CP8. Confrontation in Korea: history and relevant facts.

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{Published (2023 Nov 17) by Dissident Voice @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/11/korea-colonized-plundered-divided-devastated-by-war-under-ongoing-threat-of-war/ (published with some minor unapproved modifications, not included here).}

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Korea: colonized, plundered, raped, divided, devastated by war, under ongoing threat of war.

By Charles Pierce

The Korean War (1950—53) was suspended with an armistice agreement. A hostile truce has persisted ever since. With respect to that ongoing confrontation, what Americans get from their government and their mainstream news media abounds with crucial omissions and misleading distortions resulting in a false portrayal of the geopolitical realities. Relevant history and essential facts.

1. THE FIGHT FOR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

Korea was unified as a nation by the 10^th century. During the last half of the 19^th century, multiple invasions by foreign powers (US, France, Britain, and Japan) forced the country to allow foreign capital to enter and operate in Korea. ^[1]

In 1905, imperial Japan subjugated Korea as its Protectorate. In 1910, Japan proceeded to annex Korea, which it then ruled until 1945. While Japanese capital exploited the labor and natural resources of the country, the Japanese state banned use of the Korean language and customs in an attempt at forced assimilation. ^[1]

In 1919, the Korean independence movement organized mass rallies involving some 2 million protestors demanding independence from Japan. Japanese police and military forces crushed these protests with repressive violence causing some 7,000 fatalities. Independence leaders in exile then established the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea [PGRK] which then obtained some limited international recognition and served until 1945 as an advocacy center for the independence movement. ^{[1, 2]}

Between 1935 and 1940, the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army [NAJUA], led by the Communist Party of China [CPC], conducted guerrilla operations against Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea. Kim Il Sung, then a member of the CPC, obtained some distinction as an effective and popular division commander in the NAJUA. Japanese countermeasures forced Kim’s division, by the end of 1940, to escape into Soviet territory where they were retrained by the Soviet army. Kim then became an officer in the Soviet Red Army and was serving therein when the USSR joined the War against Japan (1945 August). During the interim, he was not present in Korea or China. Kim returned to Korea with Soviet forces in 1945 August. ^[3]

2. FORCED SEXUAL PROSTITUTION.

During the Asia-Pacific War (1941—45), Japan forced up to 200,000 Korean women (along with many more from other occupied countries) into sexual slavery to serve Japanese soldiers. During the Korean War (1950—53), the South Korean government re-established this system of forced sexual prostitution to serve South Korean and allied soldiers, the victims being conscripted almost exclusively from the ranks of the disempowered (worker and poor peasant) classes. This system persisted into the 21^st century as a for-profit industry with sexual prostitution in “camp towns” (organized and regulated by the US and South Korean military authorities) around military bases. ^[4]

3. HOW KOREA COME TO BE DIVIDED.

As the Soviet Army was about to liberate Korea from 40 years of oppressive Japanese colonial rule, the US, wanting to prevent that country from falling under predominant Soviet influence, asked (1945 August 10) that Soviet forces stop at the 38^th parallel so that the US would be able to occupy the southern half of the country. Hoping for a good postwar relationship, the USSR promptly agreed, with the expectation that this would be a temporary arrangement until the removal of Japanese forces and the establishment of an independent government for the whole country. Actual liberation began on August 14 with Soviet Red Army amphibious landings in the northeast of the country. US forces did not enter southern Korea until September 08, by which time Soviet forces would otherwise likely have occupied the entire country and disarmed all occupying Japanese forces. ^[5]

In August, popular People’s Committees affiliated with the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence [CPKI] arose throughout Korea. This organization was led by activists in country including: Lyuh Woon-hyung, and veteran Christian nationalist Cho Man-sik. On September 12, activists from the People’s Committees, meeting in Seoul (in US occupation zone), established the People’s Republic of Korea [PRK] to govern the country. The PRK program included:

confiscation of lands held by Japanese and their Korean collaborators;
distribution of that land to peasants;
rent limits on all leased land;
nationalization of major industries;
guarantees for basic human rights and freedoms (speech, press, assembly, faith);
universal adult suffrage;
equality for women;
labor law reforms (eight-hour day, minimum wage, prohibition of child labor, et cetera);
good relations with US, USSR, China, and Britain; and
opposition to foreign interference in affairs of state.

^[6]

Soviet authorities recognized the People’s Committees and PRK which then instituted progressive social reforms in the North ^[7]. Meanwhile, the US Army Military Government [USAMGIK] in the South: regarded said PRK and People’s Committees as unacceptably leftist, and suppressed them by military decree and armed force. USAMGIK also: put rightwing former Japanese collaborators in key power positions ^[6], and persisted in repressing reform advocates ^{[7, 8]}. Popular protests and localized rebellions followed ^[9]. By 1948 state repression in the South under USAMGIK had subjected dissidents to arbitrary detention, torture, and murder with thousands of victims ^{[7, 9]}. The US also chose rightwing anti-Communist, Syngman Rhee, as their man to govern the country ^{[7, 10]}.

With the US and USSR deadlocked in disagreement over the content of a government for a united Korea, the US orchestrated the establishment (1948 August 15) of the Republic of Korea [ROK] with Syngman Rhee as President. Authorities in the North responded by establishing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK] on September 09 with Kim Il-sung as Premier. ^{[5, 11, 12]}

4. WHAT HAPPENED TO DEMOCRACY?

In the South, Rhee’s autocratic regime brutally persecuted Communists and other dissidents with detention, torture, assassination, and mass murder. Victims numbered in the tens of thousands. Repressive autocratic rule persisted in the South (with one brief reprieve) until 1987 when replaced by a liberal “democratic” regime with some semblance of civil liberties. However, government under this regime remains dominated by political parties which represent factions of a ruling capitalist class. Consequently, its “democracy” is illusory. ^{[13, 14]}

In the North, the People’s Committees constituted popular democratic institutions, which were already active when Soviet forces arrived. With Soviet backing, said Committees, with widespread popular support, constituted the governing authority. By 1946, the Soviet-backed (Communist) Workers’ Party had begun to dominate the Committees and the governing administration. Following the Korean War, Workers’ Party leader Kim Il Sung: purged other leading Communists (1952—62), replaced proletarian internationalism with Korean nationalism in Party doctrine, promoted a personality cult around himself, and created a hereditary dynastic autocracy, practices incompatible with Marxism and socialist participatory democracy. Thusly, the DPRK devolved into a dynastic bureaucratic welfare state, not capitalist, but also not actually socialist. ^{[5, 11, 15]}

5. THE KOREAN WAR.

Both Korean governments claimed the right to govern the entire country and had made preparations to enforce said claim thru military force. From 1949, there were border skirmishes, nearly all which began as incursions and/or artillery bombardments from the South into the North. In 1950 June, following a 2-day ROK cross-border bombardment and seizure of northern territory (including the city of Haeju) in the Ongjin area, the DPRK responded with a full-scale invasion of the South. The unpopular ROK regime collapsed, and DPRK forces quickly gained control of most of the South. ^{[16, 10]}

During its brief control in the South, the DPRK instituted progressive reforms (nationalization of industry, land reform, and restoration of the People’s Committees). According to US General William F Dean, “the civilian attitude seemed to vary between enthusiasm and passive acceptance”. ^[17]

The US, its allies, and their major news media, falsely characterized: the event as an unprovoked Communist aggression, the repressive ROK as a popular democracy, and the conflict as an international crisis (belying its reality as a civil war). The US, taking advantage of USSR boycott of United Nations [UN] meetings, induced said UN to authorize a US-led military intervention to save the ROK. Thusly, the US transformed the hitherto relatively-bloodless Korean civil conflict into the horrendous Korean War. Moreover, the US, by threatening to invade China and by bombing China’s territory and threatening hydropower stations serving its proximate industries, provoked China to enter the conflict on the side of the DPRK. ^[10]

Toll. The War took the lives of an estimated 3 million people, including some 1.6 million civilians, many of them as a consequence of indiscriminate US aerial bombing and war crimes perpetrated by US and allied forces. Said crimes included:

massive US use of chemical weapons (especially napalm) in violation of the 1925 Geneva Convention;
massive US use of bombing attacks upon civilian targets (cities and villages);
deliberate destruction of crops and of food production infrastructure;
massacres of many thousands of unarmed civilians by US armed forces under orders from high-ranking commanders at No Gun Ri and at many other locations (where US Army soldiers gunned down large crowds of civilians, or US airpower strafed and/or bombed them); and
massacres of at least 100,000 Koreans by ROK police and army (as at Sancheong and Hamyang where ROK forces slaughtered 705 mostly women and children), at Koch’ang (where 719 persons of both sexes and all ages were mowed down by machine gun), and thru mass executions of rounded-up prisoners on mere suspicion that they might be unsympathetic to the repressive ROK regime.

Nearly all of the North and much of the South were reduced to rubble. ^{[18, 10, 19]}

Armistice signed in 1953 July left a hostile and uneasy truce with little net change in the control of territory, but no peace agreement. This condition persists to the present time. Moreover, foreign troops have not been stationed in the North since 1958, but US armed forces (in the tens of thousands) have never yet left the South. ^[20]

6. WHO FIRST INTRODUCED NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

The US deployed nuclear weapons in south Korea (in violation of the Armistice Agreement) from 1958 until 1991 (when it apparently decided that its interests would be better served with a prohibition of nuclear weapons in Korea). Moreover, US warships carrying nuclear weapons operate routinely in waters around Korea. ^[21]

With the (1991) collapse of its protective USSR ally and with continued hostility from the US and ROK, the DPRK (in 1993) announced its intent to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and stepped up its efforts to develop a nuclear weapons capability as a deterrent. The DPRK suspended that withdrawal under the 1994 Agreed Framework whereby it agreed to remain in the NPT and to be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] in return for:

light water nuclear power reactors to replace existing graphite nuclear power reactors (which were capable of easily producing weapons-grade plutonium),
fuel oil deliveries to replace the power from shut down of the graphite reactors (until the light water reactors came on line),
relief from sanctions,
an end to threatening US-ROK military exercises, and
movement toward normal diplomatic and economic relations.

It is now widely suspected that the US embraced the Agreed Framework on the assumption that the DPRK regime was on the verge of collapse which would mean no need for the US to fulfill its commitments. ^{[22, 23]}

The US did default on the agreement thru long delays in construction of the light water reactors which was years behind the targeted 2003 completion date. Then the US further defaulted: by ending delivery of promised fuel oil shipments (2002), and by stopping construction of the light water reactors (2003). Further, the US falsely accused the DPRK of having confessed violation of the Agreed Framework by misinterpreting the DPRK’s assertion of having an inherent right to possess nuclear weapons as an admission of actual possession of such weapons. Finally, US President Bush: branded North Korea together with Iran and Iraq as an “axis of evil”; and then invaded Iraq where the US imposed regime change (followed by show trials and executions of deposed Iraqi leaders). The DPRK responded (in 2003) to the US default and intensified hostility by reactivating its nuclear reactors and by quitting the NPT. However, it offered to end its nuclear weapons program in return for security guarantees, but the US was unwilling to provide. ^{[22, 23]}

Repeated talks (2003—07) between the two sides failed to produce any lasting agreement. The Obama administration (2009—17) ratcheted up the threatening military exercises and ignored DPRK calls for talks to make peace. The DPRK has made six nuclear bomb tests (in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016 January, 2016 September, 2017); and it has also developed an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM] capability. ^{[20, 24]}

The US, in 2017, deployed its THAAD anti-missile system in south Korea thereby further destabilizing the confrontation and also provoking alarm in China ^[25].

7. THE CURRENT DANGER.

In 2011, the US and its allies used military force to oust the Gaddafi regime in Libya (after having used military force to effect regime change in Iraq in 2003). Both Iraq and Libya had given up their nuclear-weapons programs. The DPRK drew the inevitable conclusion that it needed a nuclear weapons deterrent to protect itself against a similar event.

The US (with its imperial interventionist bi-partisan foreign policy consensus, arrogating to the US the “right” to use subversion, economic siege, military force, and any other available instrument in order to enforce its dictates against any country which insists upon following an insubordinate course) continues its hostility toward the DPRK. Under Biden, it persists in its aggressions against said DPRK: vilification, economic siege, annually conducting threatening US-ROK joint military exercises in the South (to which the DPRK responds by test-firing its missiles). The US refuses to discuss making a peace treaty or normalization of relations; it persists in its unwavering goal of regime change. In fact, the US has used its economic power to intensify international sanctions (economic siege) against the DPRK. Meanwhile, the obsequious (and/or negligently ignorant) mainstream news media misleads the public as to the realities of the confrontation; while the liberal left, if it responds at all, ignores US provocations and, tacitly or explicitly, accepts the mischaracterization of the DPRK as an aggressive “rogue” state.

Astute experts, including former US President Carter, have recognized that the current US policy, of attempting to coerce the DPRK to give up its nuclear deterrent while refusing to provide security guarantees, cannot succeed ^[4]. As long as the threat remains, the DPRK, regardless of who leads its government, will certainly not agree to give up the nuclear weapons deterrent which is its best insurance against military attack by an imperial US superpower bent upon regime-change. The way to ensure peace in the Korean peninsula is to remove the sanctions and other hostile measures against the DPRK including the provocative joint military exercises with the ROK.

The DPRK does not want war. It wants a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War. Its officials have asserted that it also wants Korea reunified under a federal system wherein the central government’s functions would be limited to national defense and foreign relations. Finally, the DPRK wants normal relations with the US and its neighbors; and, with that, it would, as it has repeatedly asserted, envision and welcome an end to hostile actions on both sides. ^{[20, 22]}

US government policy has never prioritized the welfare of the Korean people, North or South. Imperial hostility and pressure for regime change from outside forces, namely the US and its allies, has driven the DPRK regime to react with intensified repression of dissent. That then has operated to reinforce the bureaucratic rule and dynastic autocracy, which (along with economic siege and need to heavily invest limited resources in military deterrent) are contrary to the best interests of the people of the DPRK. Moreover, this US policy seriously threatens a catastrophic war which would devastate Korea and cause massive loss of life, South as well as North. The principal beneficiaries of this policy are: the munitions vendors; their supportive imperial-minded US politicians of both major parties (whose election campaigns are significantly funded by said munitions vendors); government officials (who will subsequently become corporate executives or lobbyists for the merchants of death) ^[26]; and the “experts” in policy institutes and academia (who make their careers as apologists for US-led Western imperialism).

NOTED SOURCES:

[1] Wikipedia: History of Korea (2023 Oct 17) ~ §§ Later Three Kingdoms, Foreign relationships, Korean Empire (1898—1910), Japanese rule (1910—1945).

[2] Wikipedia: Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea (2023 Oct 26) ~ §§ introduction, Foreign relations.

[3] Wikipedia: Kim Il Sung (2023 Nov 02) ~ §§ Communist and guerrilla activities, Return to Korea.

[4] Hynesᵒ H Patricia: The Korean War: Forgotten, Unknown and Unfinished (Truthout, 2013 Jul 12) @ https://truthout.org/articles/the-korean-war-forgotten-unknown-and-unfinished/ .

[5] Wikipedia: History of North Korea (2023 Sep 05) ~ § Division of Korea (1945—1950).

[6] Wikipedia: People’s Republic of Korea (2023 Oct 30).

[8] Wikipedia: United States Army Military Government in Korea (2023 Oct 20).

[9] Wikipedia: Autumn Uprising of 1946 (2023 Oct 18).

[10] Blum⸰ William: Killing Hope – U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (© 2004, Common Courage Press) ~ chapter 5 ♦ ISBN 1-56751-252-6. Note: 1st half, thru chapter 34, of 2003 edition is online @ http://aaargh.vho.org/fran/livres8/BLUMkillinghope.pdf .

[11] Wikipedia: History of North Korea (2023 Sep 05) ~ § Establishment of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

[12] Cummingsᵒ: ~ pp 209—17.

[13] Cummingsᵒ: ~ pp 217—24.

[14] Wikipedia: History of South Korea (2023 Nov 02) ~ §§ First Republic (1948—1960) thru Fifth Republic (1979—1987).

[15] Wikipedia: Workers’ Party of Korea (2023 Oct 27) ~ § History.

[16] Cummingsᵒ: ~ pp 247—264.

[17] Wikipedia: History of North Korea (2023 Sep 05) ~ § Korean War (1950—1953).

[18] Wikipedia: Korean War (2023 Nov 09) ~ § Casualties.

[19] Wikipedia: Geochang massacre (2023 Sep 07); Sancheong-Hamyang massacre (2023 Jun 04); No Gun Ri massacre (2023 Sep 22).

[20] Wikipedia: Korean Armistice Agreement (2023 Jul 27).

[21] Wikipedia: South Korea and weapons of mass destruction (2023 Oct 25) ~ § American nuclear weapons in South Korea.

[22] Sigalᵒ Leon V: Bad History (38North, 2017 Aug 22) @ http://www.38north.org/2017/08/lsigal082217/ .

[23] Wikipedia: Agreed Framework (2023 May 21).

[24] BBC: North Korea: What missiles does it have? (2023 Sep 03) @ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41174689 .

[25] Borowiecᵒ Steven: THAAD missile system agitates South Korea-China ties (Nikkei Asia, 2023 Jun 22) @ https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/THAAD-missile-system-agitates-South-Korea-China-ties .

[26] Kuzmarovᵒ Jeremy: Senate Report: Nearly 700 Former High-Ranking Pentagon and Other Government Officials Now Work at the Top 20 Defense Contractors (Covert Action Magazine, 2023 May 12) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/05/12/senate-report-nearly-700-former-high-ranking-pentagon-and-other-government-officials-now-work-at-the-top-20-defense-contractors/ .

Charles Pierce is a social-justice activist (since his youth in the early 1960s), a former/retired labor activist (union steward & local officer), and currently a researcher and writer on history and politics. He can be reached at cpbolshi@gmail.com. Read other articles by Charles, or visit Charles’s website.

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CP7. Essential facts of Zionism and Palestine.

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{Published by Dissident Voice @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/10/the-essential-facts-concerning-zionism-and-palestine/; and by UNAC @ https://unac.notowar.net/2023/10/10/a-political-history-of-zionism-and-palestine/.}

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The essential facts concerning Zionism and Palestine.

by Charles Pierce / October 10th, 2023

1. Doctrine. Zionism was devised by some middle-class Jewish Europeans (most prominently Lev Pinsker and Theodore Herzl) as one response to horrendous late 19^th century anti-Jewish persecutions in Europe. Like many of their contemporaries among nationalistic privileged-class European intellectuals and like the Nazis who came later, the Zionists conceived of the world’s Jews as a race. Moreover, they viewed the Jews as: (in their own words) a “parasitic” and “alien” presence within the gentile countries; and therefore a “Jewish problem”, which could only be resolved by removing all or most Jews from the gentile countries to a country of their own, which they decided would need to be in Palestine. Consequently, the Zionists opposed assimilation and disparaged those Jews who assimilated. ^[1]

2. Colonialism. The Zionists, like other European colonialists, approved of the subjugation of non-white peoples and justified it with the then-commonplace racist rationale that God, or Destiny, had chosen the “superior” Europeans to bring “civilization” to the territories populated by the “primitive” peoples of Africa and Asia. Therefore, no meaningful consideration was given to the rights of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs. ^[2]

3. Imperialism. The Zionists coalesced in 1897 with the formation of the Zionist Organization [ZO]. Its leaders then began appealing to various European colonialist powers for sponsorship of their proposal to create a so-called Jewish homeland in Palestine. Ultimately, it was Britain which became the imperial sponsor by issuing the Balfour Declaration (1917) calling for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”. The British motivations were twofold. ^[3]

♦ Firstly, Britain envisioned the creation of a British-allied outpost of European civilization in oil-rich southwest Asia as an instrument for projecting British imperial and commercial power over a part of the world in which British capital and empire were already heavily invested (notably in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [now BP Inc.], Shell Oil, and the Suez Canal).

♦ Secondly, there was the anti-Jewish prejudice of some leading Cabinet members, including former Prime Minister Balfour, who hoped to reduce the Jewish presence in European government, commerce, and the professions.

4. Anti-Arab racism. Jews (4% of the population) and their Muslim and Christian neighbors (85% and 11% respectively) had coexisted amicably in Palestine for many generations prior to the arrival of the Zionists. Zionist doctrine and practice destroyed this relationship.

♦ During the period of British rule over Palestine (1917—48), sympathetic Jewish capitalists in Europe and the United States provided money for Zionist land acquisitions in Palestine. The Zionists then evicted the Arab tenant farmers thereby violating the traditional rights of the latter. Moreover, the Zionist governing body required that Jewish employers hire only Jews and prohibited the sale of any Jewish-owned land to Arabs. Such racial discrimination was standard practice within the Zionist settlements; and it quite predictably provoked Arab resentment against the Zionist settlers. ^[4]

♦ Meanwhile, there were recurring suggestions (in private) by top Zionist leaders (Herzl, Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and others) that the “Arab problem” could be resolved through “population transfer” to other Arab countries. In fact, from the very beginning, the Zionist leadership intended to eventually expel the indigenous Arab population from Palestine. ^[5]

5. Collusion with anti-Jewish persecutors. For several decades, the Zionist organizations refused to fight for equal rights for Jews. In fact, they acted in concert with the persecutors.

♦ Whereas many Jews joined other anti-racists (including Communists) in the fight against the chauvinist, xenophobic, and anti-Jewish nationalisms and related persecutions which arose in Europe in the years between the two world wars of the 20^th century; the Zionists, largely because of Communist opposition to the racialism at the heart of Zionist ideology, joined the fascists and allied bigots in denouncing the Communists. Meanwhile, the Zionist organizations, claiming to represent the interests of the world’s Jews, refused to fight anti-Jewish bigotry and persecutions. Why? Because they wanted persecuted Jews, not to fight for equal rights within their native countries, but to emigrate to Palestine. To that end, the Zionist organizations routinely colluded with anti-Jewish states in sponsoring migration, legal and illegal, of European Jews to Palestine. ^[6]

♦ In the 1930’s, the New Zionist Organization [NZO] (representing the minority “revisionist” faction) allied itself with fascist Italy until Mussolini broke off the alliance in order to enter the Axis Pact with Hitler. ^[7]

♦ Meanwhile, the German affiliate of the ZO (majority faction) refused to support resistance to Nazi anti-Jewish racial policies in order to maintain cooperation with the Nazi state in promoting and facilitating German Jewish emigration to Palestine. Moreover, the NZO-affiliated German State Zionist Organization (while receiving special favor from the Nazi regime which imposed its leader, Georg Kareski, as director of the Jewish Culture Leagues): praised Nazi policies, opposed the anti-Nazi boycott, and colluded with the Gestapo. ^[6]

♦ After the War largely cut off routes for Jewish emigration, Nazi Germany (in 1941) began its extermination project. In 1944, the ZO’s operative (Rezso Kasztner) in Hungary made a bargain with Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of exterminating Europe’s Jews. If Kasztner would reassure the Hungarian Jews that they were to be resettled, not killed; then Eichmann would permit the ZO to take a number of select Jews to safety and Palestine. Kasztner provided the false assurance thereby enabling the Nazi SS to avoid significant resistance as it rounded up 450,000 Jewish Hungarians for deportation to the extermination camps. In return, the Nazi SS permitted the ZO to save 1,700 select Jews. Those, who had assimilated, or were non-Zionist, or were insufficiently young and vigorous were excluded and thereby left to be exterminated by the Nazis. ^[8]

♦! For Zionists, the persecution of Jews within their native countries (certainly prior to the Nazi’s “final solution”) was not something to fight, but a pretext for creating the so-called Jewish State in Palestine. Meanwhile, they dismissed any concern for the human rights of its indigenous population.

6. Obstruction of Jewish emigration. During the 1930s, Zionist obstruction of efforts, as at the 1938 Evian conference, to find safe havens for persecuted Jews outside of Palestine, impeded and limited Jewish emigration from Europe. Consequently, a huge number of Jews, who would otherwise have gotten out, were left trapped in Nazi-ruled Europe when the Axis War closed off (to nearly all Jews) avenues for further emigration ^[9]. Many of these Jews then become victims of the Nazi “final solution”. Moreover, after the War the Zionists opposed any consideration, during the 1946 inquiries of the Anglo-American Committee, to find countries willing to give refuge to the displaced Jews of Europe in Australia, the Americas, et cetera. They wanted these desperate people to have only one option, namely to go, legally or illegally, to Palestine ^[10].

7. Exploitation of the genocide. Ever since the Axis War, the Zionists and their supporters have manipulated popular sympathy for the Jewish victims of the genocide in order to obtain support for Zionism. They and their supporters insist that the world must atone for the genocide of the six million Jews by granting them Palestine for a “Jewish state”; but they evade the fact that justice would require atonement and compensation for that genocide to be borne by Christian Europe, which perpetrated and/or permitted the genocide, not by the Palestinian Arabs, who had no part in it. ^[11]

8. Censorship of critics. Zionists and their supporters routinely attempt to silence opponents of Zionism and critics of Israeli crimes against humanity by smearing said critics as purveyors of “antisemitism”, the word which Zionists and their allies use to mean Judeophobia (hatred of Jews), even though the Arab victims of Zionism are also Semitic in language and ancestral origin. When their critics are Jewish, as many are; Zionists have often disparaged and dismissed them as “self-hating Jews”. As Zionists obsessively smear their anti-racist critics, they generally give much less attention to actual Judeophobes.

9. Majority rule denied. Throughout most of its (1917—48) rule over Palestine, Britain, in violation of its Article 22 obligations under its League of Nations Mandate, deferred to the Zionists: by turning a deaf ear to repeated Palestinian Arab appeals for redress of grievances, and by refusing to establish any democratically-elected representative governing body. Why? Because such body would undoubtedly have rendered stillborn the scheme to transform Palestine into a Zionist nation-state by acting to stop: further Zionist immigration, land acquisitions, evictions of Arab tenant farmers, and discriminatory employment practices. ^[12]

10. Rebellions. Ultimately, the Arabs lost patience and resorted (in 1936) to armed rebellion. The British then used armed Zionist paramilitaries as “police” to assist in suppressing the Arab revolt. However, the persistence and cost of the Arab revolt finally convinced Britain of the folly of continuing to disregard the rights of the Arab majority in Palestine. Consequently, Britain (in 1939) abandoned its totally one-sided support for Zionist goals, and adopted a quasi-neutral policy, which both: offended the Arabs by continuing the refusal of majority rule, and angered the Zionists by restricting Zionist immigration and land acquisitions. The Zionists then revolted. When Britain declared war against Nazi Germany, two of the three Zionist paramilitaries (Haganah and Irgun) suspended the rebellion, while the third (Lehi a.k.a. Stern Gang) attempted (in 1940 and again in 1941) to ally itself to Nazi Germany but was rebuffed. In 1944, Irgun resumed the revolt; and in 1945 the three Zionist paramilitaries jointly resumed their rebellion with sabotage and murders including terrorist bombings. Their violent acts included: IED (improvised explosive device) attacks upon passing trains and motor vehicles; letter bombs; time bombs in hotels and other venues with civilian victims; and so forth; as well as attacks upon police and military targets. They also illegally trafficking large numbers of unauthorized Jewish immigrants into the country. ^[13]

11. Partition. In 1947, Britain concluded: that the objectives of the Zionists and of the Palestinian Arabs were irreconcilable, and that it could not maintain peace and order in Palestine with the resources which it was willing to commit. Britain then turned the Palestine problem over to the United Nations. The UN, then consisting of 56 mostly white-ruled (European and western-hemisphere) states, adopted a partition plan (General Assembly Resolution 181) which was grossly discriminatory against the Arabs. Of the 15 Asian and African member states (excluding white-ruled South Africa), only two, having been bribed or coerced, voted for it. ^[14]

♦ Distribution of territory. Although Jews were only 32% of the population, this UN plan allocated 55% of the territory to the “Jewish” state, 42% to the Arab state, and 3% to a UN administered zone in and around Jerusalem.

♦ Distribution of population. In the Zionist state, which was to have a population of 995,000, a bare majority of Jews was to rule over 497,000 mostly Arab and Bedouin others. The majority Arab state was to have a population of 735,000, of which a mere 10,000 (1.4%) was to consist of Jews. As had been the policy throughout the Mandate, majority-rule was deemed unacceptable when Jews were a minority but acceptable when and where they were in the majority.

♦ Responses. The ZO, intent upon obtaining international acceptance for the proposed Jewish state, professed acceptance of the partition plan. The Palestinian Arabs and neighboring Arab states denounced the plan as a racist and colonialist injustice and refused to be bound by it.

12. Conquest and ethnic cleansing. Armed conflict began between the Zionists and the Arabs even before Britain withdrew its forces in 1948 May 15. Although the Arabs had greater numbers, they were at a tremendous disadvantage with far fewer individuals trained for military service. Moreover, the intervening military contingents from Arab states were mostly: small in numbers, ill-trained, poorly equipped, and lacking in combat experience. In contrast, the Zionists: had long given priority to immigration by men capable of bearing arms; had tens of thousands of war veterans and other well-trained soldiers; were far better armed; and possessed a much more cohesive civil society with functioning governmental and military organizations. The Zionists proceeded: to conquer as much as possible of the territory allocated for the Arab state, and to expel most of the Arab population from Zionist-held territory. ^[15]

13. Nakba. The outcome of the war was a nakba (catastrophe) for the Palestinian Arabs.

♦ Territory. By war’s end in 1949, the so-called “Jewish state” had conquered 77% of the territory (including half of the territory allocated by the UN for the Palestinian Arab state); and the remaining 23% was occupied and/or annexed by Jordan and Egypt. ^[16]

♦ Ethnic cleansing. Zionist armed forces had used massacres, death threats broadcast by radio and mobile loudspeakers, and expulsions at gunpoint to dispossess nearly 60% of the indigenous Arab population thereby making refugees of at least 711,000 Palestinian Arabs. ^[17]

♦ Land. Immediately before the war, Jews owned 6.2% of the land in Palestine ^[15]. During and after the war, the Zionists confiscated the land and homes of the Arabs, who had fled or been expelled ^{[18, 19]}. They also confiscated nearly 40% of the landholdings of Arabs, who remained resident within Israeli-held territory ^[18]. The Zionist state then leased the confiscated land to Zionist Jewish settlers ^{[18, 19]}. By 1950, Zionists were in possession of 94% of the land within Israeli-ruled territory (that is 73% of the land within the whole of Palestine) ^[19].

