The Idea of May Day on the March

Rosa Luxemburg 1913

In the middle of the wildest orgies of imperialism, the world holiday of the proletariat is repeating itself for the twenty-fourth time. What has taken place in the quarter of a century since the epoch-making decision to celebrate May Day is an immense part of the historical path. When the May demonstration made its debut, the vanguard of the International, the German working class, was breaking the chains of a shameful law of exception and setting out on the path of a free, legal development. The period of the long depression on the world market since the crash of the 1870s had been overcome, and the capitalist economy had just begun a phase of splendid growth which would last nearly a decade. At the same time, after twenty years of unbroken peace, the world breathed a sigh of relief, remembering the period of war in which the modern European state system had received its bloody baptism. The path seemed free for a peaceful cultural development; illusions, hopes of a reasonable, pacific discussion between labor and capital grew abundantly like green corn in the ranks of socialism. Propositions like “to hold out the open hand to the good will” marked the beginning of the 1890s; promises of an imperceptible “gradual move into socialism” marked its end. Crises, wars, and revolution were supposed to have been things of the past, the baby shoes of modern society; parliamentarism and unions, democracy in the state and democracy in the factory were supposed to open the doors of a new, better order.

The course of events has submitted all of these illusions to a fearful test. At the end of the 1890s, in place of the promised, smooth, social-reforming cultural development, began a period of the most violent and acute sharpening of the capitalistic contradictions – a storm and stress, a crashing and colliding, a wavering and quaking in the foundations of the society. In the following decade, the ten-year period of economic prosperity was paid for by two violent world crises. After two decades of world peace, in the last decade of the past century followed six bloody wars, and in the first decade of the new century four bloody revolutions. Instead of the social reforms – conspiracy laws, penal laws, and penal praxis; instead of industrial democracy – the powerful concentration of capital in cartels and business associations, and the international practice of gigantic lock-outs. And instead of the new growth of democracy in the state – a miserable breakdown of the last remnants of bourgeois liberalism and bourgeois democracy. Specifically in the case of Germany the fate of the bourgeois parties since the 1890s has brought: the rise and immediate, hopeless dissolution of the National Socialists; the split of the “radical” opposition and the reunification of its splinters in the morass of the reaction; and finally the transformation of the “center” from a radical peoples’ party to a conservative governmental party. The shifting in the development of the parties was similar in other capitalist countries. In general, the revolutionary working class sees itself today standing alone, opposed to a closed, hostile reaction of the ruling classes and their malicious tricks.

The sign under which this whole development, both economic and political, has been consummated, the formula back to which its results point, is imperialism. This is no new element, no unexpected turn in the general historical path of the capitalist society. Armaments and wars, international contradictions and colonial politics accompany the history of capitalism from its cradle. It is the most extreme intensification of these elements, a drawing together, a gigantic storming of these contradictions which has produced a new epoch in the course of modern society. In a dialectical interaction, both cause and effect of the immense accumulation of capital and the heightening and sharpening of the contradictions which go with it internally, between capital and labor; externally, between the capitalist states – imperialism has opened the final phase, the division of the world by the assault of capital. A chain of unending, exorbitant armaments on land and on sea in all capitalist countries because of rivalries; a chain of bloody wars which have spread from Africa to Europe and which at any moment could light the spark which would become a world fire; moreover, for years the uncheckable specter of inflation, of mass hunger in the whole capitalist world – all of these are the signs under which the world holiday of labor, after nearly a quarter of a century, approaches. And each of these signs is a flaming testimony of the living truth and the power of the idea of May Day.

The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate stepping forward of the proletarian masses, the political mass action of the millions of workers who otherwise are atomized by the barriers of the state in the day-to-day parliamentary affairs, who mostly can give expression to their own will only through the ballot, through the election of their representatives. The excellent proposal of the Frenchman Lavigne at the Paris Congress of the International added to this parliamentary, indirect manifestation of the will of the proletariat a direct, international mass manifestation: the strike as a demonstration and means of struggle for the eight-hour day, world peace, and socialism.

And in effect what an upswing this idea, this new form of struggle has taken on in the last decade! The mass strike has become an internationally recognized, indispensable weapon of the political struggle. As a demonstration, as a weapon in the struggle, it returns again in innumerable forms and gradations in all countries for nearly fifteen years. As a sign of the revolutionary reanimation of the proletariat in Russia, as a tenacious means of struggle in the hands of the Belgian proletariat, it has just now proved its living power. And the next, most burning question in Germany – the Prussian voting rights – obviously, because of its previous slipshod treatment, points to a rising mass action of the Prussian proletariat up to the mass strike as the only possible solution.

