Iran

Afghanistan: US Empire Shadow Boxing with ISIS-K

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ISIS-K

Above: A photo from a video supposedly released by ISIS-K to demonstrate their power. http://www.sofrep.com

01-09-2021: So the corporate media narrative on Afghanistan now runs something like this: 20 years after invading, US forces were kicked out of the country by the Taliban and bungled a hasty withdrawal from the country. Afghans who worked with the US during their occupation scrambled to airports, some of whom were dragged along by a cargo plane as it tried to take off, reminiscent of scenes of the Americans fleeing Saigon in 1975. The Biden Administration is abandoning Americans who worked with the military to their own devices, in the face of the advancing Taliban forces. The US backed Afghan government collapsed without a fight, which allowed the Taliban to re-take much of the country without firing a shot. Some Western governments offer the immediate assistance of accepting tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. From out of nowhere, an ISIS split off (ISIS-K) re-emerges to again target remaining US forces as well as the incoming Taliban.   

A Clayton’s withdrawal

Does this tale bear any resemblance to reality? Fat chance. Like the Empire’s “Covid is the deadliest plague in world history” bunkum, the Afghanistan “withdrawal” so willfully distorts truth only sections of it align with facts on the ground. This was a Clayton’s withdrawal – the withdrawal you have when you are not having a withdrawal. It is a “withdrawal” in the same way in which the US “withdrew” from Iraq and Syria, i.e., leaving enough residual forces to occupy parts of the country to “fight ISIS” – and thereby still largely destabilising entire regions. The US did not “withdraw” and the Taliban did not “win” in the real meaning of those terms.[1] As Kit Knightly points out, the iconic video image of the US Air Force C-17 Globemaster heavy transport plane rolling out of an air strip poses more questions than it answers. Where are the women and children trying to escape? Why are some men jogging alongside and smiling and waving to cameras?[2] Is the US deliberately trying to re-create the scenes of the emergency helicopter evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975?

Arguably, the US is not ending the war on Afghanistan, but privatising it. Up to 18 000 mercenaries will remain, alongside thousands of Special Forces operatives, Pentagon contractors and CIA personnel.[3] Moreover, the Biden Administration is only completing a deal signed between the Trump Administration and the Taliban over 12 months ago,[4] but somewhat modifying it to its advantage. Despite Trump’s other politics, one of the central platforms of his run to the presidency in 2016 was to end the forever regime change wars in the Middle East. The Democrats, as perhaps more loyal servants of imperialism, were aghast at the prospect of no more US “interventions”. To retain the veneer of liberalism though, they procured a feigned withdrawal from Afghanistan which was in reality a mere change of tactics in their geopolitical war against Eurasian integration. The US war on Afghanistan from 2001 was never about 9/11 or the Taliban, but more about establishing a beach head from which to harass, pressure and threaten neighbouring Russia, China and Iran.

Taliban 2.0

From fighting “against” the Taliban, the US has switched to working with the Taliban, or at least the new version of the Taliban. The Taliban have repeatedly stated that they have changed and want to live in peace with other Afghans and other nations. While it is true that the Taliban 2.0 [5] are a different force to that which ruled Afghanistan in the late 90s, they appear to still intend to practice a version of Sharia Law, though with some modifications. Politically, they appear willing to cut deals with US imperialism in return for their control over most parts of the country. This may better suit them and the interests of US imperialism, in that the Taliban returns to government – while the US can still use pockets of the country out of reach of the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks against China, Iran and even Pakistan. As the New Atlas reports, the US never had the intention of setting up an independent or stable government in Afghanistan. If such a government was established, it would have little choice but to sign up for desperately needed infrastructure development through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) provided by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).[6]

The revised Taliban appear to have kept their word that they would not target or kill other Afghani ethnic minorities which they have previously targeted, e.g., Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks. They seem to have given this same assurance to the Islamic Republic of Iran. However, it could be the case that chaos and a new civil war was exactly the intention of the US government in conducting their contrived chaotic draw down. The neighbouring PRC is vastly more powerful than it was 20 years ago when the US invaded. Similarly, the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran is also more capable of defending its interests than it was 20 years ago, despite crippling US sanctions. More destabilising violence and civil conflict is always going to benefit Washington, which seeks to derail the BRI and other countries in the region which are partners to the BRI – such as Iran and Pakistan.

Western governments for “refugee rights” ?

Over the last decade, imperialism itself has learnt how to use and manipulate the genuine concern that progressive minded folk feel for refugees and asylum seekers. Refugee rights activists correctly point out that many flee from Third World countries due to the West’s ongoing wars, or simply to seek better economic conditions for themselves and their families. Generally, workers have supported many protest movements calling for humane treatment of those seeking a safer place to live. However, Western governments have no qualms in exploiting real human empathy for those in less fortunate circumstances, if it can be used to further the aims of imperialist war, regime change or just plain terror. As they did in the case of Syria,[7] imperialism aims to enlist liberal refugee rights activists to fuel their destabilisation of Eurasia. As if on cue, Western governments immediately offered to take in tens of thousands of refugees from Afghanistan. The US offered to take 10 000, the United Kingdom (UK) 20 000, Canada 20 000 and Germany 10 000.[8] The Australian government, notorious for its inhumane treatment of refugees, offered to take 3000 [9], albeit with no overall increase in current caps.

It is preposterous to suggest that these governments were genuinely concerned about the welfare of Afghans who may otherwise have faced beatings or execution by the Taliban. This was done to once again mobilise liberal political sentiment behind the Empire, in the similar way in which liberalism was and is being used to impose lockdown fascism in the West under the guise of a “pandemic”.[10] Look how progressive we are, taking in thousands of refugees fleeing the rule of backward armed tribesmen! The pretence is so phoney that only the lockdown fake left could genuinely fall for it – and there were examples. The Socialist Alliance breathlessly urged the Australian Federal Government to increase its Afghan refugee intake,[11] while Solidarity called on the Morrison Government to evacuate the families of Afghan refugees already detained in Australia.[12] As with their betrayal over “Covid” lockdowns, the lockdown left alibies imperialism by issuing plaintive demands for a more humane application of the Empire’s drive to war against the Eurasia and the Middle East.

ISIS-K: the Delta Variant?

As if it was choreographed, there was a terrorist attack on Kabul airport on August 26, which apparently took the lives of 13 Americans.[13] Immediately, a group calling itself ISIS-K claimed responsibility. Supposedly a split-off from ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), the “K” stands for Khorasan province, which includes parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan. All of a sudden, reports hit the news that ISIS-K is “more brutal than the Taliban”, views the Taliban as sell-outs for signing deals with the US government, and has aims of establishing an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East and Asia.[14] This narrative would be humourous if it wasn’t so tragic. After being effectively defeated in Syria, it beggars belief that Washington would again try to rekindle the ISIS fairytale in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with an ISIS variant that rings ominously of the fake danger they are pumping out about a “Delta” variant of the putative SARS-CoV-2 virus. Yet as working people have discovered since the onset of lockdown hysteria, truth is very often stranger than fiction.

Throughout a ten-year war of regime change, US and EU imperialism and their allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey effectively armed, trained, funded and equipped “ISIS” in order to overthrow the Syrian Arab Republic. As exposed by famed investigative journalist Seymour Hersh[15] and others, the US government effectively created ISIS and sent it into Syria to collapse the state. ISIS, Al Qaeda and numerous jihadists were given licence to commit the most egregious atrocities against civilians, in arguably the worst proxy war in history. The US Congress itself authorised $500 million of tax-payers money in 2014 to train and arm 5000[16] barbaric yahoos in pursuit of this diabolical act.

History now shows that this elaborate and deadly ruse was brought to an end by a combination of resistance from the governments of Syria, Russia and Iran, assisted by Hezbollah. This was a real defeat of US imperialism, perhaps the first one in war since Vietnam in 1975. Arguably it was this defeat which laid the groundwork for the onset of lockdown fascism in 2020. The US Empire and its allies could no longer tolerate being blocked in its drive for corporate capitalist planetary plunder by sections of the non-imperialist bloc. While the PRC did not play an active military role, the combination of being eclipsed by China’s economic power and Russia’s military power (demonstrated by the superior air power of its SU-35 jet fighters backing the resistance) sent the US Empire into a frenzy. Inflicting Covidian terror on its working class at home was one reflex, and now the deliberate re-lighting of the bonfire of ISIS style “Islamic” terrorism across Eurasia is another.

War on Terror redux

We could be once again subjected to a rehash of the war on terror, which the war on Covid only temporarily kept at bay. In response to the Kabul airport bombings, the Pentagon said the threat of ISIS-K is “very real”, and that it had been sharing intelligence on ISIS-K with the Taliban since August the 14th.[17] The line that ISIS-K believe the Taliban are too “liberal”[18] is spun to imply that the Taliban are now the new “moderate rebels” which makes it fine for the West to now collaborate with them. Give us a break. ISIS-K, may in fact contain US or EU special forces themselves, as British SAS troops were exposed as being disguised as ISIS and fighting with them against the Syrian government in 2015.[19] ISIS is entirely a creation of imperialism, which provides funding, weapons, training and equipment. In the same way in which imperialism fought “against” ISIS in Iraq and Syria, Washington and London will now fight “against” ISIS-K in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s mere shadow boxing, but with the same ultimate aim – to bring down Russia, China and Iran at any cost.

So while we will be treated to another round of “here come the terrorists – again”,[20] the terror bogey could be ISIS-K, or it could also be the “domestic terrorists” who suspected some electoral fraud in the US Presidential Election of 2020,[21] or it could be those who suspect another political agenda behind the Covid vaccine rollout,[22] or think something is fishy about being tracked, traced and forbidden from travelling outside their country, state, or neighbourhood. It all just rolls into one really. If the West’s Big Lie Propaganda Machine can convince people that the Delta variant of a doubtful coronavirus is bringing civilisation to its knees, they can be convinced that the ISIS-K variant aims to set up an Islamic state to threaten freedom and democracy worldwide. Its sheer fantasy, but in no way is it any more outlandish than their claims that healthy people breathing out is hazardous to others.