♦ Redress. In 1948 Dec 11, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 194 calling for: (1) a demilitarized permanent international zone for Jerusalem, and (2) respect for the right of return for all refugees willing to live in peace with their neighbors. In 1949 May 11 the UN General Assembly admitted Israel to UN membership based upon its promised acceptance of the UN Charter and General Assembly Resolutions 181 and 194. Compliance with the Charter and with the two Resolutions would have required Israel: (1) to withdraw from occupied territory in the parts of Palestine allocated by the UN for the Palestinian Arab state and for the international zone, (2) to permit repatriation of the Palestinian Arab refugees to their homes in all Israeli-controlled territory, and (3) to accord equal citizenship rights to its Arab minority. Israel refused to comply with its obligations regarding: refugee repatriation, Jerusalem, and occupied Arab territory. Israel dealt with those Arabs remaining within its territory by expelling some and by eventually conferring an inferior class of citizenship upon the remainder. ^[20]

♦ Cover-up. Attempting to conceal evidence of its crimes against humanity, the Zionist state conducts a policy of sequestering, and denying access to, documents consisting of contemporary reports of the massacres, expulsions, and other ethnic cleansing operations which its forces perpetrated during the nakba and subsequently. ^[21]

14. Later conquests. The Zionist appetite for Arab territory was not satisfied by their conquests in 1948.

♦ Pursuant to a secret duplicitous conspiracy with France and Britain, Israel, in 1956 October, invaded Egypt. France and Britain, hoping to regain possession of the Suez Canal, then also invaded Egypt upon the pretense of intervening in order to safeguard commerce thru the Canal. During the meeting in which the conspiracy was hatched, Israeli leader David Ben Gurion proposed his “grand design”: that Israel should annex the remainder of Palestine plus southern Lebanon plus much of the Sinai. Because a ceasefire was imposed before Israeli forces could re-deploy for their planned invasion of Lebanon and the Jordanian-ruled West Bank, actual Israeli conquests were limited to Gaza and Sinai. Strong pressure by the US (which had not been consulted) ultimately compelled the aggressors to give back the conquered territory. ^[22]

♦ In 1967, the Zionist state launched a massive sneak attack upon Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Therewith, it conquered the remaining 23% of Palestine plus the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan. Its difficulties during a subsequent war (1973), and the costs of defending its conquests, eventually induced the Zionist state to return the Sinai to Egypt (by 1982); but it has refused to give up any of its remaining 1967 conquests. ^[23]

♦ Israel has repeatedly invaded neighboring Lebanon. It occupied much of Lebanon’s territory for two decades (1982—2000), and finally withdrew only in response to strong armed resistance by the Hezbollah militia. Israel continues to occupy the Sheba’a Farms district of Lebanon. Since 2000, Israeli armed forces have repeatedly (almost daily since 2006) breached Lebanese airspace, territorial waters, and/or land borders. It has also repeatedly bombed targets in the country. Massive Israeli airstrikes in 2006 killed some 1,100 people (mostly Lebanese civilians) and displaced another million. These Israeli actions provoke retaliatory action by the Hezbollah militia and by the Lebanese Army thereby perpetuating tensions and violent conflict. ^[24]

♦ Territories taken from the indigenous Arabs and currently occupied and ruled by the Zionist state consist of seven territories, the last five of which were conquered in the 1967 war. These include all of Palestine consisting of: (1) the partition territory, the 55% of Palestine allocated to the Zionist state by the UN in 1947; (2) the Nakba annexation, the additional 22% conquered by the Zionists in 1948—49; (3) East Jerusalem, 2%; (4) the West Bank, 19½%; and (5) Gaza, 1.4%. The other two, which were taken from neighboring Arab countries, are: (6) Golan, taken from Syria; and (7) Sheba’a Farms, a small piece of Lebanon. ^[23]

15. Occupation regime. The Zionist state has persistently committed human rights violations in defiance of both international human rights conventions and UN resolutions.

♦ Land grabs. Despite pretending to want peace with the Syrians and Palestinians, the Zionist state has illegally (officially or de facto) annexed their conquered territories. Within all of its occupied territories, it persists: in seizing land from the Arab inhabitants; expelling the Arabs; and settling Jews on those lands (all in violation of the 4^th Geneva Convention which pertains, among other matters, to the treatment of the native populations within foreign territories under military occupation). ^{[23, 25]}

♦ Citizenship and residency rights. The Israeli state encourages Jews with no personal ties to Palestine to take up residence in the country and become citizens, but it denies the right of return to the Palestinian Arabs who fled the war or were forcibly expelled in 1948. ^[26]

♦ Ethnic discrimination. Israel subjects Arabs, including those to whom it has conceded a third-class citizenship, to both overt and institutionalized discrimination. Infrastructure, services, and subsidies, which are routinely provided to Zionist communities, are denied to their Arab neighbors. Required building permits are almost never provided to Arabs, and the state routinely demolishes Arab homes and additions when constructed without such permits. Water resources are confiscated from Arab communities and given to their Zionist neighbors. Within the territories occupied since 1967, Zionist settlers are subject to civil law with liberal civil rights whereas Arabs are subject to arbitrary military law (with no such rights) and rigged judicial proceedings (with due process denied and near-certain conviction predetermined). ^[25]

♦ Repression. The Zionist state subjects the Arab population within occupied territories to murderous repression and collective punishments (in violation of the 4^th Geneva Convention and other international human rights laws). Specifics have included: unlawful targeted killings of resistance leaders; detentions and deportations of Palestinian Arab leaders; denial of travel rights to Arab critics of Zionist occupation practices; a profusion of arbitrary detentions and long imprisonments without charge; routine torture of prisoners; home demolitions where a single family member is suspected of an act of violent resistance; use of excessive force in quelling protests; mass bombings of civilian populations (as in Gaza, 2008, 2014 and 2021); a blockade depriving the 2 million Gazans of life-sustaining essentials (export income and vital imports including food, medical supplies, fuel, and sorely needed building materials); checkpoints and road blockages applicable only to Arabs; obstructions of access to education and employment; and so forth. Israel’s systematic and pervasive abuses create such extreme despair that it provokes violent resistance, both collective and individual, against the Israelis; and the Zionist state then uses every incident of violent resistance as a “security” pretext for continuing its injustices against the Palestinian Arabs. ^{[25, 27]}

16. Peace negotiations. The Zionist state, devoted to a racist ideology and existing upon the spoils of its robbery and oppression of the Arabs, has never sought a just peace.

♦ Until 1993, Israel refused to negotiate with the Palestinian interlocutors who actually could speak for the Palestinian Arabs. It has also often refused, upon one or another pretext, to even negotiate key issues which have included: the rights of the dispossessed Arabs to return to their native land, Palestinian statehood, the status of Jerusalem, the settlements in the West Bank, and the oppressive policies of the occupation regime. Then, whenever any of these issues have been discussed, Israel has insisted that any concessions on its part be conditional upon their interlocutors bargaining away the fundamental rights of the indigenous Palestinians, rights provided under international law. ^{[28, 29]}

♦ Israel has unilaterally and persistently created “facts on the ground” and bludgeoned the Palestinians so that their leaders have been compelled to negotiate from a position of such desperation that they are essentially captives negotiating with the Zionist gun to their heads. ^[30]

♦ Finally, the Zionist state, having given a lip-service acceptance of the so-called 2-state solution, pretends to be agreeable in principle to Palestinian statehood so that it can then “justify” continuing to exclude most Palestinian Arabs from citizenship and equal civil rights. Meanwhile, it has planted so many settlements as to make a viable Palestinian state impossible even in the West Bank. Any such “state” would be a collection of disconnected and subjugated cantons similar to the Bantustans of Apartheid South Africa. ^{[31, 29]}

Date: originally researched and written in 2018 June, slightly revised 2021 October.

Comment on subsequent events.

The most overtly fascist coalition now governing the Zionist state has intensified its oppression of the Palestinians, especially in the occupied West Bank. That has naturally provoked an increase in militant resistance. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whatever their faults, currently constitute the most organized force in said resistance. The current armed conflict (begun Oct 07) between Gaza and the Zionist state is the natural outcome of Israeli/Zionist persecution and violence against the Palestinians.

The US-dominated West (US, NATO, EU, et cetera) and their mainstream media view the conflict essentially from the Zionist perspective. Palestinian violence is categorized as “terrorism”, while Israeli violence against Palestinians never is; the country is always called “Israel”, never “Palestine”; Palestinian grievances usually go unmentioned; and so forth.

The anti-racist “left” needs to recognize that Biden and his counterparts in the Western allies, now rushing to assist Israel, are no less racist than are Trump’s MAGA Republicans and other right-wing populists.

Noted sources:

[3] Morris: ~ p 5.

Sachar: ~ pp 47—54, 96—110.

Brenner: ~ p 9.

[4] Sachar: ~ pp 77—78, 142—143, 163—167, 175—176.

[5] Morris: ~ pp 2—3, 18—19.

[6] Brenner: ~.chapters 3, 5, 6, 7, 12.

[7] Brenner: ~ chapters 4, 10, 14.

[8] Brenner: ~ chapter 25.

[10] Morris: ~ p 23, 26, 65.

[11] Morris: ~ p 33.

[12] United Nations Information System for Palestine [UNISPAL]: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem 1917-1988 (1990) ~ Part I (§ III) @ https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/57C45A3DD0D46B09802564740045CC0A .

[13] Morris: ~ pp 14—20, 29—31, 35—36.

Wikipedia: 1936-1939 Arab Revolt in Palestine (last edited 2018 May 29); Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine (last edited 2018 May 26) ~ § 1 Origins, § 2 Timeline; Semiramis Hotel bombing (last edited 2018 May 05).

[14] Morris: ~ pp 37—38, 55, 61, 63—65.

Wikipedia: United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (last edited 2018 May 14).

UNISPAL: ~ Part II (§§ III, IV).

[15] Morris: ~ pp 77—93.

UNISPAL: ~ Part II (§ V).

[16] UNISPAL: ~ Part II (§ IX).

[17] Wikipedia: 1948 Palestinian exodus (last edited 2018 Jun 01).

[18] Sachar: ~ pp 386—389.

[19] Stephen Lendman: Israel’s Discriminatory Land Policies (2009 Jul 31) @ https://www.globalresearch.ca/israel-s-discriminatory-land-policies/14579 .

Wikipedia: Israeli land and property laws (last edited 2018 May 23) ~ § 2 Overview.

[20] UNISPAL: ~ Part II (§ VI).

Sachar: ~ pp 382—386.

[21] Hagar Shezaf: Burying the Nakba (Haaretz, 2019 Jul 05) @ https://portside.org/2019-07-06/burying-nakba .

[22] Wikipedia: Protocol of Sèvres (last edited 2018 Apr 02); United Nations Emergency Force (last edited 2018 May 27).

Sachar: ~ pp 506.

[23] Wikipedia: Israeli-occupied territories (last edited 2018 May 23).

[24] Wikipedia: South Lebanon conflict (1985-2000) (last edited 2018 May 30); Israeli-Lebanese conflict (2018 May 23) ~ § 6 Border clashes, assassinations …, § 7 2006 Lebanon War, § 8 Post-2006 war activity, § 9 Israeli incursions into Lebanon.

[25] Amnesty International: Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories 2016/2017 (accessed 2017 Oct) @ https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/ .

Human Rights Watch: Israel – 50 years of occupation abuses (2017 Jun 04) @ https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/06/04/israel-50-years-occupation-abuses .

[26] UNRWA: Palestine refugees (accessed 2017 Oct 01) @ https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees .

Wikipedia: Israeli nationality law (last edited 2018 May 27); Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (last edited 2018 Mar 05).

[28] BBC News: History of Mid-East Peace Talks (2013 Jul 29) @ http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11103745 .

[29] Jakob Reimann: Israel Is an Apartheid State (Even if the UN Report Has Been Withdrawn) (2017 Mar 31) @ https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/03/31/israel-is-an-apartheid-state-even-if-the-un-report-has-been-withdrawn/ .

[30] Wikipedia: Facts on the ground (last edited 2018 May 18).

[31] Pappe: ~ chapter 10.

Seraj Assi: Is Israel an Apartheid State? (2017 Apr 07) @ https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2017/04/07/is-israel-an-apartheid-state/ .

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CP6. Ethnic cleansing in the United States.

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Ethnic cleansing in the United States.

1. Land cessions. Relevant history.

○ Colonial period. Until 1492 all of North America belonged to its many indigenous peoples. Between 1565 (when Spain established, in Florida, the first permanent European colony in what was to become the 48 contiguous United States) and 1783 (when the United States gained its independence from Britain), most of the land east of the Appalachian divide was taken from the indigenous nations and settled by Europeans. Most of the displaced indigenes, who survived, were forced to relocate to territory further west.

○ US claims. During the War for American Independence, some of the indigenous nations (and/or their internal factions) remained neutral, while others eventually took one side or the other. Of the latter, many more sided with the British than with the Americans, because the British (wanting to avoid costly armed conflicts) had attempted to protect indigenous territory from incursions by American land speculators and frontier settlers. With the end of the War in 1783, the United States laid claim to sovereignty over all of the territory between the Appalachian divide and the Mississippi River. At first the US government claimed the right to take ownership of all of the land in this new territory based on a purported “right of conquest”. Naturally the indigenous nations refused to accept either the claim of American sovereignty or the purported right of Americans to take their land.

○ Treaty cessions. As the United States government seized Indigenous American land in response to pressure from wealthy land speculators and racist demagogues, war was the inevitable result. The American government soon recognized that negotiations for land cessions was an easier and far less costly means for enforcing the claimed sovereignty and obtaining the coveted land. In such negotiations, all of the advantages were with the American side, which used those advantages to gradually obtain nearly all of the coveted territory thru a series of unequal treaties. The treaties were, of course, always written: by the American side, in the language of the Americans, and using interpreters chosen by the Americans. American agents (who often were territorial military governors) used intimidation, coercion, deceit, bribery, and exploitation of conflicts within and between the indigenous nations. While the indigenous nations were paid for the land, that pay was a small fraction of its actual value and commonly included promised annuities. These annuities were often subsequently withheld in order to extort cessions of additional territory. The American side routinely recognized an indigenous interlocutor, who was willing to comply with American demands, as agent (or purported “chief”) of an indigenous nation even though said interlocutor often had no authority to act for that nation. Naturally, the resulting treaties were invariably fraudulent. ^[1]

2. Land speculators. Throughout the colonial period and until the middle of the 19^th century, for Euro-Americans with money, the most popular and usual place to invest was in land, especially land on the frontier yet to be settled by Euro-Americans. Wealthy Europeans also often invested in such American land. “Valid” title to land in frontier areas could only be obtained from the colonial governments or later the federal government, and such land was routinely sold on especially favorable terms to political allies and influential insiders. Wealthy land speculators cast covetous eyes upon land owned and occupied by indigenous peoples. They were leading instigators of American aggressions and wars against the indigenous nations – aggressions thru which such lands were acquired by the government. These speculators used their influence with provincial and federal office-holders to obtain grants of large tracts of land newly extorted from the indigenous nations; then, after the indigenes had been expelled, these grant holders would contract surveys and sell the land in small lots at a great markup over their privileged purchase price. A notable example is the case of western New York. ^[2]

○ Preemption. In the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the US acknowledged that ownership of western New York belonged to the Iroquois Six Nations. A 1786 agreement to resolve conflicting claims over this territory gave its governance to New York, but gave to Massachusetts a preemptive right to buy the land from the Iroquois. In 1788 Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham purchased (from Massachusetts) that preemptive right over nearly all of New York west of Seneca Lake – 6 million acres occupying 14 present-day counties. The price was $1 million ($26.4 million in 2017 dollars), but it was to be paid in Massachusetts scrip then worth about 20 cents on the dollar. The scrip rose in value to par, and Phelps and Gorham were then unable to complete payment. When they defaulted after having made their first of three payments, purchase rights over the western 2/3 (i.e. the part west of the Genesee River) reverted to Massachusetts. In 1791 Robert Morris purchased the rights over most of that 2/3.

○ Dispossession. In 1792 and 93 Morris contracted the sale of most (3,750,000 acres) of his subject land to the Holland Land Company – a syndicate of wealthy investors in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In order to deliver clear title Morris had to buy the land from the Iroquois, its actual owners. In 1797, their agreement to sell was fraudulently extorted in the Treaty of Big Tree thru a combination of: (1) threat that the US would likely not recognize their ownership rights, and (2) bribery of their leaders and negotiators, plus (3) decision to leave the Iroquois with 200,000 acres (about 5.33%) for reservations. The Holland Land Company hired a survey and divided the land into lots which it then sold between 1801 and 1840.

○ End result. Massachusetts, which had never paid anything to the Iroquois, received from 9 to 16 2/3 cents per acre. The surveyors were paid about 2.2 cents per acre. The actual owners, the Iroquois, received about 3 cents per acre. The land in post-survey lots apparently sold generally at or above $3.00/acre. Thus, the land speculators (Morris, and the Holland Land Company) apparently received, between them, gross profits in excess of $2.75/acre.

3. Purchasers. Land in the fully settled eastern part of the newly independent United States was mostly all privately owned, and it was relatively expensive. Thus, tenant farmers and farm laborers generally could not afford to purchase farms there. Meanwhile, land in the western frontier areas possessed certain relative disadvantages; specifically: less of it had been cleared of woods, its roads and other transportation infrastructure were few and crude, and access to markets and established American communities was more distant and difficult. Consequently, whenever land became available on the western frontier, it was relatively cheap. With every bloc of territory ceded by the indigenes to the US, the federal government asserted ownership of the ceded land. In the old Northwest Territory [Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin] the indigenes received pennies per acre for their land, which the US government then surveyed and offered at auction to individual Americans at prices of no less than $1.00 or $2.00/acre. The purchasers included wealthy land speculators as well as family farmers. Only the latter actually settled on the land. The speculators, who acquired a very large portion of the land, purchased it only to re-sell at a sizable mark-up to later settlers. Incidentally, such speculators were a major influence on American policy to take the land from its indigenous populations, as they (along with racist demagogues and militarists) lobbied and often bribed their friends in government to induce the government to seize and/or extort ever more cessions of territory from the indigenous peoples. ^[3]

4. Interracial relations. In order to justify the dispossession of the original owners of America and to obscure the fraud and theft utilized in the process, the land speculators, other advocates of American expansionism, and their apologists routinely resorted to misrepresentation and bigotry.

○ Firstly, (although there was brutality on both sides in the “Indian” wars) they tried to dehumanize the indigenes by portraying them as nothing but murdering heathen savages.

○ Secondly, they portrayed white settlement as bring civilization to an untamed wilderness and falsely portrayed the indigenous peoples as incapable of making productive use of the land. In fact, the indigenous peoples throughout almost the whole of the territory between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River were farmers, who cleared tracts of the woodland in order to raise the crops which included their staple foods – maize [corn], beans, and squash – plus various other vegetables. Meat obtained in the hunt was a supplement to the staples. If the indigenes did not clear as much of the woodland as the Americans, this was: because their lower population density and their land rotation practice made it unnecessary, and (until after European contact) because they lacked the steel saws and axes and the draft animals of the Euro-Americans, which made forest removal much easier.

Ω Despite the disparaging propaganda against the indigenous people, most settlers sought to avoid conflict with the remaining local natives. Some went further and established neighborly and mutually beneficial trade relations with neighboring indigenes. ^[4]

Noted sources:

[2] Wikipedia: Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) (2017 Nov 06); Treaty of Hartford (1786) (2017 Oct 10); Phelps and Gorham Purchase (2018 Feb 21); Robert Morris (financier) (2018 May 20); Holland Land Company (2018 Apr 24). New York Heritage: Holland Land Company Maps (© 2014) @ https://www.nyheritage.org/collections/holland-land-company-maps.

[4] Jack Lynch: “A Principal Source of Dishonor” – Indian Policies in Early America (C W Journal, 2009 Spring) @ http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring09/policies.cfm. R Douglas Hurt: Agriculture, American Indian (Dictionary of American History, © 2016) @ http://www.encyclopedia.com/history/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/agriculture-american-indian.

Author: Charles Pierce. Date: 2017 Aug 11.

Charles Pierce is: a working-class retiree, a past union steward and local union officer, and currently a researcher and writer on history and politics. Other articles by Charles Pierce can be accessed at https://specter-cp.home.blog.

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CP5. Conflicting “left” views of capitalist imperialism.

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CONFLICTING “LEFT” VIEWS OF CAPITALIST IMPERIALISM.

by Charles Pierce 2024 Oct 03 (latest update)

CONTENTS.

IMPERIALISM.
HISTORICAL PERIODS.
SOCIAL IMPERIALISM.
ECONOMIC REDUCTIONISM.
RESISTANCE TO IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS.
LAW.
CAMPISM.
CONCLUSIONS.

PART 1. IMPERIALISM.

Conflicting views. What passes for the “socialist” left is currently divided on a number of essential issues. These include the issue of present-day imperialism with respect to which there are several conflicting doctrinal views.

A world wherein the US-led Western alliance, essentially a force for democratic, civil-libertarian, and rule-of-law values, acts (even though inconsistently and sometimes misguidedly), in opposition to “authoritarian” states which persecute dissent and/or commit aggressions against neighboring countries.
A multipolar world wherein a predatory US-dominated Western empire is now confronted by aggressive rival capitalist imperial challengers, Russia and China.
A world oppressed by globalized neoliberal transnational capitalism, the abuses of which supersede or override state antagonisms so that imperial-state aggressions then lose relevance.
A simplistic unipolar world wherein its only antagonism of consequence is that of the US-dominated Western empire versus all forces in opposition to it.
A complex strife-torn world wherein the hegemonic US-dominated Western empire is the principal, but not the sole, significant oppressor and enemy of social justice.

The presence, within the “left”, of obviously incompatible doctrines should come as no surprise. In fact, division within the “socialist” left has existed throughout the existence of socialism as a political force in the world. Of course, no more than one of the foregoing doctrines can be correct.

Societal imperative. The quest for socialism operates within a context which Marxists analyze as follows. Over the course of the past 12,000 years, human society has transitioned thru a progression of several historical epochs, from stone-age foraging to capitalism. Each of those epochs had its own possible social orders and political regimes with distinct societal imperative. Under the capitalist social order: a capitalist class rules, and the ruling societal imperative is the self-serving pursuits of private gain and accumulations of private wealth. Given its societal imperative, capitalism produces the current ubiquity of systemic social evils: economic; environmental; human rights violations (persecutions on account of gender, race, religion, disability, and/or other innocent distinctions); negated civil rights (speech, assembly and protest, political participation, protection against arbitrary adverse state action); imperial oppressions. The cure is to replace capitalism with a popularly-ruled social order, namely socialism, organized so that the ruling societal imperative is the satisfaction of human and social needs; and that requires: replacing private ownership with public ownership of the means of production and distribution, and replacing the rule of capital with that of the people (the working class and its allies). As was the case with previous transitions from a decadent to the more advanced social order, setbacks have ensued with the first attempts at transition from capitalism to socialism. Socialists must learn from that experience including the mistakes of their predecessors.

Global capitalism. Among the social evils inherent in present-day capitalism is a pervasive reign of international oppressions, motivated by economic and geopolitical objectives. This capitalism, as a global system (with: exploiters and exploited, repression and repressed, war and its victims, domination and subjugation), is thusly imperialistic. The fight against capitalist imperialism (including colonialism/neocolonialism and militarism) must, therefore, be an essential component of the quest for comprehensive social justice.

Obstacle to revolution. The capitalist ruling classes in the metropolitan (advanced capitalist) countries (US, Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Japan, et cetera) have obtained the acquiescence, of much of their working classes, to the existing capitalist social order. They have done so as follows.

Thru incessant indoctrination of the metropolitan populace to persuade: that private commercial enterprise, both domestically and internationally, is essential for “freedom” and “opportunity”; and that its country’s aggressions and impositions against other countries must therefore be justified as acts in defense of individual freedoms and/or against malevolent or undeserving adversaries.
By pandering to ignorant racial anxieties and national chauvinist prejudices in order to prevent said working classes from making common cause with the working classes in other countries, especially those in the periphery (economically underdeveloped countries exploited by transnational capital for extractive products and cheap labor).
By providing cheap consumer goods produced in peripheral-country sweatshops.
By sacrificing, insofar as deemed necessary, a part of their potential profits to pay for concessions to ameliorate some of the discontent which would otherwise pervade the metropolitan working class.

Thusly, metropolitan capital buys widespread acceptance, within country, of capitalism and empire, as it reaps greater profits from operations in the periphery. Consequently, the struggle for social revolution within any metropolitan country is inevitably hindered as long as that country continues its participation in the imperial domination and/or neocolonial exploitation of other countries.

Example. As Britain, then the dominant superpower, was well on its way to constructing its global empire upon which “the sun never set”, Friedrich Engels (in a letter ^[1] to Karl Marx dated 1858 Oct 07) wrote “the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that the ultimate aim of this most bourgeois of all nations would appear to be the possession, alongside the bourgeoisie, of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat. In the case of a nation, which exploits the entire world, this is, of course, justified to some extent.” Marx (in a letter ^[2] dated 1870 Apr 09) commented that “In relation to the Irish worker [the English worker] regards himself as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes a tool of the English […] capitalists against Ireland, thus strengthening their domination over himself. [….] “This antagonism [between the Irish and the English workers] is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this.”

Earlier imperialisms. Although imperialisms have always been predatory, they have differed functionally over the course of human history.

With the mercantilist imperialism of post-medieval Western European states, the ruling classes (wealthy merchants and allied monarchs) established trading posts and colonies (with mines and plantations) for pursuit of precious commodities (gold, gems, spices, sugar, tea, slaves, et cetera) and captive markets for imperial-country manufactures.
Under the tributary imperialism of the ancient and medieval epochs, the rulers (lords, not capitalists) extorted tribute (slaves, serf labor, craft products, farm products, “taxes”, et cetera) from the subjugated classes and/or conquered polities.

[Those earlier imperialisms will not be further analyzed in this report.]

Capitalist imperialism. In order to fight effectively against capitalist imperialism, we must understand: how it functions as a global system, how that system changes with respect to antagonisms and principals, and how to respond to those changes. Relevant analysis follows.

In 1916, Lenin wrote Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ^[3], describing how the atomized capitalism of the 19^th century had evolved into an oligarchic capitalism in which:

concentration of capital has produced monopolies [Lenin, part I];
finance capital and a financial oligarchy dominate [II, III];
capitalist investment is globalized thru export of operating capital in pursuit of increased profit [IV];
transnational capitalist megafirms collude and compete for access to, and control of, the world’s markets and resources [V]; and
the populated world is divided among, and ruled by, the major capitalist-ruled states striving for domination regionally or over the entire world [VI].

Those essential features of global capitalism persist, but with uneven development [IX] producing occasional changes in the dominant players. Moreover, secondary changes have occurred. These have included the shift from unconstrained capitalism to Keynesian welfare-state reformism, followed by the shift to neoliberal attacks on the welfare state plus demands for privatization of governmental functions previously accepted as inherently governmental. Neoliberalism has been accompanied by some deindustrialization in the metropoles as capital has moved manufacturing to low-wage peripheral countries. In recent years, there has been a much-increased diversion of finance capital from productive to parasitic investments (share-buy-backs, arbitrage operations, private equity takeovers and looting of existing firms, and other nonproductive financial manipulations) [VIII]. Although such economic changes are important, the primary issue with respect to empire is the strivings for and against domination, both economic and geopolitical.

The ruling capitalists in the most powerful of the economically advanced countries (a.k.a. “metropolitan countries”) use their countries’ economic and military power to subjugate the less advanced countries (a.k.a. “peripheral countries”) thereby reducing the latter (more so in the past) to directly-ruled colonies or (for the most part currently) to nominally-independent neocolonial dependencies. Thusly, relations between countries are framed by a hierarchy of political and economic domination and servility; and, as Lenin observed, capitalist imperialism has thusly produced the division of the world into oppressor and oppressed countries.

In a multipolar world, each major metropolitan state (or colluding alliance of states) competes with rivals for spheres of dominance wherein its own rapacious transnational capital can: access markets, exploit cheap labor, extract needed natural resources, and obtain competitive advantage. Said competition results in conflicts often escalating to aggressions: economic, diplomatic, interference in others internal affairs, military threats, and/or violent armed conflict. At times, the strongest imperial state (Britain with its pax Britannica from 1814 to 1914, the US with its pax americana since 1945) has attempted to dominate the entire world, thereby moving the world toward some degree of unipolarity. Regardless, imperial states perpetrate their aggressions, not only against rival imperial powers, but also against states resisting subjugation. Consequently, aggression is inherent in the system.

Noted sources.

[1] Engels⸰ Friedrich: letter to Marx [1858 Oct 07] (published in Marx Engels Collected Works, copyright by Lawrence and Wishart, which does not permit its copyrighted material to be republished on the internet).

[2] Marx⸰ Karl: letter to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt [1870 Apr 09] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1870/letters/70_04_09.htm#ireland .

[3] Lenin: Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism [Jan—Jun 1916] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/index.htm .

PART 2. HISTORICAL PERIODS.

Although capitalism and its imperialism are always predatory; economic and political conditions change over time, both in country and internationally. In fact, the antagonisms of capitalist powers do not remain exactly as they were in the first decades of the 20^th century. The fight against imperialism has needed to take account of those changes.

Early 20^th century. During the 2 decades (1898—1918), conflicts between imperial states produced: the Spanish-American War (1898), the Fashoda Crisis (1898), the Russo-Japanese War (1904—05), the Tangier and Agadir crises (1905 and 1911), the Italo-Turkish War (1911—12), and the Great War (1914—18). In those conflicts, the major belligerents on both sides were imperial predators who chose to threaten war and/or engage in war and did so with various primarily predatory motives: colonies, territorial acquisitions, markets, naval supremacy, strivings to weaken rivals, et cetera. The obligation of socialists was, therefore, to oppose their own state’s willing participation in any such unjust War ^[1]. In 1914, however, most of the avowedly “socialist” leaderships in the major belligerents betrayed that obligation and backed their own imperial governments in conscripting and sending their working classes to slaughter and be slaughtered by fellow workers from the opposing belligerents. On both sides, said “socialists” justified their actions as a defense of country and by hypocritically branding only the opposing states: as bad actors (“tyrannies”, “aggressors”, and such like). Such “socialists” were appropriately denounced as “social imperialists” ^[2] and “social patriots” ^[3]. Lenin and other revolutionary socialists responded by organizing a revolutionary opposition leading to the creation (1919) of the Communist International in rejection of such betrayals.

Interwar (1918—33). The Great War had ended with unjust impositions by the victorious Entente powers upon defeated Germany and its wartime allies. Moreover, the Russian October revolution had removed much of Eurasia from the capitalist world. Hostile imperial powers, seeking counterrevolution, attacked the Soviet state with: military invasions (actively during the Russian Civil War and planned thereafter), economic siege, and destructive Cold War covert actions. With both the new USSR and Weimar Germany suffering under the hostile measures imposed by the Entente victors of the Great War, Germany and the USSR responded by entering into a mutually beneficial limited alliance (1922—33) based upon: a trade agreement (1922 Treaty of Rapallo), and a secret arrangement for mutual military assistance. Said military cooperation enabled Germany to evade onerous restrictions on its military forces by using Soviet facilities to train its armed forces and produce prohibited weapons, and it provided the USSR with technical knowhow, advanced military weapons, and economic benefit. Thusly, the USSR made appropriate use of the antagonism between capitalist Germany (then without colonies and not oppressing other countries) and their common imperialist oppressors.

The USSR’s pragmatic and principled foreign policy was one of seeking peaceful coexistence between socialist and capitalist states, while continuing to encourage revolutionary socialist movements within capitalist-ruled countries and anti-colonialist independence struggles in their colonies. Revolutionary socialists thenceforth supported this sensible policy.

Rampant fascism. During the period 1935—45, aggressive fascist states (Germany, Italy, Japan) perpetrated military build-ups, invasions, annexations, and colonizations. Meanwhile, major liberal imperial states (France, Britain, US), then satisfied with their colonial empires and spheres of domination, and often sympathetic to the aggressors’ rabid anti-Communism, responded with waffling between appeasement and half-hearted attempts at containment. Moreover, fascist movements in said liberal states threatened civil liberties in those and allied “democracies”. Fascist aggressions eventually provoked 2 major wars: Axis War in Europe (1939—45), and Asia-Pacific War (1941—45). Predatory imperial states (France, Britain, US, with their lesser allies versus Germany, Italy, Japan, with their lesser allies) became belligerents on opposing sides.

