, if people are kept unaware, if imitating and showmanship replaces spade work for organizing people, if the entire task is handed over to non-political appearing political NGOs implementing donor agenda, if soul-searching is replaced by tailing NGOs.

A brief comparison will help assess the state of yearning for freedom of speech, expression, etc.: extent of propaganda by MNCs, and the total number of circulated copies and the number of publications of the political entities standing for freedom of expression, etc.; number of round table, etc. of “non”-political and political entities. Doesn’t MNC-propaganda infringe people’s freedom of expression, etc.? Aren’t issues concerning ecology and climate related to issues concerning freedom and people? Isn’t dignity part of freedom? And, hasn’t that been demolished by a section of employees of some other country? Similar questions shall confirm nothing but inertia in a significant section of society that tasks itself with the duty of sentinel of freedom.

With this reality isn’t it better to have a soul-search before blaming this or that political party, before denouncing this or that part of state machine? This sincere exercise shall carry a message: at spes non fracta, but hope is not yet crushed.

News From Syria And France

News on Syria is being disseminated in a charged style. A news tilted as part of disinformation signifies preparation for deeper and more forceful involvement by external actors in the Middle Eastern country. At the same time, Turkey’s plan for a buffer zone inside Syria, the war game in the region, and incidents in France, far away from Syria, are no less annoying. Are not these preludes to a gathering storm in the Middle East?

ABC News said on March 19, 2012: An “anti-terror squad” from the Russian Marines and two Russian ships have arrived in Syria. ABC and a section of media headlined the news in their preferred manner – Russian troops in Syria.

ABC cited Russian news reports and Al Arabiya, and Al Arabiya referred to an Israel-based open-source military intelligence website. However, ABC pointed out that Russia’s Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov denied the reports.

On the other hand, citing Russian officials The New York Times reported with a restrained tone: The “Russian officials denied an ABC News report that one of their warships had docked in the Syrian port of Tartus with a squad of Russian antiterror marines; the report fed speculation that Russia was actively helping Mr. Assad by supplying military experts. A spokesman for the Defense Ministry was quoted by the Interfax news service as saying he was perplexed by the report, which he said might have referred to […] a Russian tanker that had docked in Tartus 10 days earlier. He said security guards were aboard the [tanker] because it supplies fuel to Russian ships participating in international anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.”

Associated Press also reported the same. It said the tanker is carrying a civilian crew and a team of servicemen protecting it.

A comparison of the three news-reports, of ABC, and of NYT and AP, expose a style of a section of media to fan up tension by presenting news in tilted and confusing manner.

Reuters reported: Syria’s arms imports surged nearly 6-fold between 2007 and 2011.

However, El Pais noted that “despite the increase, total arms imports in Syria were not much greater than those to Jordan – a country of 6 million people compared to Syria’s population of 20 million.”

Obviously, size of population does not always provide rational for quantity of arms import and production. Despite the fact – a larger Syrian population compared to Jordan – the information provided by El Pais presents a yardstick for comparison in presenting news. A country’s situation due to external intervention is a major logic regarding quantity of arms being imported/produced.

The tilted Russian antiterror marines and surge in arms import news accompany news on a planned move by Turkey.

Turkey is planning to establish a buffer zone inside Syria. It’s a dangerously significant plan to cripple and dismember a country. The materialization of the plan would involve Turkish troops into Syria. The move if implemented carries possibility of escalation of conflict between armies of the two countries. The Turkish government’s call to its nationals to leave Syria reflects a step to initiate the move.

A major development happened in Moscow. Russia and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have called for a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Syria without delay – “a daily humanitarian pause” that would allow convoys to provide medical care and evacuation for the wounded. The ICRC head Kellenberger’s Moscow travel to discuss a Syria-ceasefire clearly shows the need to consider Moscow’s geostrategic position in Syria.

Russia’s geostrategic position regarding Syria is the outcome of its present internal and external world position and Libya-experience. Russia’s choice is to abide by existing contracts to deliver weapons to Syria, and as Russian Deputy Defence Minister Anatoly Antonov said, Russia finds “no reason […] to reconsider it.” The Russian minister dismissed allegations that Russia has sent special forces officers to assist Syrian government forces: “There are no (Russian) special forces with rifles and grenade launchers running around”, he said. “The Syrian people should determine who will lead their country and so the opinion of some of our foreign partners will hardly foster a solution”, Mikhail Bogdanov, Russian deputy foreign minister told a news conference.

But, ultimately, the external players will not allow the Syrian people to determine their path in their own peaceful manner. The world masters’ external intervention is perfectly accomplishing a number of tasks of crisis-ridden world masters.

“Internal Look,” the two-week war game was not assuring for peace. Rather it scares all peace-loving people. Consequences of any confrontation or war in the Middle East will be dire for all.

The killings in France are annoying also. In France, a number of paratroopers not during combat duty were killed a few days ago. The incidents were followed by killing of four persons including three children aged 3, 6, and 8.

The act of killing cannot be considered part of political fight. An environment of hatred and fear distorts and hinders political fight, and strengthens forces of reaction. Targeting children cannot be considered part of political fight. Rather, it weakens the moral standing of political fight.

With further escalation of external financed and armed intervention in Syria, the first victim will be people’s democratic struggle in the region, in Syria, in Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon. Imperialist intervention and war effort under guise of democratic movement will push back democratic movement. A further escalation of killing spree in France will charge an environment with hatred, suspicion, will push back urgent questions related to working people’s suffering due to financial crisis.