No wonder! The whole development, the whole tendency of imperialism in the last decade leads the international working class to see more clearly and more tangibly that only the personal stepping forward of the broadest masses, their personal political action, mass demonstrations, and mass strikes which must sooner or later open into a period of revolutionary struggles for the power in the state, can give the correct answer of the proletariat to the immense oppression of imperialistic policy. In this moment of armament lunacy and war orgies, only the resolute will to struggle of the working masses, their capacity and readiness for powerful mass actions, can maintain world peace and push away the menacing world conflagration. And the more the idea of May Day, the idea of resolute mass actions as a manifestation of international unity, and as a means of struggle for peace and for socialism, takes root in the strongest troops of the International, the German working class, the greater is our guarantee that out of the world war which, sooner or later, is unavoidable, will come forth a definite and victorious struggle between the world of labor and that of capital.

Stand By The People Against Nuclear Plant Installations

The terrible nuclear crisis at Fukushima in the wake of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami has raised concerns and questions about nuclear power in the whole world. While thousands of people in Berlin came on to the streets spontaneously to oppose nuclear energy, governments in China, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Poland and Philippines have issued a moratorium on their nuclear expansion plans.

Ignoring these worldwide concerns, the Indian nuclear establishment and the UPA Government are busy claiming how safe and disaster-proof India’s reactors are.

Protecting Nuclear Industry

Thanks to Wikileaks, now we know that sordid behind-the-scenes greased palms, with the connivance of the US, influenced the outcome of the vote in Parliament that saved the US-backed Nuke Deal. The recently passed Nuclear Liability Bill too was drafted under direct US pressure. It exempts both the supplier and operator from any compensation in case of damage due to natural disasters such as earthquakes and puts the burden on the public exchequer. So, if a Fukushima were to be repeated in India, the supplier and operator would escape having to pay any compensation whatsoever!

Even in other cases of accidents, the Nuke Liability Bill virtually exempts the supplier from liability and caps the liability of operators at a maximum of Rs. 1,500 crore. The Government’s liability too is capped at approximately $ 462 million. To put this amount in proper perspective one should note that in the case of the Bhopal gas disaster (undoubtedly far less of a disaster than a nuclear Chernobyl or Fukushima would be), the highly inadequate compensation Union Carbide was asked to pay was $ 470 million!

Nuclear corporations like Areva (the supplier at the proposed Jaitapur plant) have been pooh-poohing the protests of local residents who have raised safety issues. Though protestors have pointed out that Areva’s design is untested, Areva (echoed by the Indian establishment) has asserted that its plants will be safe. The question arises – if the nuclear industry and corporations are really so sure that their plants are safe, why are they so insistent on ‘caps on liability’? Why not offer full liability, if they are so sure of the plants’ safety?

The Liability legislation was prepared, ignoring the concerns and objections expressed by as many as Government’s own Ministries before a Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Bill. For instance Secretary for the Ministry of Health Sujata Rao testified before the committee that the health ministry was not consulted while drafting the bill. She warned that because hospitals are not well-equipped "it is natural that mortality and morbidity due to multiple burns, blasts, radiation injuries and psycho-social impact could be on a very high scale and medical tackling of such a large emergency could have enough repercussions in the nearby areas of radioactive fallout." She admitted that her Ministry had no wherewithal to meet such a nuclear emergency.

Poor Safety Record and No Independent Regulator

Although the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) have made statements asking for stricter safety audits, this is more for public consumption as India remains the only country where there is no independent nuclear regulator! The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) in India is subservient to and answerable to the very institution it is supposed to regulate - the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE)!! Further regulatory processes are shrouded in secrecy and the Indian public are restricted by draconian legislation like the Indian Atomic Energy Act 1962 even from asking questions.

India has a poor safety record in managing nuclear reactors and there have been a number of accidents and incidents exposing its safety claims. In the 1980s, radiation exposures to power plant workers were ten times the world average for each unit of electricity. Accidents involving high radiation exposures to workers were reported as late as 2003. The only safety measure that we know of after that is that the NPCIL has stopped publishing data on such incidents!!

Adding to the spin of global nuclear industry which has started blaming ‘old reactor design’ in Fukushima while until recently nuclear power in Japan was touted as exemplary, the higher officials of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) were trying to outdo each others in underplaying the situation and reassuring the global nuclear corporates that India would go ahead with its nuclear expansion. S K Jain, heading the NPCIL declared, “There is no nuclear accident or incident in Japan's Fukushima plants. It is a well planned emergency preparedness programme which the nuclear operators of the Tokyo Electric Power Company are carrying out to contain the residual heat after the plants had an automatic shut-down following a major earthquake.” Can the establishment which is busy denying this huge nuclear disaster at Fukushima be trusted to conduct a serious and honest audit of India’s safety preparedness?

Jain also added that “India was uniquely placed as it had a centralised emergency operating centre with well drawn procedures scrutinised by regulators.” The procedure that he was referring actually is nothing but a regular safety audit that NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd) does after every 2 years. India’s nuclear expansion is taking place in earthquake-prone zones and seashores like Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Kalpakkam and Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, Haripur in West Bengal and Mithivirdi in Gujrat. The existing reactors in Kakrapar, Narora (UP) and Tarapur are also located in densely populated earthquake-prone areas.