Communists embraced the antifascist “popular front” policies ^[4] which included alliances with liberal democratic parties in opposition to anti-democratic fascist movements within country and eventual support (following the German invasion of the USSR and Japan’s attacks upon French, British, Dutch, and US colonies) for the British-US wars against the Axis in Europe and against Japan in the Asia-Pacific. Thusly, the USSR and revolutionary socialists came to be in a temporary united front with the liberal-democratic imperialists against the fascist imperialists.

Previously, the refusal (1936—39) of Britain and its allies to abandon appeasement and join the USSR in military alliance to stop further aggression by Nazi Germany had left the USSR with no reasonable alternative but to accept (in 1939) Germany’s offer of a nonaggression pact ^[5]. After crushing British and French forces in continental Europe, Germany (in 1941) broke said nonaggression pact by launching an all-out attack upon the USSR.

The sectarian Trotskyist movement condemned the popular front alliances ^[6], and also the German-Soviet nonaggression pact ^[7], as betrayals of the class struggle against capitalism and imperialism. The Trotskyists were wrong. To be clear, the Axis and Asia-Pacific wars were (as the Trotskyists accurately noted) inter-imperialist wars of the Axis empires against the British and US empires to decide which alliance of empires would rule and exploit most of the world. However, unlike the Great War (1914—18), these were contradictory wars, inter-imperialist but also anti-fascist. A fascist victory would have resulted in continued genocidal mass murder and the most vicious and unconstrained repression of the left while the victory of the US-British-Soviet alliance:

contributed significantly to the wartime success of the Soviet Union (which, despite its faults, was a progressive and anti-imperialist force in world affairs);
expanded the sphere of countries outside of capitalist and imperialist control;
strengthened the struggle against racial persecutions;
bolstered struggles for independence in the colonies; and
preserved the political freedoms (even though incompletely) for the left in much of the capitalist world.

Revolutionary socialists appropriately gave these anti-fascist wars their full support.

In some countries, the Communist Parties, focusing only upon anti-fascism, gave nearly all-out allegiance to the capitalist regime. The US Communist Party, for example, largely abandoned the struggles against racism ^[8] and workplace abuses ^[9], thereby failing to maintain its independence and consequently losing considerable support from its natural constituencies. One need not be a Maoist to recognize the wisdom in the statement (1940) by Mao Zedong that “United Front policy is neither all alliance and no struggle nor all struggle and no alliance, but combines alliance and struggle” ^[10]. Lesson: revolutionary socialist organizations should never neglect either the alliance side or the struggle side in their working alliances.

Renewed Cold War (1945—90). Following war’s end in 1945, there emerged: an expanded Soviet sphere of influence (in central Europe), and a capitalist imperial West beset with potent anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist forces in much of the capitalist world. The US and Britain then acted to build a Western alliance in defense of capitalism; and they renewed the Cold War with 2 objectives:

(firstly) to contain and (soon after) to rollback Communism, and
to suppress threats to Western domination of the non-Communist world so as to preserve Western capitalist freedom to exploit the labor and resources thereof.

Cold War military alliances, including NATO, were created and utilized to consolidate a US-dominated Western capitalist global empire.

This renewed Cold War erupted into anti-colonial hot wars of national liberation (China, Indonesia, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Algeria, Cameroon, Kenya, Cuba, Angola, Mozambique, …). US wars in Korea and Indochina devastated major portions of victimized countries and resulted in millions of civilians killed, tens of thousands of whom were simply murdered by US and allied forces ^[11].

Colonialist powers were eventually compelled to concede independence, often nominal, to most of their colonies; but they acted, wherever possible, to ensure that the colonial condition would be replaced by a neo-colonial condition whereby metropolitan capital would continue to exploit the labor and resources of any newly “independent” country while said country would be geo-strategically subservient to the needs and demands of Western imperialism. ^[12]

Whenever any state in the periphery refused to submit to its dictates, the US and/or its major allies took action (subversion, economic siege, coup d’état, invasion, et cetera) to replace its governing party with a subservient alternative which was usually brutally repressive against the left. Replacement regimes, abetted by the US and/or major ally, often perpetrated mass murder, as well as mass-scale detention and torture, against suspected social-justice supporters of the ousted government. Murdered victims numbered: thousands in Iraq (1963), hundreds of thousands in Indonesia (1965), thousands in Chile (1973), tens of thousands in Argentina (1974—83), considerable numbers in other victim countries. Revolutionary socialists appropriately opposed: Western imperialism, its Cold War, its regime-change operations, its militarism, its exploitations of the peripheral-country peoples and resources, and so forth. Said revolutionary socialists supported anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist (along with other social-justice) struggles wherever they occurred. Meanwhile, liberal “socialists” generally embraced Cold-War anti-Communism and imperial foreign policies (purported to be for the defense and/or advance of so-called “free-world” “democratic” values); and often supported imperial wars (as in Korea and, at first, also in Indochina).

Communist-state vulnerability (1946—91). Unfortunately, Communist states had inherited a significant weakening defect which had occurred as follows.

Soviet/council democracy (with officials chosen by popular election) in the USSR had been somewhat undermined by an unavoidable bureaucratic militarization during the Russian Civil War (1918—21). Management of the New Economic Policy (implemented after victory in the Civil War) reinforced bureaucratic administration. Contrarywise, the proper role of a governing Communist Party is to lead by prescribing appropriate policy and then to persuade the membership and the masses to embrace said policy and participate in its implementation; it is not to simply decree and impose the policy. In order to effectively perform that role, the Party must function democratically in its internal operation (selection of leaders and decisions on policy) and be responsive to popular concerns. It must also have a Control Commission with the obligation and power to overrule policy decisions (whether by leaders or by the membership), whenever said decisions violate the organization’s constitutional principles.

By 1923, high ranking officials in the USSR were generally being chosen by appointment rather than thru popular election, thereby replacing socialist democracy with bureaucratic hierarchy, subservience, and careerism ^[13]. Lenin, recognizing the incompatibility of bureaucratic rule with genuine socialism, complained (1922—23) of bureaucratic “culture” in both the Party and the state administration; and he pressed for action against it ^[14]. Efforts by concerned comrades to curb said bureaucratism were obstructed by a “troika” (Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Stalin) who occupied top positions in said bureaucratic regime and were determined to preserve the status quo. While Lenin was disabled and sidelined by a stroke, said troika, dominant in the Party politburo and with its appointees predominating in the Central Committee,colluded: to prevent restoration of inner-party democracy ^[⁑] as advocated by the left opposition, to muzzle said left opposition, and to prevent any erosion of the power of the top officials ^[15]. Consequently, rule by a class of privileged bureaucrats, replacing rule by the working class, was thusly consolidated.

[⁑] Note. Marxists recognize the essential difference between socialist participatory democracy and the illusory liberal “democracy”. Whereas the former (as in the first years of the USSR) is rule by the revolutionary working class, exercised thru its revolutionary party; the latter conceals de facto rule by the capitalist class. Nevertheless, revolutionary socialists should participate in elections and other political processes under the liberal “democratic” regime; and they may, if and when circumstances are especially favorable, win contingent hold upon government thru popular election. However, such contingent hold upon government is never sufficient for the construction of socialism. Why so? The liberal regime is one which permits a diversity of contending factions to compete for control of government, and that includes factions which seek to abrogate liberal freedoms for the left as well as prevent any transition to socialism. In any liberal state with elected government by an actually socialist party, the counterrevolutionary forces retain: their political freedoms, their political organization, their dominant influence in media and other major institutions, and their capital. Said counterrevolutionary forces then use those advantages in positioning and resources to sabotage, undermine, and end socialist rule. In fact, socialist government under a liberal regime is naturally vulnerable to forces acting: to obstruct, to defame, to corrupt, or to simply oust it (as happened [1973] in Allende’s Chile). As long as the liberal regime is maintained, the end result is almost inevitably restoration of the rule of capital. For socialist construction to be sustainable, the state must function as a peoples’ democracy, that is: participatory democracy for the working class and its allies; plus dictatorship over, and suppression of, all counterrevolutionary forces (both native and foreign agent). Hence, the people, led by their revolutionary party, must both: conquer state power, and then consolidate their hold thereupon.

The bureaucratic welfare-state model (not capitalist, but not fully socialist) in the USSR: was incompatible with Marxist socialist participatory democracy, but it (along with the hierarchic form of Party organization was copied by subsequently established Communist states. Said states naturally became: corrupted, often economically stagnant, and in need of revolutionary reform. However, with their working classes rendered politically passive and the ruling parties lacking a real commitment to Marxism, the only alternative to the status quo that could be presented was a turn to the political and economic liberalizing measures proposed by the objectively counterrevolutionary liberal factions within said parties (factions led by Party bosses such as Nagy, Dubček, Gorbachev) ^[‡]. But for Soviet military intervention, counterrevolution would have triumphed in Hungary (1956) ^[16] and Czechoslovakia (1968) ^[17]. Subsequently, with the Gorbachev faction in control of the USSR and overseeing the Warsaw Pact, counterrevolution did ultimately triumph in all member countries of said Pact (1989—91).

[‡] Note. Communist Party rule, in most central European Warsaw Pact states, had been severely weakened: by determined Western Cold-War “roll-back” subversions; by over-broad counterproductive excesses (late 1940s and early 1950s) in necessary repression of actual counterrevolutionary forces; by unresponsive hierarchic bureaucratism which, along with the repressive excesses, produced passivity in the natural constituencies for the regime. Hungary (as of 1956) and Czechoslovakia (as of 1968) had suffered also from popular discontent resulting from economic mismanagement and stagnation. Both Nagy and Dubček led “reform” factions which responded to said popular discontent by seeking transition to liberal bourgeois “democracy”. That certainly would have facilitated a fatal stepped-up Western subversion and led to withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. In fact, Nagy had actually withdrawn Hungary from said Warsaw Pact and moved to Cold War neutrality, while a violent fascist-led insurrection (with lynchings of Communists) had begun. In both cases, Soviet and allied military intervention was motivated by concern that departure from the Soviet bloc would severely threaten the military security of the USSR and of other Warsaw Pact states. Of course, both Soviet interventions were exploited by the West and its liberal ideologues to make propaganda against Communism. [History of the Cold War is provided in Appendix 3. Cold War.]

The credibility of international Communism was also challenged:

by the shock of Khrushchev’s sudden one-sided assessment of Stalin (exposure of his actual repressive excesses whilst omitting relevant context, plus total negation of his invaluable actual contributions) ^[♦];
by the Sino-Soviet conflict;
by China’s errors (including Mao’s utopian schemes and autocratic excesses ^[18]); and
by the takeover of many Communist Parties by liberal-reformist Euro-communist factions.

All of that further undermined and weakened the revolutionary socialist movement and the fight against imperialism.

[♦] Note. Assertions regarding Stalin are much disputed, among both Western and Russian historians. Many of Khrushchev’s allegations against Stalin are debunked even by those with clear anti-Soviet and anti-Stalin biases. With respect to Khrushchev’s allegations against Stalin, the following appears most plausible.

Cultivating the cult of personality. Stalin actually discouraged it; but he failed to act forcefully against it.

Failures of leadership in military response to Nazi invasion. Absolute bum rap.

Unjustified uprooting of several nationalities in absence of any military necessity. Policy probably unjustified in some cases, but not totally unreasonable in cases where there had been widespread collaboration with occupying German forces.

That Stalin was an arbitrary despot who could not tolerate any disagreement with his preferred policies. Bum rap. Stalin did listen and was open to persuasion.

That Stalin orchestrated repressive excesses (with executions often following torture to extract false confessions) against great numbers of innocent victims. There were such repressive excesses, but not orchestrated by Stalin.

Khrushchev evaded Stalin’s most crucial fault, namely his part in displacing participatory popular democracy with rule by the bureaucrats, a condition from which Khrushchev himself benefited and acted to preserve.

Hostile foreign powers had recruited agents in positions of power in the USSR, agents who had to be exposed and removed. It was self-serving power-seeking factionalist bureaucrats (including Khrushchev) who incited and perpetrated the repressive excesses against so many innocent victims. Khruschev’s vilification of Stalin was to whitewash his own record and make himself look good. It may be appropriate to fault Stalin for failing to recognize and address the injustices until so much damage had been done.

Contributions of Stalin’s leadership (which Khrushchev evaded or under-rated): industrialization and socialization of the economy (which eliminated famines); benevolent public welfare institutions (healthcare for all, housing for all, education for all, et cetera); construction of a powerful military; preservation of the USSR in the face of powerful foreign hostility (including devastating invasion).

Anti-Communist liberals naturally chose to believe and repeat any allegation which painted the USSR as inherently repressive and Stalin as a cruel despot. Following Khrushchev’s speech, many members of Communist Parties: lost faith, and abandoned revolutionary Marxism.

Post-Cold-War (since 1990). The collapses of the USSR and other Communist states in Europe (1989—91), as well as China’s pragmatic embrace of private-enterprise capitalism (beginning in 1978), demoralized and devastated the revolutionary socialist movement throughout much of the world. It was a huge setback. The consequent lack of a Communist bloc of states, ultimately committed to anti-imperialism and the global pursuit of comprehensive social justice, also left the Western empire, led and dominated by the US (the one remaining superpower), with a much freer hand to impose its hegemonic domination over most of the world. Nevertheless, resistance persists in various countries and regions of the world. Said Western empire continues to respond to said resistance with regime-change interventions which include: subversions, economic sieges, threatening military intimidations, military invasions, and coups d’état.

Post-Soviet Russia, with its vast territory and great abundance of natural resources, and with its huge nuclear arsenal, was promptly targeted by the US both: as a target for Western capitalist exploitation, and as a potential obstacle to Western global dominance. So, ever since the collapse of the USSR, the US has attempted to induce Russia to submit to said Western domination. Accordingly, having induced Russia (under Yeltsin) to make a debilitating transition to a corrupt oligarchic neoliberal capitalism, the West has also worked to expand an anti-Russia NATO to Russia’s borders while also generally striving to isolate and weaken it. NATO expansion has also served to bring nearly all of the rest of Europe under US domination ^[19] (vassalage^[20]). Meanwhile, an independent China has emerged as a major economic competitor. So, the US and some of its major allies are now acting: to stifle China’s technological advance ^[21]and economic growth ^[22], to promote separatist movements within (in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan), and to surround it with threatening military bases and hostile alliances ^[23]. Thusly, the West has commenced new cold wars against both Russia and China. The US has also initiated a new arms race: with massive military build-ups in the US and its major allies; and with US abandonment of arms-control treaties (ABM, INF, Open Skies), thereby putting the world at much increased risk for nuclear war and apocalypse.

The Western empire is not absolutely monolithic. US allies often have interests which diverge from that of the US. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the European Union are examples of powers which sometimes adopt self-interest policies which are contrary to the wants of the US and/or of other powers in the Western alliance. Nevertheless, these conflicts generally do not rise to the level to break the basic unity of said Western alliance; and the US acts to maintain that basic unity as well as its position of dominance within it.

Although Russia, China, and most other countries resisting Western imperialism have faults (in varying degrees); their foreign policy objectives generally are: essentially defensive, somewhat mutually supportive, and somewhat anti-imperialist. Despite increasing erosion of US economic and geopolitical dominance, the US-dominated Western empire remains the actual aggressor against other countries and the principal oppressor of peoples throughout most of the world. In fact, as the US capacity for economic and geopolitical domination has eroded, it has become ever more desperately aggressive toward its insubordinates and competitors. Moreover, with several hundreds of military bases in scores of countries all around the world and military commands for every populated continent, the US has actually defined its geopolitical objective as global “full-spectrum dominance” ^[24]. The US justifies that pursuit by asserting that it is the “indispensable nation” on a sacred mission: to preserve and spread “democracy”, and to protect the world against its alleged “bad actors” (read insubordinates) ^[25].

Meanwhile, Russia is a semi-peripheral country with military spending less than 1/17 that of NATO (in 2021 according to SIPRI). In fact, military spending by the US and by the other NATO members was respectively 38% and 16% of the world total, while that of Russia was 3.1% ^[26]. Russia has no military forces stationed outside of Russia except in neighboring former-Soviet countries (allies, conflict zones where they serve as peacekeepers, Ukraine with which it is currently at war) and longtime ally Syria (which it has aided against a US-and-allies-backed regime-change-seeking Islamist insurgency). Although several Russia-based private military companies operate abroad, sometimes apparently increasing Russian influence; they are profit-seeking mercenary entities rather than arms of the Russian state. Moreover, far more such private military companies (likewise endeavoring to profit from armed conflicts) are based in, and often employed by, the US and its major allies.

As for China, its military build-up is a defensive response to the growing threat posed by the growing and ever-more threatening US military presence in neighboring countries and proximate seas. China’s foreign-relations policy, in contrast to that of the US-led West, emphasizes: peaceful coexistence, noninterference in others’ internal affairs, and cooperation for mutual benefit ^[27].

For the foreseeable future, assertions of imperial multi-polarity are actually contrafactual ^[28]. Consequently, the US-dominated Western empire, notwithstanding opposing views in much of the “left”, must remain the principal international target of the anti-imperialist and revolutionary socialist movements.

Noted sources.

[1] Encyclopedia of Marxism: Congresses of Social Democracy (Marxist Internet Archive) ~ Second International Congress in Basel [1912 Nov] @ https://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/c/congress-si.htm#1912 .

[2] Lenin: Imperialism and the Split in Socialism [1916 Oct] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/oct/x01.htm .

[3] Lenin: Dead Chauvinism and Living Socialism [1914 Dec] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12.htm .

[4] Dimitrovᵒ Georgi: The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism [1935 Aug 02] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm .

[5] Molotovᵒ Vyacheslav M: The Meaning of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact [1939 Aug 31] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/molotov/1939/meaning-sov-ger-pact.pdf .

[6] Trotsky: On the Seventh Congress of the Comintern [1935 Sep] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/09/comintern.htm .

[7] Trotsky: Trotsky Indicts the Kremlin’s Role in Europe’s Catastrophe [1940 Jun 17] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/06/indicts.html .

[10] Maoᵒ Zedong: On Policy [1940 Dec] (Marx2Mao) @ http://www.marx2mao.com/Mao/OP40.html .

[12] Rodney⸰ Walter: How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (© 1973, Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, London) ~ Chapter Six, 6.3 Education for Underdevelopment (pp 89—95) @ http://abahlali.org/files/3295358-walter-rodney.pdf .

[14] Lenin: Better Fewer, But Better [1923 Mar 02] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1923/mar/02.htm .

[15] Carrᵒ: ~ chapter 13 (pp 316—48).

[16] Jonahᵒ Aidan: The House of Anti-Communists, and the Nazi Monster it Spawned (The Canada Files, 2023 Sep 25) ~ § Hungary: Anti-communist lynching of Jews? Import 37,500 anti-communists to Canada @ https://www.thecanadafiles.com/articles/the-house-of-anti-communists-and-the-nazi-monster-it-spawned .

[17] Kalashnikov⸰ Antony: Factors in the Soviet Decision to Invade Czechoslovakia (in or after 2010) @ file:///C:/Users/tcary/Downloads/ojsadmin,+17209-39549-1-CE.pdf .

[18] Pantsovᵒ Alexander V [trans. by Steven I Levine]: Mao: The Real Story (© 2007 & 2012, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York) ~ chapters 29 thru 36 ♦ ISBN 978-1-4516-5448-6 (a good source for factual information, though some of the interpretations could be disputed).

[19] Prashadᵒ Vijay: Can the European Leg of the Triad Break Free from the Atlantic Alliance (Dissident Voice, 2023 Jun 22) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/06/can-the-european-leg-of-the-triad-break-free-from-the-atlantic-alliance/ .

[20] Prashadᵒ: Resurrecting the Concept of the Triad (Dissident Voice, 2023 Jun 02) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/06/resurrecting-the-concept-of-the-triad/ .

[21] Prashadᵒ: You Are Reading This Thanks to Semiconductors (Dissident Voice, 2023 Apr 28) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/04/you-are-reading-this-thanks-to-semiconductors/ .

[22] Wei Ling Chua [interview by Petersen⸰ Kim]: ‘Free Trade’ as Revealed in the China-United States Paradigm (Dissident Voice, 2023 May 29) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/05/free-trade-as-revealed-in-the-china-united-states-paradigm/ .

[23] Floundersᵒ Sara: Taiwan – A Pawn for U.S. War on China (Covert Action Magazine, 2023 Apr 27) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/04/27/taiwan-a-pawn-for-u-s-war-on-china/ . (Some of this author’s numbers are likely overstated, but her basic arguments remain valid.)

[24] Monkholmᵒ Johan Lau: The Pursuit of Full-Spectrum Dominance: The Archives of the NSA (Surveillance & Society 18(2), 2020) ~ pp 244—56 @ https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/13266/9304 .

[25] Bacevich⸰ Andrew J: We Are Not an Indispensable Nation (The Nation, 2021 Aug 06) @ https://www.thenation.com/article/world/united-states-hegemony/ .

[26] SIPRI: SIPRI Fact Sheet (2022 Apr) ~ Table 1 @ https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/fs_2204_milex_2021_0.pdf .

[27] Editors: Notes from the editors (Monthly Review[vol 74 nr 11], 2023 Apr 01) @ https://monthlyreview.org/2023/04/01/mr-074-11-2023-04_0/ .

[28] Harrisᵒ Roger D: Whither Multipolarity in a Changing World (Dissident Voice, 2023 Apr 20) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/04/whither-multipolarity-in-a-changing-world-order/ .

PART 3. SOCIAL IMPERIALISM.

There have always beenavowed “socialists” who side with the imperial capitalist state, or otherwise join it, in its vilifications and aggressions against its victims including resistant states.

Liberalism. The principal manifestation of “socialist” alignment with imperialism has its roots in liberal social reformism, which (in the years preceding the Great War) had become dominant in the Socialist International [SI]. Party leaderships had, in effect, abandoned Marxism, as they prioritized demands for ameliorative concessions thru labor struggles and parliamentary reformism while neglecting to educate upon the need for revolutionary working-class acquisition of state power. In effect, major SI parties (like their contemporary successors) de facto embraced liberal bourgeois “democracy” (which, in actual effect, was and is rule by the capitalist class).

Having objectively accepted the legitimacy of the capital-serving state, SI leaders, seeking respectability in the eyes of establishment liberals, readily embraced the hypocritical and deceitful assertions of their governing politicians against rival foreign states which were branded as evil aggressors to be confronted militarily. Thusly, they became “social imperialists”. Many of said SI leaders had even embraced racist justifications and approval (as a “civilizing mission”) for continued imperial rule over colonized peripheral countries ^[1]. Their contemporary counterparts likewise embrace the equivalent propositions:

that major competitors (Russia, China) are evil aggressor adversaries, and
that their own state’s imperial impositions and aggressions against insubordinate peripheral countries are justified actions in support of a sacred mission to promote and/or defend an arbitrarily misconstrued “freedom” and “democracy”.

Liberal “anti-imperialism”. During the interwar and renewed Cold-War periods, liberal “socialists” (a.k.a. “social liberals”) joined other liberals in using the alleged lack of substantive democracy in Communist states and the pretense of substantive democracy in liberal capitalist states as their rationale for branding the former as “imperialist” enemies of “democracy” while evading the actual imperialism and massive suppressions of democratic rights by the latter (certainly in their colonies and client states). In fact, said liberal “socialists” in the imperial states, generally embraced their state’s avowed mission to contain and/or roll back Communism; and they usually either: supported the foreign policies of their own states, or simply avoided taking any action in solidarity with the victims of said policies. Although contemporary liberal “anti-imperialists” may object to obviously unjustified aggressions by their own and/or allied state; they readily acquiesce whenever the aggression is targeted against a vilified state (currently DPRK, Russia, Syria, et cetera) and cloaked in some spurious justification.

Evasion of liberal-state repression. Although liberal “socialists” generally complain about the most obvious violations of civil libertarian and other democratic precepts in the domestic actions of their own “liberal” imperial state; they readily forget and evade that illiberal reality in order to obsequiously embrace their own imperial state whenever it denounces resistant states for alleged “anti-democratic” policies. In fact, whereas liberal “democracies” pretend a commitment to civil rights for dissidents, they have often violated the civil rights of their own dissidents (particularly those most feared and most readily vilified). Following are some examples (not a complete list) of such readily evaded anti-democratic domestic practices in liberal-democratic imperial states.

(1) US assassinations. In some cases of charismatic revolutionary dissidents having gained a significant following in the US, they have been assassinated with state (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] and/or police) complicity. Examples.

Malik el-Shabazz [a.k.a. Malcolm X], (1965) by members of a rival organization incited by provocateurs directed by New York City Police and the FBI ^[2].
Fred Hampton, Black Panther Party [BPP] local leader, (1968) by Chicago police directed by the state’s attorney with FBI complicity ^[3].
Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, Los Angeles BPP leaders, (1969) by rival organization incited by fake poison-pen letters ghost-written by the FBI ^[4].
Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, leading female activist in American Indian Movement [AIM], (1975) by envious rivals after she had been snitch jacketed by the FBI ^[5].

(2) Puerto Rico. The colonial government, in concert with the US federal government, enacted (1948) Law 53 (a.k.a. the Gag Law) which criminalized: possession or display of the Puerto Rican flag, any advocacy or association with others in support for Puerto Rican independence, and any activity intending to undermine the authority of the colonial or US governments ^[6]. Until it was repealed as unconstitutional in 1957, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín used said law to imprison many pro-independence Puerto Ricans. This and previous repressions of peaceful activism for national independence impelled some to resort to armed rebellion.

When 9 nationalist rebels in Utuado surrendered during a demonstration revolt (intended to bring the issue of the island’s status before the United Nations) in 1950, local police: took the disarmed captives behind the police building, and then shot and bayoneted them killing 5 and seriously wounding the other 4 ^[7].
Two young independence activists, Arnaldo Dario Rosado Torres and Carlos Soto Arriví, were first induced (1978) by an undercover police provocateur to attempt to occupy communication towers from which to issue a manifesto, then detained and summarily murdered (on commander’s orders) by other Puerto Rican police ^[8].

(3) Britain. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1966—98), which began with Unionist paramilitary violence against peaceful protests over rampant civil discrimination against the Catholic and largely republican minority; British state agents perpetrated egregious violations of human rights ^[9]. Local police and British military forces:

used internment (indefinite detention without charge) of hundreds of individuals on mere suspicion of possible sympathy with republican paramilitaries;
routinely tortured such detainees;
targeted (initially only, and thereafter mostly) republicans despite much of the violence being perpetrated by the Unionist paramilitaries who had initiated it; and
used a shoot-to-kill policy in arrests of (often unarmed) republican suspects.

Moreover, British state forces were complicit in the assassinations of lawyers for republican political prisoners: Patrick Finucane (1989) ^[10], Rosemary Nelson (1999) ^[11].

(4) France. While the French government and the Algerian National Liberation Front [FLN] were still at war but engaged in negotiations over terms for Algerian independence, French police perpetrated two massacres of peaceful protestors ^[12].

The Paris Massacre of 1961. That October 17 some 30,000 French citizens of Algerian ethnicity rallied peacefully in Paris in support of FLN demands for an end to French colonial rule of Algeria. Under orders from Paris police chief, Maurice Papon: police obstructed the rally, shot into the crowd of peaceful protestors, detained 11,000 without charge, subjected captives to brutal beatings and other forms of torture, and murdered an estimated 300 (shot, deliberately drowned, or beaten to death).
The Charonne Metro Station Massacre (1962 February 02). Under orders from Papon, rightwing police violently attacked members of the leftist General Confederation of Labor, who were peacefully protesting against the Algerian War and the Secret Army Organization [OAS] which was then conducting a campaign of terrorist violence to prevent the creation of an independent Algeria. Said attacks killed 9 and injured many others.

President Charles de Gaulle, along with his prime minister and the interior minister, actively protected the perpetrators of both massacres from being exposed or brought to justice.

(5) Marxist parties vilified and outlawed.

US. Between 1948 and 1957, the US DoJ [Dept of Justice] indicted 144 leaders of the Communist Party [CPUSA] on alleged violations of a provision of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 which prohibited affiliation with any group which teaches the “necessity, desirability, or propriety” of political revolution against “any government in the United States”. Red scare hysteria was so pervasive that, despite the fact that the CPUSA constitution rejected the use of violent means to achieve a socialist state in the US, 105 were convicted in a series of group trials; and sentences of imprisonment as long as five years were imposed. The US Supreme Court, after ruling on appeal (in 1951) that such convictions were valid, later (in 1957) reversed itself and recognized that these prosecutions were a violation of the civil rights of the accused. ^[13]
Germany. In the last free election before the 1933 Nazi takeover of the German state, the Communist Party [KPD] had obtained 16.9% of the popular vote. Hitler’s first act of political repression was to outlaw the KPD, which had become and then remained the most active and steadfast domestic party in the resistance against the Nazi regime. Since 1956, the Federal Republic of Germany, with the approval of its Cold War allies, has outlawed the KPD, because of its sympathy with the German Democratic Republic [East Germany] and the USSR. Said ban was never lifted. ^[14]

(6) Imprisoned US dissidents, convicted in rigged trials.

Marshall Edward Conway, BPP leader in Baltimore. Imprisoned (1970-2014) for murder despite alibi. Released when conviction was overturned by appellate court, after 44 years in prison. ^[15]
David Rice and Edward Poindexter, Black liberation activists in Omaha. Imprisoned for murder upon conviction with planted “evidence” and perjured police testimony, since 1970. Conviction overturned on appeal in 1974, but a new trial was then denied on a technicality in 1976. Both died in prison, in 2016 and 2023 respectively. ^[16]
Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt, BPP activist in Los Angeles. Imprisoned in 1970, upon conviction for murder, while alibi evidence was withheld by FBI and prosecutor. Released when conviction was overturned in 1997. ^[17]
Veronza Bowers, BPP activist in San Francisco. Imprisoned (since 1973) for murder based upon perjured and bribed testimony. ^[18]
Sundiata Acoli and Assata Shakur, Black liberation activists. Imprisoned in New Jersey in 1973, for murder based upon self-contradictory police witness testimony before a biased jury. Acoli was paroled in 2022; Shakur is a fugitive since escape from prison in 1979. ^[19]
Leonard Peltier, AIM leader. Imprisoned, since 1977, for murder despite discrediting of all purported evidence. ^[20]
Mumia Abu-Jamal, BPP activist in Philadelphia. Imprisoned since 1981, for murder based upon perjured, coerced, and self-contradictory witness statements. ^[21]
Rafil Dhafir. Imprisoned (2003—20) for founding and funding a charity to provide relief for Iraqis suffering under the US economic siege. ^[22]
The “Holy Land Five” (Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqadar, and 2 others). Imprisoned since 2004, for purportedly providing “material support for terrorism” by funding actual Palestinian charities (construed as bolstering Hamas) even though the US had also provided funding to said charities. The 2 others received shorter 15-year sentences. ^[23]

(7) Foreign-nationals held as political prisoners of the US.