The stakes are high. As the history of the 20th century shows, fascism and war often go hand in hand. Today, a pseudo-medical fascism is well underway, and the nonsensical Covid restrictions imposed on workers worldwide could easily be rolled out to stymie resistance to yet another war against “terrorism” which is funded and armed by the very governments raising the false alarm. Marxists may well be faced with the task of simultaneously building the anti-lockdown movement as well as mobilising workers against yet another imperialist war “against” ISIS, read: against the non-imperialist bloc. The only way to penetrate the fog of war is with clear political leadership of the working class. Given the base betrayal of the lockdown fake left, what is critically urgent is the formation of a vanguard party staunchly defending the central pillars of Leninist-Trotskyism. Linked internationally, such a party would help mobilise workers against war and fascism through the direct establishment of their own organs of state power. The choice would then be clear: capitalism with its lockdowns and wars, or socialism which is determined to wipe fascism and terror from the pages of history.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com


[1] 6 Questions we NEED to ask about Afghanistan – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org) (29.08.2021)

[2] https://twitter.com/kit_knightly/status/1427393502703464449 (29.08.2021)

[3] https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/16/biden-afghanistan-war-privatizing-contractors/ (29.08.2021)

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-sign-historic-deal-taliban-beginning-end-us/story?id=69287465 (29.08.2021)

[5] https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2170159/taliban-2-0-regional-global-impacts  (29.08.2021)

[6] The US Never Intended to Create a Self-Reliant Afghan Government | New Atlas Report (29.08.2021)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2016/11/16/shut-down-nauru-for-an-anti-empire-refugee-rights-movement/ (29.08.2021)

[8] FAQ: Which Countries Are Opening Doors to Afghan Refugees? And Which Aren’t? (thequint.com)  (29.08.2021)

[9] How many Afghan refugees is Australia taking? Are we going to expand our refugee intake? – ABC News (29.08.2021)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2021/08/17/lockdowns-and-the-twilight-of-democracy/ (29.08.2021)

[11] Morrison has an obligation to increase Afghan refugee intake | Green Left (29.08.2021)

[12] US humiliated in Afghanistan as Taliban seizes Kabul – Solidarity Online (29.08.2021)

[13] Two explosions at Kabul airport in ‘terrorist attack’; dozens killed – CNA (channelnewsasia.com) (29.08.2021)

[14] What is ISIS-K, the group that claimed responsibility for the Kabul attack? – CBS News (29.08.2021)

[15] (Seymour M. Hersh \267 The Red Line and the Rat Line \267 LRB 6 April 2014) (thelizlibrary.org) (29.08.2021)

[16] Syria Daily, Sept 19: Congress Approves $500 Million to Train & Arm 5,000 Insurgents – EA WorldView (29.08.2021)

[17] Biden Addresses Deadly Terror Attacks At Kabul Airport: ‘We Will Hunt You Down’ | HuffPost (29.08.2021)

[18] ISIS-K: Taliban Victory Giving Rise To A Deadlier Enemy (freedomwire.com) (29.08.2021)

[19] British SAS Special Forces “Dressed Up as ISIS Rebels” Fighting Assad in Syria – Global ResearchGlobal Research – Centre for Research on Globalization (29.08.2021)

[20] Here Come the Terrorists. Again — Strategic Culture (strategic-culture.org) (29.08.2021)

[21] The FBI says the Capitol riot was ‘terrorism.’ Democrats (and Republicans) should, too. (msnbc.com) (29.08.2021)

[22] https://www.sapiens.org/culture/covid-19-vaccine-protestors/ (29.08.2021)

Myanmar: Western Backed Subversion Aids Regime Change War

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myanmar-unity-march

Above: A march in support of the Tatmadaw and for the unity of Myanmar in Yangon, February 2019. Image from http://www.mmtimes.com

09-04-2021: According to Western corporate media, Myanmar’s military forces (Tatmadaw) are currently engaged in a “massacre” of innocent civilians who are objecting to a coup which cancelled popular elections. The Tatmadaw is apparently engaged in unrestrained and unprovoked violence against genuine citizens who wish to transition further towards “democracy” and become part of the international community, where the democratic and human and civil rights of all of Myanmar’s 54 million[1] people are upheld. The Tatmadaw have allegedly engaged in ethnic cleansing and political repression in the past, and if the Western powers do not intervene to save the people of Myanmar, there will be a slaughter of unprecedented proportions which will forever stain history.

Upside down narrative

The only problem is that virtually none of this narrative contains a grain of truth. It is a storyline which is wilfully falsified and deliberately distorted. It is a portrayal carefully designed to pull at the heartstrings of liberals the world over, which invariably gives imperialism “humanitarian” cover to wage yet another regime change war by any means they see as necessary to address the dwindling fortunes of global capitalism. In fact, Western imperialism – led by the governments of the USA (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) is engaged in yet another proxy war of regime change on Myanmar, modelled on the “success” of NATO’s obliteration of Green Libya in 2011, the Ukronazi[2] coup in Ukraine in 2014, and the failure of the ten year ISIS/Al Qaeda proxy regime change war on Syria.[3]

Unlike the regime change operations in Ukraine and Syria – which were largely aimed at Russia (and Iran), the current fix in Myanmar is aimed squarely at the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Red China’s inexorable rise as a socialist economic power cannot be overcome by the floundering for-profit economies of the US and the European Union (EU), and nor can the US/EU offer anything remotely comparable to that which the PRC can with regard to South East Asia. It is not simply dollars that the US/EU forgoes when Myanmar chooses to deepen its economic partnerships with the giant state backed enterprises operating just across the border in mainland China. It leads to a changing of the political balance of forces in the region, and from a unipolar world to a multipolar one. This is what the US/UK seeks to degrade in Myanmar, and they are prepared to resort to the same internal/external regime change tactics that caused staggering loss of life in Libya and Syria.

UK government attempts to regain its “lost” colony

Until 1988, Myanmar was officially the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma. Since then, it has been renamed the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. British imperialism ruled what was then Burma from 1885 until independence in 1948.[4] During World War II, British imperialism used minority ethnic groups (e.g. Karen, Kachin, Chin) within the then Burma as part of its colonial army, a divide-and-rule tactic against the majority Burman ethnicity. Today, the Karen, Kachin and Chin armed separatist groups are used to politically and militarily destabilise economic and infrastructure co-operation with the PRC[5], to derail the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or New Silk Road) projects. They are also being used as a base for an alternative military to form a para-state with the aim of overthrowing Myanmar altogether.

The UK government is quite open about its formidable backing of Myanmar’s “pro-democracy protestors”. Loudly and openly on the British government’s own website, it states clearly that the “British government is encouraging and supporting Myanmar’s transition”. It lists its own Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), its Department of International Trade (DIT) and its Ministry of Defence (MOD) as “working closely together” with the British Embassy in Yangon to “support transition”.[6]  The aims here are so transparent that they are barely hidden. The UK government is involved up to its neck in a regime change war in Myanmar, whatever the consequences. It is aimed not so much at Myanmar as towards its gigantic neighbour, the PRC. The PRC itself cannot be overthrown by military means, so the UK embarks in not so subtle political subversion in one of its smaller neighbours. Chipping away at a building brick by brick, the UK hopes to bring down the leviathan of the PRC itself – the world’s most powerful deformed workers’ state.

US government funding scores of fronts

Needless to say, the UK government does not attempt to subvert Myanmar on its own. The US government has far more involvement in fostering unrest there, stretching back decades. The notorious National Endowment for Democracy (NED) even lists on its website just some of the “civil society” fronts it funds in Myanmar – but using the British colonial name of Burma. So called activists from the Karen, Shin, Mon, Arakan and Kachin states are listed, alongside claimed journalists, women’s rights centres, think tanks, so-called media empowerment, amongst others.[7] It is farcical to claim that the NED – the public relations arm of the CIA – cares one whit about democratic and civil rights for working people in Myanmar. Rather, Washington and London (backed by Canberra) are creating and funding “opposition” within Myanmar which is reliant on the West itself. This “opposition” can then call for US intervention, which effectively facilitates a stepping stone toward the strategic goal of pressuring the PRC via the presence of US troops (or their proxies) directly on their borders.

The US ruling class is livid at the prospect of the deepening economic, trade and joint infrastructure development co-operation between the PRC and Myanmar. In January 2020, PRC President Xi Jinping became the first high-level PRC official in 20 years to visit Myanmar.[8] At that meeting President Xi and then State Counsellor Aung Sung Suu Kyi released a joint statement committing to an acceleration of the building of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a crucial part of their co-operation on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).[9] Suu Kyi signed on for the obvious economic benefits for Myanmar, including much needed development, rather than any political backing of the PRC.

For decades, the US government – along with billionaire woke anti-socialist George Soros – has been openly funding fronts within Myanmar which masquerade as NGOs. For example, the plan for the development of the Myitsone Dam on the Irrawaddy River in the Northern Kachin State was halted in 2011 due to “protests” allegedly about environmental issues and “disruption” caused by the dam’s construction.[10] In reality, what occurred is that a network of US government backed organisations operated in cahoots with big capital outlets such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundation (OSF)[11], alongside NED funded[12] “media” units in Myanmar such as The New Era Journal, The Irrawaddy and Democratic Voice of Burma. They made a ruckus about invented “human rights abuses” during construction. In reality, what these US fronts objected to was the involvement in the mega-project of several Chinese state-owned enterprises, such as the China Gezhouba Group and the China Power Investment Corporation.[13]

The generation of vast amounts of electric power via the dam, in an underdeveloped region, will obviously benefit the surrounding population and the economy of Myanmar. Yet, these US government funded “activists” would prefer Myanmar remain without development, with less socio-economic advance – lest “China” should mutually benefit from the construction of such projects. The Myitsone Dam construction halt occurred almost ten years before President Xi and Aung Sung Suu Kyi agreed to advance the China-Myanmar economic corridor. It is absurd to go on to claim that today, some of the very same people and organisations in Myanmar with a history of blocking economic development projects are “peaceful pro-democracy protestors” or are “grassroots” organisations. The US state department does not fund “grassroots” organisations and armed separatist militias for no reason.

Parallel government part 2

As in the regime change wars on Libya and Syria, a parallel government has now declared itself in Myanmar. The “Committee Representing the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw” (CRPH), said to be composed of ousted National League for Democracy (NLD) members, is apparently operating in secret, and is appealing to foreign nations for recognition.[14] This is a transparent call for imperialism – to which they are inextricably linked – to intervene. These US/UK funded fronts, from the NLD to each of the armed ethnic separatist militias, are well aware that they do not have a hope of displacing the military of Myanmar without the largest and most powerful Western states behind them. The US/UK funded political and civil organisations had effectively already formed a parallel government within Myanmar, to such an extent that it had become easy for them to manipulate elections to ensure “victory” for the NLD.[15] Now, the CRPH is a second phase of a long-term plan to destroy Myanmar’s sovereignty.

Belatedly, the Tatmadaw has recently taken some measures against the virtual army of imperialist backed fronts posing as NGOs, which had been operating within Myanmar with impunity. In late March, the Tatmadaw seized the bank accounts of George Soros’ OSF, accusing it of violating multiple financial restrictions for such organisations, and of providing financial assistance to the “civil disobedience” movement. It also accused Aung Sung Suu Kyi of personally meeting with Soros.[16] The strategy of Western finance capital is clear – fund and help organise political subversion, give political cover to ethnic armed separatist militia, foster a pro-Western “civil disobedience” movement which links with them, and then declare a parallel government which then calls for intervention,[17] i.e. invasion, by the strongest Western powers. We should not need a reminder that this scenario could well be a replay of the catastrophic US led war on Syria, where for 10 years the Syrian government had no option but to militarily respond to heavily armed and barbaric mercenaries bent on destroying the country at the behest of their imperialist benefactors. The spillover into South East Asia in such an outcome would cause chaos for the PRC – precisely the aim of Washington and London in their dirty war on Beijing.

Workers must resist Covid enhanced imperialism

If anything, the US/UK proxy regime change war on Myanmar is yet another example that playing along with the Covid-19 fear pandemic nonsense is no guarantee that by doing so, imperialism will regard you as a partner, and will not move to obliterate your nation. Both the Tatmadaw and the internally subversive NLD adopted and practiced the illogical Corona rigmarole, to no avail. To that end, the governments of Russia, the People’s Republic of China, Iran, the DPRK, Cuba and Venezuela also danced to the tune of Covid fraud, and yet the danger of imperialist overthrow against them all is arguably more acute than ever. Imperialism will never regard you as an equal if you demonstrate one iota of independence from Washington. In Myanmar, it is ultimately the Tatmadaw which stands in the way between the last legs of its sovereignty and total control by Wall Street and the City of London. That, and its co-operation with the PRC, means that it is now Washington’s current cartoon villain.

