Arab League Now Distances Itself from the AirstrikesA shameless news report from France tells us, "While Western countries had secured the support of some Arab and African countries to justify their intervention against Muammar Gadhafi, the Arab League chief Amr Moussa today criticized the bombing of the international coalition against Libya, saying they went beyond the establishment of a no-fly zone." It was precisely Amr Moussa who led the charge of the "western countries" to declare "Arab support" for their aggression against Libya using his call for a "no-fly zone." Utmost hypocrisy was used to promote the monarchist forces and their flag of King Idris in the pay of western intelligence agencies saying they are "rebel forces" and that they support a no-fly zone but not foreign interference or invasion. Even now, these western fascist aggressors like Mrs. Clinton, David Cameron of Britain, others such as the Harper Government, as well as the Liberals and Social Democrats and entire official media declare that they are not attacking Libya, "they are protecting civilians." Not a few Liberals and social democrats in this country and abroad have been in denial about the meaning of a no-fly zone, going so far as to hold demonstrations in support of the alleged protection of civilians. This includes not only Canada's official Social Democrats and Liberals but also some people of different Middle Eastern and North African origin all of whom are making Gadhafi the issue not the aggression and aims of the western imperialists. In these times of all out preparations for fascism and world war, when utmost violence is used by the reactionary regimes using American weaponry against the peoples of Bahrain, Yemen and other countries, Hillary Clinton is ratcheting up the war propaganda against Iran. No peoples anywhere can afford to promote abstract notions of some perfect democracy, which simply does not exist, to ignore the fact that the so-called democrats of this world are the tried and true hitlerites preparing for a massive redivision of the world to control sources of raw materials, markets, cheap labour and strategic spheres of influence. To weep about human rights abuses or the rights of women and then support a no-fly zone under the hoax that it is an innocent gesture on the part of the world aggressors is utmost hypocrisy that gives the aggressors the green light. To call some people dictators, while those who are Harvard or Oxford educated are presumably civilized, is utmost eurocentric racist and chauvinist arrogance, which should be rejected with the utter contempt it deserves. Since the 19th century, the British have been carrying out crimes against the peoples of the world making claims that in Europe we have civilization while "in the orient" we have "oriental despotism." Soon, the entire world will witness the debauchery of another so-called royal wedding where all the jewels of India stolen during the British Raj will be on display on the heads and necks of "the Royals." According to the massive disinformation that prevails today, the Royals are "good" because, as "constitutional monarchs," they represent stability while allegedly holding no power! That must be why they are spending so much of their so-called personal wealth to parade their superiority on TV screens of the world while their toadies such as Amr Moussa disgrace themselves and their nations with their pretences about being members of the "civilized community of nations" against "oriental despotism." Those who have been holding demonstrations claiming they support democracy in Libya want to close their eyes to the facts of the carnage as a result of the "no-fly" zones over Iraq and from the bombing of Yugoslavia. It will not do. According to a French news report, "Yesterday at the international summit before the first bombings, the Arab League had voted in favour of a no-fly zone. But according to Amr Moussa, 'what happened in Libya is different from the purpose which is to impose a no-fly zone.'" What happened to change his mind? Surely not the results of his no-fly zone, which were totally predictable, except this time, the fascist repetition that it is for purposes of protecting civilians is even more criminal than in the past. Perhaps he was not guaranteed the presidency of Egypt or wined and dined enough by the likes of Hillary Clinton and Nicolas Sarkozy who never show anything but contempt for their puppets when it no longer suits them. The French news source now says, "Meanwhile, more and more voices denounce the International strikes and warn against an escalation of violence." * Sandra L. Smith is the First
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada
(Marxist-Leninist).
No to the Use of Force to Settle Conflicts Between and Within Nations and Peoples!