Ricardo Palmera, lead negotiator for Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC]. Captured in Ecuador, while attempting to negotiate a prisoner exchange, and transferred to the US (in 2004) to be tried and convicted for a combat act (in Colombia) with which he had no connection. He was initially denied access to his lawyer. He is held on a 60-year sentence in a maximum-security US prison ^[24].
Julian Assange, investigative journalist-publisher. Held in Britain, since 2012, pending extradition to the US to be tried and imprisoned for publishing secret documents exposing US war crimes ^[25]. Released (2024) in return for extorted guilty plea on one count of “espionage” for receiving and publishing said secrets.
Alex Saab, Venezuelan diplomat. Arrested (2020) at stopover in Cape Verde, at US request, while on a diplomatic mission for Venezuela, whose government the US has long sought to oust. Saab was imprisoned in the US (in violation of diplomatic immunity provided by international law) until 2023, when he was released in a prisoner exchange for several US citizens, two of whom had been captured in a coup attempt against the Venezuelan government. ^[26]

(8) Other commonplace abuses of human and civil rights in the US and/or other Western liberal “democracies”.

Evasion of their racist histories (violent colonial conquest and oppressive rule, slavery, genocidal massacres, ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples, lynchings, white supremacist policies and persecutions, racist immigration policies, et cetera).
Many jurisdictions imposing reproductive bondage upon women with problem (unintended, unaffordable, threating to maternal life or health) pregnancies.
Many jurisdictions facilitating persecution of gender nonconformity.
Sexual assaults (including rapes) with widespread lack of protection and lack of action against perpetrators: in workplaces, in jails and prisons, in other institutions.
Xenophobic demagoguery and border closings with massive violations of rights to opportunity to appeal for asylum or other protective status, resulting in thousands of migrant deaths.
Islamophobic persecutions, and repression of civil-libertarian protests against Zionist crimes against Palestinian humanity.
Impunity for abuses in law enforcement: racial profiling with excessive and/or unwarranted lethal force by police, disproportionate and/or excessive prosecutions and punishments for members of the most vulnerable communities and population groups, et cetera.
Structural racism with inequities in access to: education, equal opportunity employment, safely placed affordable housing, lending; all perpetuated with obstructions and/or bans on remedial “diversity, equity, & inclusion” programs.
Theocratic impositions: state support for a favored religion, state sponsorship of religious rituals, coerced participation in religious activities, privileging tax breaks for religious organizations, et cetera.
Denials of worker rights: to collective bargaining, to safe workplaces, to fair compensation (sans wage theft and other abuses), to equitable treatment.

(9) US elections feature: widespread disfranchisement of disproportionately poor minority citizens, anti-democratic gerrymandering of legislative districts, onerous ballot access rules which exclude anti-establishment party participation, capitalist domination of election campaign spending, et cetera.

Reformist delusion. Most contemporary liberal “socialists” (some of whom give lip service to “Marxism” and/or call themselves “revolutionaries”) embrace the delusion that the social evils of capitalism will be eliminated thru serial reforms put into effect by elected politicians. They evade the reality that most progressive reforms, which were conceded in response to popular pressure in the past, have subsequently been effectively nullified, in whole or in large part, whenever they have impinged upon capitalist freedoms and/or obstructed opportunities for capitalist profits. Some US examples include:

obstructionist enactments (free-rider mandates, permitted employer intimidations, picketing and boycott prohibitions, strike-breaking injunctions, et cetera) against workplace collective bargaining;
evisceration of campaign finance and voting rights laws which once provided some protection for election integrity and voting rights respectively;
rescission of common-sense gun regulations, for the benefit of the gun industry;
evisceration of actual progressivity in taxation;
elimination of interest rate caps which once outlawed predatory debt-trap lending;
nullification of public interest regulations (designed to protect the environment, to ensure consumer product safety, to protect against workplace hazards, to prohibit fraudulent business practices, et cetera) and defunding or otherwise nullifying enforcement;
privatizations of governmental functions to the detriment of public services so that profiteering firms can rake off a portion of public funds;
abusive tough-on-crime policies which foster mass incarceration to the benefit of for-profit private prison companies;
abandonment of constraints upon military expenditures and upon overseas military interventions, for the benefit of military contractors and allied warmongers.

Having embraced the bourgeois pseudo-democracy, liberal “socialists” (consciously or unconsciously) seek respectability in the eyes of the establishment centrist liberals to whom they appeal, as they seek to obtain and/or preserve ameliorative reforms ^[^⁑^] in their deluded quest for an (actually unsustainably) reformed capitalism purporting to be “socialism”.

[⁑] In their quest for votes, centrist politicians often support some reforms; but (unless otherwise compelled) they limit any “reforms” to incomplete and reversible ameliorative measures. They generally resist advancing capital-disempowering and people-empowering measures; because they prefer a passive populace, which can more easily be kept ignorant of the many ways in which said politicians serve capital to the detriment of the people.

Lesser-evil-ism. Centrist liberal parties (Britain’s Labor, Germany’s Social-democrats, France’s Socialists, the US Democratic Party, …) embrace thoroughly imperialist foreign policies and abandon domestic struggles for social justice whenever it becomes politically expedient to do so ^[27]. Nevertheless, in election contests between centrist and reactionary parties, liberal “socialists” strive to drag the popular progressive constituencies into allegiance to, or unity with, the former (by portraying same as imperfect progressive” or “lesser evil” saviors of progress and “democracy” threatened by rightwing and/or fascistic reaction, despite said capital-serving centrists’ often-murderous anti-democratic foreign policies). As long as the progressive left succumbs to this “lesser-evil” doctrine, centrist-party politicians know that they can obtain the progressive electorate’s votes without abandoning their mostly (though largely undisclosed) plutocrat-serving practices. Thusly the left falls into a trap whereby it routinely backs capital-serving “lesser evils” and never obtains the people-empowering and capital-constraining progressive political change which centrists generally resist conceding. In fact, this lesser-evil-ism has resulted: in both the reactionary and the centrist parties shifting ever further to the right; and in the centrist party’s ever firmer embrace of national chauvinist, imperialist, militarist, capital-serving, and other antisocial policies, while often acting against the economic and other needs and concerns of its base working-class constituency. Moreover, the consequent failure to deliver real results for working people enables the reactionary factions (including populist demagogues) to grow their popular following, thereby actually increasing the political influence and power of reaction. Furthermore, instead of building popular support for the independent revolutionary movement for comprehensive social justice; lesser-evil-ism contravenes progress toward that objective by building popular support for the capital-serving centrists thereby strengthening political domination by said centrists to the detriment of the revolutionary left.

With their liberal prejudices, liberal “socialists” regard centrist parties and their politicians as basic allies against any threat to progress posed by reactionary politicians; and they dogmatically treat parties of reaction as always enemies. Contrarywise, revolutionary socialists recognize that all capital-serving parties are basic adversaries. At the same time, revolutionary socialists readily work in temporary alliances, limited to a specific shared objective, with any capital-serving party (even an absolutist reactionary one) whenever there is something of value to be gained from so doing. In all such alliances, said socialists always maintain their independence and act to educate the public as to the faults of said allies as well as to the reasons why it is necessary to work with same toward the current shared objective.

The political objective of socialists must be to build popular support and organizational action for comprehensive social justice (economic, environmental, human rights, civil rights, and anti-imperialist). It is never to build popular support for the capital-serving anti-socialist liberals thereby strengthening political domination by said liberals to the detriment of the revolutionary left.

Adverse events. China’s internal conflicts (1966—76) and de facto anti-Soviet military alliance (1979—89) with the US ^[28], plus the collapses of the USSR and other Communist states in Europe, left the revolutionary socialist forces in the US and other advanced capitalist countries disoriented and demoralized. Consequently, many socialists abandoned revolutionary Marxism for liberal reformism so that liberal left groups obtained overwhelming dominance among what has passed for “socialist” and “anti-imperialist” movements in those countries.

Noted sources.

[1] Encyclopedia of Marxism: Congresses of Social Democracy (Marxist Internet Archive) ~ Second International Congress in Stuttgart [1907 Aug] @ https://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/c/congress-si.htm#1907 .

[2] Wikipedia: Assassination of Malcolm X (2024 May 09) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Malcolm_X . See also Felber⸰ Garrett: Malcolm X assassination – 50 years on, mystery still clouds details of the case (The Guardian, 2015 Feb 21) @ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/21/malcolm-x-assassination-records-nypd-investigation .

[3] Wikipedia: Fred Hampton (2024 May 15) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hampton .

[4] Wikipedia: Bunchy Carter (2024 Mar 16) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunchy_Carter .

[5] BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part1 (2002 May 24) @ http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=622 . See also Donnelly⸰ Michael: Killing Anna Mae Aquash, Smearing John Trudell (CounterPunch, 2006 Jan 17) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/01/17/killing-anna-mae-aquash-smearing-john-trudell/ .

[6] Wikipedia: Gag Law (Puerto Rico) (2024 Mar 12) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_Law_(Puerto_Rico) .

[7] Wikipedia: Utuado Uprising (2024 May 09) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utuado_uprising .

[8] Wikipedia: Cerro Maravilla murders (2024 May 06) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Maravilla_murders .

[9] Wikipedia: Northern Ireland civil rights movement (2024 Feb 18) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_civil_rights_movement . See also Wikipedia: The Troubles (2024 May 08) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Troubles .

[10] Wikipedia: Pat Finucane (2024 Apr 26) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Finucane .

[11] Wikipedia: Rosemary Nelson (2024 Apr 15) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosemary_Nelson .

[12] Wikipedia: Paris Massacre of 1961 (2024 May 01) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 .

[13] Wikipedia: Smith Act trials of Communist Party leaders (2024 Mar 31) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act_trials_of_Communist_Party_leaders . Note: the article, under “Background”, purveys some distorted history regarding, for example: the German-Soviet non-aggression pact (not an “alliance”), Soviet compliance with commitments at Yalta (US-British post facto interpretation), and the civil war in Greece (Soviet “threats” being fiction).

[14] Wikipedia: Communist Party of Germany (2024 Apr 18) ~ § Post-war history @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_Germany#Post-war_history .

[15] BlackElectorate.com

: Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part 2 (2002 May 31) @ http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=626 . See also Wikipedia: Eddie Conway (2024 Feb 24) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Conway .

[16] Buffalo Chip: The Real Story of the Rice/Poindexter Case (2002) @ https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC510_scans/Buffalo_Chip/510.buffalo.chip.SpringFall2002.pdf . See also Wikipedia: Rice-Poindexter case (2024 Mar 19) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice%E2%80%93Poindexter_case .

[17] Wikipedia: Geronimo Pratt (2024 Apr 05) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo_Pratt .

[18] Lendman⸰ Stephen: Veronza Bowers Jr – Another Victim of America’s Criminal Justice System (2009 Jul 13) @ https://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/2009-July/002382.html .

[19] Williams⸰ Evelyn A: Statement of Facts in the New Jersey Trial of Assata Shakur (2005 Jun 25) @ http://www.assatashakur.com/facts.htm .

[20] FOIA Documents – U.S. v Leonard Peltier (CR NO. C77-3003): Post-Trial Actions – Criminal (© 2015 Dec) @ https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/CRIMINAL.htm . See also BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ part 2 (2002 May 31) @ http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=626 .

[21] Wells⸰ Robert: A New Look at the Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (CounterPunch, 2006 Oct 01) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/01/a-new-look-at-the-framing-of-mumia-abu-jamal/ . See also Wikipedia: Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal (2024 May 15) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_v._Abu-Jamal .

[22] Bayoumi⸰ Magda: About Dr.Dhafir (Syracuse Peace Newsletter, 2005 Sep) @ www.dhafirtrial.net/about-this-site/about-dr-dhafir/ . See also Hughes⸰ Katherine: Denial of Due Process to Muslims Disgraces Us All (OpEdNews, 2007 Nov 18) @ https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=opedne_katherin_071118_denial_of_due_proces.htm .

[23] Murphy⸰ Maureen Clare: New evidence hoped to free Holy Land Five (Electronic Intifada, 2013 Nov 01) @ https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/new-evidence-hoped-free-holy-land-five .

[24] Whitney⸰ W T: Simon Trinidad, Imprisoned, Connects with Colombian Peace Process (CounterPunch, 2015 Apr 07) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/07/simon-trinidad-imprisoned-connects-with-colombian-peace-process/ . See also Wikipedia: Simón Trinidad (2024 Apr 19) ~ § Trials @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Trinidad#Trials .

[25] Gosztola⸰ Evan: Julian Assange’s Last Chance To Avoid Extradition (The Progressive, 2024 Feb 20) @ https://portside.org/2024-02-24/julian-assanges-last-chance-avoid-extradition .

[26] Harris⸰ Roger D: How the Campaign to Free Venezuelan Political Prisoner Alex Saab Succeeded (Dissident Voice, 2023 Dec 21) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/12/how-the-campaign-to-free-venezuelan-political-prisoner-alex-saab-succeeded/ .

[27] Pierceᵒ Charles: Proposals for the 2020 US elections: Part 1. More of the same old failed electoral policy (Dissident Voice, 2020 Mar 19) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/03/proposals-for-the-2020-us-elections/ .

[28] Wikipedia: China—United States relations (2023 Jun 11) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93United_States_relations .

PART 4. ECONOMIC REDUCTIONISM.

Another manifestation of “left” alignment with the US-led Western empire is rooted in economic-reductionist doctrines which exclude the centrality of imperialism from the analysis.

The doctrine. Economic reductionism (as expressed in the work of “Marxist” economist John Smith ^[1]) focuses on the economic aspects of transnational capitalism to the exclusion of imperial-state strivings for geopolitical domination. When misapplied to struggles against neoliberal globalization; economic reductionism inspires a “left” purism which castigates Latin America’s pink-tide states, resisting aggressions by Western imperialism, as enemies on account of actions and/or policies which are deemed to betray some leftist concept of correct socialist policy. Those, and other peripheral states resisting imperial dictate, are then condemned for sins such as: continued reliance upon ecologically harmful extractive industries, concessions to transnational capital, entry into unequal trade and investment deals with “capitalist” China, imperfect records on civil and/or human rights, et cetera. Said “leftists” (epitomized by Yaku Pérez in Ecuador and Pablo Solón of Bolivia) minimize and dismiss differences between subservient (right-wing ruled) and resistant (left-progressive governed) peripheral states. In fact, they refuse to give credit for the progressive policies which are the reason that said resistant states are subjected to hostility by the Western empire.

Said economic reductionists also condemn semi-peripheral states, Russia and China, for being: “capitalist”, “neoliberal”, “imperialist”, et cetera. Although it is true that capitalist enterprise (with its accompanying social evils) has a huge presence in both countries; said capitalist enterprise ^[2] (coexisting with much state-owned enterprise in both countries) has not dictated their foreign policies nor turned them into aggressive expansionist imperial powers. Nevertheless, economic reductionists (such as Esteban Mercatante ^[3]) portray said states as militarist aggressors engaged in imperial rivalry for some share in the exploitation of peripheral countries and/or contention for some share of imperial world domination.

The realities. In fact, Russia is amply endowed with virtually all of the natural resources which its industry requires. Moreover, Russian capital productively invested abroad is minimal and not a motivating factor in Russia’s pragmatic foreign policy which (notwithstanding Putin’s sentimental glorification of Russian history) is focused primarily upon national security including defense against US-NATO attempts at subjugation ^[4].

Meanwhile, China maintains a foreign policy seeking normal relations (including trade and investment from which some of its capitalist enterprises profit) with every other willing country. At the same time, China is the leading provider of economic assistance to peripheral countries with: suspension and restructuring of debt, and construction of infrastructure which enables their economic development and greater independence ^[5].

Although there is much to deplore in their internal governances, both Russia and China advocate (though with some possible national-security-related inconsistencies in sensitive border regions) for a world with respect: for the national sovereignty and independence of other states, and for a peaceful world. Economic reductionists refuse: to give credit for the assistance which Russia and China provide to peripheral states being attacked by Western imperialism, or to recognize that they themselves are being attacked for being obstacles to continued domination by the current global hegemon. Instead of demanding that the major powers (US, EU, China, Russia, and others) cooperate to address the existential threats facing the world community (impending climate catastrophe, rampant militarism and confrontations which can escalate to nuclear war, mass slaughter and immense devastation in existing wars, famines, deadly pandemics, et cetera); some avowed “leftists” denounce said China and/or Russia as “imperialist” aggressors thereby acquiescing to the West’s new cold wars against them.

Many of the “faults” alleged against resistant (peripheral and semi-peripheral) states are policies necessitated by their economic and/or political and/or other vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities attributable: to the legacy of colonialism and neocolonialism, to globalized neoliberal capitalism, and/or to actual Western imperial hostility. The progress or even survival of such states often depends upon some participation in transnational capitalism usually including environmentally harmful extractive activities, a fact which their “left” purist vilifiers refuse to take into account. It is true that these states (in varying degrees) also make wrongful choices for which they can and should be validly criticized, but such criticism does not negate the obligation to defend them against Western aggressions.

Transnational government? Some anti-globalization “leftists” justify their economic reductionist position with the notion (pioneered by William I Robinson) that neoliberal globalization has produced a transnational capitalist ruling class and a transnational capitalist governing system (G-7, WTO, IMF, World bank, OECD, FTAA, et cetera) which they purport has displaced the nation state as the ruling power ^[6]. They then assert that rule by this transnational “government” has rendered imperialism irrelevant ^[7]. These “leftists” myopically evade three crucial facts.

The transnational institutions, which impose the exploitative neoliberal regime and its rules upon the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries, do so at the behest of the economically dominant states (the US and its major allies) acting on behalf of the capitalists (executives and major share-holders) in their own countries. Moreover, the US and other major capitalist states exempt themselves from said rules whenever the self-interest of domestic industry so requires.
The US and its major allies maintain hegemonic foreign policies which are demanded by their own capitalists including especially military-industry capital (which profits from empire, militarism, and war) as well as by allied domestic capital-funded governing politicians pandering to national chauvinism and scapegoating alleged foreign adversaries and demanding aggressive foreign policies.
Actual coercive armed force is exercised by actual states, not by the globalizing economic institutions.

Marxist response. With their “left” purist doctrines, economic reductionists brand imperfect anti-imperialist states as enemies of social progress and then refuse solidarity with said states’ resistance to imperial aggressions on account of the victim’s faults, real and imagined. The logic of the critiques offered by these “leftists” is that subjugation or regime change, in resistant states targeted by Western imperialism, does not make a meaningful difference; because it would (they evidently believe) only replace one bad regime with another ^[8].

It is certainly true that there is currently no international bloc of anti-capitalist states engaged in promoting world socialist revolution. Nevertheless, genuine socialists recognize that the pursuit of social justice, as always, must be indivisible (that is against all forms of systemic oppression: economic, environmental, human rights, civil rights, and international). Said pursuit must not neglect international injustices. As Lenin stated [in What Is To Be Done? (1902)], “Working class consciousness cannot be genuine political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence, and abuse, no matter what class is affected” ^[9]. Hence, said pursuit must expose the crimes of hegemonic Western imperialism and act for its eradication.

Progress and ultimate success require: popular engagement in the social-justice struggles; plus forcing concessions (reforms) which empower the people and/or constrain the power of capital (in preference to purely ameliorative measures), wherever such gains can be achieved. Economic-reductionist “leftists” often refuse to recognize:

that states with actual progressive policies (pink-tide and other) deserve support;
that peripheral- and semi-peripheral-country resistance to the empire, combined with their very real anti-imperialist solidarity with one another, is part of the global fight for social justice (which itself is the basis for socialist revolution); and
that their successes in resistance to imperial subjugation constitute valuable shifts of power from hegemonic Western transnational capital to the oppressed.

Economic reductionists simply refuse to see that the principal antagonism in international relations remains the hegemonic US-dominated Western empire versus its victims.

What the “left” purists also refuse to recognize is that the fight for social justice requires temporary alliances (tactical and strategic) with imperfect partners, both within country and internationally, in order to gain and hold ground in the revolutionary struggles: for popular empowerment, for constraints upon the power of capital, and for removal of the obstacle to progress and social justice posed by the US-dominated Western empire.

Obstruction. Those avowed “socialists/leftists”, who (with, or apart from, the empire) stand in opposition to its victims, thereby objectively obstruct the fight for social justice.

Noted sources.

[1] Smithᵒ John [interview by Fuentesᵒ Federico]: Twenty-first century imperialism, multipolarity and capitalism’s ‘final crisis’ (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023 Aug 01) @ https://links.org.au/twenty-first-century-imperialism-multipolarity-and-capitalisms-final-crisis-interview-john-smith .

[2] Norton⸰ Ben: How can China be socialist if it has a stock market? Understanding the Chinese economy (2024 Jul 04) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4__IBd_sGE .

[3] Mercatanteᵒ Esteban [interview by Fuentesᵒ Federico]: China’s rise, ‘diminished dependency’ and imperialism in times of world disorder (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023 Sep 22) @ https://links.org.au/chinas-rise-diminished-dependency-and-imperialism-times-world-disorder-interview-esteban-mercatante .

[4] Clarkeᵒ Renfrey: Is Russia ‘sub-imperialist’? (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023 Aug 01) @ https://links.org.au/russia-sub-imperialist .

[5] Dongsheng News [via YouTube]: There is no Chinese “debt trap” in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the IMF (News on China No. 170, 2023 Nov 04) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRolhapZU9k&t=78s .

[6] Robinsonᵒ William I [interview by Fuentesᵒ Federico]: Capitalist Globalization, transnational class exploitation and the global police state (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023 Oct 19) @ https://links.org.au/capitalist-globalisation-transnational-class-exploitation-and-global-police-state-interview-william .

[7] Ellnerᵒ Steve: Prioritizing U.S. Imperialism in Evaluating Latin America’s Pink Tide (Monthly Review [vol 74 nr 10], 2023 Mar 01) @ https://monthlyreview.org/2023/03/01/prioritizing-u-s-imperialism-in-evaluating-latin-americas-pink-tide/ .

[8] same as [7].

[9] Lenin: What Is To Be Done? [1902 Feb] ~ § III. C. (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/index.htm .

PART 5. RESISTANCE TO IMPERIAL AGGRESSIONS.

Western dictates. The hegemonic Western empire persistently attempts to impose its preferred policies (prescriptions/dictates) upon the peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. Those dictates to peripheral countries may require: capital-serving nullification of labor and environmental protective regulations, acceptance of economic dependency (based upon “structural adjustment” and the doctrine of “comparative advantage”) ^[1], privatizations of public services, abandonment of domestic social welfare programs, provision of bases for Western military operations, conformity to US’ and major allies’ expectations in foreign relations, et cetera. Said “prescriptions” obviously: serve the selfish interests of metropolitan-based transnational capital and the aspirations of the Western alliance for imperial world domination; and are generally to the detriment of the peoples of the affected countries. Consequently, some countries resist.

Imperial aggressions. Whenever states in the periphery and semi-periphery set an insubordinate example by refusing to submit to Western policy prescriptions/dictates; the US and/or its allies (Britain, France, Canada, Australia, Germany, Japan, Israel, …) then generally respond with aggressions, often including attempts at regime-change. Said aggressions include: unreasonable demands, vilification, subversion, economic siege, military intimidation, and/or armed invasion. Real socialists and anti-imperialists oppose those aggressions. Sadly, liberal “socialists” all too often join the imperial state in denouncing states which take forceful measures in resistance to said aggressions.

Military intimidations against resistant states include: recruiting neighboring countries into hostile military alliances, surrounding them with Western military bases, and threatening military exercises near their borders. Targeted countries currently include: North Korea [DPRK], Iran, Russia, and China. Every country, against which the US is directing its hostility, would actually prefer a non-antagonistic relationship with the US.

Regime-change operations are perpetrated in multiple ways including: subversions, covert actions, economic sieges, invasions.

Post-Cold-War invasions include: Panamá (1989—90), Iraq (1990—91), Iraq (since 2003), Libya (2011), Yemen (since 2015).
Current victims of US-orchestrated severe economic sieges (which seek to punish the general populaces) include: DPRK, Cuba, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Russia. More than a dozen additional countries (including: Belarus, Nicaragua, and China) are also victimized by some US economic sanctions.
Covert actions (blackmail, bribery, sabotage, assassination, funding of oppositions, inciting rebellions, et cetera), by the US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] and/or other US government operatives as well as counterparts in some major US allies, have produced coups d’état and/or violent insurgencies to oust targeted governments. 21^st-century US-backed coups and failed attempts* include: Venezuela* (2002), Georgia (2003), Haiti (2004), Bolivia* (2008), Honduras (2009), Ecuador* (2010), Paraguay (2012), Ukraine (2014), Nicaragua* (2018), Venezuela* (2019), Bolivia (2019), Peru (2022). For earlier US-orchestrated regime change operations (1945—95), see William Blum: Killing Hope ^[2]!
Subversions by Western interventionist state-agencies (such as the US National Endowment for Democracy [NED]), as well as private entities such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, include: seducing, inspiring, funding, and training (liberal and/or fascist) pro-West media and civil society organizations within those countries which are targeted on account of the unwillingness of the current or potential future government to submit to Western dictates ^[3]. NED, like the CIA, operates in scores of countries all around the world.

In order to obtain popular domestic acquiescence to their aggressions against resistant states, Western states and their mainstream media broadcast deceitful propaganda to vilify said targeted states. The US and its allies then justify their aggressions as purported defense of: “human rights”, “democratic values”, and an inconsistently US-defined international “rules-based order” ^[4] (which the US and its allies routinely violate wherever adherence becomes inconvenient). Pseudo-socialist liberals, with their naïve or hypocritical expectation that vilified states should always follow the rule of permissive political pluralism, repeat much of that propaganda in their own denunciations of targeted states. Said liberals evade the actuality of extensive US use of subversive activity within targeted countries (Belarus, Russia, China, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, …) in order to bolster the opposition forces which then attack the targeted state from within country. They also evade the massive record of overt and covert US aggressions against resistant states and their peoples.

Countermeasures against subversion. When the regime-change-seeking activities of foreign-inspired organizations become a seditious threat to a targeted state; said state, if it is capable of decisive action in defense of its independence, naturally acts to suppress said seditious activities (defamatory anti-state propaganda, treasonous conspiracy, disruption of economy, incitement of civil disorder, rebellion) with bans, detentions, prosecutions, and imprisonments.

Liberal “socialists” typically evade the underlying context and act to bolster their credentials, as champions of liberal democratic and civil libertarian ideals, by denouncing the resistant states for their suppressive actions in defense against foreign-inspired and -funded sedition (mischaracterized as purely indigenous “democratic dissent”). Said pseudo-socialist liberals (along with some economic-reductionist “leftists”) then join the intervening aggressor state in vilifying the victim state (as “anti-democratic” and “authoritarian”). Recent examples.

(1) Since the Sandinistas won the 2007 election and regained control of the government of Nicaragua; the US, seeking regime change, has been funding opposition parties and NGO[s]. Those efforts culminated in the violent 2018 uprising. Interventionist US foreign policy official, Elliot Abrams, had called (2015) for regime change. NED chairman, Kenneth Wollack, bragged (2018 Jun 14) to Congress that NED had trained 8,000 young Nicaraguans to spearhead said uprising. Nicaragua responded to said uprising with laws prohibiting Nicaraguans from supporting US sanctions and/or other foreign-backed regime change activities. Violators have been arrested. Subsequently, various liberal and “leftist” individuals and organizations responded by denouncing the Sandinista regime as an “antidemocratic dictatorship”. ^[5]

(2) Using a very reasonable proposed extradition bill as pretext (even though said bill had been dropped in concession to its critics), violent anti-China riots in Hongkong (2019—20) were conducted by “protestors” often carrying British flags and expressing a racist hostility toward mainland Chinese and Hongkong people who speak Mandarin or are identified as pro-China ^[6]. Arrests and strengthened security policies followed. The US NED had long been funding the culpable anti-China groups. Western states, often echoed by liberal “leftists”, denounced the Hongkong government and Beijing as “repressing democratic dissent”.

(3) Cuba was beset with disruptive mass street protests (2021 Jul) over: rising costs of food, shortages of medical supplies, and other economic difficulties. Arrests of instigators followed. The conditions, giving rise to that popular discontent, were primarily the result of the US economic siege. A major contributory factor to the protests themselves were covert US funding thru NED and other US government agencies seeking regime change in Cuba ^[7]. The US and its allies, joined by liberals and some “leftists”, followed by denouncing the Cuban government as “repressive”.

“Socialist” critics of the suppressive measures taken by resistant states have often exhibited far more concern for the willfully-disruptive “repressed” oppositionists (whose deceptions also victimize their misguided naïve co-participants) than for the actual victims of truly egregious contemporary crimes against humanity perpetrated by their own imperial state and its client-states. Moreover, when vilifying those states which resist imperial subversion (as “anti-democratic”, “repressive”, and “authoritarian”); said critics almost invariable neglect to mention: the anti-democratic features of their own state or its persecutions of domestic social-justice dissent. Examples under “Evasion and hypocrisy” in PART 3 above.

Marxist socialists have always defended the right of targeted resisting states to take necessary suppressive actions against their empire-backed domestic enemies. This follows from the observation by Friedrich Engels [in On Authority (1872)] that “A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists” ^[8]. Real socialists also, of course, fight for the civil rights of the empire’s persecuted victims (including its dissident social-justice activists).

States currently resisting hostile aggressions from the Western alliance include: DPRK, China, Russia, and others.

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [DPRK] (North Korea). After 40 years of oppressive colonial rule by Japan (1905—45), the US subjected Korea ^[9]:

to North-South division;
to brutally repressive US military rule (1945—48) over the South;
followed by US creation of the Republic of Korea [ROK] in the South under the repressive murderous rule by the fascistic regime of Syngman Rhee;
to massive destruction of the country thru US (and allies) military intervention in the Korean civil war (1950—53) with an estimated 3 million death toll mostly from US bombing and from US and ROK massacres of more than 100,000 civilians;
to maintenance of repressive military rule thereafter in the South until a client-state regime with some semblance of civil liberties was established in 1987; and
to a large presence of US military forces, exempt from ROK government authority, continuing with no end in sight.

US forces introduced and kept nuclear weapons in the South (in violation of the Armistice Agreement) from 1958 until 1991, when it decided that its interests would be better served by a prohibition of nuclear weapons on the peninsula ^[10]. The US, of course, maintains a proximate nuclear weapons presence with its naval forces in adjacent seas.

With the (1991) collapse of its protective USSR ally and with continued hostility from the US and ROK, the DPRK (in 1993) announced its intent to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT] and began work on developing a nuclear weapons capability as a deterrent. The DPRK suspended that withdrawal under the 1994 Agreed Framework whereby it agreed to remain in the NPT and to be monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] in return for:

light water nuclear power reactors to replace existing graphite nuclear power reactors (which were capable of easily producing weapons-grade plutonium),
fuel oil deliveries to replace the power from shut down of the graphite reactors (until the light water reactors came on line),
relief from sanctions,
an end to threatening US-ROK military exercises, and
movement toward normal diplomatic and economic relations.

It is now widely suspected that the US embraced the Agreed Framework on the wishful assumption that the DPRK regime, then in economic difficulty, was on the verge of collapse which would mean no need for the US to fulfill its commitments. ^[11]

The US did default with respect to both the reactors and the fuel oil, and it stalled on normalization of relations. Moreover, US President Bush: branded North Korea together with Iran and Iraq as an “axis of evil”, and then invaded Iraq (2003) where the US imposed regime change followed by show trials and executions of deposed Iraqi leaders. The DPRK responded to the US default and intensified hostility by reactivating its nuclear reactors and by quitting the NPT. However, it offered to end its nuclear weapons program in return for security guarantees, but the US was unwilling to provide. ^[12]

In 2011, the US and its allies used military force to oust the Gaddafi government in Libya (after having used military force to impose regime change in Iraq in 2003). Both countries, hoping that the US would then end its hostility, had given up their nuclear-weapons programs. The DPRK drew the inevitable conclusion that it needed a nuclear weapons deterrent to protect itself against a similar event. DPRK now possesses both nuclear bombs and the missiles with which to deliver them (including to the US mainland).