Inflated Performance Claims

Among the several core sectors encouraged in the independent India, its nuclear programme has been the worst performer despite the heavy funding, insulation from auditing and accountability and posterboy status it received. Producing just 2% of electricity, around 4000 MWs, its performance flies in the face of the tall claims of the DAE. Although the decision to import reactors under the Indo-US Nuclear Deal was taken by the UPA regime largely without consulting the DAE and evaluating the future nuclear energy scenario, the nuclear establishment has suddenly found all merits in it. The DAE haphazardly tried to fit 40,000 MWe capacity through reactors imported after the deal and deemed it necessary for 25% electricity generation from nuclear energy by 2052. Interestingly, DAE’s own 2004 projections, when Indo-US nuclear deal was not on the agenda, never talked of such energy need and planning. In other words, this grand nuclear-based energy projection is an after-thought concoction to justify the dubious Nuke Deal and not an inherent need of the country based on its sovereign energy planning.

The DAE’s expansion plans are dubious and totally inconsistent with its past record. The future projections of increasing nuclear power production by 100 times depend on critical advances in fast-breeder reactors and thorium technology. Fast-breeder is known to be ‘the technology of future whose time has passed’. All the initial champions of fast-breeder technology – including US, France and Japan – have shunned it, owing primarily to unmanageable costs and problems in handling sodium coolant. On the other hand, the Indian DAE is hugely subsidized and least bothered about public and environmental safety. The tsunami in southern India in 2002 had swept the Prototype Fast-breeder breaking the boundary walls. But apart from heightening the boundary, the DAE didn’t try to re-think its design and viability near the seashore. While it lauds itself on handling the damage caused by tsunami well, the truth is the reactor designs in Kalpakkam – both the MAPS(Madras Atomic Power Station) and FBTR(Fast Breeder Test Reactor) designs – hadn’t foreseen the tsunami hitting the reactors.

The Indian ruling establishment has resorted to every possible method to rehabilitate the declining global nuclear corporates. When the catastrophe in Japan was unfolding, the DAE ex-Chairman Anil Kakodkar was convincing the legislators in Maharashtra assembly about the necessity of the Jaitapur project. The Jaitapur nuclear power park would be much bigger than Fukushima in capacity and is being built on French nuclear giant Areva’s untested EPR reactor design about which 3000 objections have been raised by the European nuclear regulators. Even when the experts have pointed to problems with this environmentally disastrous, economically prohibitive and extremely risky project, the government is unleashing violent repression on the people of Ratnagiri area. While the activists and experts – even ex high court judges, government environmental panels and an ex-Navy Chief – are being labeled as provocateurs and outsiders and prohibited from entering the district, the administration has given externment orders for local activists and implicated dozens of them in false police cases. The only insider for the government seems to be the French company Areva!!!

Nuclear is Just Not the Answer

In a massive and global PR campaign in recent years, the nuclear industry has re-branded itself as being ‘green’ and a solution for climate change. Contrary to this claim, the nuclear reactors have huge carbon footprints – in carbon-intensive processes starting from mining to transportation, construction up to decommissioning.

In a press conference organized by the Citizen’s Nuclear Information Centre in Tokyo last week, Masashi Goto who was an engineer during Fukushima’s construction testified that a tsunami of this scale just wasn’t imagined 40 years ago during the construction. One of the costly lessons from Fukushima is that the nuclear option is least advisable in an unpredictable climate change scenario as it is virtually impossible to take into account all the safety measures required in the future.

Also, it is important to put the energy security question in proper perspective. Nuclear energy is neither safe nor reliable, and it is not a solution for our growing energy needs. Even after the massive expansion, nuclear will contribute only 6-7% of the total electricity and around 2.3% of the total energy consumption. No source can provide guaranteed supply of energy for the unending growth fetish of capitalism. And in capitalist growth, only a limited part of electricity generated goes for actual consumption and the rest is consumed by energy-guzzling sectors such as advertising, military industrial complex, excessive bureaucracy etc. If a post-capitalist world could be won, socialized production could minimize these wastages and ensuing environmental damage substantially without really curbing any of our genuine energy needs. The nuclear energy question calls for an overhaul of the political economy of energy, and therefore needs an urgent intervention from the left ranks.

The Fukushima crisis has led to an upsurge of public opposition to nuclear power worldwide. This would also mean stricter safety norms globally and would render a nuclear renaissance more expensive and politically sensitive. We must ensure the government in our country doesn’t succeed in making this country a dumping ground of this effectively obsolete and dangerous technology.

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Another Dream Unravels

MIKE MARQUSEE

Libya is the third country to suffer aerial attacks at the hands of the Western forces in the last decade. The motivations this time too are hardly altruistic...