A war on Myanmar would be catastrophic, and would likely spill over into Thailand, and possibly even the PRC. Workers must resist and push back US/UK led imperialism while defending Myanmar and, by extension, the bureaucratically deformed Chinese workers’ state. To be sure, if the Communist Party of China (CPC) operated through genuine Marxism, they would lead a campaign to appeal to the workers of Myanmar to rise against the ethnic armed separatists and US/UK funded faux “human rights” and “civil society” proxies, while linking up with the workers of China, South East Asia and internationally on a class basis. Alas, the political basis of the CPC is the twin Stalinist/Maoist (i.e., anti-Marxist) axioms of “socialism in one country” and “peaceful coexistence”, which means it does not even blink if it needs to lean on the workers of China and Asia to fortify imperialism itself.

As far away as it seems now, what is required in South East Asia are the forging of Marxist vanguard parties anchored with the theory of Permanent Revolution. Such organs would seek to prepare workers for socialist revolutions in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia which would link with proletarian political revolutions in Laos, Vietnam, China and the DPRK. In the meantime, workers in Myanmar should form a temporary bloc with the Tatmadaw against US/UK imperialism and their domestic proxies, i.e., armed ethnic separatists and those in Myanmar bought off by the Western funded and fake “civil society” organisations. These miscreants have no qualms about using dishonesty, deception, and even violence to achieve their aims. Workers internationally should act in solidarity with all attempts to drive the foreign funded saboteurs out of Myanmar and Thailand, to help re-establish their independence. Genuine self-determination only arrives, however, with the bringing to power of the proletariat, as part of the international triumph of socialism. US/UK: HANDS OFF MYANMAR!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/myanmar-population/ (05-04-2021)

[2] https://www.europereloaded.com/ukraine-update-crooks-clowns-nazis/ (05-04-2021)

[3] https://redfireonline.com/2021/02/04/syria-biden-reignites-obamas-war/ (05-04-2021)

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar (05-04-2021)

[5] https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2018/07/militants-threaten-chinas-obor.html (05-04-2021)

[6] Myanmar (Burma) and the UK – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) (05-04-2021)

[7] BURMA 2020 – NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (ned.org) (05-04-2021)

[8] Chinese President Xi Jinping Visits Myanmar | New Eastern Outlook (journal-neo.org) (05-04-2021)

[9] China, Myanmar agree to jointly build community with shared future – CGTN (05-04-2021)

[10] Land Destroyer: The Fruits of Globalization: Regression, Destitution, Domination (06-04-2021)

[11] Partners & Allies | International Rivers (06-04-2021)

[12] Microsoft Word – DFIDReview.doc (burmacampaign.org.uk) (06-04-2021)

[13] https://www.banktrack.org/project/myitsone_hydroelectric_dam/pdf (06-04-2021)

[14] https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-03-23/inside-the-spring-revolution-opposing-myanmars-military-coup (06-04-2021)

[15] Arab Spring Redux: Is Myanmar the Next Libya? – 21st Century Wire (06-04-2021)

[16] Soros’ Open Society Staff Arrested & Bank Accounts Seized in Myanmar | Covert Geopolitics (06-04-2021)

[17] https://aseandigest.net/2021/04/02/myanmar-as-an-r2p-situation/ (06-04-2021)

Strike for Freedom!

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Statement of the Workers League

20-03-2021: As worldwide rallies for freedom take place on March 20, most of Western Europe remains under some form of lockdown or curfew, with protest remaining illegal. People can be arrested and charged for “being outdoors without a valid reason”. While lockdowns are being partially lifted in other parts of the world, the lies supposedly justifying previously unimaginable oppression continue. The attempt to vaccinate 7.8 billion people on the planet proceeds, for a virus whose very existence is scientifically disputed. These “vaccines” are entirely political, purely experimental, and are likely to be extremely harmful if not deadly. The same governments which forced healthy men, women and children into barbarous lockdowns now claim that the vaccine is not mandatory at the same time as preparing “Covid Passports” for international travel, domestic travel, and even for access to cinemas, concerts, sporting events and to shop at local grocery stores. This is already a reality in Israel.

Fraudulent removal of rights

Even though it may appear as though business is returning to pre-Covid times, this is also an illusion. Most governments around the world continue to hold the Covid card and are ready to wield it at any moment. Basic civil and democratic rights have either been removed or can be removed once again – with the excuse of “Covid” or “Covid variants”. The right to protest, the right to travel, freedom of movement, the right to purchase food, the right to leave your house, the right not to be forced into wearing an ineffectual and unhealthy facemask, the right to see your friends, the right to see your relatives, the right to visit the elderly and unwell in care homes or hospitals – all of these and more can be removed at any time the authorities deem it so. There was no “pandemic” and there is no “pandemic”. There are only mountains of lies from the corporate media and puppet politicians. Covid is a fraud which is used to increase political repression to levels which arguably exceed historical examples of fascism. In that sense, Covid is the highest form of class war against working people.

Covid was the shroud for the removal of employment for millions of workers worldwide. Whole sections of capitalist economies where shutdown or driven into bankruptcy. Millions of small businesses collapsed, while the largest and wealthiest monopoly corporations on the planet stepped into the void and subsequently amassed windfall profits. This happens in every recession, but this time it is much more apparent. This indicates that the real Covid agenda was a deliberate destruction of some sections of capital to secure and bolster the highest sections of finance capital. It was political action by the ruling classes of the imperialist West undertaken to protect capitalism regardless of the economic, political, and human cost to billions of people around the globe.

Covid is also geo-political. World imperialism, led by the ruling classes of the US and the EU, tailed by their lackeys in Canada, Holland, Australia, New Zealand etc., were floundering behind the economic rise of China, and the military power of Russia. Defeated and repelled at war in Syria, the imperialist powers used the cover of Covid to further develop internal subversion aimed at regime change in Myanmar, Thailand, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Venezuela and the list goes on. NATO uses the fig leaf of Covid to continue to militarily provoke Russia, China, the DPRK and Iran.

Liberalism the vehicle chosen by the elite

There is worldwide resistance to lockdown terror. Mass rallies and demonstrations repeatedly occur across Europe, the US, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. These are largely blacklisted or ignored by the mainstream media, as the ruling class actively attempts to deny there is mass public opposition – or deride it as being comprised of “anti-vaxxers” and “conspiracy theorists”. Yet the main reason these demonstrations are not overwhelmingly backed by the vast majority of the working class is the epic betrayal of Union officials and parties which falsely claim to be “left-wing” and “socialist”. These layers are not at all left-wing, as their enlistment in the service of the capitalist state over Covid makes crystal clear. These forces are liberal, i.e., they insist they are reforming the system in a progressive direction. However, the loyalty of these elements to capitalism is now so strong that they are prepared to enact fascist-like measures against workers fighting for freedom from lockdowns.

Hence, the “Great Reset” and the “New Normal” launched or backed by the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the World Economic Forum (WEF) is NOT part of a left-wing agenda. It is a capitalist attack headed by liberals with left-sounding phraseology. It can appear as though it is the conservative and nationalist political forces which are resisting planet lockdown. This is only partially true, because while many conservatives and nationalists oppose lockdowns from the point of view of liberty, they of course do not extend this to recognise the need for the overturn of the capitalist system via the establishment of workers’ governments administering a series of workers’ states.

For a general strike!

The anti-lockdown movement thus far has more than demonstrated the bravery required to defy totalitarian rule. At the same time, to achieve its goals it needs two elements which are yet to materialise. One is clear political leadership, and the other is a firmly pro working-class orientation. Due to the nature of the assault issuing from finance capital, it is only the working class organised internationally which has the potential to stop and reverse lockdown terror. The petty-bourgeois class, despite being pummelled by lockdowns, is genetically unable to take a political line independent of big capital. To spur the development of both the political leadership and the proletarian orientation necessary, the anti-lockdown movement needs to call for a general strike against forced lockdowns, facemasks, vaccines, economic shutdowns, border closures, tracking and tracing and the use of state power to enforce absurd and offensive dictates which obviously have no medical basis. The organisation of a general strike requires the formation of strike committees, with the only stipulation for entry into such committees being a sworn opposition to every element of Covid oppression. If developed with vigour, such strike committees can then lead to organs of a new state, which will vie with the lockdown states for the loyalty of working and oppressed people. At the same time, all parties which oppose lockdowns will contest each other for workers’ political allegiance. Permanent relief from lockdown fascism will only arrive with this new power – a workers’ government.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

Biden Bombs Syria: The First Covid War?

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Kataib Hezbollah fighters on the march. Image from RT.com

05.03.2021: Just two weeks after declaring the US would not return to forever wars under his administration[1], fraudulently installed President Joe Biden rained bombs on Syria, targeting Iranian supported militias fighting US backed Al Qaeda terrorists operating in the region. Biden was only 36 days into his first term before ordering the bombing of the Middle East[2], once again risking the escalation of an even more catastrophic regime change war. This comes hard on the heels of Biden’s re-invasion of Syria just two days into his Presidency, where 200 US troops and 60 military vehicles crossed the border[3] into Syria to “assist” US backed Kurdish separatist rule in northern Syria. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby stated that the US airstrikes targeted facilities used by Iranian backed militias including Kataib Hezbollah and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada. Stretching the limits of plausibility, Kirby claimed that the strikes were in response to rocket attacks on US troops but were deliberately calibrated to de-escalate the overall situation in eastern Syria and Iraq.[4]

US Empire uses Covid to reignite regime change war on Syria

The US government claimed it gave notice to the Russian government before the strikes took place. It did – but the notice was only four minutes. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that “This kind of notification does nothing when the strike is literally already on its way”.[5] Transparently, US imperialism is hell bent on attempting to reverse the defeat it suffered during the regime change war it attempted in Syria from 2011 onwards. The combination of resistance from the Syrian government, with military backing from Russia and Iran, arguably dealt US imperialism its first defeat since the Vietnam War. The Pentagon did not succeed in toppling Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, despite spending $500 million, at the very least, funding and arming deranged mercenary forces[6] to do so. The superiority of Russian air power, combined with the considerable skills of Iranian backed ground militias and heroic Syrian army martyrs – delivered a crushing of ISIS and, by extension, Wall Street.

Washington was stung by this defeat and has never accepted it. Now, their assault on the world’s working and oppressed people under the code name of “Covid”, opens a small window to re-start the regime change war on Syria. While the governments of Russia and Iran performed heroics to stop US imperialism in its tracks in Syria, during 2020 both entities unfortunately marched in lockstep with the US Empire by entertaining the Covid plot.[7] The coronavirus charade was always going to be used by US/EU imperialism against their opponents, and the Russian and Iranian governments’ acquiescence to the fear “pandemic” nonsense only slightly delayed a direct broadside from Washington. Russia and Iran’s mimicking of Western government lockdowns, forced facemasks and forced vaccines was never going to be accepted as currency for respect for their national sovereignty, or much else. Nothing less than regime change and substitute pro-US satrap governments in Syria, Iran and Russia would appease the ruling classes of the US/EU. Indeed, the war on Syria was arguably a stepping stone on the road to regime change in the Islamic Republic of Iran, by first eliminating one of Russia’s key allies.

Liberalism accelerates political disintegration

When capitalism enters a steep decline, parliamentary democracy soon becomes insufficiently repressive for the tasks the bourgeoisie needs to carry out to ensure the maintenance of its rule. Basic democratic and civil rights become an obstacle and need to be sidelined. This was one of the goals of the various forms of lockdown fascism initiated by capital in the West during 2020. This particular form of fascism, which was covered with the excuse of “Covid”, was NOT led by a far-right ultra-nationalist stormtroopers but by “left-wing” anti-socialists such as: Antifa, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the lockdown left who tailed the mind-bogglingly conservative Union bureaucracy. This liberal pro-corporate set heavily endorsed the fake pandemic and even – believe it or not – campaigned for longer and stricter lockdowns. While there is no doubt that these forces dragged along some youth and working people who believed they were doing something progressive, their leading lights knew exactly what their task was – to defend capitalist imperialism using any means up to and including violence.