The parties in the House of Commons are said to be eager to hold the next session of Parliament so as to support the UN Security Council resolution. Shame on them! Meanwhile, Stephen Harper claims to act in the name of democracy. What is this democracy and how can such institutions be called democratic while supporting war and aggression in the service of the big powers, led by the U.S?. No to these institutions which are democratic in name only and which serve to legitimize war and aggression against a sovereign people! We have the experience of the war on Iraq which was justified on the basis of lies about weapons of mass destruction. We have the experience of manipulation by the media to disinform and demonize Saddam Hussein to create public opinion in favour of aggression. Today, the media are demonizing the Gadhafi regime to again justify the unjustifiable. According to the media, there are "good dictators" and there are "bad dictators." There are "good democracies" like Canada, the U.S. and France -- the so-called "civilized" countries which sell weapons of war and defy international law. There are democracies which are going in the right direction and other countries headed for pariah status -- extremist regimes which the big powers declare they have the "right to overthrow" and to apply their doctrine of the "responsibility to protect." It is a policy of double standards accompanied by the sound of airstrikes. The PMLQ calls on the people of Quebec -- the workers, women and youth -- to firmly oppose the imperialist aggression against Libya and to defend the sovereignty of the Libyan people against foreign interference, threats and diktats. They must take the initiative to intensify the work of the anti-war movement to oppose Canada's participation in these murderous activities against the Libyan people. March 19, 2011 marked the 8th anniversary of the
invasion of Iraq, a war of aggression that was firmly opposed by
Quebeckers in their hundreds of thousands, followed by the occupation
of Afghanistan, both of which continue to the present. Today, this
international gangsterism must again be opposed. No to aggression against Libya! No to the intervention by the big powers and Canada's participation in these crimes, carried out in the name of "democracy," "the responsibility to protect" and "humanitarian assistance" and all other justifications. Fight for an anti-war government in Quebec and Canada! (Translated from French original by TML Daily) Unholy Alliance of Liberals and FascistsFascists and liberals come together in imperialist war against Libya Canadians should do some soul searching. Why do their good feelings for the people of the world usually become twisted into support for imperialist war? Canadians are very nice people generally. However, being nice does not necessarily translate into being just or support for a just resolution of problems. A nice person can be twisted through propaganda to support unjust causes. Nice people have to develop some backbone and begin to think for themselves and reject being manipulated by the mass media and ruling elite. Nice people often consider themselves liberal in their outlook, in the sense of mainstream, progressive, modern. Problems of being progressive on the basis of being nice and liberal begin with not thinking for oneself, not upholding principles and bending with the prevailing consensus under the influence of pragmatism. The ruling elite who alternatively present themselves as liberal or fascist are very skilled at moulding the two together in a single consensus in favour of their interests. This has been the case throughout the two hundred year period of the capitalist system, which at the beginning of the twentieth century became consolidated in the militarized imperialist state. This phenomenon of consensus between liberals and fascists presents itself as imperialist one nation politics. Within those politics the liberal and fascist is interchangeable, with one denouncing the other at one point in time yet under given conditions uniting and even changing places. Pierre Trudeau was a prominent example of imperialist one nation politics transforming the liberal into fascist and then back again according to conditions. He was considered the consummate liberal and ardent propagandist for one liberal Canada. This accomplished liberal who even travelled to China and Cuba when this was forbidden, as Prime Minister in 1970 imposed the war measures act to smash with force of arms and prisons the national rights of the Québec people. He used the military against his own people. Trudeau famously denounced all those who opposed his fascist use of troops and emergency rule as "bleeding heart liberals." The unholy alliance of liberals and fascists sustained the British Empire with a combining of open fascist chauvinism against the "lesser peoples who exist to serve the superior race," and liberal "white man's burden," which contends that colonial peoples are inherently incapable of solving their own problems and moving society forward without imperialist intervention. The unholy alliance of fascists and liberals was the main force of the German Nazi Reich. Without liberal conciliation with the Nazis, the German imperialist state would not have been capable of marching into country after country to "liberate" the oppressed German minorities or those "suffering under Soviet communist oppression." Today the unholy alliance of liberals and fascists variously unites behind the U.S. imperialist state in its campaign for a global empire. The fascists such as former Canadian armed forces commander Rick Hillier openly boast of "killing scumbags and murderers," while the liberals want to "save the women, children and civilians from the scumbags and murderers." They have united in a war of aggression against Afghanistan and now Libya. Tomorrow, where will they extend the war -- to Syria, Iran, Bahrain, Yemen, Venezuela, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Cuba, and on and on to bigger targets China, Brazil, Russia ? Liberalism and fascism are ideologies of the imperialist system and state. They are interchangeable according to conditions. Liberalism uses pragmatism to excuse its conciliation with fascism while fascism uses pragmatism to welcome liberals into imperialist one nation politics. Liberals and fascists contend that the people are incapable of sorting out their own problems and moving their societies forward using their own organizational efforts and thought material. Liberals and fascists want to intervene everywhere to save the people from themselves. The U.S.-led military is the main instrument of intervention to extend the imperialist empire and block the people from solving their own problems and moving their societies forward. Canadian workers, seniors and youth must strenghten their own organizations and media to work out their own views and thinking, disseminate those views and thinking amongst the broad masses, and thereby defend themselves against the unholy alliance of liberals and fascists who want to disempower and enslave them to imperialist one nation politics of war, continued class oppression and political, social and economic problems that are never resolved in favour of the people. Workers, seniors and youth can find an alternative for Canada and a new direction for the economy that serve public right, restrict the rich and their monopolies and prepare conditions to move society forward decisively. To accomplish this call of history, the block to progress, the block to empowerment and the block to solving problems imposed by the unholy alliance of liberals and fascists must be smashed to smithereens. Harper and Other Warmongers Are Not Fit to Rule!