A high court in London is hearing a case brought against the British government by four elderly Kenyans, who were tortured, sexually abused and in one case castrated while held in detention during the British repression of the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s. As a result of the case, the Foreign Office has been forced to make public a vast cache of documents that confirm in grisly detail both the systematic nature of the abuse and the complicity of British officials at the highest levels. Torture, mutilation, starvation, forced labour were routine. People were clubbed to death or burned alive. More than 1,000 were hanged, many on the basis of confessions extracted by torture.

The current British government does not deny the facts of the case, but does dispute its “residual liability” and is refusing to apologise or pay compensation.

The case ought to be a sharp reminder of one of the in-built flaws of empire. The rulers are not accountable to, or in many cases even familiar with, the ruled. These atrocities happened because the people who policed the Kenyans were accountable only to their masters in London, whose primary concern was always the protection of British interests, which at that time meant perpetuation of white colonial rule. Even today, the perpetrators – the institutions of the British state – refuse to be held to account by the victims. The court may rectify that, but it will take more than a court decision to force people in the West to confront the realities, past and present, of the imperial mode of rule from afar.

The BBC has been screening the latest TV opus by historian Niall Fergusson, who has made a career out of championing empire. This one is called “Civilisation: the West and the Rest”; it equates the West with science, the work ethic, the market, and individualism while the undifferentiated “rest” are defined by the alleged absence of these things. For Fergusson, Western empires have been and are progressive and benign; he deals with the copious evidence to the contrary by the simple expedient of ignoring it. And he gets away with that because he can safely assume that neither BBC commissioning editors nor the viewing public have the knowledge, skills or motivation to see that in this case the emperor's apologist has no clothes.

Echoes from the past

It's 90 years since the first aerial bombardment of Africa and in light of the current attack on Libya, it's a pity few commentators are aware of that episode. An independent Somali “Dervish State” had resisted British, Italian and Ethiopian invasions for a quarter of a century until the British unleashed the newly formed RAF on its cities and fortresses, quickly bringing the territory under British rule. The strategy of terror from the air was cheap, nearly risk free and effective, and it was immediately adopted in Iraq, where rebel Kurdish towns were pulverised from the air.

Libya is the third non-Western country to suffer aerial assault at the hands of the US, Britain and allies in less than a decade. Like Afghanistan and Iraq, we're told that the motivations here are altruistic, that the West here is acting as the world's indispensable policeman. Defenders of this third intervention insist that it will not end up like the first two, which have manifestly done far more harm than good, killing hundreds of thousands and massively disrupting both societies at every level. For reasons that remain unclear, they believe that this time around Western involvement will be short and decisively on the side of the angels.

Already that dream is unravelling. Having launched an average of 70 aerial attacks a day for several weeks now, the West has taken its own toll of civilian life and infrastructure, and stalemate and partition seem at the moment the most likely outcomes. But whatever happens, the Western military action has ensured that the US, Britain and France will play a decisive role in choosing whatever government eventually replaces Gaddafi's.

It's been widely noted that the US and its allies, so eager to defend democracy in Libya, are staunch sponsors of the regimes in Bahrain and Yemen that are slaughtering democracy activists. That they were at best indifferent to the millions who have perished in the Congo as a result of wars sponsored by mineral-hungry Western corporations. That they never proposed a no fly zone over Gaza when Israel killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, in 2008-09. That their puppet regime in Iraq is at this very moment detaining and torturing citizens simply for demanding basic democratic rights. That they continue their oil lubricated love-in with the most repressive regime in the region, Saudi Arabia.

Clear goals

The inconsistencies and double standards are only surface deep. Underneath, US and British policy is quite consistent — they do whatever is deemed necessary to protect their own interests, which they see as coterminous with the interests of Western corporations. In some places it means supporting tyrants, in some places opposing them, and in some places simply not caring one way or another. But it has never translated into genuine sustained support for democracy and social justice. Because democracy and social justice are more often than not antithetical to their interests.

In the case of Libya, the West has thrown caution aside, and jumped into the fray with even less preparation than Iraq. It seems it was too good an opportunity to pass up. The chance to renew their presence in the region after a series of setbacks, to redeem the discredited doctrine of liberal interventionism, to insert a friendly government in an oil producing nation and to divert the Arab popular movements from a course that was inimical to their entire geo-political strategy.

The US does not keep military bases in more than 130 countries around the world as some kind of global public service. These are the garrisons of an empire. Indirect rule is preferred these days but as students of empires know, there is nothing new in that. It's long been the US mode of dominance in Latin America and of course the British used it in India and elsewhere.

One of the Kenyans detained by the British in the 1950s was Barack Obama's grandfather, who served the British in World War II only to find himself locked up by them when he returned home. Whatever influence this family history has had on the President, it hasn't shifted him from a commitment to the US's global mission and in particular its right to strike militarily wherever it wants. Even as he warned that the US would never tolerate attacks on civilians he was ordering unmanned drones out on their weekly death dealing mission to northern Pakistan, where a former US intelligence officer has said that 50 civilians are killed for every one armed militant.