The identity politics, the faux anti-racism, the disingenuous refugee rights activism of Antifa, BLM (which has conveniently disappeared from the streets now that there is a Democrat in the White House) and the lockdown left – combined with Union officialdom – has only strengthened finance capital. All of these forces endorsed and enforced the fake pandemic with its brutally anti-working class lockdowns, forced facemasks, forced vaccines, and tracking and tracing. The Covid ruse enabled the fascistic repression the ruling class required to savage the cost of labour power – through hundreds of millions of job cuts, economic shutdowns and border closures. The extreme Covid political repression also enables the bourgeoisie to wage imperialist war, such as the one being reanimated in Syria. For working people can scarcely organise political opposition to a war when they are separated from each other, when meetings have been banned, and when state borders are barricaded.

What is required is political action which demands US troops exit Syria immediately, and a prompt end to US/EU sanctions and provocations against Syria, Russia and Iran. The threatened imperialist wars against Syria, Russia, Iran and even China are bound up with the Covid war on working people at home. This is despite the deceitful Covid cooperation with Washington by Moscow, Tehran and Beijing. Wars can only be stopped by overthrowing the government waging it – this is the cardinal lesson of the October Revolution of 1917. Then, as now, Marxist leadership of the working class is a critical first step towards the end of imperialist wars and the socialist liberation of humanity.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

[1] Biden Bombs Syria Just Two Weeks After Promising Not To Go Back To Forever Wars In The Middle East….. (thefolliesofdistributism.com) (28-02-2021)

[2] It Only Took Joe Biden 36 Days to Bomb the Middle East – 19FortyFive (28-02-2021)

[3] US Convoy Reported Moving Into Syria From Iraq – News From Antiwar.com (28-02-2021)

[4] ‘Joe Biden Just Dropped Bombs on Syria. Here We Go Again’: US Responds to Rocket Attacks With Airstrikes | Common Dreams News (28-02-2021)

[5] Mismatch: Biden bombs Syria while pushing progressive economic bill at home – People’s World (28-02-2021)

[6] https://abcnews.go.com/International/video/us-approves-500-million-fund-arm-moderate-syrian-25633715 (28-02-2021)

[7] https://redfireonline.com/2020/04/18/covid-19-savage-assault-under-the-guise-of-health/ (28-02-2021)

Myanmar: Military Moves Against US Subversion

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Flag of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar

07-02-2021: When is a military coup progressive? When it stymies and rolls back the designs of US imperialism, that’s when. On February 1 the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) detained leader Aung Sung Suu Kyi and took control for 12 months, citing a clause in the country’s 2008 constitution. The clause states that in case of a national emergency, the president and the National Defence and Security Council can issue a decree to hand the government’s executive, legislative and judicial powers to the Tatmadaw’s commander-in-chief.[1] The Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Services is Min Aung Hlaing, who is now in power of the state for the coming year. Suu Kyi along with President U Win Myint and other National League for Democracy (NLD) officials were detained, with the Tatmadaw announcing a new round of elections will be held due to voter irregularities and suspected fraud during the November 8 election last year.[2] The NLD “won” an absolute parliamentary majority, and has been running the government in Myanmar since 2016.[3]

Coup installed President denounces…coup

Scaling the heights of hypocrisy, US President Joe Biden – weeks after being installed in a deep state coup where blatant and overt electoral fraud was documented[4] – condemned the Tatmadaw’s takeover in Myanmar. His statement threatened to reimpose sanctions which were lifted following the 2016 election which propelled Suu Kyi into the leadership. Laughably, Biden’s statement also averred that “The United States will stand up for democracy whenever it is under attack” ![5] This is from the very same government which has directly funded “civil society” Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) in Myanmar for decades – almost all of which have the aim of subverting if not overthrowing the state.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the public relations arms of the CIA, even lists on its own website around 80 phony “human rights” and “investigative journalism” organisations it funds and sustains. Using the British colonial based former name of Myanmar (Burma),the names of just some of these organisations are a dead giveaway: Assistance for Political Prisoners and Human Rights Advocacy, Burmese Language Satellite Television Broadcasts, Civil Society Development in Burma, Empowering Burmese Democracy Activists and so on.[6]  Obviously, this is not benevolent funding  so much as a direct and orchestrated attempt at regime change, which blatantly violates any semblance of Myanmar’s national sovereignty. It is the internal political version of landing US troops on the beaches and marching to the capital. Yet it has been going on for decades – and was the prime reason why Aung Sung Suu Kyi became leader (or State Counsellor) in the first place.

British imperialism is also in on the act. It is no exaggeration to say that almost the entirety of the “pro-democracy” movement – including the NLD – is a not indigenous to Myanmar at all. It is a product of the political and financial backing of two of the most powerful capitalist powers on earth – the US and the United Kingdom (UK).[7] This faux “democracy” movement is so powerful that it is virtually impossible to run in the elections against the NLD and make any substantial electoral gains. The US and UK funded fronts operating in Myanmar operate as para-state organisations, and working people in Myanmar simply do not have the political or financial resources to compete with them. The Tatmadaw’s claim that the November 8, 2020 election in Myanmar contained fraud is indeed feasible.

Targeting Red China

The goal of this extensive political interference in Myanmar by Washington and London, and backed by Canberra[8], is not only to procure a more pro-Western government in Naypyidaw. It is also aimed at Myanmar’s giant neighbour, the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The economy of the PRC, a bureaucratically deformed workers’ state, is in the process of outstripping the capitalist economies of the US and Europe because it does not primarily run on the basis of production for private profit. Huge state-owned industries in the PRC provide the stimulus for economic growth rates which are simply not possible in the West – or at least not over a period of decades. Myanmar, a direct neighbour of the PRC and a developing country, has no option but to join with the PRC in its offers of mutually beneficial trade, investment and infrastructure building opportunities. Neither the US nor Europe nor Australia nor Japan can even offer the economic partnerships the PRC can. Aung Sung Suu Kyi, despite being installed with the backing of Washington and London, understood this. She did not break Myanmar’s ties with the PRC, as it would be economic suicide. This enraged Washington, which cannot abide by sovereign decisions to do business with Beijing.

This was the real basis for the Western campaign against Suu Kyi over the manufactured Rohingya “crisis” of 2017. Washington was scarcely concerned about the human rights of the Rohingya in the Rakhine state – they were far more concerned about the PRC assisting Myanmar in building the deep-water port of Kyaukpyu, which lies at the conclusion of the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline. This pipeline went into use in 2013, and stretches from Kyaukpyu in the Bay of Bengal through to Kunming in South Western China, dissecting Myanmar. The PRC is building the Kyaukpyu port as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and delivering oil and gas to Kyaukpyu via the pipeline for export bypasses the Malacca Strait.[9] This means that the oil and gas shipments do not have to negotiate the South China Sea, which remains patrolled by US warships with the assistance of the Australian Navy.

The crocodile tears and handwringing by Western governments over the fleeing of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh in 2017 was pure hypocrisy. The Rohingya were fleeing violence from two sources. Firstly, they had been subjected to racist physical attacks from Buddhist “monks” who wanted to drive them out of Myanmar, and who were also a part of the political base of the “Saffron Revolution” which assisted Aung Sung Suu Kyi into power. Secondly, they were fleeing from the violence instigated by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) – who do not at ally deny their links to Al Qaeda. Despite their name the ARSA do not only attack the Myanmar government, they attack other Rohingyas who do not support their violent separatism.[10]

It was sheer folly to suggest the Tatmadaw engaged in a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” against the Rohingya. In reality, the Tatmadaw were responding to an armed pre-dawn attack on 30 police posts across the townships of Maungdaw and Buthidaung, as well as an army post at Tuang Bazaar. The ARSA assault took the lives of at least 10 police, 80 ARSA militia and 6 civilians.[11] The Rohingya who fled to neighbouring Bangladesh were thus fleeing the conflict between the ARSA terrorists[12] and the Tatmadaw, with the clear danger of being caught in the crossfire. Can anyone imagine what the government response would be in Australia, the US or the UK if a militant group had launched an ambush on police stations and slaughtered 10 police officers? To ask this question is to answer it.

Armed separatists bordering the PRC

Suu Kyi – and most in Myanmar – could see the manipulation of the Rohingya “cause”. Therefore she (correctly in this case) refused to acknowledge alleged “human rights” crimes in the Rakhine state. This – along with her rational position of refusing to break lucrative and necessary trade and investment ties with Beijing – was the reason Suu Kyi was subject to a backlash from Western liberals who had previously upheld her as a democracy icon. There were calls for the Nobel laureate to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize, and Amnesty International stripped her of its highest award, an “Ambassador of Conscience”.[13] In practice, this was also an expression of US imperialism giving Suu Kyi a public slap on the wrist for not being pliable enough in their barely concealed anti-China drive.

At the same time, Western backing of armed separatist groups along the norther border with the PRC continues. Armed groups from the Kachin state are engaged in a running battle with the Tatmadaw, ostensibly for “independence”, but in reality serving to destabilise co-operation between Myanmar and the PRC. Kachin fighters in fact formed part of the UK’s Burmese colonial army stemming out of World War II. It was stacked with Kachin alongside Gurkha from Nepal and Punjabis from India, while there were barely any from the Burman majority.[14] A classic divide and rule colonial tactic, but one which serves to disrupt key Myanmar-PRC building projects today.

For example, the Kachin Development Network Group (KDNG) – another US government funded NGO in Myanmar – publicly campaigns against the Myitsone Dam project in the Kachin state. Wikileaks revealed some of its activities some five years ago.[15] Ostensibly they campaign against the dam on environmental grounds, claiming that people will be displaced and environmental damage will be caused. Yet this is a transparent ruse to oppose a major project that will provide electricity to areas of northern Myanmar that have never previously seen it – in order to disrupt economic activity which is spurred through dealings with China.

US funded fronts, not “NGOs”

It is oxymoronic to describe US funded NGOs as “NGOs”, as their entire agenda matches that of one of the most powerful foreign governments in the world. Even the Australian state media admits US funding of the “civil society” groups in Myanmar would not be affected by any sanctions that were applied. This amounts to a sum – or that which they admit to – of $US 108 million per year.[16] This money does not go to the people of Myanmar – it pours into a spectrum of organisations which undermine and subvert the government towards US interests. They include fake human rights fronts, quasi legal organisations, media organisations and supposedly environment focused campaign groups. In reality, they politically bolster the NLD, and undermine, attack and reverse cooperation between Myanmar and the PRC.[17] For unknown reasons, the Tatmadaw has allowed these US funded political mining operations to operate unhindered in Myanmar for decades.[18]

However, the Tatmadaw’s recent takeover is the first indicator that perhaps it needs to take steps to ensure US/UK influence does not prevail entirely. Ultimately, the US would prefer to have US troops in Myanmar on the border with Red China, as a continuation of imperialism’s struggle to contain and encircle the PRC – in the manner of Russia and Iran. The US almost gained complete control of Myanmar via Aung Sung Suu Kyi and its fabricated NLD. However, the Tatmadaw has stepped in to prevent this from occurring. To this extent only, Marxists offer critical support to the actions of the Tatmadaw insofar as it acts to defend Myanmar and its people from US control. In a similar way in which Marxists offered critical support to the actions of the Russian government in using its superior air power to strike down ISIS mercenaries in Syria, the actions the Tatmadaw takes to defend Myanmar from Western or Al Qaeda backed terrorists can be similarly defended.