In 2017, the US deployed its THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in south Korea thereby destabilizing the existing confrontation and also creating alarm in China which recognizes said deployment as a threat to its national security. ^[13]

The US (under Biden) persists in its aggressions against the DPRK: vilification, economic siege, annually conducting threatening war games in the South (to which the DPRK responds by test-firing its missiles) ^[14]. The US refuses to discuss making a peace treaty or normalization of relations; it persists with its unwavering goal of regime change. In fact, the US has used its power and influence to intensify international sanctions (economic siege) against the DPRK. Meanwhile, the liberal left, if it responds at all, ignores US provocations and, tacitly or explicitly, accepts the mischaracterization of the DPRK as a monstrous aggressor state.

China. Since Obama’s “pivot to Asia” (2011), the US has increasingly treated China as an adversary. In addition to increasing trade sanctions and other hostile policies, Biden and Congressional leaders now violate the longstanding formal US commitment to the “one-China policy” by encouraging the secessionist faction in Taiwan (wherein the population is 95% Han Chinese) in its moves toward Taiwan independence. Moreover, Biden has stated that the US would go to war against China if it were to use military force to put down Taiwan secession; and US military commanders are now openly preparing for war against China within the next few years ^[15]. While some liberal “socialists” endeavor to maintain credibility as “anti-imperialists” by continuing (thus far) to defend China, others join the West in vilifying it ^[16].

Russia. When Russia commenced its 2022 military intervention in Ukraine, much of the avowedly “socialist” and “anti-imperialist” liberal left responded by joining the US and NATO in portraying the Kyiv regime as an innocent victim of “unprovoked Russian aggression”. As they rushed (consciously or unconsciously) to burnish their political respectability in the eyes of establishment liberals, these “socialists” (many of whom neglected to seek out the relevant facts) embraced the simplistic narrative that Russia was the aggressor in its past and current actions vis-a-vis neighboring Ukraine. In fact, said narrative evades the essential context and refuses to recognize: the validity of Russia’s concerns, and the reasonableness of its consistent demands (preceding its 2022 February military intervention). Those evasions.

The US and NATO violated their promise that NATO would not expand into central and eastern Europe, promise given in 1990 in order to obtain needed Soviet consent for the reunification of Germany ^[17].
The US placed nuclear-capable missiles (capable of quickly striking Moscow and other Russian targets) in Poland and Romania (planned from 2008, first installed in 2016) ^[18]. Not a provocation? Do we remember how the US pushed the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse when the USSR placed such missiles in Cuba after the US had placed similar missiles in Turkey?
The US and NATO planned (since 2008) to bring Ukraine and Georgia (both of which share very sensitive borders with Russia) into NATO ^[19], countries which Russia would reasonably fear hosting offensive US missiles on their territories.
The US began arming and training Ukrainian armed forces in 2015 ^[20], thereby making Ukraine into a de facto participant in the anti-Russia NATO alliance.
NATO has repeatedly (since 2017) conducted war games, practicing for war against Russia, in the Baltic states on Russia’s border ^[21].
The US and NATO consistently responded to the past 25 years of Russian protests (against the foregoing US and NATO actions) with an arrogant intransigence ^[22]. Continued diplomacy was clearly not a viable means for obtaining redress.
The US, especially thru its National Endowment for Democracy [NED], had been funding and training anti-Russia pro-West political organizations in Ukraine (also in Belarus and other former Soviet states) since the collapse of the USSR ^[23].
The US instigated and abetted the 2014 coup ^[24] which, spearheaded by violent neo-Nazi militias ^[25], ousted the democratically-elected Russia-friendly Ukrainian government, which had chosen to keep Ukraine neutral between Russia and the West. The US objective, thereupon accomplished, was to install and entrench a government which would be hostile to Russia and would seek integration into the EU [European Union] and NATO. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the US choice to lead Ukraine, then took power as Prime Minister; and 3 ministerial positions were filled by leaders of the Russophobe neo-Nazi Svoboda Party.

There clearly was a lot of provocation by the US and NATO ^[27].

Although it is true that contemporary Russia is governed by an imperfectly-liberal-democratic state striving to maintain a sphere of influence; its “imperialism” ^[28] is essentially defensive and pales to relative insignificance in comparison with the aggressive hegemonic imperialism of the West. Moreover, Putin’s Russia (vilified by many Russophobe “socialists” as “fascist”) provides some assistance to countries (Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria) which are resisting hostile aggression by Western imperialism. Meanwhile, the US-NATO-backed client regime in Ukraine lauds (as national heroes) the leaders of the actually fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN] and its Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA] which were collaborationist allies of Nazi Germany during the Axis War and participants in its genocidal crimes against Jews, Poles, and ethnic Russians, as well as fellow-Ukrainians who were loyal to the USSR ^[29].

Western backing of Ukrainian neo-Nazis should come as no surprise given that the US and Britain had recruited hundreds of German Nazis and their other-European fascist collaborators, including scores of war criminals, for their postwar covert actions against Soviet-bloc countries. Examples: Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations ^[30], Gehlen Organization ^[31], Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit ^[32].

To equate Russian foreign policy (and its “imperialism”) with that of the US and NATO, as do some liberal “socialists”, is a fantasy rooted in Russophobe prejudice and/or simple-minded delusional misjudgment. It is certainly appropriate to question the appropriateness and prudence of Russia’s actions and methods (both in Ukraine and elsewhere). However, but for US-NATO and client-regime provocations (including Kiev’s renege on its 2014—15 agreements to grant autonomy to the Donbas oblasts); there would not have been 8 years of civil war in Ukraine nor Russia’s 2022 military intervention.

Crucially, the US objective throughout has been to use Ukraine to weaken and subjugate Russia ^[33] so as to eliminate its potential to be an obstacle to the West’s aspiration for irresistible global domination. Finally, those who evade the facts of Western and client-regime aggressions and side with the US, NATO, and their Ukrainian pawn (by one-sidedly condemning Russia and/or by supporting sanctions against Russia and arms for Ukraine) become social-imperialist agents for the anti-Russia machinations of the actual oppressor of most of the world’s peoples.

Anti-Communist roots of Russophobe social imperialism. Many of the Russophobe “socialists” have actually joined the US globalists in portraying the USSR as an aggressive “evil empire” and Putin’s Russia as its evil successor. They embrace the false Cold-War portrayal of NATO as “a military alliance built to defend Europe from attack by the USSR.” In fact, the USSR, devastated by War, consistently sought peaceful coexistence, both during its postwar reconstruction and subsequently, with the West.

Liberals will ask what about Soviet impositions in eastern and central Europe? They evade the facts that those were remedial and defensive measures.

(1) Soviet impositions in 1939 and 1940 restored to the USSR formerly Russian border territories which expansionist states on its Western borders had forcibly annexed during the Russian Civil War and accompanying foreign invasions while the nascent Soviet state was too weak to resist. Soviet Russia had been compelled, in the Brest-Litovsk treaty (1918 Mar), to cede control of the Baltic states plus Belarus and Ukraine to imperial Germany which had then imposed repressive anti-Soviet regimes therein ^[34]. Upon the defeat of Germany and its allies (1918 Nov), legal sovereignty over most of that territory reverted to the Soviet Union. The territory (east of the Curzon line), subsequently invaded and annexed by Poland (1919—20), was populated predominantly by Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Jews ^[35]. The territory (Bessarabia), invaded and annexed by Romania (1918—19), had an ethnically diverse population ^[36] and had never been accepted by the USSR as legitimately Romanian ^[37]. Hence, Soviet reacquisition of those territories was remedial.

(2) Soviet postwar impositions involved countries (Finland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria) on its western border, of which: 4 of 6 (along with the Baltic states) had provided bases for covert-action regime-change operations against the USSR after the October Revolution and throughout the 1920s, 5 of 6 had outlawed their Communist parties throughout the interwar period, and 4 of 6 had joined Nazi Germany in its invasion of the USSR. Soviet postwar policy was initially to permit those countries to choose liberal-democratic capitalist regimes (as demonstrated by its acceptance of Finland’s capitalist neutrality) as long as they would not become bases for Western threats against Soviet national security. However, with the US and Britain renewing Cold War hostility (actually starting in 1944) ^[⁑]and hypocritically imposing a brutally repressive fascist regime in Greece ^[38], Soviet policy responded by acting to ensure that reconstituted states in central Europe could not become bases for renewed Cold War aggressions. Liberal “socialists” joined the anti-Communist West (which had never objected to repressive autocratic regimes in those countries during the interwar years) in condemning Soviet impositions in central Europe, but stayed silent with respect to events in Greece.

[⁑] Anti-Soviet acts (not a complete list).

British Secret Intelligence Service [SIS/MI6] restoration of its anti-Soviet section (1944) ^[42].

Churchill’s failed attempt (1944) to induce diversion of the Italian campaign from invasion of Germany, in order to limit Soviet presence in central Europe ^[43].

Operation Sunrise (1945 Feb—May), attempt by US OSS [Office of Strategic Services] agent (Allen Dulles), with Soviet representatives deliberately excluded, to negotiate surrender of German forces in Italy with promise of immunity for their genocidal war crimes (in violation of prior allied agreement requiring unconditional surrender), intended to end the War before Soviet forces in central Europe could reach Trieste on the northeastern border of Italy ^[44].

Operation Unthinkable (1945 May), plan (devised on orders by British PM Churchill, but ultimately dropped as infeasible) for a surprise British-US attack upon Soviet forces in Germany, intended as means to impose the Western allies’ desires for postwar arrangements in Europe ^[45].

Plan Totality (1945 Aug), a purported plan (ordered by US President Truman) for a US nuclear attack upon 20 Soviet cities, actually a disinformation ploy to use the US-British monopoly of atomic bombs in order to intimidate the USSR ^[46].

Operation Bloodstone (1948—50), a secret operation whereby the US CIA recruited former Nazi[s] and collaborators (including war criminals) for covert actions (espionage, subversion, sabotage, assassination, et cetera) against Soviet bloc countries ^[47].

Operation Jungle (1949—55), a British SIS (and US CIA assisted) operation for insertion of covert operatives into Poland and the Baltic states to support insurgent warfare (murder, sabotage, et cetera) against said targeted states ^[48].

Operation Valuable (1949—53), a British-US covert operation to insert rightwing and former Nazi collaborators into Albania to organize uprisings to oust the Communist-led government, an abject failure for lack of local sympathy ^[49].

[For additional details, see Appendix 3: Cold War.]

The actual purposes of NATO and of western European economic integration were: to create a US-British dominated capitalist bloc in western and southern Europe, and to prevent Communist parties from coming to power thru democratic elections in those countries. Popular Communist-led insurgencies had liberated Yugoslavia and Albania from foreign fascist occupation without aid from the Soviet Red Army and would have done likewise in Greece, but for British and US military intervention which imposed a murderous fascist state upon that country ^[47]. Moreover, Communist parties, with impressive records as leaders in the wartime anti-Axis resistance, had emerged with much popular support in some western countries, notably in Italy and France where they participated in postwar governing coalitions. Massive US intervention in the 1948 Italian election prevented the expected victory of the Socialist-Communist electoral alliance ^[48]. Pervasive propaganda of an alleged Soviet military threat served to promote fear of Communism ^[49]. Constant repetition eventually induced much of the public and most operatives in Western foreign-policy establishments to begin to believe it.

Betrayal. Liberal “socialists, now as much as ever, embrace the false narratives with which the West (including its sycophantic major news media) defames resistant states whenever they take forceful action as necessary in order to defend against attempts at subjugation and/or regime-change. Some of said pseudo-socialist liberals do denounce the most blatantly obvious of Western aggressions; but then, posturing as even-handed, they eagerly denounce resistant states whenever presented with a pretext for so doing. They also falsely portray some repressive pawns (including post-coup Ukraine) as champions of freedom and justice. Consequently, as these “socialists” (with their myopic liberal prejudices and/or obsequious pursuit of bourgeois respectability) react to ensuing confrontations, they act as apologists ^[50] and propagandists ^[51] for Western imperialism.

Noted sources.

[1] Shah⸰ Anup: Structural Adjustment – a Major Cause of Poverty (Global Issues, 2013 Mar 24) @ http://www.globalissues.org/article/3/structural-adjustment-a-major-cause-of-poverty .

[3] Macleodᵒ Alan: Documents Reveal US Gov’t Spent $22M Promoting Anti-Russia Narrative in Ukraine and Abroad (mintpressnews, 2022 Feb 18) @ https://www.mintpressnews.com/documents-reveal-us-ned-spent-22m-promoting-anti-russia-narrative-ukraine/279734/ .

[4] TriContinental Institute for Social Research: Sovereignty, Dignity, and Regionalism in the New International Order [dossier no. 62] (2023 Mar 14) @ https://thetricontinental.org/dossier-regionalism-new-international-order/ .

[5] Perryᵒ John & Sterlingᵒ Rick: How Can Some Progressives Get Basic Information about Nicaragua so Wrong? (Dissident Voice, 2021 Dec 18) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/12/how-can-some-progressives-get-basic-information-about-nicaragua-so-wrong/#more-124613 .

[6] Auᵒ Alex: Extradition bill is dead, so why are Hong Kong protests continuing? (Liberation, 2019 Jul 29) @ https://www.liberationnews.org/extradition-bill-is-dead-so-why-are-hong-kong-protests-continuing/ .

[7] teleSUR: US Invests Millions in Failed Attempts at “Democracy” in Cuba (Portside, 2020 Dec 14) @ https://portside.org/2021-01-04/us-invests-millions-failed-attempts-democracy-cuba .

[8] Engelsᵒ Friedrich: On Authority [1872] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm .

[9] Pierceᵒ Charles: Korea: Colonized, plundered, divided, devastated by war, under ongoing threat of war (Dissident Voice, 2023 Nov 17) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/11/korea-colonized-plundered-divided-devastated-by-war-under-ongoing-threat-of-war/ .

[10] Wikipedia: South Korea and weapons of mass destruction (2023 Sep 22) ~ § American nuclear weapons in South Korea @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction .

[11] Sigalᵒ Leon V: Bad History (38North, US-Korea_Institute_at_Johns_Hopkins_SAIS, 2017 Aug 22) @ http://www.38north.org/2017/08/lsigal082217/ .

[12] same as [11].

[13] Borowiecᵒ Steven: THAAD missile system agitates South Korea-China ties (Nikkei Asia, 2023 Jun 22) @ https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/THAAD-missile-system-agitates-South-Korea-China-ties .

[14] Elich⸰ Gregory: Is a New Korean War in the Offing? (CounterPunch, 2024 Feb 05) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/05/is-a-new-korean-war-in-the-offing/ .

[15] Sevastopuloᵒ Demetri: US air force general predicts China conflict in 2025 (Financial Times, 2023 Jan 28) @ https://www.ft.com/content/2b50ce67-bf88-4aff-bac9-eb9ac1b3b2ca .

[16] Stollᵒ Roger: Western Tales About China are Just Tales [book review of The East is Still Red by Martinezᵒ Carlos] (Dissident Voice, 2023 Aug 02) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/08/western-tales-about-china-are-just-tales/ .

[17] National Security Archive: NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard (2017 Dec 12) @ https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early .

[18] Arms Control Association: The European Phased Adaptive Approach at a Glance (2022 Mar) @ https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Phasedadaptiveapproach .

[19] The Associated Press: Timeline of NATO expansion since 1949 (AP News, 2022 May 10) @ https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-world-war-ii-sweden-finland-240d97572cc783b2c7ff6e7122dd72d2 .

[20] Marceticᵒ Branko: The CIA May Be Breeding Nazi Terror in Ukraine (Jacobin, 2022 Jan 15) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cia-neo-nazi-training-ukraine-russia-putin-biden-nato .

[21] Vilnius: US, allies launch NATO war games in the Baltics, Poland (Daily Sabah, 2018 Jun 03) @ https://www.dailysabah.com/europe/2018/06/03/us-allies-launch-nato-war-games-in-the-baltics-poland .

[22] Knightᵒ Dee: Stripping away the Bull: U.S. and Russian Threats Over Ukraine – What They’re About and Who’s the Aggressor (Covert Action Magazine, 2022 Jan 25) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/01/25/stripping-away-the-bullst-u-s-and-russian-threats-over-ukraine-what-theyre-about-and-whos-the-aggressor/ .

[23] same as [3].

[24] Benjaminᵒ Medea and Daviesᵒ Nicolas J S: Are there really neo-Nazis fighting for Ukraine? Well, yes – but it’s a long story (Salon, 2022 Mar 10) @ https://www.salon.com/2022/03/10/are-there-really-neo-nazis-fighting-for-ukraine-well-yes–but-its-a-long-story/ .

[25] Ishchenkoᵒ Volodymyr: Ukraine on the Brink (Jacobin, 2019 Jan 27) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/ukraine-maidan-protests-elections-volodymyr-ishchenko .

[26] reserved.

[27] Clarkeᵒ Renfrey & Holmesᵒ Dave: Setting the record straight: Ukraine, Russia & imperialism (Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal, 2023 Apr 23) @ https://links.org.au/setting-record-straight-ukraine-russia-imperialism .

[28] Smithᵒ Stansfield: Is Russia Imperialist? (MR Online, 2019 Jan 02) @ https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/ .

[29] Lazareᵒ Daniel: Who Was Stepan Bandera (Jacobin, 2015 Sep 24) @ https://jacobin.com/2015/09/stepan-bandera-nationalist-euromaidan-right-sector/ .

[30] Example. Wikipedia: Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (2023 Jun 13) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Bolshevik_Bloc_of_Nations .

[31] Example. Wikipedia: Gehlen Organization (2023 May 07) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization .

[32] Example. Wikipedia: Kampfgruppe gegen Unmenschlichkeit (2023 May 02) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampfgruppe_gegen_Unmenschlichkeit .

[33] Lauriaᵒ Joe: Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War (Consortium News, 2022 Mar 27) @ https://portside.org/2022-03-29/biden-confirms-why-us-needed-war .

[34] Wikipedia: Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (2023 Sep 21) ~ § Territorial cessions in eastern Europe @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk .

[35] Wikipedia: Polish-Soviet War (2023 Sep 26) ~ §§ Background, Aftermath and legacy @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War .

[36] Egorovᵒ Boris: How and why Romanians fought against the Soviets in WWII (Russia Beyond, 2020 Aug 14) @ https://www.rbth.com/history/332573-how-and-why-romanians-fought .

[37] Wikipedia: Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina (2023 Sep 09) ~ § Background @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_occupation_of_Bessarabia_and_Northern_Bukovina .

[38] Blumᵒ: ~ chapter 3.

[39] Wikipedia: MI6 (2023 Nov 13) ~ § Second World War (1944 reestablishment of its anti-Soviet Section IX) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MI6#Second_World_War .

[40] Wikipedia: Italian Campaign (World War II) (2023 Nov 01) ~ § Allied advance into Northern Italy (Churchill’s proposal to divert military advance away from Germany in order to limit Soviet presence in central Europe) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_campaign_(World_War_II)#Allied_advance_into_Northern_Italy .

[41] Wikipedia: Operation Sunrise (World War II) (2023 Apr 18) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sunrise_(World_War_II) .

[42] Wikipedia: Operation Unthinkable (2023 Oct 27) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable .

[43] Wikipedia: Plan Totality (2023 Sep 04) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Totality .

[44] Wikipedia: Operation Bloodstone (2021 Apr 10) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bloodstone .

[45] Wikipedia: Operation Jungle (2024 May 07) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jungle .

[46] Wikipedia: Operation Valuable (2024 Feb 16) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Valuable .

[47] same as [38].

[48] Blumᵒ: ~ chapter 2.

[49] Blumᵒ: ~ pp 60—61, 104—06, 117—118.

[50] Example. Pierceᵒ Charles: Ukraine War, divided left: “social patriots” and the “anti-imperialism of fools”! (Covert Action Magazine, 2022 Sep 17) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/09/17/ukraine-war-divided-left-social-patriots-and-the-anti-imperialism-of-fools/ .

[51] Example. Pierceᵒ Charles: Attack on Antiwar Activists Exemplifies Russophobia Among “Leftist” Apologists for Western Imperialism & a Fascist-Loving Regime (Covert Action Magazine, 2023 Mar 19) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/19/attack-on-antiwar-activists-exemplifies-russophobia-among-leftist-apologists-for-western-imperialism-and-a-fascist-loving-regime/ .

PART 6. LAW.

Much of the liberal leftist anti-Russia response to the Ukraine War rests upon disputed assertions that Russia’s actions constitute violations of international law.

Crimes alleged. Some avowed “anti-imperialists” (including some avowed “Marxists”) denounce: Russia’s military intervention (begun 2022 February), its assistance in Crimea’s (2014) return to Russian sovereignty, and its assistance (from 2014) to the rebelling Donbas Republics. They assert that said acts are violations of the UN Charter and of international law, namely: criminal violations of Ukraine’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”, and the “crime of aggression”. They also accuse Russia of violating human rights law. Those denouncing the 2022 military intervention as illegal include not only the Russophobe pseudo-socialist liberals. They also include equivocators, who acknowledge and condemn the long list of US-NATO aggressions which provoked Russia’s 2022 military response, but also make concession to said Russophobe liberals by joining them in criminalizing said response. In both cases, the accusers make a fetish of international law:

which is often subject to contrary interpretations;
the applicability of which is likewise often disputed;
which the US and allies hypocritically misconstrue and misapply in order to justify hostile aggressions which they perpetrate against resistant states; and
which, even in clear-cut cases, is never enforced against its far-and-away principal violators (the US and its major allies).

Whose law? Genuine Marxists have always understood that established laws in the capitalist world are made under conditions imposed by, and primarily for the benefit of, the ruling capitalists. In struggles against injustice, said laws often must be violated (as in acts of civil disobedience). Moreover, the forcible ousters of established governments by progressive revolutions (Russian October, Cuban, et cetera) and revolutionary wars of national liberation against colonial subjugation (Vietnam, Algeria, Angola, et cetera) were violations of the laws of the ruling bourgeois states. If activists in struggles against the injustices, which are so pervasive under capitalism, would never challenge the existing authority and its established laws; they would not only never achieve any progressive revolutionary conquest of state power, they would rarely, if ever, compel the capitalist state to concede any social-justice demand which entails significant costs to capital or weakens its rule.

Certainly, socialist states need to institute legal codes which actually provide for social justice and then enforce same consistently. Moreover, socialists in the capitalist world must make use of established laws wherever said laws can serve the struggles for social justice. However, socialists must also understand that the needs of social justice must sometimes take precedence over obedience to some established laws and/or capitalist interpretations thereof. That said, we should not accept without question the West’s assertions that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are indisputable violations of international law.

Evasions and disputed interpretations. Accusations that Russia’s actions in Ukraine certainly violated international law: evade essential facts (including actual violations by the Kyiv regime), rest upon out-of-context misapplications and/or disputed interpretations of said law, and often manifest a hypocritical double standard.

Civil and human rights.

The current Kyiv regime, established by the illegal (2014) US-backed coup against Ukraine’s democratically-elected President, deprived the Ukrainian electorate of its chosen government. Moreover, it permitted neo-Nazi militias to engage, with impunity, in criminal violence against: LGBTQ+ people and feminists, Romani people, and ethnic Russians ^[1].

Whereas the previous government had instituted (2012) a law guaranteeing the rights of language minorities to use their native languages, the post-coup regime nullified said law and enacted measures to suppress use of the Russian language, the primary language of 30% of the population and used along with Ukrainian by another 20% as their languages of regular use ^[2].
The post-coup Kyiv regime outlawed (2015) the Communist Party and the use of Communist symbols ^[3].
When (in 2021) the largest opposition party began to outpoll President Zelensky’s party, Kyiv suspended it and imprisoned its leader (Viktor Medvedchuk) whom it subsequently charged with treason ^[4].
Kyiv subsequently also outlawed (2022) all opposition parties ^[5], branding them as “pro-Russia”.

Those acts actually violate international human rights law: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Nevertheless, the West mis-portrays the post-coup Kyiv regime as a rights-upholding “democracy”. Moreover, while Kyiv, its Western allies, their major media, and their “leftist” apologists, propagate a steady drumbeat of war-crime accusations against Russia; they have been consistently silent with respect to documented indisputable war crimes perpetrated by Ukrainian forces ^[6].

Donbas.

The illegally-established Kyiv regime used violent military repression, in southern and eastern Ukraine, to crush popular resistance to its 2014 coup d’état. In fact, it was said regime which first resorted to criminal violence when (in 2014) it sent newly-formed armed forces, including neo-Nazi militias, to crush resistance to said coup (the regular army then being largely resistant to doing so) ^[7]. People in the 2 Donbas oblast[s] responded by organizing popular militias to defend against that violent repression; thusly began the Ukrainian-Donbas civil war ^[8].
In the internationally mediated (2014 and 2015) Minsk agreements, Kyiv promised autonomy for the Donbas Republics, in return for which, said Republics agreed to their territories remaining in Ukraine ^[9]. The UN Security Council unanimously endorsed Minsk; and Russia, along with said Republics, persisted for 8 years in seeking Ukraine’s implementation which was never forthcoming. In fact, the Kyiv regime, with US encouragement and deliveries of ever more-lethal arms (and using contrived pretexts) violated its own legal obligation (under Minsk and said UN Security Council resolution) thereby precluding a peaceful resolution of the civil war. Finally, Kyiv had increased its violent attacks in the Donbas in the weeks prior to Russia’s 2024 invasion. Thusly, Kyiv forfeited its right to sovereignty over said Republics which then seceded thereby enabling Russia to claim the legal right (pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter) to come to their defense.

Crimea. Relevant history ^[10].

1954. Soviet leader Khrushchev orchestrated the decision (of dubious legality) to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian SSR without the consent or approval of Crimea’s predominately ethnic-Russian population.
1991. At the breakup of the USSR, Crimea’s elected leaders attempted to obtain recognition of Crimea as an independent Republic separate from Ukraine.
1992. After disputes between Kyiv and Crimea over the scope of Crimea’s autonomy, Kyiv agreed to a compromise recognition of Crimea as an Autonomist Republic within Ukraine.
1995. Kyiv unilaterally: abolished the Constitution of Crimea, abolished its office of President, made the elected Crimean parliament’s choice of its Prime Minister subject to veto by Kyiv, and imposed such severe limits upon its authority that it largely negating Crimea’s autonomy.
2008. Polling by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies (not an agent of Moscow) found that 64% of Crimeans would like Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
2009—11. The United Nations Development Programme (not an agent of Moscow) conducted periodic opinion polls in Crimea. Each time, at least 65% of Crimeans favored Crimea leaving Ukraine and reuniting with Russia.
Crimea’s break with Ukraine was a direct popular response to the illegal US-backed 2014 coup d’état in Kyiv (Crimea having voted overwhelmingly for the ousted government). Assertions, that Crimea’s reunion with Russia was effectuated by a Russian “invasion”, is another falsehood. Although Russia’s authorized military forces already based (by pre-existing agreement with Ukraine) in Crimea assisted local forces in effectuating the independence referendum and the subsequent secession and reunion with Russia, those actions were welcomed by a huge majority of Crimeans, they being already so inclined. Moreover, given the history of past denials of their self-determination rights by both Moscow (1954) and Kyiv (since breakup of the USSR); the people of Crimea had more than ample justification for seceding and reuniting with Russia. Lenin, insisting that socialists are “the most consistent enemies of oppression” ^[11], would have agreed.

With its violation of its obligation to respect Crimea’s promised autonomy, Kyiv had already forfeited whatever right it ever had to claim sovereignty over said Crimea. The Russophobe coup regime’s attempt to impose its authority was just too much for Crimeans to accept.

Aggression?

The “crime of aggression” alleged against Russia is based upon a provision of the 1998 Rome Statute whose backers were unable to formulate a definition until 2010. The accusers evade the facts: that definition of this “crime” has always eluded any consensus; that the Rome-Statute definition is far from universally accepted; that prosecutions for this “crime” have only ever been used by victor states against officials of defeated states; that said prosecuting states have themselves perpetrated similar acts but never been held to account; and that the US, Ukraine, and Russia are not signatories bound by said Rome Statute ^[12].
Russia asserts that Kyiv’s collaboration, with NATO’s continuing moves to threaten Russian national security, provides a self-defense justification for its military action against the Russophobe regime in Ukraine ^[13].
Russia also asserts, that its action is legal pursuant to Article 51 of the UN Charter, which permits it to come to the defense of another state(s) (the seceded Donbas Republics which Russia had finally recognized as independent states) when said states were under violent armed attack by the Kyiv regime ^[14].

Those alleging the “crime of aggression” against Russia evade the foregoing relevant facts and essential context.

Assessment. Anti-Russia and equivocating “socialists”, having embraced a legalistic anti-Marxist liberalism, then repeat the US-NATO misapplications of international law in order to justify their one-sided condemnation of Russia’s resort to military intervention in Ukraine.

(1) With their inconsistent legalistic diatribes against Russia, the US-NATO-aligned Western leftists:

make grossly invalid comparisons (notably to the US-British 2003 invasion of Iraq which was, in fact, purely an imperial regime-change war justified by nothing other than an absolute lie);
hypocritically condemn alleged violations of law by Russia while ignoring actual violations of law by Kyiv, abetted by the US and NATO; and

evade the enormity of the history of repeated and massive violations [examples in PART 5 above] of the UN Charter and of international law whenever said law has stood in the way of the unjust aggressions by their own imperial states.

These US-NATO apologists are, in effect, calling for the worst outlaw in the world to enforce the “law” against a questionably accused offender notwithstanding that said enforcer is itself a perpetrator acting in furtherance of its own criminal objectives. This is not upholding the rule of law; it is giving de facto assistance to the worst criminal gang in the world.

(2) Meanwhile, “anti-imperialist” and “socialist” Ukraine-War equivocators acknowledge and condemn the threatening US-NATO aggressions against Russian national security, but they then also condemn Russia’s military response as “criminal”. Thusly, they obfuscate as they strive for credibility in the eyes of both those blaming NATO and those blaming Russia.

Rejection of legalistic condemnations of Russia’s actions in Ukraine does not necessitate approval of said actions, which may be deemed: belated, or excessive, or imprudent, or problematic in implementation or for other reasons. Neither does it preclude a finding that Russia’s invading forces (as is usual in war) have committed some actual war crimes, though not nearly all those alleged by Kyiv. Meanwhile, Ukrainian military forces (notwithstanding the West’s silence thereupon) have undoubtedly committed at least equally egregious war crimes. Putin’s Russia has, to some extent, evidently mismanaged its war policy (strategic misjudgments and shifts, disjointed command structure, ineffective communication to the Ukrainian populace, …). Nevertheless, socialists, even though they will be defamed as “Putin apologists”, must not evade the reality that it is the US-NATO alliance, not Russia, which is the actual provocateur and aggressor.

Noted sources.

[1] Ishchenkoᵒ Volodymyr: Ukraine on the Brink (Jacobin, 2019 Jan 27) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/ukraine-maidan-protests-elections-volodymyr-ishchenko .