David Cameron's energetic championing of the Libyan intervention seems curious at first glance. It's not popular among the voters, nor does it really serve as a distraction from the government's headlong destruction of public services. Unlike Thatcher, or Blair, he doesn't seem driven by the vainglory of war. Instead, he and his cabinet colleagues and their top civil servants are simply doing what they think chaps in their position should do. Determining the fates of non-Western peoples, especially in what they regard as British zones of influence, comes with the job. Programmes like Ferguson's confirm their self-image. It's to be hoped that the evidence presented by the Kenyans in the High Court will at least gouge a chink out of that.

Courtesy: The Hindu Magazine

Noam Chomsky: On Libya and the Unfolding Crises

An interview with Noam Chomsky by Stephen Shalom and Michael Albert

1. What are U.S. motives in international relations most broadly? That is, what are the over arching motives and themes one can pretty much always find informing U.S. policy choices, no matter where in the world we are discussing? What are the somewhat more specific but still over arching motives and themes for U.S. policy in Middle East and the Arab world? Finally, what do you think are the more proximate aims of U.S. policy in the current situation in Libya?

A useful way to approach the question is to ask what U.S. motives are NOT. There are some good ways to find out. One is to read the professional literature on international relations: quite commonly, its account of policy is what policy is not, an interesting topic that I won’t pursue.

Another method, quite relevant now, is to listen to political leaders and commentators. Suppose they say that the motive for a military action is humanitarian. In itself, that carries no information: virtually every resort to force is justified in those terms, even by the worst monsters – who may, irrelevantly, even convince themselves of the truth of what they are saying. Hitler, for example, may have believed that he was taking over parts of Czechoslovakia to end ethnic conflict and bring its people the benefits of an advanced civilization, and that he invaded Poland to end the “wild terror” of the Poles. Japanese fascists rampaging in China probably did believe that they were selflessly laboring to create an “earthly paradise” and to protect the suffering population from “Chinese bandits.” Even Obama may have believed what he said in his presidential address on March 28 about the humanitarian motives for the Libyan intervention. Same holds of commentators.

There is, however, a very simple test to determine whether the professions of noble intent can be taken seriously: do the authors call for humanitarian intervention and “responsibility to protect” to defend the victims of their own crimes, or those of their clients? Did Obama, for example, call for a no-fly zone during the murderous and destructive US-backed Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, with no credible pretext? Or did he, rather, boast proudly during his presidential campaign that he had co-sponsored a Senate resolution supporting the invasion and calling for punishment of Iran and Syria for impeding it? End of discussion. In fact, virtually the entire literature of humanitarian intervention and right to protect, written and spoken, disappears under this simple and appropriate test.

In contrast, what motives actually ARE is rarely discussed, and one has to look at the documentary and historical record to unearth them, in the case of any state.

What then are U.S. motives? At a very general level, the evidence seems to me to show that they have not changed much since the high-level planning studies undertaken during World War II. Wartime planners took for granted that the US would emerge from the war in a position of overwhelming dominance, and called for the establishment of a Grand Area in which the US would maintain “unquestioned power,” with “military and economic supremacy,” while ensuring the “limitation of any exercise of sovereignty” by states that might interfere with its global designs. The Grand Area was to include the Western hemisphere, the Far East, the British empire (which included the Middle East energy reserves), and as much of Eurasia as possible, at least its industrial and commercial center in Western Europe. It is quite clear from the documentary record that “President Roosevelt was aiming at United States hegemony in the postwar world,” to quote the accurate assessment of the (justly) respected British diplomatic historian Geoffrey Warner. And more significant, the careful wartime plans were soon implemented, as we read in declassified documents of the following years, and observe in practice. Circumstances of course have changed, and tactics adjusted accordingly, but basic principles are quite stable, to the present.

With regard to the Middle East – the “most strategically important region of the world,” in Eisenhower’s phrase -- the primary concern has been, and remains, its incomparable energy reserves. Control of these would yield “substantial control of the world,” as observed early on by the influential liberal adviser A.A. Berle. These concerns are rarely far in the background in affairs concerning this region.

In Iraq, for example, as the dimensions of the US defeat could no longer be concealed, pretty rhetoric was displaced by honest announcement of policy goals. In November 2007 the White House issued a Declaration of Principles insisting that Iraq must grant US military forces indefinite access and must privilege American investors. Two months later the president informed Congress that he would ignore legislation that might limit the permanent stationing of US Armed Forces in Iraq or “United States control of the oil resources of Iraq” – demands that the US had to abandon shortly after in the face of Iraqi resistance, just as it had to abandon earlier goals.