For a socialist Asia

Needless to say, military moves in Myanmar alone are not enough to curtail the intrigues of the US Empire, especially when it tactically plays the game of political subversion so well. Already, a “civil disobedience” campaign to the Tatmadaw coup among health workers and teachers has begun,[19] no doubt linked to the very US backed NGOs well versed in disguising political motives. The Tatmadaw would do well to begin to uproot and remove these subversive groups entirely. Or at the very least, put in place laws such as those of the Russian Federation. In Russia, US funded fronts are required by law to publicly disclose their funding[20], so that Russians know exactly who is behind the groups being vocal for “democracy” and “human rights”. It is one reason why the pro-US “democracy” groups in Russia have such little backing, which is confined to a relative handful of malcontents.

Amongst other things, given that both the government and the Tatmadaw were in the process of implementing the Covid “pandemic” nonsense, neither offer political direction to the workers of Myanmar. Only a genuine socialist movement can provide a path forward for Myanmar and all of South Asia. While economic cooperation with the PRC will be vital, politically South Asia needs proletarian revolutions in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia to be combined with proletarian political revolutions in China, Vietnam, and Laos. The forging of internationally linked Leninist vanguard parties is a prerequisite, to light the path towards regionally integrated planned economies.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] European leaders condemn Myanmar coup after military takes control, detaining Aung San Suu Kyi | Euronews (06-02-2021)

[2] Myanmar to clarify voter fraud, hold new round of elections | The Myanmar Times (mmtimes.com) (06-02-2021

[3] Myanmar election: Aung San Suu Kyi wins parliamentary seat for ruling National League for Democracy | World News | Zee News (india.com) (06-02-2021)

[4] When Exactly Was the “Fascist Coup” ? | Red Fire (redfireonline.com) (06-02-2021)

[5] Myanmar coup: Joe Biden threatens to resume sanctions | Myanmar | The Guardian (06-02-2021)

[6] BURMA 2019 – NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY (ned.org) (06-02-2021)

[7] Land Destroyer: Myanmar (Burma) “Pro-Democracy” Movement a Creation of Wall Street & London (06-02-2021)

[8] Marise Payne calls in Myanmar ambassador after Australian adviser to Aung Sun Suu Kyi detained (msn.com) (07-02-2021)

[9] https://www.chinacenter.net/2020/china_currents/19-3/a-relationship-on-a-pipeline-china-and-myanmar/ (07-02-2021)

[10] https://redfireonline.com/2018/09/13/myanmar-rohingya-manipulated-for-the-wests-drive-to-war/ (07-02-2021)

[11] https://asiatimes.com/2017/08/rohingya-insurgency-declares-open-war-myanmar/ (07-02-2021)

[12] http://m.thedailynewnation.com/news/247344/arsa-a-threat-to-bd-or-burma (07-02-2021)

[13] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46179292 (07-02-2021)

[14] https://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2018/07/militants-threaten-chinas-obor.html#more (07-02-2021)

[15] https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10RANGOON30_a.html (07-02-2021)

[16] US formally declares Myanmar has been subject to military coup – ABC News (07-02-2021)

[17] Myanmar’s Military Takes Over | New Eastern Outlook (journal-neo.org) (07-02-2021)

[18] Land Destroyer: Myanmar Crisis Explained… (07-02-2021)

[19] Aung San Suu Kyi could face two years in jail over ‘illegal’ walkie-talkies | Global development | The Guardian (07-02-2021)

[20] https://meduza.io/en/cards/russia-s-authorities-increase-pressure-on-ngos-with-plans-to-strengthen-foreign-agent-laws (07-02-2021)

Iran: Baha’i Used as Yet Another Excuse for Regime Change War

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View of the World Baha’i Centre in Haifa, Israel.

04-01-2021: As the orchestrated removal of the US Trump Administration nears its end, the Israeli state is likely behind multiple attempts to trap President Trump into attacking the Islamic Republic of Iran, again. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif stated that its intelligence via Iraq indicated that Israeli agents-provocateurs were planning attacks on Americans in the region, in the hope that the US Empire would have no choice but to launch strikes on Iran.[1] While the Trump Administration largely faced down relentless pressure from the Democrats and the Deep State to wage war against Russia, it has remained bellicose towards Iran, even assassinating top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani at the start of 2020. Any and every excuse is used to agitate for a regime change war on Iran, the largest independent power in the Middle East. An ongoing one is supposed “repression” of the Baha’i.

Innocent religious beliefs?

Some on the left fall for the liberal imperialist “humanitarian” war agenda, such as the appalling proxy war against the Syrian Arab Republic from 2011 to the present day. Many of the same actors make wistful but entirely deceitful claims that the Baha’i in Iran are simply being persecuted for innocent religious beliefs that differ from those of the predominantly Shiite Islam held by the Iranian governmental system. An ABC News Australia report would even claim that arbitrary arrests and home raids of Baha’i believers are currently “escalating”. The accompanying blurb would claim that Baha’i beliefs include “truthfulness, equality and human rights, and an emphasis on the essential worth of all religions”.[2] In reality, there could not be a greater distortion of the political role of the Baha’i in Iran.

Many in Iran who still back the overwhelmingly popular 1979 revolution view the Baha’i as “Zionist spies”. Is this an unfounded suspicion? Hardly – when one considers the fact that the Zionist Israeli state has allowed the Baha’i to establish their spiritual authority – the Universal House of Justice (UHJ) of their religion on a large property in Haifa, without subjecting it to any tax. The Israeli government has issued a postage stamp featuring the UHJ, and numerous Israeli Presidents and Prime Ministers have visited the World Baha’i centre in Haifa. This includes Izhak Ben Zvi in 1954, Zalman Shazar in 1964, Chaim Herzog in 1984, Yitzhak Rabin in 1994, Shimon Peres in 1994 and the current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.[3] Just these “visits” alone, from top representatives of the Zionist Israeli state which has never hidden its outright hostility to Iran, should at least raise eyebrows.

The Baha’i make the deceptive claim that they are “persecuted” in Iran because they are not allowed to practice their religion, but in fact they are only prohibited from proselytising their religion. They are entitled to practice their religion amongst themselves, get married (and divorced), pray etc – which is in fact the exact same situation in Israel itself. In Iran and Israel, the Baha’i practice is banned in terms of being able to be publicly taught and disseminated, while the private practice of the Baha’i faith is not subject to legal or governmental restriction.[4]  Despite this, the Baha’i claim to only be repressed in Iran, but not in Israel. This is just the start of a series of glaring hypocrisies.

Given the actual or claimed religious beliefs of the Baha’i, it is only logical that not only Iran and Israel, but ANY government in any country could not allow the Baha’i faith to be openly practiced. If they did, they could find themselves overthrown, or have a potential world war on their hands. Some of the Baha’i doctrine is directly political and explicitly calls for: a world super state, a world legislator, the unification of all the world’s religions under the umbrella of the Baha’i faith (!), a world parliament, a world police force, a single world currency, a world taxation system and a single auxiliary world language.[5] Alongside these, the claims that the Baha’i believe in the unity of the human race, the equality of men and women, and the need for world peace are scarcely credible, and appear to be a covering credo to obscure the actual agenda.

Any government in any country, likewise, could not allow other Baha’i views such as the abolition of all non-Baha’i legal systems[6] to be openly promulgated. Can one imagine what would happen to a group in Australia, the US and Europe openly calling for the removal of their legal systems, and its replacement with one run by their own religion? Furthermore, the Baha’i even view non-Baha’i education as “death incarnate” which leads to “stagnation”.[7]  That is, they do not wish for their children to be educated alongside other members of the community in a state or private school not run according to the Baha’i religion. This is flagrantly in breach of their professed belief in the unity and oneness of all humanity, and even of their supposed view that all religions should be equal!

No to war on Iran

A fantasy narrative about Baha’i persecution in Iran is being peddled to once again beat the drums of war against Iran, on the anniversary of the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani. Workers the world over have a vital interest in opposing any drive to war by US/EU imperialism, no matter what the claimed justification. Even though the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has entertained the false Covid-19 “pandemic” hysteria in an effort to assuage world imperialism, this has not had any effect in deflecting the threats of war. The wars of regime change against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria were catastrophic and unjustifiable – as will be a war on Iran. War propaganda retailing false allegations of Iranian government “repression” is a key component of regime change war. All tenets of it must be exposed and rejected. NO TO REGIME CHANGE WAR ON IRAN!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] Iran’s foreign minister urges Trump to avoid Israel ‘trap’ to provoke war | Reuters (03-01-2021)

[2] Australia’s Baha’i community pleads for help as arbitrary arrests and home raids escalate in Iran – ABC News (03-01-2021)

[3] Home – Baha’i-Israel Relationship (webs.com) (03-01-2021

[4] Bahai Israel Relationship | The Bahai Insider (03-01-2020)

[5] Global Governance and the Baha’i Faith – The Real Agenda News (real-agenda.com) (03-01-2020)

[6] Shut down Nauru! For an Anti-Empire Refugee Rights Movement! | Red Fire (redfireonline.com) (03-01-2020)

[7] How Baha’is View non-Baha’i Schools – Baha’i principles (bahaibahai.com) (03-01-2020)

Hands off Iran! No to Regime Change War

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29-11-2020: Little more than 11 months after the US Empire assassinated Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Republic of Iran announced one of its top nuclear scientists had been assassinated. The Iranian Ministry of Defense stated that armed terrorists attacked Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and his security protection team, after which he was transported to hospital, but was unable to be saved.[1] No one has claimed responsibility for the attack as yet, but it occurs on the back of rumours that US President Donald Trump would launch a strike on Iran before he leaves office on January 20 (despite a fraudulent poll where a litany of election laws were ignored and statistically impossible outcomes suspiciously delivered a “result” in favour of the Democrats).[2] Adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and military leader Hossein Deghan accused the state of Israel of trying to provoke a full-blown war in the last days in office of their US ally.[3] Hossein Salami, an IRGC Commander posted on Twitter that “..the assassination of nuclear scientists is the most obvious violent confrontation of the imperialist system to prevent us from gaining access to modern science”.[4]

British-Australian operative released in prisoner swap

This cowardly act of war against Iran comes hot on the heels of the release of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British/Australian academic who was sentenced to 10 years in jail in Iran for espionage. Ms Moore-Gilbert was released in exchange for three Iranians detained elsewhere.[5] The case of Moore-Gilbert is being used by the Australian government and its compliant corporate media to ramp up even more hostility to Iran, even though it is evident that the Iranian government had ample grounds for their charges of espionage. Ms Moore-Gilbert had worked as a lecturer at Melbourne University, and had attended a conference in Qom in 2018. It was at that time that Moore-Gilbert was detained and later charged and convicted of espionage, and given a 10 year sentence.[6] Moore-Gilbert has always denied the charges, but never has she, nor the corporate media, nor the Australian government, ever explained what she actually did in Iran. If she was innocent of spying, why not tell the whole story?