[2] Meyssanᵒ Thierry: Volodymyr Zelensky and Ethnopolitics (Dissident Voice, 2022 Dec 18) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/12/volodymyr-zelensky-and-ethnopolitics/ .

[3] same as [1].

[4] Reuters: Ukraine’s President publishes photo of pro-Russian politician in handcuffs (Jerusalem Post, 2022 Apr 13) @ https://www.jpost.com/international/article-703990 .

[5] Ishchenkoᵒ: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties? (Al Jazeera, 2022 Mar 21) @ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/21/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties .

[6] Blumenthalᵒ Max & Krishnaswamyᵒ Esha: ‘One less traitor’: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition (The Grayzone, 2022 Apr 17) @ https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/ .

[7] Reifᵒ Evan: How a Network of Nazi Propagandists Helped Lay the Groundwork for the War in Ukraine (Covert Action Magazine, 2023 Feb 03) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/02/03/how-a-network-of-nazi-propagandists-helped-lay-the-groundwork-for-the-war-in-ukraine/ .

[8] Annisᵒ Roger: The Self-determination Struggle in Russian Crimea and the Pro-autonomy Struggle in Donbas (formerly eastern Ukraine) Dissident Voice, 2021 Dec 20) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/12/the-self-determination-struggle-in-russian-crimea-and-the-pro-autonomy-struggle-in-donbas-formerly-eastern-ukraine/ .

[9] same as [8].

[10] Off-Guardian: Timeline: The Crimean Referendum (Aletho News, 2022 Mar 08) @ https://alethonews.com/2022/03/08/timeline-the-crimean-referendum/ .

[11] Lenin: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination [1914 Feb—May] (Marxist Internet Archive) ~ § 4. ‘Practicality’ in the national question @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/ch04.htm .

[12] Wikipedia: Crime of aggression (2023 Mar 25) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_aggression .

[13] Martinᵒ Rachel & Maynesᵒ Charles: Putin justifies Ukraine invasion as a ‘special military operation’ (NPR, 2022 Feb 24) @ https://www.npr.org/2022/02/24/1082736110/putin-justifies-ukraine-invasion-as-a-special-military-operation .

[14] same as [13].

PART 7. CAMPISM.

Liberalism is not the only problematic doctrine manifesting among “socialists” and “anti-imperialists”. “Campism” is another. Be it noted, however, that, in order to justify their social imperialism and to discredit actual anti-imperialists, liberal “socialists” often allege “campism” without valid basis.

Mindset. Certain self-styled “revolutionary socialist” anti-imperialists embrace the simple-minded doctrine that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the friend of my enemy is my enemy” (a doctrine which may sometimes work for purely self-serving antagonists, but does not reliably work for those with a commitment to the quest for comprehensive social-justice). Such “anti-imperialists” (while correctly recognizing the US and its major allies as the aggressive hegemonic empire striving to dominate and exploit the entire world) then divide the world’s other nation-states (and comparable entities) into 2 camps based solely upon their relationships with the Western alliance:

if one has the support or sympathy of the US and/or other Western imperial states, it is deemed to be a “puppet” or “proxy” of Western imperialism; and
if it is in hostile conflict with said Western empire, it is deemed to be anti-imperialist and a force for liberation.

This simplistic conception of politics (often accompanied by dogmatic prejudgment and leaps of faith) leads such “anti-imperialists” to a mindless embrace and whitewash of governing regimes and violent insurgencies (even the most reactionary), as long as they are on what is deemed to be the “anti-imperialist” side of that categorical divide. In effect, it has led them to become blind or indifferent to the patriarchal misogyny, racism, medievalist religious persecutions, and other antisocial policies of certain absolutely reactionary entities (such as the Afghan Taliban which some deluded “revolutionary socialists” have even purported to be “anti-imperialist” and a “liberation movement”).

Campism leads to a rigid antiwar stance whereby avowed “anti-imperialists” (especially in imperial Western countries) condemn and oppose every foreign military action by their own imperial state. They are generally not pure pacifists, as they do not condemn the wars waged against contemporary imperial states and client regimes. However, they are dogmatically blind to the reality that, in exceptional cases, the imperialist West (for its own self-serving reasons) sometimes wages war on the side of justice (as it did in the Axis and Asia-Pacific wars). As Lenin noted ^[1]: From the point of view of Marxism […], the main issue […] on how to assess the war and what attitude to adopt towards it is this: what is the war being waged for, […]. We Marxists [are not] unqualified opponents of all war.” Campism has manifested in the following examples.

SDF. The US provided crucial assistance (2015—19) to the revolutionary (majority-Kurdish) Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] in northern and eastern Syria in their common war against the absolutely reactionary Islamic State [IS] “caliphate” (itself a medievalist version of empire). Said “caliphate” was subjecting people in Syria and Iraq to horrendous persecutions (killing, torturing, enslaving masses of innocent people) pursuant to its cruel and intolerant perversion of Islam.

Much of the “anti-imperialist” US left either opposed (dismissing SDF as a tool of US imperialism) or maintained an opportunist silence in response to said US military assistance to the SDF. Had said left expressed conditional support for that US military intervention (as they should have done), they would then have been able, as well as obligated, to simultaneously expose the true nature of such Western humanitarian military interventions, namely:

that the US was acting for its own imperial interest (already fighting IS in defense of its largely-collapsed client state in Iraq) and would otherwise not have cared about the victims of IS oppression;
that the US and its allies had been backing reactionary often-Al-Qaeda-affiliated regime-change insurgents against the Syrian state (targeted by the US and its allies for its resistance to Western imperial dictates);
that the US would misuse its military presence in Syria, in part, for continued aggressions against the Syrian state; and
that the US would likely become a treacherous ally (as indeed it did in 2019 when it abandoned the SDF to attack by repressive anti-Kurd NATO-ally Turkey).

In opposing or staying silent, those “anti-imperialists” not only shirked their obligation to take a social-justice stand in support of the SDF fight against IS oppression; they also missed the opportunity to educate their listeners to the facts of Western imperialism’s real motivations and treacherous nature, even when incidentally acting on the side of justice. Socialist opposition to imperialism is for particular reasons, namely the pursuit of justice and the empowerment of the oppressed. Simpleminded reflexive opposition to every US (or imperial ally’s) military action, regardless of circumstances, forgets justice and the oppressed. It is blind to the contradictions in the imperial state and its policies. Genuine anti-imperialism must: recognize and acknowledge context and complexities, and take them into account.

Afghanistan. US military intervention (2001) in Afghanistan: ousted the Taliban’s oppressive ultra-reactionary “Islamic Emirate” (another medievalist version of empire), and replaced it with a client regime designed to be heavily dependent upon Western military and economic aid.

Relevant background. Following the Sauer Revolution (1978) which established the revolutionary Democratic Republic of Afghanistan [DRA], the US, as part of its Cold War against the Soviet Union and its allies, had incited and armed the reactionary Mujahidin insurgency against said DRA. Nevertheless, the DRA (with no allied foreign military presence after 1989 February) retained power over most of the country until 1992 when anti-Communist Russian President Yeltsin cut off its crucial supplies while Pakistan continued to arm and supply said Mujahidin (which then finally triumphed). As civil war soon after raged among Mujahidin factions, the Pakistan-backed Taliban faction eventually conquered 9/10 of the country and (with its cruel perversion of Islam) imposed a regime of extreme persecutions (including: severe sectarian strictures and monstrous punishments, denial of all rights of women, massacres of Shia Muslims) against the populace. Said Taliban also provided the safe haven ^[2] from which its supportive ally, Al Qaeda ^[3], had orchestrated a series of terrorist attacks upon the US, which was the actual reason why the US (in 2001) acted militarily to oust said Taliban. This was not an “unjustified” US intervention, as Taliban-apologist antiwar-ideologues pretend.

In an effort to obtain and maintain popular support and viability, the newly-constructed Afghan client state, with Western encouragement, embraced (although inconsistently) some of the non-sectarian and women’s rights policies which had prevailed under the DRA regime (thereby acting for a significant, though incomplete, measure of social justice). However, as the Taliban began a new insurgency (2003), the US and its client state conducted their counterinsurgency war against it in the most counterproductive way imaginable.

The corruption-ridden Western-backed regime served Afghan elites and criminals, as well as profiteering Western contractors, while often subjecting the populace to extortions, neglect, and other abuses. Meanwhile, said regime failed to improve the economic condition for most of the people, and the US (deferring to its corrupt Afghan partners) consciously refused to make any serious effort to reform it. ^[4]
US military operations relied heavily upon airstrikes using unreliable intelligence, consequently often carelessly killing misidentified innocents and collateral civilians (thereby acting with a racist indifference to Afghan lives taken). These mistakes were nearly always covered up while the culpable operatives and their commanders were never disciplined. Thusly, the US aided Taliban recruitment ^[5].
There was excessive use of Western troops (inevitably insensitive to Afghan sensibilities) rather than Afghan forces in military interactions with Afghan civilians.
There was no program for building armed and trained grassroots local militias of committed anti-Taliban fighters, an option never seriously considered by the US and allied commanders (probably for fear that such fighters would be a threat to corrupt regime officials). Consequently, armed Taliban forces remained free to intimidate and extort the local population throughout much of the country.
The Taliban never lacked for the safe haven, arms, and other support from double-dealing supposed-US-ally Pakistan, assistance without which it would not have been able to conduct an effective armed insurgency. Nevertheless, the US failed to bring effective pressure to compel Pakistan to cut off that crucial support for said Taliban ^[6].
The Afghan client regime, with its indifference to their needs, failed to win more than reluctant support (and that motivated primarily by abhorrence of the Taliban) from most of the people. Consequently, in contradistinction to the soldiers of the DRA, most of the client regime’s army, however well-trained and equipped, never had a will to fight which matched that of its more ideologically-motivated Taliban adversary ^[7].
The US never had a winning strategy. Bush-Cheney diverted attention and resources to a regime-change war (on false pretenses) in Iraq; and Obama, Trump, and Biden (partly in deference to popular US war-weariness) focused upon creating conditions to justify exit, with a policy ultimately based upon defense, not upon destroying the Taliban. In fact, they lacked the determination and will to clean up the corruption and prioritize crushing this enemy, a recipe for eventual failure and defeat.
Remarkably, the US unilaterally negotiated its abrupt (2021) withdrawal without consulting or involving the Afghan government or its actively-involved Western allies; and it then pressured said Afghan government to release some 5,000 Taliban prisoners for nothing meaningful in return from the Taliban. Moreover, some Afghan military commanders received and pocketed funds for nonexistent “ghost soldiers” and/or stole pay designated for their actual soldiers; meanwhile, and US forces took no effective action to stop them. Finally, the US (under President Biden) withdrew its military forces without notice to Afghan partners and also cut off the intelligence and logistical support upon which it had caused the Afghan army to be dependent. These actions and inactions destroyed morale in Afghan government troops, which Biden then scapegoated for the rapid collapse of the Afghan state rather than admit the US’ own culpability.

US and client regime failure in Afghanistan was not a consequence of confronting the “graveyard of empires” fantasy purveyed by some antiwar ideologues. It was a case of corrupted and myopic administrative incompetence, plus arrogant racist contempt for the affected people, plus perfidy (all of which are commonplace in the behaviors of imperial capitalist states).

Factors in US policy-making.

Although Afghanistan is rich in mineral resources which could be coveted by transnational capital, it is a remote landlocked country not readily accessible to most Western capitalist exploitation.
If consolidated as a stable ally, Afghanistan would have possessed geostrategic value to Western imperialism as an outpost from which to threaten neighboring countries (Iran, China, and Russia) against which the US and some of its allies were waging new cold wars; but such stabilization had proven elusive.
With its ultra-reactionary policies, a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan could never be an ally of Russia, China, Iran, DPRK or any other state, which the West was/is targeting for marginalization, subjugation, or regime-change; so, losing the country was of little geostrategic significance.

In the end, the US concluded that the potentials for resource-exploitation and geostrategic utility were too costly and/or remote to justify a complete and lasting US commitment to the Kabul regime. Said already-tentative commitment then waned.

US conduct in Afghanistan was, of course, always ultimately self-serving. Hence, its final betrayal of the people of Afghanistan should come as no surprise. What is actually most concerning is the conduct of the US left, which (from 2001) responded to Afghan events with either: silence, or “anti-imperialist” denunciation of the intervention against the Taliban. The anti-interventionist left, oblivious or indifferent to the catastrophe besetting the Afghan people, greeted the (2021 August) triumph of the Taliban with callous exclamations: gleeful celebrations of imperial defeat, and/or self-congratulatory “we-told-you-so” condescension. The appropriate social-justice policy (even if certain to have been rejected by the US and its allies, and even if its only practical effect would have been to educate anti-imperialist activists) would have been to give conditional support to the war against the Taliban while: condemning self-serving Western-alliance motivations, and demanding prioritization of the real needs of the Afghan people plus correction of the foregoing counterproductive policies.

Ukraine. Notwithstanding claims by many liberal “socialists”, US-NATO support for the post-coup Kyiv regime is no case of Western intervention serving to end any injustice. In fact, said intervention serves: to enable the repressive ultranationalist Russophobe regime to persist in its attempts to subjugate and persecute Ukraine’s ethnic and language minorities, and to align Ukraine with the Western empire. Said intervention is cynically using Ukrainians, rather than imperial-country soldiers, as cannon fodder in a war to weaken and subjugate Russia and to consolidate the US-dominated Western alliance (especially in Europe). Although some leftists may oppose said war based upon campist doctrine, informed and principled socialists oppose it for absolutely valid anti-imperialist and social-justice reasons. Therefore, all efforts (as advocated by China ^[8] and others) to end this war thru a fair negotiated peace are to be welcomed.

Contradictory cases. States which resist Western imperial dictates vary, in their internal characters, across a complete range from basically progressive to absolutely reactionary.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a notable contradictory case ^[9]: considerably anti-imperialist in its foreign policy, but (with its intolerant theocratic misogynist regime) thoroughly reactionary and repressive internally. Popular forces within Iran rose up (2022—23) in massive popular protests demanding liberatory revolutionary ouster of the theocratic regime. Some campist ideologues have denounced said popular protest movement as an agent of Western imperialism (which it is not). Certainly, the US and its allies, already perpetrating hostile aggressions against Iran, attempt to exploit the revolutionary upsurge in Iran in order to undermine the regime in hopes of replacing it with a subservient client state. Nevertheless, the appropriate socialist response is: to express support for the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian people; and to link that with opposition to Western intervention, intervention which actually helps the theocratic regime to brand its popular revolutionary opposition as an agent of said Western imperialism and thereby justify its repression.

Errors: liberal and campist.

Certainly, it is a profound error to believe, as do many pseudo-socialist liberals, that the Western imperialists ever seriously embrace humanitarian concern for peripheral-country victims of extreme injustice. Typical examples.

Throughout the past 3 decades, with millions of Black Africans impacted by massive violence (rape, torture, murder) perpetrated by rival predatory armed gangs fighting over control of the mineral-riches of eastern Congo, intervention by Western states has been limited to lip-service and an ineffective token UN peace-keeping mission.
With the fascistic Hindutva regime in Narendra Modi’s India persecuting Muslims and other religious minorities (with incitement and impunity for pogromist mob violence: mass murder, torture, rape, expulsions, et cetera); the “humanitarian” West, eager to woo India as an ally against China, utters not a word of criticism.
With its Israeli ally systematically persecuting the Palestinians (with ethnic cleansing, apartheid, denial of basic civil and human rights, arbitrary detention and torture, and genocidal mass murder); the West falsely vilifies, as “antisemitism”, advocacy for replacing the racist Jewish-supremacist state with one providing equal rights for both resident Jews and indigenous Palestinians, and sees fit to condemn only the violence of the resisting victim.

Clearly, actual Western humanitarian interventions occur only where it serves a Western imperial self-interest.

Nevertheless, the campist pretense that Western military intervention could never benefit victims of persecution (as with Afghan women and other victims of Taliban persecution and as with victims of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq) is clearly contrafactual. Moreover, it manifests a racist indifference to extreme oppressions where: the victims are long-abused foreign peoples in distant peripheral countries, and their oppressors happen to be hostile to the West. The campist policy in such cases is an abandonment of the socialist obligation to support, insofar as practicable, all struggles against injustice.

Noted sources.

[1] Lenin: War and Revolution [1917 May 14] (Marxist Internet Archive) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/14.htm .

[2] Wikipedia: Al Qaeda (2023 Apr 12) ~ § Refuge in Afghanistan @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda .

[3] Wikipedia: 055 Brigade (2023 Mar 09) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/055_Brigade .

[4] Stockmanᵒ Farah: The War on Terror Was Corrupt From the Start (New York Times, 2021 Sep 13) @ https://portside.org/2021-09-16/war-terror-was-corrupt-start .

[5] Shackfordᵒ Scott: Will America’s Military Reckon with the Reckless Murders Perpetuated by Its Drone Wars (Reason, 2021 Dec 20) @ https://reason.com/2021/12/20/will-americas-military-reckon-with-the-reckless-murders-perpetuated-by-its-drone-wars/ .

[6] Cockburnᵒ Patrick: It is Government Weakness, Not Taliban Strength, That Condemns Afghanistan (CounterPunch, 2021 Aug 17) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/17/it-is-government-weakness-not-taliban-strength-that-condemns-afghanistan/ .

[7] Sacksᵒ Glenn: Two Years after Afghan Fiasco, There’s a Key Question We Still Aren’t Asking (CounterPunch, 2023 Aug 01) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/08/01/two-years-after-afghan-fiasco-theres-a-key-question-we-still-arent-asking/ .

[8] Benjaminᵒ Medea, Winogradᵒ Marcy, & Wei Yu: Why Biden Snubbed China’s Ukraine Peace Plan (Dissident Voice, 2023 Mar 02) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/03/why-biden-snubbed-chinas-ukraine-peace-plan/ .

[9] Golsorkhiᵒ Khosrow: Iranian Protesters Deserve the Unwavering Support of the International Left (Jacobin, 2022 Nov 05) @ https://portside.org/2022-11-08/iranian-protesters-deserve-unwavering-support-international-left .

PART 8. CONCLUSIONS.

1^st. Much of the metropolitan working class, left ill-informed by the Western mainstream media and seeing little or no obvious adverse impact upon its own condition, tends to be relatively indifferent to foreign policy and to events outside its own country. Moreover, to the extent that said working class takes any interest; much of it ordinarily accepts, and often embraces, the imperial policies of the home-country state. This prevents said working class from recognizing its interest in the abolition of Western imperialism: including colonialism/neocolonialism, militarism, and imperial wars (especially when the fighters are all-volunteer militaries, mercenaries, and/or soldiers of client states). Insofar as the socialist left neglects to educate the working class as to the indivisibility of all struggles against social injustices (including imperial oppressions), it objectively sabotages the struggle for social revolution.

2^nd. The world changes. As revolutionary socialists, we must not fall into any simplistic mindset. We must recognize and take proper account of changes in: contradictions, antagonisms, the appropriate current objectives, and needed alliances (however limited and temporary). Whenever new international antagonisms arise, socialists and anti-imperialists must evaluate same and make appropriate determinations with respect to the principal actors.

3^rd. The world currently is one in which one empire (the US and its partner states), acting at the behest of its ruling capitalist classes, attacks resistant countries as it strives for hegemonic domination over the entire planet so that said capitalists can freely and profitably exploit the labor and natural resources throughout the world. If Russia and/or China are to be branded as “imperialist” in their foreign policies; their “imperialism”, in contradistinction to that of the West, is essentially defensive. Any anti-imperialism, which refuses to recognize that distinction, is corrupt and wrong just as was the ultraleft “anti-imperialism” of the Trotskyist movement during and preceding the Axis War.

4^th. There are always factions, purporting to be “left-progressive” and/or “socialist”, acting to misdirect the socialist and anti-imperialist struggles. Current manifestations.

Liberal “socialists” often side with US-led Western imperialism in denouncing its victims when the latter take forceful measures in self-defense.
Economic reductionists propound equivalencies: between the empire and the two strong semi-peripheral powers (Russia and China) which refuse to be subservient; and/or between the empire’s client states and its resistant victims. They then proceed to dismiss the West’s imperial aggressions as irrelevant.
Some leftists (both liberal and equivocating) misuse concepts of international law to justify criminalizing the empire’s victim for its forceful response to imperialist aggression.
Campists respond reflexively against imperial-state military assistance to victims of egregious oppressions by ultra-reactionary entities, thusly: shirking the obligation to support the victim, siding (in effect) with the oppressor, and failing to credibly expose the self-serving motives and perfidious nature of the imperial state in the exceptional case where it acts (objectively) on the side of justice.

With their corrupt doctrines, all of the foregoing: abandon, in one or other way, the quest for social justice; and undermine the struggles to reduce the power of capital and to empower the oppressed. In fact, such power shifts are prerequisite for the revolutionary socialist conquest of state power. Said corrupt doctrines must be exposed and rejected. Consequently, the foregoing analysis (even though many of the divergent left factions will object to one or other of its parts) must govern our practice.

5^th. Those, who (like the troika, like the Trotskyists, like the pseudo-socialist liberals, …) abandon principle (for the sake of immediate self-serving advantage, or ego, or popular acceptance, or other venal gain), commit an act of opportunism which corrupts the revolutionary struggle and leads it toward ultimate defeat. Consequently, we must adhere to principle even when so doing will be unpopular.

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CP4. Political repression in liberal “democracies”.

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POLITICAL REPRESSION IN LIBERAL “DEMOCRACIES”

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.
ORGANIZED LABOR – SEDITIOUS THREAT?
RED SCARE!
PROTECTING CAPITALIST FREEDOMS IN LATIN AMERICA!
CIVIL LIBERTIES DON’T APPLY TO CRITICS OF THE AMERICAN WAY!
BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT – “NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT”?
REMOVING UNRULY MALCONTENTS IN THE FIRST NATIONS!
SYMPATHY, COMPASSION, ASSOCIATIONS, & SPEECH – “TERRORIST” ACTS?
HOW OTHER LIBERAL “DEMOCRACIES” DEAL WITH UNWANTED DISSIDENTS.
CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE “FREE WORLD”!
FINDINGS.

§ 1. INTRODUCTION.

1^st. Civil liberties. Question! Are the United States, Britain, France, and other Western “democracies” genuinely committed to: freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom for political dissent, due process in the adjudication of alleged crimes, and equal justice for all? In order to answer this question, it will be useful to review some relevant history.

2^nd. Liberal hypocrisy. Certainly, the Western “democracies” give lip service to the ideals of: human rights, and pluralist democracy with respect for the civil liberties including the right to peacefully dissent. However, as the following review of the relevant history will demonstrate, their actual practice manifests a hypocritical inconsistency with routine violations of those rights. Illustrative examples, far short of a complete list, follow. (Noted sources are listed at the ends of each section.)

§ 2. ORGANIZED LABOR – SEDITIOUS THREAT?

1^st. Labor organization outlawed. With capitalists needing workers to provide the labor power to operate their enterprises, and with workers needing to sell their labor power to employers in order to obtain the wherewithal to satisfy their needs, these two social classes – capitalists and workers – confront one another in struggles over division of the created value. Naturally, as workers come to recognize that they are in a much stronger position when bargaining collectively rather than individually, they move to form organizations for collective action in dealings with their employers. Meanwhile, capitalists, wanting to dominate and to dictate to their workers, naturally oppose and resist collective action by workers. With wealth and productive enterprise concentrated in the possession of the capitalists, it is they who have normally and usually dominated civil government in liberal “democracies”. Accordingly, until late in the 19th century, pluralist governments, acting at the behest of capital, commonly outlawed concerted action by workers. Examples.

♦ Britain. The Combination Act of 1799 prohibited labor unions and workers’ collective bargaining, and the Master and Servant Act of 1823 prohibited strikes and worker’s breaching of labor contracts. It was not until the passage of the Trade Union Act of 1871 that labor unions obtained a legally recognized right to exist. ^[1]

♦ Germany. Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist law (in effect throughout Germany from 1878 until 1890) outlawed labor unions (and also socialist meetings and advocacy). ^[2]

♦ France. Labor organizations were often suppressed until legalization in 1884. ^[3]

♦ US. Until 1880 labor unions in the US were routinely prosecuted as “criminal conspiracies”. ^[4]

2^nd. Labor rights suppressed. Although capitalist-dominated governments eventually yielded to popular pressure and conceded the right of workers to legally associate together for the purpose of bargaining collectively with their employers, such legalization did not end repression of organized labor. Capitalists routinely persisted, both thru their own efforts and also with state assistance to deny (in actual practice [as illustrated in subsection 3^rd below]) the right of workers to deal collectively with their employers. The tactics used by capitalists to directly crush organized labor have included:

defamatory propaganda against labor unions and collective bargaining by workers;
instituting company unions controlled by the employer;
requiring employees to sign “yellow dog contracts” in which they must promise not to join or support any collective worker action or organization;
firing and black-listing of labor union supporters;
covert interventions – with company spies, provocateurs, and/or false flag vandalism or violence (to discredit the labor union);
refusing to recognize the labor union or to negotiate with it;
using temporary or permanent replacements as strike-breakers;
closing facilities and moving the jobs to low-wage non-union locales.

While a few of the foregoing tactics [in the US those marked with ⁑] have been prohibited by law, capitalist employers remain largely free to use the others. ^[5]

3^rd. Violent repression by private hirelings and state agents. Capitalists, and state agencies subservient to them, have also resorted to repressive brute violence in order to crush organized labor. Such repression: has been especially prevalent in the US, less so in Western Europe (probably) because of the legacy there of more paternalistic government. To recount, even briefly, the many hundreds of serious episodes ^[6] of repressive violence against organized labor in the US would require at least a lengthy book. Some of the most notorious examples follow.

♦ Molly Maguire trials (1876—78). In the coalfields of northeastern Pennsylvania in the 1870s, mineworkers were severely exploited with: low pay, overpriced company housing and company stores, child labor, and other abuses. Thousands of mineworkers died of on-the-job accidents due to company refusals to correct unsafe working conditions. Such conditions impelled some 30,000 (mostly Irish immigrant) mine workers to join the Workingmen’s Benevolent Association [WBA], which demanded reforms and organized nonviolent strikes. The mine owners, led by Franklin B Gowen, decided to crush the WBA. He provoked a strike (by cutting wages), and then had some 28 WBA officers arrested and jailed on conspiracy charges. Gowen also had hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate and spy on WBA activists. The Pinkerton Agency then provoked violence by covertly using vigilantes to murder WBA activists. Although the WBA leadership remained adamant in opposition to retaliatory violence, a few of the immigrant Irish miners responded with sabotage of company property and revenge attacks (including some assassinations) on company bosses. Pinkerton and Gowen then alleged: that the anti-company violence was perpetrated by a group of “Molly Maguires” within the Ancient Order of Hibernians [AOH] (a peaceful fraternal society to which a fraction of the mineworkers belonged), and that the violence was in furtherance of WBA objectives. In 1876, at Gowen’s instigation, the company-owned “Coal and Iron Police” arrested 19 AOH-member mineworkers on allegations of murder. Rigged trials, before juries already prejudiced against the Irish immigrant workers, produced guilty verdicts and death sentences. Several were convicted on bribed testimony by a co-defendant, who was given immunity in return for his allegations despite the fact that his wife testified that he was lying. Several others were convicted on no evidence other than the hearsay testimony of the Pinkerton spy. One was convicted despite eye witness testimony that he was not the killer. All 19 were executed by hanging, and the union was crushed. ^[7]

♦ Great Railroad Strike (1877). The state intervened to crush this first national strike in US history. In Baltimore, National Guard troops fired on a crowd of striking workers killing 10 and wounding 25. In Pittsburg, militiamen killed 40 strikers and wounded dozens more. In St. Louis, the (Marxist-influenced) Workingmen’s Party and the Knights of Labor, demanding the 8-hour day and a ban on child labor, organized the first general strike in the US. Here the strike was crushed when 3,000 federal troopers and 5,000 deputized police killed at least 18 strikers in skirmishes around the city and arrested strike leaders. In Reading, PA, soldiers fired into a crowd of protesting strikers killing 10. In Chicago, when violence erupted between strikers and state forces acting to suppress the strike; police, federal troops, and state militia killed some 30 workers. In Philadelphia, some 20 to 30 workers were killed and another 30 to 70 injured. Another 4 were killed in Scranton and 8 in Buffalo. ^{[8] [6]}

♦ Louisiana sugar workers’ strike (1887). When 10,000 (90% Black) workers (organized by the Knights of Labor) went on strike, national guardsmen supported by a sheriff’s posse killed around 20 in the Black village of Pattersonville. Louisiana Militia, aided by bands of “prominent citizens”, killed at least 35, probably many more, in the town of Thibodaux. ^[9]

♦ Strikes at Carnegie Steel works (1891 and 1892). As a crowd of 1,000 workers, on strike against the coke works (in Morewood, PA) for higher wages and the 8-hour day, marched peacefully on the company store, National Guardsmen fired into the crowd killing 9. When 300 Pinkerton guards attempted (1892 July) to force their way thru mass pickets during a strike against wage cuts at the steel mill (in Homestead, PA) in order to bring in strike-breakers; a gun battle ensued – death toll: 6 strikers, and 3 Pinkertons. ^[10]

♦ Pullman strike (1894). The Pullman Company manufactured and operated rail passenger cars. The Company, with most of its factory workers living in the company town of Pullman, reduced wages but refused to reduce house rents. The workers struck, and many joined the American Railway Union [ARU] led by Eugene V Debs. ARU members began a sympathy boycott by which they refused to run trains with Pullman cars. The strike quickly spread with 125,000 rail workers on 29 railroads (from Detroit to the west coast) participating. The railroads began hiring strike-breakers, thereby increasing hostilities. The federal government then intervened by obtaining a court injunction against continuation of the strike. When the ARU ignored the injunction, US President Cleveland sent in thousands of US Marshals and 12,000 Army soldiers to crush the strike. 30 strikers were killed and 57 wounded. Debs was convicted of defying a federal court injunction and imprisoned for 6 months during which he read Karl Marx and became a socialist. ^[11]

♦ Latimer Massacre (1897). During a strike by coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania, Sheriff’s deputies in Latimer fired on unarmed immigrant strikers affiliated with the United Mine Workers [UMW] union. Most were shot in the back, 19 killed and dozens more wounded. The sheriff and 73 deputies were tried for murder, but, notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence, the jury acquitted. ^[12]

♦ Colorado mine war (1903—04). From 1894, the Western Federation of Miners [WFM] had significant success in the Cripple Creek area of Colorado where they kept the hard rock mines unionized and obtained reforms such as the 8-hour day. The WFM (in 1902) organized the mill workers in the mills which refined the ore from Cripple Creek mines. Then the WFM spearheaded a campaign to mandate by law the 8-hour day for miners. A popular referendum overcame bogus judicial opposition by approving the measure with 72% of the state-wide vote. However, the governor and legislature refused to implement the law; and the mine owners and other business groups, fearful of the popular will and of the union’s political influence, then set out to destroy the WFM by violent and unlawful means. When the mill owners fired union workers and hired strikebreakers, the union called strikes. The anti-labor state governor then placed business leaders in control of the National Guard and sent it to take control of the affected counties. The National Guard: dispersed union pickets, conducted warrantless searches of union members’ homes, imprisoned union officials and other critics without charge, ignored writs of habeas corpus, attempted to intimidate a district court judge, willfully violated court orders, censored the local press, and suspended the rights to assemble and to bear arms. Union-busting agencies hired by the owners: infiltrated the union with spies and provocateurs, and conducted covert violent criminal false-flag operations for the purpose of discrediting the union. Meanwhile, vigilante gangs directed by business leaders forcibly (and illegally) expelled union members and sympathizers from their communities. Ultimately, the National Guard resorted to mass expulsions which then broke the union in Colorado. ^[13]