While control over oil is not the sole factor in Middle East policy, it provides fairly good guidelines, right now as well. In an oil-rich country, a reliable dictator is granted virtual free rein. In recent weeks, for example, there was no reaction when the Saudi dictatorship used massive force to prevent any sign of protest. Same in Kuwait, when small demonstrations were instantly crushed. And in Bahrain, when Saudi-led forces intervened to protect the minority Sunni monarch from calls for reform on the part of the repressed Shiite population. Government forces not only smashed the tent city in Pearl Square – Bahrain’s Tahrir Square -- but even demolished the Pearl statue that was Bahrain’s symbol, and had been appropriated by the protestors. Bahrain is a particularly sensitive case because it hosts the US Fifth fleet, by far the most powerful military force in the region, and because eastern Saudi Arabia, right across the causeway, is also largely Shiite, and has most of the Kingdom’s oil reserves. By a curious accident of geography and history, the world’s largest hydrocarbon concentrations surround the northern Persian Gulf, in mostly Shiite regions. The possibility of a tacit Shiite alliance has been a nightmare for planners for a long time.

In states lacking major hydrocarbon reserves, tactics vary, typically keeping to a standard game plan when a favored dictator is in trouble: support him as long as possible, and when that cannot be done, issue ringing declarations of love of democracy and human rights -- and then try to salvage as much of the regime as possible.

The scenario is boringly familiar: Marcos, Duvalier, Chun, Ceasescu, Mobutu, Suharto, and many others. And today, Tunisia and Egypt. Syria is a tough nut to crack and there is no clear alternative to the dictatorship that would support U.S. goals. Yemen is a morass where direct intervention would probably create even greater problems for Washington. So there state violence elicits only pious declarations.

Libya is a different case. Libya is rich in oil, and though the US and UK have often given quite remarkable support to its cruel dictator, right to the present, he is not reliable. They would much prefer a more obedient client. Furthermore, the vast territory of Libya is mostly unexplored, and oil specialists believe it may have rich untapped resources, which a more dependable government might open to Western exploitation.

When a non-violent uprising began, Qaddafi crushed it violently, and a rebellion broke out that liberated Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city, and seemed about to move on to Qaddafi’s stronghold in the West. His forces, however, reversed the course of the conflict and were at the gates of Benghazi. A slaughter in Benghazi was likely, and as Obama’s Middle East adviser Dennis Ross pointed out, “everyone would blame us for it.” That would be unacceptable, as would a Qaddafi military victory enhancing his power and independence. The US then joined in UN Security Council resolution 1973 calling for a no-fly zone, to be implemented by France, the UK, and the US, with the US supposed to move to a supporting role.

There was no effort to limit action to instituting a no-fly zone, or even to keep within the broader mandate of resolution 1973.

The triumvirate at once interpreted the resolution as authorizing direct participation on the side of the rebels. A ceasefire was imposed by force on Qaddafi’s forces, but not on the rebels. On the contrary, they were given military support as they advanced to the West, soon securing the major sources of Libya’s oil production, and poised to move on.

The blatant disregard of UN 1973, from the start began to cause some difficulties for the press as it became too glaring to ignore. In the NYT, for example, Karim Fahim and David Kirkpatrick (March 29) wondered “how the allies could justify airstrikes on Colonel Qaddafi’s forces around [his tribal center] Surt if, as seems to be the case, they enjoy widespread support in the city and pose no threat to civilians.” Another technical difficulty is that UNSC 1973 “called for an arms embargo that applies to the entire territory of Libya, which means that any outside supply of arms to the opposition would have to be covert” (but otherwise unproblematic).

Some argue that oil cannot be a motive because Western companies were granted access to the prize under Qaddafi. That misconstrues US concerns. The same could have been said about Iraq under Saddam, or Iran and Cuba for many years, still today. What Washington seeks is what Bush announced: control, or at least dependable clients. US and British internal documents stress that “the virus of nationalism” is their greatest fear, not just in the Middle East but everywhere. Nationalist regimes might conduct illegitimate exercises of sovereignty, violating Grand Area principles. And they might seek to direct resources to popular needs, as Nasser sometimes threatened.

It is worth noting that the three traditional imperial powers – France, UK, US – are almost isolated in carrying out these operations. The two major states in the region, Turkey and Egypt, could probably have imposed a no-fly zone but are at most offering tepid support to the triumvirate military campaign. The Gulf dictatorships would be happy to see the erratic Libyan dictator disappear, but although loaded with advanced military hardware (poured in by the US and UK to recycle petrodollars and ensure obedience), they are willing to offer no more than token participation (by Qatar).

While supporting UNSC 1973, Africa -- apart from US ally Rwanda -- is generally opposed to the way it was instantly interpreted by the triumvirate, in some cases strongly so. For review of policies of individual states, see Charles Onyango-Obbo in the Kenyan journal East African (http://allafrica.com/stories/201103280142.html).

Beyond the region there is little support. Like Russia and China, Brazil abstained from UNSC 1973, calling instead for a full cease-fire and dialogue. India too abstained from the UN resolution on grounds that the proposed measures were likely to "exacerbate an already difficult situation for the people of Libya,” and also called for political measures rather than use of force. Even Germany abstained from the resolution.