This resolution is not only in contempt of the UN Charter itself, but is a Crime against Peace, defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1946 as the "supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." It is noteworthy that this was the first charge laid against the Nazis in the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, for being the aggressors who triggered the Second World War. In a world where rule of law prevailed, and not the savage and jungle law of U.S. imperialist dictate, Prime Minister Harper and all the war-mongers his governments would be charged with war crimes, as would Michael Ignatieff of the Liberals and Jack Layton of the NDP for supporting the imposition of a "no-fly zone" in Libya, and therefore sanctioning aggression and war against the Libyan people. The same would go for the likes of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other U.S. warmongers as well as Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain who put forward the Nazi logic that it is Colonel Gadhafi who must be held accountable for the aggression and war that is being waged by the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Italy and others against Libya! Without any shame Stephen Harper invokes the "duty to protect" to justify unleashing war against Libya, while in the same breath says a loss of civilian life is unavoidable collateral damage. Harper and his ilk speak about the Libyan people in the most racist terms as if they have no history or culture and that they need some saviour to come along and help them from themselves. Harper should be condemned by all peace and justice-loving Canadians for openly calling for "regime change" in Libya, which has nothing to do with "protecting Libyans" and every thing to do with the colonial occupation of Libya and enslaving the people there under Anglo-American dictate. There needs to be "regime change" -- here in Canada! Canada needs an anti-war government! Not
in
our
name!
Canadians vigorously oppose the use of force to settle conflicts between nations and within nations and demand that Canada be a factor for peace internationally, not for aggression, war and occupation of sovereign nations. The will of Canadians to be a peace-loving people -- to forge relations based on peace with all nations and peoples and have relations based on non-interference in the internal affairs of others -- cannot find expression in the current political arrangements and, more glaringly, in the parliament itself. This underscores the need for the working class and its allies to lead the anti-war movement and organize for an anti-war government which upholds an international rule of law where crimes against the peace are not made legal by a UN Security Council which has used its dominant position to abandon the UN Charter. As Prime Minister Harper along with the parties of the Opposition hitch Canada more openly and brazenly to the U.S. war machine that is wreaking death and destruction in Libya and around the world, Canadians are duty-bound to act in defence of peace.
Why Russia Didn't VetoWhy did Russia abstain when UN Security Council Resolution 1973 came to a vote ? Given Moscow's traditionally strong stance in favor of national sovereignty and territorial integrity, especially given the troubles Russia has faced in the North Caucasus, why did the Kremlin give the West the permission slip it has denied before (over Kosovo, Zimbabwe and Burma, among others) ? It is important to recall that "Russia does not have a singular foreign policy, but multiple foreign policies" Drawing an example from Russian history, to the 17th century proliferation of overlapping and competing government offices called prikazy, it is useful to think of Russian policy today resulting less from the autocratic will of the president (or the prime minister), and to consider instead a "prikaz model"--with policy emerging from the balancing of rival and competing interest groups. Permitting the Libya resolution to pass through the UN Security Council, without a Russian veto, fit the interests of a number of different groups within the Russian foreign policy establishment. Certainly, for those partisans of the "reset" with the Obama administration, beginning with president Dmitry Medvedev, it was a low-cost way of showing Washington the benefits of continued cooperation with Russia--that the "reset" has not run out of gas following last year's passage of an Iran sanctions resolution and the ratification of the New START treaty. More importantly, however, permitting the resolution to pass was a favor done for French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who has, over the last several years, been developing a Franco-Russian partnership along the lines of the long-standing German-Russian partnership. But while letting the resolution through appealed to the modernizing faction (the "pragmatic Westernizers") in the Kremlin, there were also tangible benefits for other groups as well, starting with the defense community. France's championing of the Libya mission is part of Paris's longer-term goal of revamping the focus of the NATO alliance, away from the east and towards the south, with the Mediterranean basin, not the Eurasian plains, the primary focus of the security organization. Even if Muammar Gaddafi goes quickly, the task of restoring stability in that country, as well as throughout North Africa, will take a great deal of time and engagement. Georgia, in that event, becomes far more distant and peripheral to the alliance. And deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who oversees the energy industry, must also be smiling. Instability in Libya reinforces the importance of Russia as a stable, reliable provider of energy to Europe. And instead of seeing the Russian government as the enemy, international oil companies, starting with BP and Exxon Mobil, are anxious to work with the Kremlin to access and develop more of Russia's hydrocarbon bounties--a trend that is likely to accelerate both in the wake of events in Libya and Japan's ongoing nuclear crisis. And if events in Libya should go badly, and draw the Western powers into another nation-building enterprise in the greater Middle East, all the better. To the extent that the United States focuses more time and energy in this part of the world, there is far less incentive to play a more active role in the Eurasian space--this is one of the lessons that the Russians have drawn from the Iraq War. Perhaps Gaddafi was expecting the Russians to extend the protection of their UN veto for old times sake. But the Colonel has spent the last number of years improving his relations with the West. Drawing the ire of the United States and France by blocking the UN resolution--especially since, given the 1999 Kosovo precedent of using a regional organization to authorize action was already in play, with the request made by the Arab League--would not have prevented action from taking place--and allowing the West to act could end up being very beneficial for Russian interests. Russian foreign policy may be "schizophrenic"--to cite the complaint of U.S. Secretary of Defense Bob Gates last year--but when the interests of the different Kremlin groups align, action happens. We saw that in New York yesterday.