♦ Paint Creek Mine War (1912—13). Mineworkers in coal mines on Paint Creek and Cabin Creek (in Kanawha County, WV) went on strike demanding: (1) that their wages be raised to the industry standard; and (2) an end to a number of employer abuses including infringements of free speech and assembly rights, and company cheating on the weighing of mined coal. The conflict remained peaceful until the operators hired a force of 300 mine guards, who: inflicted beatings and sniper attacks against strikers, forcibly evicted workers’ families from their rented houses, and brought in strikebreakers. As armed strikers began to retaliate, and thousands of others protested at the state capital, the governor imposed martial law with a force of 1,200 state troopers which (in violation of the US Constitution): confiscated firearms, forbade assemblies, and subjected strikers to unfair trials in military courts. The county sheriff and a group of hired guards conducted a raid firing a machine gun into a miners’ camp. Finally, with workers families suffering and dying from hunger and exposure, the strike collapsed. Death toll: around 50 mostly mineworkers from violence and many family members from starvation and exposure. ^[14]

♦ Steel Strike (1919). When the steel companies refused demands for wage increases to match inflation, their workers struck and shut down half of the industry. Capital responded with anti-union propaganda, red-baiting, and appeals to racism (native-born versus immigrant, and white versus Black and Mexican-American). Pro-business civil authorities prohibited mass meetings. Pennsylvania state police clubbed picketers, dragged strikers from their homes, and jailed thousands on bogus charges. The US Army took control of Gary, IN and imposed martial law. Meanwhile, the companies brought in strikebreakers to operate the mills. The strike was defeated and the union crushed as 18 strikers were killed, hundreds more seriously injured, and thousands jailed. ^{[15] [ 6]}

♦ Coal strike (1920—21). When mineworkers in West Virginia struck, the coal companies hired the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency [BFDA] to crush the United Mine Workers [UMW] union. Violent tactics by armed BFDA agents provoked violence while the companies, using yellow-dog contracts, re-opened 80% of the mines with strikebreakers. The state imposed martial law, but enforced it only against striking mineworkers. Hundreds were arrested on bogus and trivial charges and held in violation of their constitutional rights, while violence by company supporters was treated with impunity. When BFDA agents assassinated local lawman, Sid Hatfield (a revered ally of the strikers), and Logan County Sheriff’s deputies conducted an unprovoked mass shooting of union sympathizers; this provoked armed conflict at Blair Mountain between some 10,000 armed mineworkers and 1,000 lawmen supported by a private army of 2,000 in the pay of the Logan County Coal Operators Association. Death toll: 50 to 100 mineworkers, and about 30 on the opposing side. Following the battle 985 strikers were indicted for: murder, conspiracy to commit murder, accessory to murder, and treason. Some were acquitted, but many others were convicted and imprisoned for years. There were no arrests of any on the anti-union side. The union was routed and lost 80% of its membership. ^[16]

♦ Hanapēpē Massacre (1924). As (mostly Filipino) sugar workers in Hawaii moved to unionize, the sugar planters induced the legislature to enact anti-labor laws (with penalties up to 10 years in prison), namely: the Criminal Syndicalism Law (1919), the Anarchistic Publications Law (1921), and the Anti-picketing Law (1923). By 1922, deep-rooted grievances had impelled some 13,000 sugar workers to join the Filipino Higher Wage Movement. The planters crushed the union using: paid informants, higher-paid strikebreakers, armed guards, the territorial militia, arrests of strike leaders, bribed testimony to obtain convictions, and evictions of workers’ families from their homes. A police attack on union headquarters (in 1924 September) ended with: 16 strikers and 4 police killed, and many others wounded. Police followed by arresting 101 strikers, of whom 60 were convicted in rigged trials and given 4-year prison sentences. ^[17]

♦ Ford Hunger March (1932). As a result of the Great Depression: automobile production dropped by 75%, Detroit unemployment shot up drastically, and the employers slashed wages of auto workers by over 50%. On March 07, the (Communist-led) Detroit Unemployed Council led a crowd of about 4,000 on a march from Detroit to the suburban Dearborn offices of auto magnate, Henry Ford, to present demands including: rehiring unemployed workers, winter fuel for the unemployed, an end to racial discrimination, abolition of company spies and private police, and the right to organize unions. Dearborn police attacked the non-violent marchers with teargas and clubs. The crowd retaliated with stone-throwing, then regrouped and proceeded with the march. Then as Dearborn city officials used fire engines to hose the crowd with cold water in freezing weather, police and Ford security guards fired into the crowd. Protest leaders then called off the march. Casualties: 5 marchers killed; many more wounded by gunfire – none of it from the marchers. The wounded were arrested and chained to their hospital beds, but ultimately not prosecuted. There were no arrests of police or Ford guards. ^[18]

♦ Little Steel Strike (1937). When several steel companies refused to accept union contracts matching those to which United States Steel (the industry giant) and some other big steel companies had agreed, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee [SWOC] of the Congress of Industrial Organizations [CIO] led strikes at three of the larger hold-outs shutting down most of their 30 mills and bringing out 67,000 of their 80,000 workers. The 3 companies responded with: beatings of union organizers, firing of union supporters, anti-union propaganda, and use of strikebreakers. On Memorial Day, massed Chicago police: prevented strikers from picketing at a Republic Steel mill being operated by strikebreakers, and opened fire on a peaceful march of 1,500 strikers and family members killing 10 and seriously injuring another 90. There followed 5 months of beatings and arbitrary arrests of strikers. At the Republic Steel mill in Youngstown (on June 19), a force of 300 police tear-gassed a peaceful crowd of picketers thereby provoking a riot which resulting in many injuries and the deaths of 2 picketers. In Massillon, OH, local police (on July 11) attacked and destroyed the local union building, killed 2, and (with much brutality) arrested 165. State governors called in the National Guard, which limited picketing to no more than a token presence. Thusly was the strike defeated. The companies then blacklisted the strikers so that they could not obtain jobs anywhere. The practices, which the companies had used against the strikers, were later ruled to be in violation of the National Labor Relations Act (of 1935). ^[19]

4^th. Crippling state interventions. Governments in liberal “democracies” continue to act to tame organized labor by imposing constraints on the exercise of certain basic civil rights – free speech, freedom of assembly and protest, freedom to withhold their labor.

♦ In the US. Crisis conditions in the US during the Great Depression created a widespread mass discontent which bolstered both: the influence of revolutionary socialist movements, and the growth of labor unions. Consequently, outright bans and brute force repression were no longer viable options, and the state (with grudging capitalist toleration) enacted reforms which: conceded the workers’ right to act collectively, and prohibited the most egregious employer abuses. With the passage of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 [NLRA] which deplorably did not cover (mostly Black and Hispanic) workers in the agricultural and domestic service sectors, labor unions grew rapidly in the US. However, as soon as revolutionary sentiment and worker discontent had largely subsided in the US, capital renewed its attack on organized labor. Capitalists and their politicians then created a Red Scare and utilized corrupt union misleaders to tame the unions by purging Communists and other militant activists from union leaderships (in the late 1940s). They also induced the enactment of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act (1947). Since the 1950s labor union strength in the US has been eroded from 35% to 10.7% of workers. Federal and state governments in the US currently act (with legislation ^[20], judicial rulings, and executive actions) to cripple workers’ organization and collective action with measures such as:

imposing various prohibitions and restrictions on the right to strike,
prohibiting normal union tactics such as sympathy boycotts and mass picketing;
mandating impediments such as free-rider privileges;
inducing the courts to issue strike-breaking injunctions;
excluding sectors of the working class (notably agricultural and domestic workers) from coverage under the laws providing for collective bargaining rights;
permitting employers to intervene in representation elections while denying unions ready access to the affected workers; and
provisions and policies enabling employers to violate worker collective bargaining rights with considerable impunity.

♦ In other “democracies”. Meanwhile, liberal “democracies” in other advanced capitalist countries have used a more paternalistic means to tame organized labor and to obtain its acceptance of the existing capitalist social order. Specifically, in order to obtain acquiescence to capitalist economics after the Axis War when the workers’ movements were powerful, they mandated various protections and benefits (such as maternity and paternity leave, paid sick leave, and a given minimum of paid vacation days) as well as wage gains for workers. Simultaneously, they used these welfare mandates, at least in part, as a substitute for freedoms of action by the workers themselves. Now, in recent decades, the governments have largely stripped away their workers’ rights to engage in collective action on grievances against their employers. In recent years, increasingly crippled European labor organizations have been generally ineffective in resisting neoliberal attacks, not only on their union rights, but also on the previously conceded welfare provisions. (Note: such welfare provisions have existed only for the minority of US workers to whom employers offer them pursuant to collective bargaining agreements or to avoid unionization of their workforces.) ^[21]

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: United Kingdom labour law (2016 May 08); Combination Act of 1799 (2016 Mar 03); Master and Servant Act (2016 Feb 25).

[2] Wikipedia: Anti-Socialist Laws (2015 Oct 06).

[3] Wikipedia: Bourse du Travail (2015 Nov 04).

[4] Wikipedia: Labor history of the United States (2016 May 21); Commonwealth v. Hunt (2016 Jan 14).

[5] Wikipedia: Union busting (2016 Apr 22).

[6] Wikipedia: List of worker deaths in United States labor disputes (2016 May 23).

[7] Wikipedia: Molly Maguires (2016 May 11).

[8] Wikipedia: Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (2016 May 22).

[9] Wikipedia: Thibodaux massacre (2016 May 12).

[10] Wikipedia: Morewood massacre (2016 Mar 27); Homestead strike (2016 May 18).

[11] Wikipedia: Pullman strike (2016 Apr 20).

[12] Wikipedia: Lattimer massacre (2016 May 12).

[13] Wikipedia: Colorado Labor Wars (2016 May 14).

[14] Wikipedia: Paint Creek – Cabin Creek strike of 1912 (2015 Sep 21).

[15] Wikipedia: Steel strike of 1919 (2016 May 11).

[16] Wikipedia: Battle of Blair Mountain (2016 May 12); Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency (2016 Jan 28); Sid Hatfield (2016 Mar 27).

[17] Wikipedia: Hanapepe massacre (2016 May 12).

[18] Wikipedia: Ford Hunger March (2016 Jan 29).

[19] Wikipedia: Little Steel strike (2016 May 11); Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 (2016 May 12).

[20] Wikipedia: Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 (2016 Apr 10).

[21] McDonnell⸰ Steve: Foreign vs. U.S. Labor Laws (accessed 2016 May 26) @ www.smallbusiness.chron.com/foreign-vs-us-labor-laws-77421.html.

White⸰ Gary: Compare U.S. Labor Laws & European Labor Laws (ac 2016 May 26) @ http://smallbusiness.chron.com/compare-us-labor-laws-european-labor-laws-62420.html.

Boomer⸰ Elizabeth: Workers’ Rights Under Attack at Global Conference (2012 June 05) @ http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Global-Action/Workers-Rights-Under-Attack-at-Global-Conference.

Wahl⸰ Asbjørn: European Labor – Political and Ideological Crisis … (Monthly Review, 2014 Jan, vol 65, issue 08): @ http://monthlyreview.org/2014/01/01/european-labor/.

§ 3. RED SCARE!

1^st. Imprisonment for anti-war speech. While the “Great War” (1914—18) raged in Europe between the Entente and the Central Powers, US capitalists sold vast quantities of war material (largely on credit) to the Entente countries. When the War was not going well for the Entente, worried capitalists induced the US (in 1917) to enter the War on the side of the Entente, and Congress enacted the Espionage Act prohibiting any interference with the prosecution of the War including public expression of opposition to the War. When (mostly) leftist leaders (including Eugene Debs) spoke in peaceful protest against the War, the US Department of Justice [DoJ] prosecuted and imprisoned hundreds of them under provisions of the Espionage Act. ^[1]

2^nd. Palmer Raids. Following the establishment of the revolutionary socialist state in Soviet Russia and a post-war upsurge of labor strikes and socialist ferment, many business and government leaders responded with “red scare” fear-mongering. Then when a miniscule gang of violent anarchists carried out a wave of bombings, the US government (Congress and the DoJ) used this as pretext for repressive measures (1919—20) against the popular left movements. The Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], which since its inception in 1908 has been the principal central government agency tasked with repressing unwelcome dissent, oversaw the operation which included: mass arrests (most unwarranted) of some 10,000 with some 3,500 held in indefinite detention, routine application of brutal beatings, and summary deportation of several hundreds of immigrants on suspicion of leftist sympathies. ^[2]

3^rd. Cold War red scare persecutions. With the popularity of Communist Parties in much of the world following the Axis War (1939—45) and the establishment of several new Communist-led states, worried capitalists and allied politicians in the US responded with a campaign of red-scare propaganda and anti-Communist witch-hunts. Congress and state legislatures enacted laws such as the McCarran Internal Security Act (1950) and the Communist Control Act (1954) to nullify the free speech and free association rights of people deemed to be in sympathy with “Communism”. Thousands of Americans (many of whom had never been more than briefly or peripherally associated with the Communist Party [CPUSA or CP]) were hounded by the state, fired from their jobs, and blacklisted from future employment in their chosen profession, thereby severely disrupting their lives. Hundreds were imprisoned. ^[3]

4^th. Smith Act prosecutions. Between 1948 and 1957, the US DoJ indicted 144 leaders of the CPUSA on alleged violations of a provision of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 which prohibited affiliation with any group which teaches the “necessity, desirability, or propriety” of political revolution against “any government in the United States”. Red scare hysteria was so pervasive that, despite the fact that the CPUSA constitution rejected the use of violent means to achieve a socialist state in the US, 105 were convicted in a series of group trials, and sentences of imprisonment as long as five years were imposed. Defendants in trials after the first one had great difficulty obtaining attorneys, because: defense attorneys were jailed and some disbarred at the end of the first trial, and attorneys for later defendants were subjected to harassment and threats of reprisal from multiple sources. Many of the defendants were also prevented from getting bail when the government barred provision of bail by their defense committee. The US Supreme Court, after ruling on appeal (in 1951) that such convictions were valid, later (in 1957) reversed itself and recognized that these prosecutions were a violation of the civil rights of the accused. During this period the FBI also infiltrated spies and agents provocateur into the CP to disrupt and destroy its ability to function. By 1958 these covert state agents constituted an estimated 20% to 30% of CP membership. ^[4]

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Espionage Act of 1917 (2016 May 30); American entry into World War I (2016 May 29).

[2] Wikipedia: Palmer Raids (2016 Apr 05).

[3] Wikipedia: McCarthyism (2016 May 21).

[4] Wikipedia: Smith Act trials (2016 May 04); Communist Party USA (2016 May 30); McCarthyism (2016 May 21).

§ 4. PROTECTING CAPITALIST FREEDOMS IN LATIN AMERICA!

1^st. Colonialism and repression in Puerto Rico. The US: seized possession of Puerto Rico in 1898, suppressed its independence movement, and placed it under direct colonial administration by a US-appointed governor until 1949. In 1917 the US imposed US citizenship on the Puerto Ricans (over the unanimous opposition of their popularly elected representative body) partly in order to “justify” conscripting their young men for use as soldiers in the Great War. As a result of US colonial policy, by 1930, 40% of the arable land was owned by Domino Sugar and US banks. US capital also owned essential infrastructure: the postal system, the coastal railroad, and the San Juan seaport. By 1940 US capitalists had taken possession of more than 80% of the arable land. For several decades until mass protests in the late 1990s the US military occupied other land for use as military bases and destroyed much of this with destructive bombing exercises and dumping of toxic waste. Meanwhile, policy dictated by the US transformed the economy so that it now suffers from: lack of investment, high unemployment, low wages, and consumer prices much higher than those in the US. Moreover, laws enacted by the elected government are subject to invalidation by the US Congress. Policies and practices such as these provoked resistance movements seeking national independence; and state forces in both Puerto Rico and the US responded with repression ^[1]. Examples.

♦ Ponce massacre. In 1937, the pro-independence Nationalist Party conducted a lawful and peaceful march to protest the imprisonment of their leader (Pedro Albizu Campos). The colonial Governor (Blanton Winship), seeking to crush the Nationalists, had ordered police to suppress the march “by all means necessary”. Police armed with rifles and machine guns surrounded the unarmed marchers and opened fire, killing 21 and wounding some 235. Police chased fleeing protestors and clubbed or shot them as they fled or were found hiding. Most victims were shot in the back. The official investigation attempted a cover-up, blaming the Nationalists and exonerating the police and governor. An independent investigation by the Commission of Inquiry on Civil Rights in Puerto Rico found that the event was a massacre with massive civil rights violations perpetrated by the police at the behest of the Governor. Although Governor Winship was eventually removed from office, neither he nor any of the police were ever prosecuted or reprimanded for the crime. ^[2]

♦ Gag law. In 1948 the colonial government, in concert with the US federal government, enacted Law 53 (aka the Gag Law) which criminalized: possession or display of the Puerto Rican flag, any advocacy or association with others in support for Puerto Rican independence, and any activity intending to undermine the authority of the colonial or US governments. Until it was repealed as unconstitutional in 1957, Governor Luis Muñoz Marín used the law to imprison many pro-independence Puerto Ricans. This and previous repressions of peaceful activism for national independence impelled some to resort to armed rebellion. ^[3]

♦ Utuado murders. When 9 nationalist rebels in Utuado surrendered during a demonstration revolt (intended to bring the issue of the island’s status before the United Nations) in 1950, local police: took the disarmed captives behind the police building, and then shot and bayoneted them killing 5 and seriously wounding the other 4. ^[4]

♦ Cerro Maravilla murders. In 1978 an undercover police provocateur, Alejandro González Malavé, induced two young activists (Arnaldo Darío Rosado Torres and Carlos Soto Arriví) in the Movimiento Revolucionario Armado [Armed Revolutionary Movement] to participate in a plot to sabotage communications towers located on the Cerro Maravilla [mountain] as a protest against the continued US imprisonment of several Nationalist rebels for their belligerent acts a quarter century earlier (an attempted assassination of the US President in 1950, and a shooting attack on the US Congress in 1954). González ordered a taxi driver (at gun point) to drive the three men to the Cerro, where a force of about 10 police intercepted and fired upon them. They all surrendered, and González identified himself as a police agent. The police then beat the two unarmed revolutionaries and shot them to death. The police reported the killings as a return of fire in self-defense while under fire from the victims. When the taxi driver contradicted the police account, the colonial Department of Justice conducted a cover-up investigation which endorsed the police version of the event. Widespread popular disapproval and complaints by the opposition parties then impelled authorities to obtain separate investigations by the FBI and by the US DoJ both of which continued the cover-up. Renewed inquiries and new investigations (after the opposition party won control of the colonial legislature): brought forth additional witnesses, exposed the truth, and led to the convictions and imprisonment (in 1984) of 10 police for murder and/or other crimes related to the murders and subsequent obstruction of justice. ^[5]

2^nd. Uncle Sam’s terrorists. In 1959 January a popular revolution led by Fidel Castro ousted the corrupt and repressive US-supported Cuban regime of Fulgencio Batista. The new government then instituted policies designed: to break Cuba’s neocolonial subjugation to US political and economic domination, and to improve the lives of the impoverished majority of the Cuban people. Those policies included: a redistributive land reform with nationalization of land holdings of foreign (mostly US) capitalists who had owned much of the best agricultural land; programs to make education, healthcare, and housing accessible to the millions of poor Cubans who had until then lacked it; and the purging of Batista-era security personnel from the police and armed forces with trial and punishment of those who had committed the most egregious human rights abuses. As tensions rose with the US, Cuba increasingly nationalized the US-based companies which had dominated the Cuban economy (controlling 90% of electric and telephone utilities, 50% of public service railroads, and 40% of raw sugar production) ^[6]. These policies offended capitalists and rightwing political groups – both Cuban and American – who then set about to destroy the revolutionary state in Cuba. Some significant specifics.

♦ CIA ops. Beginning no later than 1959 October the US commenced a covert war by which the CIA and (US-supported) counterrevolutionary Cuban exile groups perpetrated a clandestine campaign of assassinations, bombings, aircraft hijackings (from Cuba to US), economic sabotage, economic sanctions, and so forth against Cuba. This campaign included: the failed Bay of Pigs invasion (in 1961 April) by counterrevolutionary Cuban exiles which was organized, equipped, funded and directed by the US government; and Operation Mongoose which consisted of hundreds of covert acts of murder and economic sabotage against Cuban targets in subsequent years. When the Cuban exile terrorists realized (after the 1962 Missile Crisis) that the US did not plan another invasion of Cuba, they began independently to attack targets in Latin America and the US, for example against air carriers and shipping companies engaged in commerce with Cuba, and against individuals (including fellow Cuban exiles) who spoke in opposition to the covert war against Cuba. ^[7]

♦ CORU. At some point in the 1970s, the US government began to discontinue its direct sponsorship of Cuban exile acts of violence, and began to prosecute some of the murders and other violent crimes committed against targets in the US. However, it permitted extremist US-based Cuban exiles to continue their acts of violence against targets outside the US. By 1976 five violent Cuban exile organizations had created the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations [CORU], under the leadership of (former CIA operatives and longtime terrorists) Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, to coordinate their efforts. ^[8]

♦ Letelier assassination. In 1976 September a CORU death squad, acting at the behest of agents of the brutally repressive Pinochet regime in Chile, carried out the car-bomb assassination of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffit in Washington, DC. Letelier: had been a minister in the socialist government (of Chile) which had been ousted in a US-instigated and abetted coup d’etat in 1973; had then been imprisoned and tortured by the coup regime; and had subsequently obtained refuge in the US where he was an outspoken critic of the human rights abuses of the Pinochet regime. Moffit was Letelier’s assistant at the Institute for Policy Studies where both were employed. The CIA and the State Department had advance knowledge of the assassination plot, but took no action to stop it. While Cuban exile murders of less prominent individuals in the US had often been treated with impunity, the Letelier assassination created such an international embarrassment that the US felt constrained to identify and prosecute the perpetrators. Nevertheless, those who were eventually brought to trial served rather light durations of imprisonment apparently not exceeding six years. With regard to (former CIA agent) Luis Posada Carriles, who had participated in the planning of the assassination, the US never brought charges against him. ^[8]

♦ Bombing civilian air carriers. In 1976 and 1977 CORU operatives: assassinated Cuban officials in Mexico and Argentina, and bombed airlines in several Caribbean countries where the air carriers flew to and from Cuba. In accordance with a plan devised by Bosch and Posada, CORU operatives (in 1976 October) planted a bomb aboard Cubana Aviación Flight 455 which then exploded on the flight from Barbados to Jamaica killing all of the 73 (civilian) passengers and crew. Bosch and Posada were quickly arrested and detained in Venezuela (then their base of operations) where judicial errors and other factors delayed final adjudication until 1987. Bosch escaped conviction because of the prosecutor’s failure to obtain translation of the evidence gathered by police in Barbados. Posada escaped prison in 1985 prior to sentencing (with assistance from the Cuban American National Foundation [CANF] – a politically influential Miami-based exile terrorist organization). Bosch moved to the US which (in 1989) gave him a full pardon and safe haven. After his escape from Venezuela, Posada again worked with the CIA, this time assisting its contra war against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. ^[8]

♦ Impunity for Posada. With the end of the contra war in Nicaragua, Luis Posada Carriles resumed his terrorist activities against Cuba. In 1997, with CANF backing, he orchestrated a wave of bombings of Havana tourist spots, one of which killed an Italian tourist and wounded eleven others. In 2000 he was jailed and convicted in Panamá for an attempt to assassinate the visiting Fidel Castro, but the pro-US Panamanian President (Mireya Moscoso) pardoned him in 2004. In 2005 Posada came to the US which (in defiance of international conventions) has consistently refused requests by Cuba and Venezuela for his extradition to stand trial for the bombing of Cubana Flight 455. The US has also refused to try him in a US court for that or his other violent crimes. ^[8]

♦ Coddling of Cuban-exile terrorists. In 1994 and 1996 the US Congress enacted laws making it illegal: to knowingly provide material assistance for terrorist activity, or to conspire (while in US jurisdiction) to commit murder, kidnapping, or maiming abroad. Throughout the Clinton-Gore and Bush-Cheney administrations the US invoked these anti-terrorism laws for more than 40 prosecutions, but never against Cuban exiles caught in acts of violence or conspiracy. These exiles, if criminally charged at all, were charged only with lesser offenses such as weapons violations. ^[8]

3^rd. Frame-up in Miami – the Cuban Five. By 1995, bombings, assassinations, and other terrorist attacks by counterrevolutionary Cuban exile organizations based in the US had killed more than 3,000 Cubans and injured another 2,000. Since the 1960s the US government had transitioned from active support of such terrorist activity to half-hearted prohibition, but it had been unwilling to dismantle the violent US-based Cuban exile organizations. Cuba responded by organizing the “wasp network” of agents who infiltrated the culpable exile groups and then informed the Cuban government of planned attacks. The wasp network successfully infiltrated: Alpha 66, CANF, F4 Commandos, and Brothers to the Rescue [BTTR]. This BTTR was openly committed to the destruction of the Communist state in Cuba, but for public relations reasons it pretended to be committed to a policy of “active nonviolence”. Its founder and leader was José Basulto who had been: a covert operative trained by the CIA in explosives, sabotage, and other covert action skills; a participant in multiple violent CIA and exile attacks against Cuba; and a participant in the CIA-sponsored contra insurgency against Nicaragua in the 1980’s. Subsequent events ^[9].

♦ Provocations. BTTR flew small planes over the Florida Strait: to rescue Cuban rafters seeking entry into the US (which was precluded after 1995 May by the change in US migration policy which required that intercepted Cubans be sent back); and to repeatedly and willfully invade Cuban air space (sometimes to drop seditious leaflets, and other times to collect intelligence for future terrorist operations). Cuba responded with repeated appeals and warnings that it would not tolerate a continuation of these hostile invasions of its territory. In 1996 February, three BTTR planes approached Cuban territorial airspace, and Cuban military jets shot down two of them, killing the four exiles aboard. The US claimed that only one actually crossed into Cuban territory and that the shoot-downs occurred over international waters; Cuba claimed that all three invaded its territory and that the shoot-downs occurred within its territorial air space.

♦ Helms-Burton and FBI perfidy. The US Congress then responded to exile pressure by enacting the Helms-Burton Act to impose penalties on third countries trading with Cuba. Following the wave of bombings of Havana tourist spots by Miami exiles (in 1997), the US sent an FBI team (in 1998 June) to solicit evidence which Cuba then provided pursuant to (evidently false) US promises of action to stop the terrorist acts being directed from Miami. However, the US took no action against the terrorist groups; instead, it used the intelligence provided by Cuba to identify and arrest (in 1998 September) ten Cuban agents in the wasp network. The FBI subjected those arrested to coercive interrogations with offers of leniency in return for their cooperation. Five – Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González – refused to be coerced into becoming informants against their country. These (the “Cuban Five”) were brought to trial with the principal charge (against all five) being conspiracy to commit espionage against the US. Several months after the original indictments, the prosecutor yielded to demands from the anti-Castro Miami exiles by adding the charge that the wasp leader (Gerardo Hernandez) had committed the premeditated murder of the BTTR operatives who died in the 1996 incident.

♦ The case. In 2001 the Miami jury, in a rigged trial, convicted the five on all charges, and the judge imposed harsh sentences of imprisonment ranging from 15 years to life plus. As to the injustice, specifics follow.

(1) Miami-area media reporters (secretly paid by the FBI) had so inflamed the local populace against the accused, and there was such hostility and intimidation from the exile community, that it was not possible to have a fair trial before a Miami jury. Nevertheless, the courts refused repeated defense requests for a change of venue.

(2) There was no evidence that Gerardo had the requisite knowledge or intent to be guilty of murder. Moreover, the prosecutor had requested that the murder charge be dropped for lack of factual evidence. The judge nevertheless allowed the jury to rule on the charge, and the jury (in disregard of the judge’s instructions) pronounced Gerardo guilty.

(3) The prosecutor admitted that there was no evidence that the accused had sought or obtained US government secrets. Nevertheless, the court allowed the jury to consider the charge of “conspiracy to commit espionage” and find the accused guilty thereof.

(4) A three-judge appellate court (in 2005) unanimously ruled that the five did not receive a fair trial and overturned the convictions. The DoJ appealed to the 12-judge appellate court, which then (in deference to DoJ) disregarded the facts and re-instated the convictions.

♦ After events. The US came under widespread criticism for its actions against the Cuban Five. The critics included: the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (2005 May 25), Amnesty International, ten Nobel Prize winners, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, parliamentary bodies in some dozen countries, 110 members of the British parliament, 75 members of the European parliament, several US-based lawyers’ associations, and many other organizations and prominent individuals concerned with civil and human rights. Two of the five were released from prison (in 2011 and 2014) upon completion of their sentences. The remaining three were released (2014 December) in exchange for a US spy (Rolando Sarraff Trujillo) imprisoned in Cuba for actual crimes of betrayal against his country.

4^th. Extraordinary prosecution & frame-up. Colombia has been almost continuously torn apart by civil war since 1948 when Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (the populist Liberal Party candidate for President) was assassinated by a lone gunman (possibly at the behest of the US CIA). As a proponent of land reform with a history of advocacy for workers’ rights, Gaitán had incurred the enmity of the ruling elites and of US-based transnational capital. At the time of his assassination he was opposing the US project for the formation of the Organization of American States as a tool for suppressing Communist influence in Latin America. The assassination provoked armed civil conflict among political factions. Eventually, rightwing forces gained control of the Liberal Party which then entered into a ruling coalition with the Conservative Party. The conflict then evolved into one between:

the central government (controlled by the oligarch-dominated ruling coalition and relying upon police, armed forces, and right-wing paramilitaries); and
leftist guerrilla armies.

The latter eventually consisted mainly of:

the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] which had begun as an offshoot of the Colombian Communist Party, and
the National Liberation Army [ELN].

Both sides in this civil war have engaged in practices which have been widely condemned as human rights violations – the FARC for ransom kidnappings and extortions; the government (and its rightwing paramilitary death squads) for brutal repression, torture, and assassinations of peasant and labor leaders and other noncombatant left-leaning activists. The two sides have sometimes engaged in peace talks. While a negotiated truce was in effect from 1984 until 1987, leftist groups (including the FARC) formed the Patriotic Union [UP] to seek social and political reforms thru peaceful political processes. In the 1986 elections UP candidates achieved victories in many of the local contests. The ruling elite became alarmed, and over the following years some 4,000 to 6,000 UP members (including its 1986 and 1990 Presidential candidates) were murdered (with near-universal impunity) by rightwing paramilitaries backed by elites. The US has actively intervened (since 1964) with material assistance to the armed forces of the central government. In 2004 the US targeted FARC negotiator Ricardo Palmera. ^[4.1]

♦ Abduction. Ricardo Palmera (aka Simón Trinidad) had worked as a professor of economic history and had participated in the 1986 UP election campaign. As the death squads assassinated leftist leaders and activists with impunity, Palmera decided (in 1987) to join the FARC. He rose to a position of leadership and served as a negotiator for the FARC during the 1998 to 2002 peace process. He went to Quito, Ecuador (in 2004 January) to meet with James Lemoyne, a United Nations special advisor on peace processes to facilitate a prisoner exchange. At the behest of the CIA, the Ecuadoran government arrested Palmera and turned him over to the Colombian government, which then conspired with the US (which had no charges against him at the time) to invent a case for his extradition for trial in the US. ^[10]

♦ The case. The US DoJ then subjected Palmera to four illegitimate trials on trumped up charges. Specifics follow ^[11].