This refusal to explain should sound loud alarm bells. It is plausible that Moore-Gilbert was not employed or paid by the Australian government to spy on Iran. It is possible that Moore-Gilbert was yet another liberal academic who consciously or unconsciously allies herself with Australian, and therefore British and US imperialism, in their non-stop attempts to force regime change in Iran by any means. In 2019, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi stated that Moore-Gilbert was arrested on a charge of violating Iran’s national security by spying for another country.[7]  This other country is the Israeli state, and given the history of the Israeli governments’ relentless war provocations against Iran, it is entirely understandable for the Iranian government to take extreme precautions. The Sydney Morning Herald fatuously claimed that the Iranian government detained Moore-Gilbert after discovering she was in a relationship with an Israeli citizen, and was backed by the US government operated Human Rights Watch and the Australia-Israel Jewish Affairs Council.[8] From this it is not a large leap of logic to conclude that Moore-Gilbert was indeed at least aiding the Zionist Israeli state, and the Islamic Republic of Iran was justified in protecting itself from the possible consequences. Inane whining from the liberal pro-imperialist intelligentsia about how the “regime” (they are not able to deign themselves to refer to it as a government) in Iran is allegedly “oppressive” is always used by Anglo/US/AUST imperialism as political capital for catastrophic regime change war.

Iranian government rolls out “pandemic” pantomime

What the government of the Islamic Republic could be justifiably criticised for is enacting its own scientifically groundless lockdowns[9] and medically absurd facemask mandates, which mirror the actions of the imperialist governments targeting them for destruction. From November 21, the Iranian government moved to close 150 cities on partial or full lockdown, with even a ban on cars entering or exiting.[10] The aping of the actions of the imperialist ruling classes against their own workers is a major error, one perhaps carried out to assuage the relentless war campaign against it from the West. Alas, if anything, this has only encouraged the imperialists to step up their war moves. Imperialism cannot be appeased, no matter how many times non-imperialist governments act in the same way and adopt public policies identical to the governments of the US/NATO/EU Empire. Imperialism cannot tolerate any degree of independence, even one which seeks to replicate some of its own practices.

Despite this, it is in the vital interests of working people the world over to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran against a Western led war of regime change. Iran’s role in militarily assisting the defeat of US imperialism in Syria was heroic, and vital because the Iranian government understood that if Washington/London/Paris was able to overthrow Syria, it would itself be next. Iran does not have nuclear weapons capability, but it must have the sovereign right to develop any energy source it requires – including nuclear generated electricity. The repeated assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists at the hands of the West, combines with medieval siege type sanctions to nearly break the Iranian economy. Workers must demand the lifting of all sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran, along with the immediate cessation of any assassinations and war provocations by the West.

Despite the laudable victories of the IRGC as part of the Shia Resistance bloc (Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Yemeni Houthis), Anglo/US/NATO imperialism ultimately cannot be defeated militarily. It will take an international socialist struggle against COVID-19 lies, “the Great Reset” and its accompanying imperialist wars of conquest. The forging of Marxist vanguard parties based on Permanent Revolution throughout the Middle East and internationally remain key to the first steps towards undermining the destructive power of the international system of private profit for private gain. NO WAR ON IRAN!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

 

[1] https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/iran-announces-assassination-of-top-nuclear-scientist/ (28-11-2020)

[2] https://theredelephants.com/there-is-undeniable-mathematical-evidence-the-election-is-being-stolen/ (28-11-2020)

[3] https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2020/11/28/iran-nuclear-scientist-assassination/ (28-11-2020)

[4] https://www.axios.com/mohsen-fahrizade-iran-nuclear-assassinated-tehran-b1765dd7-ab7b-4e54-ac95-29fc082dcef2.html (28-11-2020)

[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-26/kylie-moore-gilbert-released-from-iran-prison-in-swap-deal/12921768 (28-11-2020)

[6] https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/dr-kylie-moore-gilbert-has-been-released-from-iranian-prison-after-804-days/ (28-11-2020)

[7] https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/443546/Australian-woman-violated-national-security-Iran (28-11-2020)

[8] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/kylie-moore-gilbert-detained-by-iran-over-baseless-israeli-spy-claims-20201126-p56i7f.html (28-11-2020)

[9] https://jonsnewplace.wordpress.com/2020/06/10/who-says-covid-19-social-distancing-lockdowns-vaccines-now-unnecessary/ (29-11-2020)

[10] https://financialtribune.com/articles/national/106143/iran-gov-t-orders-full-lockdown-in-150-cities-to-curb-covid-19 (29-11-2020)

No Boycott of Beijing 2022! Hands off China!

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The Qazihan Mosque in Turpan, Xinjiang. It was built in 1747. The Islamic religion is freely practiced in the far West of China.

     18-10-2020: As if the anti-China Cold War hysteria was not already enough, a pair of reactionary Australian MPs are now calling for a boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Independent Senators Rex Patrick and Jacquie Lambie will move a motion in the Australian parliament next month which calls on the Australian Government – via the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) – to ensure Australia boycotts the Beijing 2022 Winter games.[1] Long time AOC head John Coates, who is also a senior member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reacted angrily to the possibility that Australian athletes would be offered financial incentives to boycott the games, as it occurred the last time an Australian Olympic boycott was attempted.This was in 1980, when the Olympic Games in Moscow were boycotted by the USA over the “invasion” of Afghanistan.

What actually occurred at that time was that a pro-socialist movement came to power in Afghanistan in 1978, and proceeded to modernise the country, legalising Trade Unions for the first time in history, and opening up education for women, where only 12% of adults were literate. Horrified, extreme Islamic fundamentalists armed by the CIA began a counter-insurgency which aimed to overthrow the secular government. This lead to 30 years of war and the near total destruction of the country.[2] The boycott of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 by the US government, and partially echoed by the Australian government, was key to whitewashing the anti-Soviet and anti-socialist Cold War I drive of imperialism with rivers of lies, deception and false narratives.

False accusations against China

Now, as Cold War II dramatically ramps up, another imperialist sponsored mountain of lies appears. Cold War II is not only directed against the People’s Republic of China (PRC), but also Russia, Iran, Syria and any other country which does not bow far enough to the will of Washington. Yet the PRC’s stunning economic, scientific and technological advances have driven Western capitalists into a frenzy, as they rightly fear being overtaken while their own for-profit economies flounder in a never-ending recession. Hence the desperate attempts to whip up political subversion using any means necessary – beginning with blatant falsehoods about what is happening inside the PRC. Senator Patrick makes wild and unsubstantiated claims that one million Uyghurs have been forced into internment camps, and are being pressured to “relinquish their language, culture and religion”. He name drops UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and US Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden as warning against “human rights abuses” and “genocide” against Uyghurs. He also makes the grandiose claim that the National Security Law in Hong Kong will “crush democratic freedoms”.[3]

Senator Patrick is simply retailing Western corporate propaganda, and is perhaps unaware of the role of the US deep state in funding and in many cases organising the political unrest in both the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in the PRC, as well as in Hong Kong. At the moment, he has not yet roped in the Australian government to this latest anti-China crusade. The Australian Sports Minister Richard Colbeck, when questioned in parliament, stated that he thought it best to keep sport and politics separate. However, the Minister then went on to publicly agree with the main reason for the proposed boycott!  Colbeck stated that “Australia” remains deeply concerned “by reports of enforced disappearance, mass detention, forced labour and pervasive surveillance of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang.”[4] These nonsensical claims are risible, but the bigger the lie, and the more times it is repeated by those in “authority”, the greater likelihood that many will believe it.

Lurid claims of forced labour and mass detention of Uyghurs in the XUAR are little more than false slander. What is actually occurring is a tiny minority of Uyghur jihadists are being funded by the US state, via the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)[5], to wage a separatist war using any means up to and including violent terrorism against entirely innocent people. The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and is more focused on fanatical anti-socialism than the rights of Uyghurs. Its founder, Isa Yusuf Aleptikin, directly appealed to then US President Richard Nixon for backing “East Turkestan” (their name for Xinjiang) against “Soviet and Chinese communism”, which they claimed was the greatest threat to Islamic peoples.[6] The former Soviet Union, like today’s PRC, does not suppress Muslims and in fact allows them to freely practice their religion. However, they do seek to prevent a tiny minority using Islam to wage separatist and/or terrorist insurgencies.

Even the Western media itself admits that Uyghur terrorism is a serious problem in the XUAR. There have been semi-regular attacks by Uyghur terrorists on innocent civilians in the XUAR over the last eight years, a bombing in Bangkok after the Thai government sent Uyghur militants back to the PRC rather than allow them passage to Turkey, and thousands went on to join ISIS and Al Qaeda in the West’s proxy war against Syria.[7] Obviously, the PRC government has to take precautions when these barbaric mercenaries return home. Any measures it takes to prevent Al Qaeda trained fighters from wreaking havoc inside the PRC can then easily be portrayed by the Western media as “repression”.

In fact, the PRC government has set up vocational training centres to give unemployed Uyghurs language and work skills so they can find work either in Xinjiang or other regions of the mainland. The PRC government has also built high-speed rail links and highways through the Taklamakan desert connecting Xinjiang to other regions, and has expanded big data internet services, which foster economic development.[8] Xinjiang is also a major hub of the PRC’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or New Silk Road), which in this section connects China to Europe through Eurasia. The New Silk Road is arguably the primary reason why the US human rights industrial complex has targeted Xinjiang with fabricated tales about Uyghur “forced labour” and “mass detention”. The New Silk Road in all its dimensions, highlights the growing economic and political power of the PRC, and at the same time reveals the further economic and political decline of US and European imperialism. This is the real reason why US/EU imperialism and its “human rights” industry drums up fantastic lies[9] about “internment camps” in Xinjiang. The lies simultaneously obscure the role of the US/EU governments in funding Uyghur separatist terrorism as part of its regime change war efforts against both Syria and the PRC.

More US backed separatism in Hong Kong

Senator Patrick’s claims that “democratic freedoms” in Hong Kong will be crushed by the National Security Law likewise turn reality on its head. What occurred in Hong Kong during 2019 was not a “democracy” movement, but a US/UK government backed campaign of anti-socialist violence aimed at separating Hong Kong from mainland China. While the initial rally may have drawn in some Hong Kongers who had concerns about inequality, the actions quickly deteriorated into a dangerous Blackshirt minority who waved US[10] and British[11] flags while physically attacking Hong Kongers who did not agree with their violent actions[12], and wanted no part of it. In arguably the worst incident, one Blackshirt literally set fire[13] to a man who implored them to stop destroying the city. Such egregious violence repelled the majority of Hong Kongers and ensured the “democracy” movement would dwindle away into a tiny minority which could be easily dealt with.

In British colonial Hong Kong, which was ruled by the UK for 155 years, there were no elections, no minimum wage, no trade unions, no freedom of speech or basic democratic rights whatsoever. It is more than ironic that the Blackshirts and their backers now claim they stand for “democracy” against integration into the PRC. While Britain handed over Hong Kong to the PRC in 1997, both the UK and the US governments built and maintained a network of contacts, rather than genuinely vacate Hong Kong. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the public relations arm of the CIA, has two active branches in Hong Kong, and directly funds groups such as the Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor.[14] The Blackshirts in Hong Kong would not have been able to sustain months of violent anti-government anarchy unless they knew they had the backing of a major imperialist power.

The Blackshirt mobs have no chance of separating Hong Kong from mainland China. The PRC’s massive socialist state backed development has meant a vast expansion of high-speed rail, with one line now linking Hong Kong with Shenzhen and Guangzhou.[15] The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge is also now open[16], linking the Hong Kong island with mainland China via the world’s longest (55 klm) sea crossing road connection. With a constant interaction between Hong Kong and mainland China via streams of people through travel and commerce, in integration of Hong Kong into the PRC is permanent. The US Empire cannot reverse this by open warfare, and hence resorts to internal political subversion. For now though, Blackshirt street violence has been worn down and subdued.