Italy too was reluctant, in part presumably because it is highly dependent on its oil contracts with Qaddafi – and we may recall that the first post-World War I genocide was conducted by Italy, in Eastern Libya, now liberated, and perhaps retaining some memories.

2. Can an anti-interventionist who believes in self determination of nations and people ever legitimately support an intervention, either by the U.N. or particular countries?

There are two cases to consider: (1) UN intervention and (2) intervention without UN authorization. Unless we believe that states are sacrosanct in the form that has been established in the modern world (typically by extreme violence), with rights that override all other imaginable considerations, then the answer is the same in both cases: Yes, in principle at least. I see no point in discussing that belief, so will dismiss it.

With regard to the first case, the Charter and subsequent resolutions grant the Security Council considerable latitude for intervention, and it has been undertaken, with regard to South Africa, for example. That of course does not entail that every Security Council decision should be approved by “an anti-interventionist who believes in self-determination”; other considerations enter in individual cases, but again, unless contemporary states are assigned the status of virtually holy entities, the principle is the same.

As for the second case – the one that arises with regard to the triumvirate interpretation of UN 1973, and many other examples – then the answer is again Yes, in principle at least, unless we take the global state system to be sacrosanct in the form established in the UN Charter and other treaties.

There is, of course, always a very heavy burden of proof that must be met to justify forceful intervention, or any use of force. The burden is particularly high in case (2), in violation of the Charter, at least for states that profess to be law-abiding. We should bear in mind, however, that the global hegemon rejects that stance, and is self-exempted from the UN and OAS Charters, and other international treaties. In accepting ICJ jurisdiction when the Court was established (under US initiative) in 1946, Washington excluded itself from charges of violation of international treaties, and later ratified the Genocide Convention with similar reservations – all positions that have been upheld by international tribunals, since their procedures require acceptance of jurisdiction. More generally, US practice is to add crucial reservations to the international treaties it ratifies, effectively exempting itself.

Can the burden of proof be met? There is little point in abstract discussion, but there are some real cases that might qualify. In the post-World War II period, there are two cases of resort to force which – though not qualifying as humanitarian intervention – might legitimately be supported: India’s invasion of East Pakistan in 1971, and Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in December 1978, in both cases, ending massive atrocities. These examples, however, do not enter the Western canon of “humanitarian intervention” because they suffer from the fallacy of wrong agency: they were not carried out by the West. What is more, the US bitterly opposed them and severely punished the miscreants who ended the slaughters in today’s Bangladesh and who drove Pol Pot out of Cambodia just as his atrocities were peaking. Vietnam was not only bitterly condemned but also punished by a US-supported Chinese invasion, and by US-UK military and diplomatic support for the Khmer Rouge attacking Cambodia from Thai bases.

While the burden of proof might be met in these cases, it is not easy to think of others. In the case of intervention by the triumvirate of imperial powers that are currently violating UN 1973 in Libya, the burden is particularly heavy, given their horrifying records. Nonetheless, it would be too strong to hold that it can never be satisfied in principle – unless, of course, we regard nation-states in their current form as essentially holy. Preventing a likely massacre in Benghazi is no small matter, whatever one thinks of the motives.

3. Can a person concerned that a country's dissidents not be massacred so they remain able to seek self determination ever legitimately oppose an intervention that is intended, whatever else it intends, to avert such a massacre?

Even accepting, for the sake of argument, that the intent is genuine, meeting the simple criterion I mentioned at the outset, I don’t see how to answer at this level of abstraction: it depends on circumstances. Intervention might be opposed, for example, if it is likely to lead to a much worse massacre. Suppose, for example, that US leaders genuinely and honestly intended to avert a slaughter in Hungary in 1956 by bombing Moscow. Or that the Kremlin genuinely and honestly intended to avert a slaughter in El Salvador in the 1980s by bombing the US. Given the predictable consequences, we would all agree that those (inconceivable) actions could be legitimately opposed.

4. Many people see an analogy between the Kosovo intervention of 1999 and the current intervention in Libya. Can you explain both the significant similarities, first, and then the major differences, second?

Many people do indeed see such an analogy, a tribute to the incredible power of the Western propaganda systems. The background for the Kosovo intervention happens to be unusually well documented. That includes two detailed State Department compilations, extensive reports from the ground by Kosovo Verification Mission (western) monitors, rich sources from NATO and the UN, a British Parliamentary Inquiry, and much else. The reports and studies coincide very closely on the facts.

In brief, there had been no substantial change on the ground in the months prior to the bombing. Atrocities were committed both by Serbian forces and by the KLA guerrillas mostly attacking from neighboring Albania – primarily the latter during the relevant period, at least according to high British authorities (Britain was the most hawkish member of the alliance). The major atrocities in Kosovo were not the cause of the NATO bombing of Serbia, but rather its consequence, and a fully anticipated consequence. NATO commander General Wesley Clark had informed the White House weeks before the bombing that it would elicit a brutal response by Serbian forces on the ground, and as the bombing began, told the press that such a response was “predictable.”