African Union Demands Immediate Stop
|
The PMLQ vigorously
denounces the
Government of Canada and the big powers, the U.S., France, Britain and
others, which launched an all out attack against Libya and its
sovereignty. The bombing of the population, accompanied by the shameful
declarations of the international coalition gathered in France
to "refine strategy" on the basis of "the necessity of military
intervention," are the acts of gangsters. Quite simply, this is
slaughter. These are cowardly, barbaric and totally inhumane acts
causing civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure,
including roads, airports and hospitals. This first military attack,
known as "Operation Odyssey Dawn," has nothing to do with protecting
civilians but everything to do with U.S. aims to seize control of
political power in Libya and the country’s resources.
The PMLQ also vehemently
denounces the monopoly media who are fighting amongst themselves to be
the first to quote Harper, Obama, Sarkozy, etc. They bombard public
opinion with the justifications, lies and disinformation of the
warmongers. It is the Nazi method of repeating a lie ad
infinitum until it is taken to be the truth.
Against the interests of
the
Canadian
people, the Harper Government has dragged Canada into an extremely
unjust and dangerous war in Libya on March 19. Canada has joined the
U.S., France, Italy and Britain and others forces of the Anglo-American
imperialist camp such as Denmark, Italy and Spain in so-called
"Operation
Odyssey Dawn" two days after UN Security Council Resolution 1973 was
passed calling for the imposition of a "no-fly zone over Libya" and to
"take all necessary
measures" "to protect civilians and civilian populated areas" -- which
provided the fig-leaf for the U.S.-led naked war and aggression against
Libya and the Libyan people two days later. Demonstration against the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the capital Sana'a, March 18, 2011. |
Police have stormed a protest camp in southern Yemen where thousands are calling for the ouster of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The March 19 raid was the latest attempt by security forces to quell growing unrest.
Protesters say police fired tear gas and live rounds in the southern port city of Aden, wounding three anti-government unarmed protesters.
Saleh declared on Friday a nationwide state of emergency and a curfew is set upon armed people in all Yemeni provinces, after a violent crackdown on anti-government protests left at least 52 people dead and scores more wounded in the capital, Sana'a.
He said that the decision to impose the martial law was made by the country's National Security Council, but there was no immediate indication of how long it would last.
Yemeni security forces opened fire in attempts to prevent protesters from marching out of the square where they were gathered. Medical sources said the death toll was likely to rise.
Media correspondents in Sana'a reported that many protesters were shot in the head and neck; most of the injured were shot with live ammunition.
Medics at a nearby medical center said hundreds were injured; many in critical condition. One medic called the attack a "massacre."
Anti-government demonstrations were also held in other cities including Taiz, Ibb, Hodeidah, Aden, and Amran following Muslim midday prayers on Friday.
Government forces have previously used live fire, rubber bullets, and tear gas on anti-regime rallies, in the government's increasingly violent crackdown on protests.
Yemen, the Arabian peninsula state neighboring Saudi Arabia, has been hit by weeks of protests set in motion by uprisings in North Africa that toppled long-serving leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and spread to the Gulf states of Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
U.S. President Obama condemned the violence, and called for all sides to enter into "an open and transparent process that addresses the legitimate concerns of the Yemeni people."
However, Yassin Said Noman, the president of Yemen's coalition of opposition parties, said that Friday's violence made negotiation impossible.
At a hospital close to Sana'a University, where protests have been taking place, dozens were gathered outside the gate as casualties were rushed in.
"Before we used to treat people for gas," said Amir Mabrouk, a doctor who spoke above the groan of a stricken patient in the triage room. "Now there are gunshot wounds to the chest, neck and head."
Abdulghani al-Iriyani, an analyst, suggested the regime might have planned Friday's violence in order to thwart an initiative by Gulf countries to broker negotiations between the opposition and the government for a transfer of power. "They are not happy with mediation, that's the only explanation", Mr Iriyani said.
Despite violence and threats, anti-government protesters refuse to cease demonstrating until Saleh's removal.
Posted Sunday, March 20, 2011 • Return to Index • Email: editor@cpcml.ca