PRC government reinforces Covid-19 lies

While workers internationally have a vital interest in countering the anti-socialist Cold War drive against the PRC, its government cannot be a political ally. Hidebound into the non-Marxist theory of “socialism in one country”, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has betrayed workers by lending legitimacy to the torrents of lies which buttress the Covid-19 deception. The CPC attempts to mirror the actions of the governments of the capitalist West in a vain attempt to ensure “peaceful coexistence” with imperialism. In the case of the fake pandemic, the CPC carried out their own lockdowns[17], and uttered not a word of protest when the Western governments did the same – but with the intention of inflicting political repression of working people never previously attempted. While the CPC did not use lockdowns to attack the economic position of Chinese workers necessarily, it did everything it could to augment and assist the imperialist governments assault their own working class. It played up to and fuelled the lies used to shutdown Western economies under the guise of “healthcare”. Despite the entirely dubious role of the WHO, President Xi Jinping called on it to lead the response[18] to the discovery of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The WHO did just that, which encouraged capitalist governments to shutdown economies, throw millions of workers out of a job, suspend parliaments, virtually eliminate freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the most elementary of basic democratic rights.

Here lies the sheer duplicity of the CPC as far as working people are concerned. In order to secure mutual co-operation with the capitalist governments of the West, the CPC is more than prepared to stand by and allow – and even assist – the ruling classes of the West install a form of domestic fascism. Lockdown fascism reached extremes in the US and Europe, but was arguably surpassed by the intolerable repression still being meted out in Melbourne, Australia.[19]  It should be noted that the governments of other deformed workers’ states – in Vietnam, the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Cuba – likewise acquiesced with the very imperialist governments bent on their overthrow. They also locked their borders and took other measures which appeared to validate the open mendacity of the “Covid-19 as a biblical plague” narrative.

Despite the political perfidy of the leadership of the PRC, the working class has a vital interest in defending the PRC against imperialist efforts to undermine and eventually overthrow the state which emerged out of its 1949 socialist revolution. This means opposing the call for an Olympic boycott of Beijing 2020, and countering the lie factory which retails endless fabrications about “repression” in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and even in mainland China. The imperialist West is trying in vain to counter the incredible economic growth of the PRC, which is ultimately guaranteed by its gigantic state-owned industries, which are in turn guarded by the gains of 1949. Some of the state-owned and state subsidised firms on the US Fortune 500 list include large-scale oil, solar energy, telecommunications, engineering and construction companies, banks and automotive companies.[20] These firms in fact form the core of the Chinese workers’ state, which is nonetheless impaired by the essentially nationalist politics of the CPC. The forging of vanguard parties based on genuine Leninism remains the key task for workers internationally, part of a fightback against both lockdown terror and anti-socialist hysteria.

 

WORKERS   LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66  NUNDAH QLD  4012

[1] https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1099360/coates-angry-over-beijing-boycott-call (15-10-2020)

[2] https://gowans.blog/category/peoples-democratic-party-of-afghanistan/ (15-10-2020)

[3] https://www.rexpatrick.com.au/australia_must_boycott_the_beijing_winter_olympic_games (15-10-2020)

[4] https://www.portnews.com.au/story/6958849/minister-cool-on-chinese-olympics-boycott/ (15-10-2020)

[5] https://stuartbramhall.wordpress.com/2020/09/16/inside-the-world-uyghur-congress-the-us-backed-right-wing-regime-seeking-the-fall-of-china/ (16-10-2020)

[6] https://consortiumnews.com/2020/03/09/inside-the-us-backed-world-uyghur-congress/ (16-10-2020)

[7] https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-fueling-terrorism-china/5657922 (16-10-2020)

[8] https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-01/Xinjiang-camps-more-fake-news-TqIrWBgF8s/index.html (16-10-2020)

[9] https://www.globalresearch.ca/biggest-lie-china-xinjiang-internment-camps/5723028 (17-10-2020)

[10] https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hong-kong-protesters-plan-march-us-embassy-65460014 (17-10-2020)

[11] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3023817/are-hong-kong-protesters-pro-american-or-british-when-they (17-10-2020)

[12] https://www.wired.com/story/how-hong-kongs-protests-turned-into-a-mad-max-tableau/ (17-10-2020)

[13] https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/10/asia/hong-kong-protester-shot-intl-hnk/index.html (17-10-2020)

[14] https://www.mintpressnews.com/hong-kong-protests/259202/ (17-10-2020)

[15] https://www.china-briefing.com/news/hong-kong-high-speed-rail-connects-mainland-china-september-23/ (17-10-2020)

[16] https://www.hzmb.gov.hk/en/index.html (17-10-2020)

[17] https://qz.com/1855154/china-re-imposes-strict-lockdowns-as-cases-re-emerge-in-northeast/ (17-10-2020)

[18] http://chinaplus.cri.cn/recommended/1661/469062 (17-10-2020)

[19] https://redfireonline.com/2020/07/13/the-covid-19-siege-of-melbourne/ (17-10-2020)

[20] https://iacenter.org/2019/09/09/whats-behind-hong-kong-protests/ (17-10-2020)

      

Freedom Day: All Out on September 5!

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The anti-lockdown movement will mobilise on September 5 for Freedom Day. Image from http://www.news.com.au

Freedom Day: All Out on September 5!

27-08-2020: When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. This age-old axiom has never been more relevant than to the barbarous enforcement of lockdown fascism in 2020. Scientifically groundless lockdowns, the deliberate but needless sacking of millions of workers, and state and national border shutdowns form just part of the totalitarian nightmare facing working people in Australia, the US, Europe – the supposedly advanced countries of the West. The house arrest of entirely healthy people, on pain of prosecution by the police and/or the armed forces, quite obviously has nothing to do with a respiratory virus which MAY represent some concern for the well-being of the elderly and the immune compromised. Yet the enforced separation and isolation of healthy men, women and children through lockdowns is precisely what creates the most danger for the elderly and immune compromised – via the physical prevention of natural or herd immunity. The brave few scientists who have spoken out name the “human catastrophe” of lockdowns and quarantine.[1]

Covid-19 code for war

For ten years, the dark forces of capitalist imperialism have been doing their utmost to start a new World War against Russia and China. The wholesale destruction of living capital (working people) and dead capital and the rebuild afterwards is arguably the only scenario which can rebuild the dire crisis of the profit system, based on private ownership of the means of production – yet using social labour which is appropriated for private gain. The Anglo/US/EU Empire has thus far been thankfully blocked from launching such a global conflagration by the skillful use of both diplomacy and occasional military action by Russia, to a lesser extent China, and by non-imperialist allies such as Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Venezuela, the DPRK, Zimbabwe, Belarus and so on. Unable to precipitate an international war, the ruling classes of the West instead unleashed a devastating war on “their own” workers. To gain the backing of the liberal left[2], and to leave workers without leadership, this war was discharged under the false guise of a “pandemic”. The “global health emergency” is anything but.[3]

The Australian state of Victoria, under Labor Party Dictator Dan Andrews, is unfortunately a laboratory for the most extreme venture of big capital’s descent into lockdown fascism. Nightly curfews, confining people to their homes, mandatory facemasks, restricted exercise times, and 5 kilometre travel restrictions are just some of the repressive measures implemented by the state. Most civil rights have been abolished, with police now able to enter any premises without permission or a warrant. Elementary democratic rights – always tenuous under the profit system – have been all but removed without explanation. Daily propaganda about death numbers, devoid of any context whatsoever, saturate TV and online media. Daily threats of being injected with a mandatory vaccine – likely to be useless, and potentially causing harm – abound. The stifling oppression is intense, and is undeniably causing immense physical, psychological, economic and social suffering.

To resist is to be free

Despite the apparently grim scenario, workers should not despair. An optimistic outlook is gained if it is acknowledged that resistance to lockdown fascism is growing through many forms. Not everyone has been scared into submission. Not everyone simply obeys the logic-defying rules, which change by the hour. Not everyone swallows the gratuitous grim reaper scenario politicians and the corporate media pump out 24/7. Critical thinkers read, study, observe and analyse information which contradicts the official narrative – where it is not censored by Big Tech. Under lockdown conditions, people are separated from each other, with little chance to discuss and debate such issues. Physical separation largely prevents political opposition from organising – which points to the real reason for lockdowns.

This is why the “Freedom Day” demonstrations planned for September 5 are vital. Mass, public defiance of lockdowns and all of the political repression associated with Covid-19 (forced facemasks, forced vaccines, forced social-distancing) is a central component of the what will need to be the political defeat of the Western ruling classes and their war to save the staggering inequality generated by their system. Freedom Day actions are planned for Melbourne, and in many other centres around Australia, for September 5. Due to mass political censorship by Google, Facebook, Amazon etc., actual plans for the day cannot be circulated openly. Workers need to stand by and be ready to mobilise, as organisers plan to release some details in the 24 hours before September 5.

Due to the treasonous actions of Union officials and so-called left parties – who have been exposed as police auxiliaries – leadership of the anti-lockdown movement has fallen into the hands of elements who are not usually associated with working-class struggle. Regardless, what is urgently required is a united front of ALL sections of society that can see through lockdown mania – irrespective of their political ideas on other issues. This is likely to result in a combination of left and right, of nationalists and internationalists, of so-called “anti-vaxxers” and those concerned with 5G telecommunications infrastructure, of civil libertarians and followers of QAnon, of privacy and anti-war activists, and more. But the majority are likely to be those who simply have legitimate concerns about the vast expansion of state power, from its powers of surveillance up to the ability to forcibly quarantine those who quite rightly refuse to be tested and tracked and traced. The anti-lockdown movement is one framework where there can be a temporary alliance of otherwise opposing political viewpoints.

Revolutionaries must assist the anti-lockdown movement even despite the rejection of what is interpreted as “socialism” among some of its participants. Unfortunately, the governments of several non-imperialist and even workers’ states have played their own role in fanning pandemic hysteria and have even imposed their own lockdowns. Russia, China, Iran and Syria are examples. Marxists need to explain the need for defence of these states against US imperialism, while offering not a shred of political support to the governments of these countries which fruitlessly seek to co-exist with the US Empire. Resistance to inhuman lockdowns must be combined with resistance to imperialist war. A better world is on offer for those prepared to stand strong. ALL OUT ON SEPTEMBER 5!

WORKERS  LEAGUE

http://www.redfireonline.com

E:workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO  Box  66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

[1] https://www.collective-evolution.com/2020/04/29/leading-scientist-claims-lockdown-quarantine-is-a-human-catastrophe-new-interview/ (26-08-2020)

[2] https://redfireonline.com/2020/08/25/the-labour-lieutenants-of-lockdown-terror/ (26-08-2020)

[3] https://jbhandleyblog.com/home/lockdownlunacy (26-08-2020)

 

Covid-19: Natural Pathogen, or Biological War?

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Covid-19: Natural Pathogen, or Biological War?

22-03-2020 – As the Covid-19 (Corona Virus) crisis spreads further throughout the globe, the spectre of an unprecedented economic depression looms large. As with the Great Depression in the 1930s, the private-profit based economies at that time did not have a hope of a release from its grip. It was “resolved” the only way it could have been – through a World War. This outcome suspends itself over the planet now. Even without the Corona Virus outbreak, the capitalist economies of the United States (US), Europe, Japan and Australia had effectively limped along since the Great Recession of 2008. These desperately waning economic conditions drove the imperialist axis to wage regime change wars or attempted coups against Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or “North Korea”), Iran, Bolivia and Honduras, at the least. These hostile acts were pre-cursors to the real targets of Washington and their acolytes – the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China (PRC).  Workers should be aware that the US Empire’s dangerous hostility to Russia and China will not abate regardless of how the Corona Virus crisis plays out.