The first UN-registered refugees outside Kosovo were well after the bombing began. The indictment of Milosevic during the bombing, based largely on US-UK intelligence, confined itself to crimes after the bombing, with one exception, which we know could not be taken seriously by US-UK leaders, who at the same moment were actively supporting even worse crimes. Furthermore, there was good reason to believe that a diplomatic solution might have been in reach: in fact, the UN resolution imposed after 78 days of bombing was pretty much a compromise between the Serbian and NATO position as it began.

All of this, including these impeccable western sources, is reviewed in some detail in my book A New Generation Draws the Line. Corroborating information has appeared since. Thus Diana Johnstone reports a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on October 26, 2007 by Dietmar Hartwig, who had been head of the European mission in Kosovo before it was withdrawn on March 20 as the bombing was announced, and was in a very good position to know what was happening. He wrote:

“Not a single report submitted in the period from late November 1998 up to the evacuation on the eve of the war mentioned that Serbs had committed any major or systematic crimes against Albanians, nor there was a single case referring to genocide or genocide-like incidents or crimes. Quite the opposite, in my reports I have repeatedly informed that, considering the increasingly more frequent KLA attacks against the Serbian executive, their law enforcement demonstrated remarkable restraint and discipline. The clear and often cited goal of the Serbian administration was to observe the Milosevic-Holbrooke Agreement [of October 1998] to the letter so not to provide any excuse to the international community to intervene. … There were huge ‘discrepancies in perception’ between what the missions in Kosovo have been reporting to their respective governments and capitals, and what the latter thereafter released to the media and the public. This discrepancy can only be viewed as input to long-term preparation for war against Yugoslavia. Until the time I left Kosovo, there never happened what the media and, with no less intensity the politicians, were relentlessly claiming. Accordingly, until 20 March 1999 there was no reason for military intervention, which renders illegitimate measures undertaken thereafter by the international community. The collective behavior of EU Member States prior to, and after the war broke out, gives rise to serious concerns, because the truth was killed, and the EU lost reliability.”

History is not quantum physics, and there is always ample room for doubt. But it is rare for conclusions to be so firmly backed as they are in this case. Very revealingly, it is all totally irrelevant. The prevailing doctrine is that NATO intervened to stop ethnic cleansing – though supporters of the bombing who tolerate at least a nod to the rich factual evidence qualify their support by saying the bombing was necessary to stop potential atrocities: we must therefore act to elicit large-scale atrocities to stop ones that might occur if we do not bomb. And there are even more shocking justifications.

The reasons for this virtual unanimity and passion are fairly clear. The bombing came after a virtual orgy of self-glorification and awe of power that might have impressed Kim il-Sung. I’ve reviewed it elsewhere, and this remarkable moment of intellectual history should not be allowed to remain in the oblivion to which it has been consigned. After this performance, there simply had to be a glorious denouement. The noble Kosovo intervention provided it, and the fiction must be zealously guarded.

Returning to the question, there is an analogy between the self-serving depictions of Kosovo and Libya, both interventions animated by noble intent in the fictionalized version. The unacceptable real world suggests rather different analogies.

5. Similarly, many people see an analogy between the on-going Iraq intervention and the current intervention in Libya. In this case too, can you explain both the similarities, and differences?

I don’t see meaningful analogies here either, except that two of the same states are involved. In the case of Iraq, the goals were those that were finally conceded. In the case of Libya, it is likely that the goal is similar in at least one respect: the hope that a reliable client regime will reliably supported Western goals and provide Western investors with privileged access to Libya’s rich oil wealth – which, as noted, may go well beyond what is currently known.

6. What do you expect, in coming weeks, to see happening in Libya and, in that context, what do you think ought to be the aims of an anti interventionist and anti war movement in the U.S. regarding U.S. policies?

It is of course uncertain, but the likely prospects now (March 29) are either a break-up of Libya into an oil-rich Eastern region heavily dependent on the Western imperial powers and an impoverished West under the control of a brutal tyrant with fading capacity, or a victory by the Western-backed forces. In either case, so the triumvirate presumably hopes, a less troublesome and more dependent regime will be in place. The likely outcome is described fairly accurately, I think by the London-based Arab journal al-Quds al-Arabi (March 28). While recognizing the uncertainty of prediction, it anticipates that the intervention may leave Libya with “two states, a rebel-held oil-rich East and a poverty-stricken, Qadhafi-led West… Given that the oil wells have been secured, we may find ourselves facing a new Libyan oil emirate, sparsely inhabited, protected by the West and very similar to the Gulf's emirate states.” Or the Western-backed rebellion might proceed all the way to eliminate the irritating dictator.

Those concerned for peace, justice, freedom and democracy should try to find ways to lend support and assistance to Libyans who seek to shape their own future, free from constraints imposed by external powers. We can have hopes about the directions they should pursue, but their future should be in their hands.

Source: http://www.zcommunications.org