Where did Covid-19 come from?

The US Empire (backed by Paris, Berlin, London, Canberra) is desperate to slow or stop the indomitable economic rise of Red China, and the political and diplomatic power that flows therefrom. Washington knows that US corporations – during a virtual recession in the West – cannot compete against the giant socialist state backed industries within the PRC. It also knows that a military attempt at regime change in the PRC is impossible, given the size of China population wise, and the PRC’s possession of advanced nuclear weapons. Thus, the priority flows to political attempts to undermine the authority of the government, along with attempts to break away some of its component parts, such as Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet. Given the fact that these efforts had so far largely failed – even if they had fooled many liberals in the West – it is not unreasonable to suggest that Washington is trying something different with the Corona Virus, regardless of the eminently misanthropic consequences.

Despite attempts to paint Covid-19 as a “Chinese” virus, there is some evidence to suggest that it did not originate in the PRC at all. A report in the English language Global Times newspaper in China, first broke the story that a study by ChinaXiv, an open repository for Chinese scientific researchers, had indicated that the Huanan Seafood market in Wuhan was NOT the original source of the novel coronavirus. The study indicates that “patient zero” introduced the virus to the market last November, with the crowded market then providing grounds for its relatively rapid spread to others.[1]  A report on a Japanese TV station also made the claim that Covid-19 may have originated in the US. Apparently some 14 000 fatalities due to influenza over the previous period may have been due to Covid-19. Moreover, the Military World Games were held in Wuhan last October, with one social media user speculating that the virus had been brought with the US delegates.[2] Various theories are floating around the internet, mainly over whether the release of the virus was accidental or deliberate.

No less than Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian posted open questions on social media to the US government about the known extent of Corona Virus. He posted a video of Robert Redfield, a director of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, admitting that some Americans who had died from influenza later tested positive to the Corona Virus. “When did patient zero begin in US?  How many people are infected? …. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!”[3] While the exact origin of the Corona Virus may not be able to be known, developments such as these raise pertinent questions. In the spirit of never believing anything until it is officially denied, US Secretary of State and arch war hawk Mike Pompeo swiftly shot back accusing Zhao Lijian, and China generally, of spreading “outlandish rumours”. A US state department official even stated that the spreading of “conspiracy theories” is dangerous.[4]

It takes some chutzpah for the US to accuse China of spreading “conspiracy theories” at the very same time as US government officials and corporate media fling baseless and evidence free claims of 1 million Uyghurs being detained in the Xinjiang province. And for all the whining from the West about “authoritarianism” in the PRC, the fact is that the Chinese government’s measures to contain and control the Corona Virus have been unmatched by any Western counterpart. China’s efforts to build a 1000 bed hospital from scratch in under two weeks[5] is by now well known. Western economies running on a for-profit basis with governments enthralled by private corporations would not even be able to contemplate, let alone attempt, such a feat. For all the misunderstanding about the PRC economy, the fact is that it does not operate primarily on the basis of production for profit, and the major and strategic means of production are state owned – a legacy of the victory of the 1949 socialist revolution.

Act of biological war?

Despite the distorted leadership of the PRC by the essentially nationalist Communist Party of China (CPC), the simple existence of the Chinese workers’ state and its still rising economic power spell the end of US primacy of the globe – something the US ruling class cannot afford to allow. They are prepared to use any measure to prevent other countries looking to China for economic and even political leadership. While it would be difficult to determine scientifically, it is feasible to suggest that the intention was to bring down the powerhouse Chinese economy, in order to give the ailing US economy some respite.  If so, this appears to have backfired, with the New York Mayor recently declaring that city to be the new epicenter of the Corona Virus.[6]  Yet the question must be posed as to why China, Iran and Italy, out of the 196 countries in the world, have been hardest hit. It has been mooted that Italy was the first G7 country to sign on to Red China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI or “New Silk Road), while Iran has been attempting to bypass the crippling US sanctions on its economy by importing from China while selling China its oil.[7] As the Chinarising website reports, at one point Iran had 10 000 cases of Corona Virus, while the countries between Iran and China had virtually nil. Also, India, with a similar population to China, but with hundreds of millions more people living in dire poverty and in many cases with poor sanitation, has been left almost unscathed.[8]

The US ruling class is known for its use of biological war against its declared enemies. During the Vietnam War, the US dumped Agent Orange by the gigalitre on an innocent people resisting the imperialist behemoth. Socialist Cuba has also been targeted. What is more, the Russian government had recently warned the world of its grave concerns that the US was developing biological weapons. In November last year, the Secretary of the Security Council of Russia, Nikolai Patrushev, sounded the alarm that the Pentagon had established some 200 biological laboratories which study infectious diseases and can be used to manufacture biological weapons. Many of these labs had been set up in the countries of the former Soviet Union, such as Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia.[9]

What acts of imperialist subterfuge can be determined is the fact that the US has increased already crippling sanctions against Iran, at the peak of the Corona Virus outbreak.[10] This at a time when the Russian and Chinese governments, amongst many others around the world, had been issuing pleas for the US to lift its sanctions on Iran, to assist global efforts against the Corona Virus.[11] Google, ever reliable as an arm of US foreign policy, chimed in by removing Iran’s Corona Virus app from the Google Play Store.[12] The app was released by the Iranian government to help detect patients. This makes a mockery of US government claims that it would offer Iran assistance for the outbreak.

Social and political control

That the Corona Virus is a pathogen which needs to be combatted is not in doubt. What is suspicious is the way in which it is being used to implement mass social and political control, which could be an attempt by the imperialist West to practice a test run of submission to authority for their ultimate goal – catastrophic war against Russia and China. The banning of mass gatherings, enforceable by the police, could easily become permanent measures if not resisted by workers. In Queensland, the police are now monitoring venues with indoor events that may exceed 100 people. Fines of up to $50 000 or 12 months in jail could be applied in different Australian states.[13] If society is at a stage where public meetings can be shut-down by the armed forces of the state – we must question what the difference is with fascism. The corporate media is now so practiced at deceiving masses of people with propaganda, it can induce almost whole populations to dance to its tune.

The corporate media acts as an arm of the governments that protect their profits. In “normal” times, many workers suspect and/or understand this. Yet this time, the capitalist class seems to be willing to trigger an economic recession by throwing millions of workers out of employment. It’s as if they were just itching for the chance to sack workers. QANTAS has stood down 20 000 of its workers, and even claimed that the viability of the airline could be at stake. While there has been a murmur of dissent from the Transport Workers Union officials, saying that this amounts to workers bailing out the airline,[14]  there were no moves to organise resistance to this move at airports or at other workplaces.

The top Union officials, remunerated to the tune of six-figure salaries at the expense of Union members, are once again playing their role as political police of rank and file workers. In Queensland, the Queensland Council of Union executive wasted no time in cancelling Labour Day marches planned for 2020.[15] On the unconvincing grounds of protecting “public safety”, the ultra-conservative QCU executive was only too happy to present itself as one with the government of the elites. No other provisions for even consulting workers, or organising smaller meetings where workers could discuss or plan a response, was provided. The only action component proposed was that workers sign a petition [!!] for leave for casual workers!  The virtual absence of democratic rights for workers within the Unions, enforced by careerist officials, results in such tragicomic outcomes.

Well-heeled Union officials, the corporate media, venture capitalists, and even left groups who usually parade their “socialist” convictions, are now lining up as one. Whether they call on the government to “take the crisis seriously” or encourage people to visit government approved websites, they are all in lockstep with what appears to be a preparation for World War III. The numbers are simply not there for a “pandemic”. The production for profit economy was already effectively in recession, and large and small employers were just itching for an excuse to cut their costs by laying off workers without resistance. What better opportunity than a supposed health crisis? Those with serious capital will not lose out by mass retrenchments of workers – in fact they could well make big money out of it.

Mass retrenchment of workers will cause immense hardship and suffering for the majority of workers who only earn enough to pay the bills, and many not even that. The goal of the rulers appears to have been to once again enforce submission to authority without question. US imperialism (backed by Canberra) was seriously defeated in their war of regime change against Syria. Standing in the way of the US juggernaut was Russia, and to a lesser extent, China. Unable to accept defeat, it is not unlikely to assume that Washington is turning to any method whatever – even the fueling of biological war – in a vain attempt to reassert its fast slipping global hegemony. While workers should participate in reasonable health precautions, docile submission to attacks on jobs and living standards should be resisted. Imperialist war provocations should be rejected, and preparations made for an internationally planned and collectively owned economy. A workers’ party which leads the masses against the never-ending crisis of the profit system remains the most urgent necessity.

WORKERS  LEAGUE

www.redfireonline.com

E: workersleague@redfireonline.com

PO Box 66  NUNDAH  QLD  4012

 

[1] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1180429.shtml (18-03-2020)

[2] http://en.people.cn/n3/2020/0223/c90000-9661026.html (18-03-2020)

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/coronavirus-chinese-official-suggests-u-s-army-blame-outbreak-n1157826 (18-03-2020)

[4] https://thehill.com/policy/international/487853-pompeo-warns-china-against-spreading-outlandish-rumors-about-coronavirus (18-03-2020)

[5] https://www.france24.com/en/20200204-china-opens-virus-hospital-built-from-scratch-in-under-two-weeks (21-03-2020)

[6] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-live-updates-china-exonerates-whistleblower-doctor-warned/story?id=69702910 (21-03-2020)

[7] https://www.globalresearch.ca/more-than-just-virus/5706476 (21-03-2020)

[8] https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2020/03/16/kim-iverson-reports-the-same-geopolitical-observations-about-biowarfare-your-passport-has-a-lot-to-do-with-your-exposure-to-covid-19-the-ramifications-for-you-and-your-loved-ones-is-explained-china/ (21-03-2020)

[9] https://journal-neo.org/2020/02/20/us-wages-biological-war-against-china/(21-03-2020)

[10] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/03/18/621105/US-fresh-sanctions-Iran-coronavirus-outbreak?fbclid=IwAR2F_ICOKi9ojx4QLMU3p-MMWFMdRznJp2FCKAvuEe6xcqTa0jkW7rjDrJg (21-03-2020)

[11] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-china-and-russia-call-us-lift-iran-sanctions?fbclid=IwAR2sE4qPdLeLb1uwjR3fvrvy-pKaM1MWckggdpNKpMScJF8cTxUvY959kPU (21-03-2020)

[12] https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2020/03/11/620625/Google-Iran-coronavirus-US-sanctions-Trump-medicine?fbclid=IwAR01LkXDjKo4Rxv4yAg3tzgpNF41IwYMkUOJqot4sfg0pR5kaRFRiZ31RF8 (21-03-2020)

[13] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-21/coronavirus-self-isolation-whos-making-sure-you-stay-indoors/12078074?fbclid=IwAR1T6YXt1AFDkk9bhpVHVYzelVrNOKKrgkScng6SRqbeWjbntHoFAbOW5To (22-03-2020)

[14] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-19/qantas-to-stand-down-two-thirds-of-employees-due-to-coronavirus/12069876?fbclid=IwAR17XkUVtnqbRoLeUlpQoUpIr2y9SecSoaS76J4zkoKO8T7PumEC_LhTh0Y (22-03-2020)

[15] https://www.queenslandunions.org/workers-put-community-health-and-safety-first-in-cancelling-labour-day-events/ (22-03-2020)