(1) The US misclassified FARC revolutionaries as “terrorists”; but, under international law captured participants in a revolutionary civil war are entitled to prisoner-of-war [POW] status. By prosecuting Palmera for participation in the armed conflict, the US has violated his right to POW status.

(2) The prosecution charged complicity in hostage-taking based on the FARC’s shoot-down and capture of three US contractors on a reconnaissance mission over FARC-held territory in 2003. Thus, the prosecution misrepresented a legitimate act of war as being a crime.

(3) Even if the capture and detention of the contractors were a crime, the US had no jurisdiction over the area where the event occurred. Moreover, Palmera had no command authority over the relevant FARC forces or advance knowledge of their operations.

(4) The prosecution charged complicity in “narco-trafficking”, but US government sources had determined: that, although it taxed operators profiting from cocaine production, the FARC did not engage in or control Colombian drug trafficking; and that, meanwhile, many of the rightwing paramilitaries opposed to the FARC were employed by the drug traffickers. In four trials the DoJ was unable to get a conviction on this accusation.

(5) In the first trial (2006) the jury deadlocked on all charges. At its conclusion the judge illicitly questioned the jurors in order to obtain information to help the prosecution obtain convictions in the next trial. Consequently, a new judge had to be found for the subsequent trials.

(6) In the second trial the jury told the judge that they were at an impasse and unable to agree upon a verdict. The judge required them to continue deliberations until, after another four days, they agreed to a guilty verdict on one of five counts – conspiracy to hold three US citizens hostage. However, there was no evidence of any act by Palmera that involved the capture or detention of the three US citizens. Consequently, this conviction could only be a verdict of guilt-by-association.

(7) The third and fourth trials on narco-trafficking charges ended with deadlocked juries, and the prosecution then dismissed those charges.

(8) In 2008 Palmera was sentenced to 60 years in prison. As of 2015, he has been held in solitary confinement with very limited access to his lawyer for nearly all of his 11 years in US detention.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Independence Movement in Puerto Rico (2016 May 19); Puerto Rico (2016 May 31) ~ § 2 History.

Denis⸰ Nelson (interview): The Lost History of Puerto Rico’s Independence Movement (2015 Apr 21) @ https://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/04/puerto-rico-independence-albizu-campos/ .

Wittner⸰ Lawrence: Breaking the Grip of Militarism: The Story of Vieques (2019 Apr 28) @ https://portside.org/2019-05-09/breaking-grip-militarism-story-vieques.

[2] Wikipedia: Ponce massacre (2019 Mar 20).

[3] Wikipedia: Gag Law (Puerto Rico) (2016 Apr 15).

[4] Wikipedia: Utuado Uprising (2016 Apr 25).

[5] Wikipedia: Cerro Maravilla murders (2016 Mar 26).

[6] Wikipedia: Economy of Cuba (2019 Mar 15) ~ § 1.1 Before the Revolution.

[7] Blum⸰ William: Killing Hope, Chapter 30 – Cuba 1959 to 1980s – The Unforgivable Revolution.

Chomsky⸰ Noam: Cuba in the Crosshairs (2003) @ www.chomsky.info/books/hegemony02.htm.

Wikipedia: Bay of Pigs Invasion (2016 May 20) ~ § 1 Background; Cuban Project (2016 Mar 26).

[8] Wikipedia: Alpha 66 (2019 Feb 26); Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations (2014 Jul 22); Assassination of Orlando Letelier (2016 May 22); Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 (2016 May 04); Orlando Bosch (2016 Jan 11); Luis Posada Carriles (2016 May 28).

Korten⸰ Tristram & Nielsen⸰ Kirk: The Coddled “terrorists” of South Florida (2008 Jan 14) @ https://www.salon.com/2008/01/14/cuba_2/ .

Marshall⸰ Jonathan: The Earlier 9/11 Acts of Terror (2014 Sep 10) @ https://consortiumnews.com/2014/09/10/the-earlier-911-acts-of-terror/.

[9] Wikipedia: Cuban Five (2016 May 26); Brothers to the Rescue (2016 May 13); Helms-Burton Act (2016 Mar 29); Rolando Sarraff Trujillo (2016 Mar 10); José Basulto (2016 May 09).

International Committee for Peace, Justice, and Dignity for the Peoples: The Case (ac 2016 Jun 01) @ https://www.thecuban5.org/the-case/; The Untold Story of the Cuban Five (ac 2016 Jun 01) @. https://www.thecuban5.org/?s=untold+story .

National Committee to Free the Cuban Five: Who Are the Cuban Five? (ac 2016 Jun 01) @ www.freethefive.org.

[10] Wikipedia: Colombian Conflict (2016 May 14); Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (2016 May 15); Operation Pantomime (2015 Mar 27); History of FARC (2016 May 31); Patriotic Union (Colombia) (2016 Mar 27).

Sekar⸰ Satish: Tag Archives: Operation Pantomime (2011 Nov 14) @ https://fittedinmagazine.wordpress.com/tag/operation-pantomime/.

[11] Wikipedia: Simón Trinidad (2016 May 31).

Whitney⸰ W T: Simon Trinidad, Imprisoned, Connects with Colombian Peace Process (2015 Apr 07) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/07/simon-trinidad-imprisoned-connects-with-colombian-peace-process/ .

§ 5. CIVIL LIBERTIES DON’T APPLY TO CRITICS OF THE AMERICAN WAY!

1^st. COINTELPRO. Since the 1930s (and probably earlier) the FBI has engaged in covert and illegal operations against targeted dissident groups. In 1956 the FBI systematized such operations in the so-called counter intelligence program (COINTELPRO) which was in effect until after the program and its illegalities were exposed in 1971. It targeted a wide range of dissident groups as “threats to national security”. These included “revolutionary” organizations such as: the Communist Party [CP], the Black Panther Party [BPP], the American Indian Movement [AIM], and several more. Other targets included: Albert Einstein after he criticized the nuclear arms race; civil liberties organizations (including the National Lawyers Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union); nonviolent African-American groups (NAACP, CORE, SCLC, SNCC) seeking racial justice; African-American leaders who protested FBI inaction in cases of racist murders of African-Americans in the South; Martin Luther King Jr. to discredit him and thereby prevent unification of African-American mass protest under a single charismatic leader; nonviolent groups leading mass protests against the US war in Vietnam and prominent individuals who spoke in opposition to that war; and other nonviolent groups such as those supporting women’s rights, environmental justice, anti-imperialist struggles, et cetera. During this same period the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA], National Security Agency [NSA], and military intelligence branches of the Department of Defence [DoD] also conducted covert cointelpro-type operations against some of the same dissident targets. The Internal Revenue Service [IRS] was also used to harass targeted dissidents. Although the US government pretended to have discontinued cointelpro-type operations in 1971, the FBI and other US security agencies have continued to conduct similar operations against those dissident groups which they have been able to successfully brand as “threats to national security” and fair game for repression. ^[1]

2^nd. Impunity for assassins. While the FBI policy toward its leftist targets was to work actively for their destruction, its policy vis-à-vis white hate groups was to mix passive surveillance with routine provision of impunity for violence against groups working for racial justice (which were widely regarded within the Bureau as “subversive”). During the 1960s the FBI had agents and informants within the Ku Klux Klan. Such agents and informants actively promoted and participated in beatings, bombings, and murders of civil rights workers; and the FBI shielded these perpetrators thereby ensuring that their crimes went unpunished. Examples ^[2].

♦ The FBI informed its Klan contact, Birmingham police sergeant Thomas Cooke, of the arrival times (in 1961) for the Freedom Rider buses; and Cooke then conspired with Birmingham police chief, Eugene “Bull” Connor, to arrange opportunity for some 60 Klansmen armed with chains, pipes, and baseball bats to brutally beat the Riders without police intervention.

♦ Following the Klan bombing which (in 1963) killed four children in Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church and injured 22 others, the FBI frustrated attempts to prosecute the perpetrators by withholding crucial evidence for unknown reasons, possibly because of the suspected complicity of its informant Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.

♦ After a Klan group including local police officers in Mississippi (in 1964) murdered three civil rights workers (two of whom were white), and the event sparked widespread public outrage; it was only after President Johnson demanded serious action that the FBI investigated and brought criminal charges against the perpetrators. During that investigation the bodies of eight previous Black murder victims (including 2 college students) were discovered in Mississippi, but these crimes resulted in no such FBI investigations. In the case of the 3 murdered civil rights workers, Mississippi refused to prosecute the perpetrators. The federal government subsequently indicted 18 men. Ultimately only 7 were convicted, and none served more than 6 years in prison.

♦ When (in 1965) a group of Klansman including FBI informant, Gary Thomas Rowe Jr, murdered civil rights volunteer worker, Viola Liuzzo (a 39-year-old white housewife); the FBI shielded Rowe from prosecution and also disseminated absolutely false assertions in order to discredit Liuzzo – claiming: that she was a drug user, that her purpose in being there was to have sex with Black men, and that her husband was involved with organized crime.

3^rd. State-supported rightwing paramilitary. In 1970 a small band of right-wing extremists including FBI informant, Howard Berry Godfrey, organized the Secret Army Organization [SAO] to fight leftist groups by covert violent methods. This group then carried out attacks in San Diego against a number of targets. Specifics ^[3].

♦ SAO break-ins and vandalism destroyed the offices of the San Diego Street Journal, which ran exposés critical of local capitalists and pieces opposing the US war in Vietnam. Meanwhile, local police: harassed staff, conducted warrantless searches, and intimidated a prospective new landlord and local printers so that the publication had to go to distant cities to get their paper printed. SAO members also: made numerous anonymous death threats, firebombed the car of one staffer, and conducted a drive-by shooting of another. The FBI then shielded the participants by concealing relevant evidence including the shooter’s gun.

♦ The SAO also targeted anti-war groups including the Movement for a Democratic Military [MDM] which promoted anti-war sentiment among soldiers bound for Vietnam.

♦ The FBI approved a number of bungled SAO attempts to assassinate Peter Bohmer, a popular leftwing professor at San Diego State University. He was the target of the drive-by shooting which seriously wounded Bohmer’s associate, Paula Tharpe. At the instigation of the FBI, Bohmer was eventually fired by the University despite having been repeatedly absolved of all misconduct allegations against him.

♦ An SAO member (in 1972) bombed a local porn theater injuring a police officer and a deputy prosecutor. At that point the police demanded relevant disclosures from the FBI and brought prosecutions against some SAO members. The FBI shielded its informants but shut down the SAO operation. Police searches uncovered huge caches of weapons and explosives, and it was eventually disclosed that the FBI thru its agent had provided 75% of the funds for their purchase.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: COINTELPRO (2016 Jun 08). Brian Glick: COINTELPRO Revisited – Spying and Disruption (ac 2016 May 31) @ https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/FBI/COINTELPRO_Revisited.html .

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays: COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part 1 (2002 May 24) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=622 ; Part 2 (2002 May 31) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=626; Part 3 (2002 Jun 07) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=632 .

[2] Wikipedia: 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (2016 Jun 08); Mississippi civil rights workers’ murders (2016 Jun 03); Viola Liuzzo (2016 Jun 05); Gary Thomas Rowe (2019 Apr 05).

Herbert⸰ Keith S: Gary Thomas Rowe Jr. (2015 Apr 07) @ www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3379.

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part 1 (2002 May 24) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=622.

[3] Wikipedia: San Diego Free Press (2015 Dec 03); COINTELPRO (2016 Jun 08).

Kaye⸰ Jeff: DHS says FBI “possibly funded” Terrorist Group (2013 Feb 21) @ https://evergreenrevival.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/inside-evergreen-highlight-of-peter-bohmer/ .

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part 1 (2002 May 24) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=622 .

Chomsky⸰ Noam: Triumphs of Democracy (1977) ~ 8^th Q&A @ www.chomsky.info/books/responsibility01.htm.

§ 6. BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT – “THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY”?

1^st. Bogus kidnap case. Robert F Williams, NAACP leader in Monroe, NC, was targeted by local police and the FBI after he organized local African-Americans for armed self-defense against racist violence (by the Ku Klux Klan and other white hate groups) against African-American civil rights activists. State agents struck at Williams in 1961 with bogus charges of kidnapping after he had sheltered a white couple in his home during a time of violent racial conflict. Fearing for his life and knowing that a fair trial, if any, was very unlikely, Williams sought and obtained political asylum abroad (first in Cuba and then in China). Meanwhile, the FBI smeared Williams with defamatory accusations and pursued him with an arrest warrant. Upon his return to the US in 1969, Williams was arrested in Michigan where he fought extradition for trial in North Carolina, which (in 1976 after 15 years of pursuit) finally dropped all charges. ^[1]

2^nd. Assassination thru incitement. After Malik el-Shabazz (aka Malcolm X) and his supporters split from the Nation of Islam [NOI] and established the Organization of Afro-American Unity (in 1964), FBI and local-police agents provocateur within NOI incited violent hostility against him on the part of its leaders and members. The predictable result was the assassination of Malik by members of NOI in 1965 (with probable police-agent complicity). The FBI and New York City police [NYPD] had made Malik a special target:

because of his prominence and real political influence as an articulate and charismatic advocate for achieving justice for African-Americans “by any means necessary” at a time when white supremacy and overt racial discrimination against African-Americans remained prevalent throughout most of the US; and
because of his developing international stature as a critic of the crimes of Western colonialism and imperialism against the peoples of the peripheral countries.

The investigation of the assassination (by NYPD) was decidedly careless – the crime scene was not secured for forensic analysis, and the firebombing of Malik’s house 5 days previous was never investigated. There were also: the unusual lack of police presence at the public speaking event where the assassination occurred, and persisting questions as to the alleged participation of two of the three NOI members who were convicted of the crime. Those two were exonerated in 2021 after their innocence was proven by records which the government had illegally concealed at time of trial and for more than 50 years subsequent. Moreover, while important questions remain unanswered, the NYPD persists in its refusal to release all of its files which are relevant to the case. ^[2]

3^rd. Persecution of the BPP. The Black Panther Party [BPP], inspired by the examples of Malcolm X and Robert Williams, was organized in 1966 with a 10-point program which demanded: an end to the “robbery” of the Black community, programs to provide equality of opportunity for Black Americans, an end to racist police and judicial abuses of Blacks, and an end to the conscription of Blacks to fight imperialist wars. The BPP soon attracted a large following; and the FBI, seeing it as a major threat, targeted it for destruction. The Party’s leadership (especially Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver) made serious errors in doctrine (failure to grasp essential Marxist precepts) and practice (provocative rhetoric, failure to contain provocateurs, rash reactions, violent purges, etc.). These errors ultimately contributed to its demise as the full force of state repression was activated against it. ^[3]

4^th. Assassinations in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles branch of the BPP, founded in 1968 by Bunchy Carter, began a popular “free breakfast for children” program and quickly recruited hundreds of members. The FBI used Los Angeles police [LAPD] to harass the BPP with numerous false arrests and warrantless searches, and several members were killed by police. Meanwhile, the (Black nationalist) Organization Us [O’Us] (led by Ron Karenga) was a rival for recruits. FBI agents sent poison-pen letters and made anonymous death threats purporting to be from each group to the other in order to incite violent hostility between them. At a confrontation (in 1969 January) members of O’Us shot and killed BPP leaders Bunchy Carter and John Huggins. LAPD used the incident as pretext for mass arrests of some 75 BPP members. In subsequent armed confrontations between the two organizations O’Us members (in 1969) killed 2 additional BPP members. ^[4]

5^th. Assassination in Chicago. Fred Hampton began his political activism as a youth organizer for the NAACP in Chicago in 1967. After the BPP rose to prominence, Hampton was attracted to its 10-point program and joined its Chicago chapter in 1968 November. Because he was articulate and possessed of superior organizing skills, Hampton rose within a year to become chapter leader and was selected for key leadership positions at the national level. The chapter’s achievements, resulting primarily from his initiatives, included:

brokering a nonaggression pact among the city’s most powerful street gangs;
instituting popular community service programs (free health clinics, children’s free breakfast program, education programs, and a proposal for community supervision of the police); and
forging a multi-racial “revolutionary” rainbow coalition with (Appalachian white) Young Patriots, (Puerto Rican) Young Lords, (Chicano) Brown Berets, and the (Chinese-American) Red Guard Party.

The leaders of the FBI, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office [CCSAO], and the Chicago Police [CPD] viewed these developments as a dire threat, and conspired together to assassinate Fred Hampton. At 4:45am, December 04, 1968, a CCSAO special police team, having been informed of the layout of Hampton’s apartment by an FBI infiltrator who had surreptitiously drugged Hampton the previous evening, went into Hampton’s apartment with guns blazing and, having wounded the sleeping Hampton in the assault, then executed him with two point-blank shots to the head. Several other Panthers, sleeping in another bedroom, were wounded; and (fellow Panther) Mark Clark was killed in the first burst of police gunfire. ^[5]

6^th. Frame-up in Baltimore. Local police and the FBI targeted Marshall Edward Conway from the moment he co-founded the Baltimore chapter of the BPP (in 1968). ^[6]

♦ Following night-time shoot-outs (1970 April 21) in which one police officer was killed and another critically wounded, Baltimore police identified two suspects believed to be associated with the BPP. Police then targeted Conway and charged him with murder for the killing of the one officer and with assault on two others.

♦ Conway was convicted in a rigged trial and sentenced to life in prison. Specifics follow.

(1) At trial Conway was denied the right to be represented by any attorney of his choice, and his court-appointed attorney had done no pre-trial investigation and had never before met with his client.

(2) The only evidence linking Conway to the shootings was the witness testimony of two police officers who claimed to have recognized him in the dark of the night during the shootings. The first officer to finger Conway did so upon being shown two successive photo line-ups including only local BPP members and with Conway as the only individual included in both photo arrays. The second officer then concurred with the assertion by the first.

(3) In addition to the two officers, a jailhouse snitch gave bribed testimony asserting that Conway had confessed while being compelled over his protest to share a cell with said individual who was generally known to be a snitch.

(4) Another defendant refused to testify against Conway and asserted that police had beaten him into falsely identifying Conway as a participant in the shootings.

(5) Conway, a US postal employee, was at work during the time of the shootings; and his supervisor verified this fact. However, the jury disregarded this alibi evidence.

(Ω) After an appellate court ruled that the trial was tainted by improper instructions to the jury; prosecutors grudgingly agreed (in 2014) to Conway’s release (on parole) after nearly 44 years in prison throughout which he insisted upon his innocence.

7^th. Frame-up in Omaha. David Rice and Edward Poindexter were Black community activists in Omaha. They: had links to the BPP, wrote for a local alternative publication, and made an issue of police abuses and other racial injustices adversely impacting the Black community. Although (like many other radical activists at the time) they had used incendiary rhetoric against the police such as “I believe pigs [meaning police] look very good roasting on a stick”; they had no criminal records and had conducted their political activities within the law. Local authorities, including the police and FBI, regarded their activities as a threat and targeted them first with very close surveillance and then with elimination. ^[7]

♦ On August 17, 1970, an anonymous phone call to the police emergency operator led several police officers to enter a vacant house where a suitcase bomb exploded killing one officer and injuring another. Local police and the county prosecutor then used this murder case as an opportunity to destroy Rice and Poindexter and to suppress their political movement in Omaha. The prosecutor alleged that Poindexter made a bomb at Rice’s house and then directed 16-year-old Duane Peake to plant it and then to make the phone call to the emergency operator.

♦ A rigged trial produced guilty verdicts and sentences of life in prison. Specifics follow.

(1) Duane Peake’s coerced testimony was crucial to the convictions. He had been arrested on August 28 and was then subjected to multiple interrogations during which he changed his story multiple times and only later was induced to implicate Rice and Poindexter. At the preliminary hearing Peake recanted his allegations against Rice and Poindexter; then, after the prosecutor was granted a recess (during which he threatened and coached this witness), Peake renewed the accusations against Rice and Poindexter.

(2) The police and FBI suppressed potentially exculpatory evidence namely a tape of the call to the emergency operator. When this tape was finally released several years later, the voice of the caller was found thru expert analysis to be very unlike that of Peake. The appellate judge ruled this fact insufficient to void the convictions because the defendants could not actually prove that the voice was not Peake’s.

(3) Supporting evidence against the accused consisted of three sticks of dynamite which police claimed to have found in a search of Rice’s house. The officers who executed the search could not identify which officer found the dynamite, and they gave conflicting accounts as to where in the house it was found. Neither of the defendants’ fingerprints was on the dynamite, and an Omaha ex-police officer believes it was planted.

(4) Federal district and appeals courts eventually ruled that the search of Rice’s house was illegal and overturned his conviction because of lack of credibility in the police assertions with which the search warrant had been obtained. However, the state of Nebraska appealed, and the Supreme Court voided the lower court decision by changed the rules to require that 4th amendment (habeas corpus) appeals go first thru the state courts. Then the state court refused to consider the appeal on account of it being “too late”.

(5) Both Rice and Poindexter had alibi witnesses for the time of the murder, and Poindexter also had an alibi for the night he was accused of building the bomb. Nevertheless, the nearly all-white jury (from which every potential juror who by age or race or class or economic means could have been expected to relate to the accused had been excluded) disregarded the evidence and voted to convict.

(Ω) Many observers including Amnesty International have called for the two men to be retried or released. In 1993 the state Parole Board voted unanimously for both men to be released, but elected office-holders who constitute the Pardons Board have refused to comply. Consequently, after 45 years Rice has died in prison (2016) and Poindexter remains in prison.

8^th. Frame-up in Los Angeles. After serving two tours as a US soldier in the Vietnam War where he earned several service medals, Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt studied political science at UCLA. While there he joined the local BPP chapter where he soon rose to the position of “Minister of Defense”. The FBI was conducting covert operations to foster factional conflict within the BPP in Los Angeles and specifically targeted Pratt in January 1970. ^[8]

♦ Later that year Pratt was arrested and charged with the unsolved cold-case 1968 robbery and murder of a school teacher.

♦ He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in a rigged trial. Specifics follow.

(1) Pratt’s attorney contended that Pratt was 350 miles away (in Oakland) at the time of the murder, and the FBI (which watched him closely) withheld its knowledge of exculpatory evidence to that effect. In fact, the FBI wiretaps for the date of the murder were destroyed or disappeared before Pratt’s defense attorneys could obtain access.

(2) Pratt’s conviction rested largely on the testimony of a police agent infiltrator of the BPP who claimed that Pratt had confessed to him. The facts of this witness being a police informant (which he repeatedly denied in his court testimony) as well as of the FBI operations to destroy the local BPP chapter were also concealed from the defense. Moreover, FBI moles infiltrated defense planning sessions, and the FBI monitored the phone calls of Pratt’s attorney.

(3) The prosecution also withheld the fact that the one witness to the murder had originally identified two other men as the killers.

(Ω) The conviction was overturned in 1997 on account of the prosecution’s suppression of the facts of its key witness’s relationship to the FBI and police. Pratt was then released and he ultimately obtained (from DoJ and the city of Los Angeles) a $4.5 million settlement for false imprisonment.

9^th. Frame-up in San Francisco. ^[9]

♦ In 1973 the FBI charged (prominent BPP member) Veronza Bowers, Jr with the murder of a park ranger at the Point Reyes National Seashore (near San Francisco) after unrelated state charges against him were dismissed. The prosecution alleged: that Bowers and two other men were poaching deer when confronted by the ranger, and that Bowers then shot and killed the ranger.

♦ The trial court convicted Bowers upon no evidence other than the bribed testimony of the other two men. Specifics follow.

(1) Those two other men were both convicted bank robbers and very likely the actual killers. They were given immunity and one was actually paid $10,000.

(2) In court Bowers insisted upon his innocence. His wife’s alibi testimony was dismissed as well as assertions by two relatives of the accusers that they were lying.

(3) There was no physical or other evidence against Bowers.

(Ω) Bowers was entitled to mandatory parole after 30 years, but the government has refused to release him even though he has been a model prisoner (evidently because he continues to insist upon his innocence).

10^th. Frame-up in New Jersey. As the BPP began to crumble under the pressure of wholesale police and FBI repression, a number of Black “revolutionaries” (mostly ex-Panthers) formed a number of small loosely connected “underground” groups which came to be collectively known as the Black Liberation Army [BLA]. The actual origins of the BLA are murky and disputed. Descriptions of its activities appear to rely heavily on hostile sources which paint the BLA in its entirety as a terrorist criminal organization. Some of these BLA groups evidently engaged in violent aggressions such as bank robberies and attacks on police officers, which they “justified” as a war of resistance against the very real war that the police and DoJ were waging against the Black liberation movement. However, other BLA groups probably provided refuge to state-targeted fellow activists and continued to follow the original BPP posture of nonaggression but militant armed self-defense against repressive state violence. Because BLA groups were “underground”, the FBI and police red squads had difficulty in identifying and tracking their members. Consequently, law enforcement often attributed armed robberies and attacks on police to the BLA without any actual evidence. They particularly targeted militant former BPP members including Assata Shakur. Specifics ^[10].

♦ Targeted. Assata Shakur (born JoAnne Byron) was evidently targeted by the FBI and local police red squads:

because of her prominence as a former female leader in the Harlem branch of the BPP;
because of the frustration of the FBI and the New York City [NYC] prosecutor’s office when their attempts to obtain convictions in the case of the Panther 21, on bogus charges of conspiracy to bomb buildings and kill police officers, ended in acquittals on all charges in 1971; and
because she was the most convenient target to categorize as the leading female member of the underground BLA.

NYC police named Shakur as a suspect in a series of robberies and shootings for many of which she was never charged, and the FBI alleged that she was the “revolutionary mother hen” of a BLA cell responsible for a series of murders of NYC police officers. The NYC media named her a suspect in nearly every local bank robbery where a woman was believed to be involved. She was never convicted of any of these alleged crimes.

♦ Shoot-out. In 1973 a traffic stop on the New Jersey turnpike escalated into a shoot-out between state troopers and the three alleged BLA members (including Assata Shakur and Sundiata Acoli) who were in the stopped car. Casualties were: troopers – one killed, one wounded; detained BLA members – one killed, two (Shakur and Acoli) wounded. The two were arrested and charged with murder. Even though the prosecution’s key witness (the surviving trooper) admitted to having lied in his reports immediately after the shooting and again in his testimony to the grand jury, Acoli (in 1974) was convicted of murder and sentenced to life plus 30 years in prison. As a militant Black activist who had participated in a shoot-out where a police officer was killed, it was virtually a foregone conclusion that he and his companions would be branded as the aggressors notwithstanding that the police witness was a proven liar.

♦ Previous accusations. Prior to Shakur’s trial on this murder charge, the government accused her of the following other violent crimes and (generally for lack of evidence) failed in every case to obtain a conviction. In several of the cases the prosecution lacked the evidence to prosecute.

(1) 1971 April 06, armed robbery at Statler Hilton Hotel. Case dismissed, lack of evidence.

(2) 1971 May 21, murder of two NYC police officers. Not prosecuted.

(3) 1971 August 23, bank robbery in Queens. The FBI alleged that a photo of the robbery showed Assata as a participant, but the jury decided to the contrary and acquitted (1976 Jan 16).

(4) 1971 December 21, hand grenade attack on NYC police. Not prosecuted.

(5) 1972 January 26, wounding of police officer in Brooklyn. Not prosecuted.

(6) 1972 January 28, murder of another two NYC police officers. Not prosecuted.

(7) 1972 September 01, bank robbery in Bronx. 1st trial – hung jury. 2nd trial – testimony by prosecution’s bribed witnesses was contrary to photographic evidence, and jury acquitted (1973 Dec 28).

(8) 1972 September 14, armed robbery of church in Brooklyn. Not prosecuted.

(9) 1972 December, 28 ransom kidnapping of bartender. 1975 December 19, acquitted.

(10) 1973 January 02, murder of a man during an armed robbery of a social club. Case dismissed on due process grounds.

(11) 1973 January 23, ambush attacks on two police officers in Queens – Shakur was accused despite the fact that the witnesses identified the assailants as all males. Case dismissed (1974 November) for lack of evidence.

♦ Trial. The state of New Jersey tried Assata Shakur (in 1977) on charges related to the 1973 turnpike shoot-out and obtained her conviction as an accomplice in the “murders” of the two killed in the shoot-out and for attempted murder of the wounded trooper as well as several related assault charges. This trial was heavily rigged to ensure conviction. Specifics follow.

(1) Jury selection was conducted in a highly prejudicial environment – the local press had published 289 articles concerning the various crimes with which Shakur had been accused. Moreover, this jury was: all white, from a mostly white county, and included five jurors with personal relationships with state troopers.

(2) The defense was not permitted to introduce evidence of the illegalities perpetrated by state agencies under the COINTELPRO program as it targeted the Black liberation movement.

(3) The judge refused to investigate: the theft of half of the legal papers relating to Assata’s case during a burglary of the defense counsel’s office, or defense complaints that their office was bugged.

(4) The prosecutor alleged that Shakur had shot and killed her companion and then executed the second trooper with his own gun. However, her fingerprints were not on any gun which could be connected to the event, and tests for gunpowder residue indicated that she had not fired any gun.

(5) Trooper Harper had claimed in his police reports and in his grand jury testimony: that after he had stopped the car for a broken tail light and ordered Acoli to the rear of the car; that trooper Foerster found an ammo magazine on Acoli while checking his driver’s license; that Shakur then pulled out a 9-mm pistol and shot at Harper; and that he then ran to the rear of his patrol car and shot Shakur who had by then exited the car and was shooting at him. On cross-examination Harper admitted that he had lied in his previous statements, and: that Foerster had not produced any ammo magazine, that Shakur did not have a gun, and that she had not shot at him.

(6) Shakur testified: that Harper shot her after she had raised her arms in compliance with his demand and then shot her again in the back as she turned to avoid it, that she lay on the ground during the remainder of the shooting, that she then crawled into the backseat of the car, which Acoli then drove five miles down the road; and that she lay there until troopers arrived and dragged her out onto the road. The prosecutor tried to explain her wounds in a way that would support his assertion that she had shot at the troopers, but expert medical testimony supported Shakur’s version that both of her arms were raised when Harper shot her, and that his second shot had paralyzed her right arm so that she was rendered incapable of using a gun to shoot back.

(7) Despite the lack of any credible evidence that Shakur had committed any violent act during the turnpike event or had planned to do so, the jury convicted on all counts. One of the two murder counts was later dismissed as legally invalid. The judge imposed a sentence of life in prison (plus 30 days in the county workhouse for contempt of court when she refused to stand as he entered the courtroom).

♦ Escape. In 1979 three supporters broke Ms Shakur out of prison, and three days later 5,000 of her supporters rallied in New York City. When the FBI issued wanted posters, her sympathizers responded by distributing posters saying “Assata Shakur is welcome here”. She then lived as a fugitive for some years. By 1984 Shakur had taken residence in Cuba where she has received asylum as a political refugee. In 2005 the FBI offered a $1,000,000 reward for assistance in her capture, and in 2013 it doubled that bounty and made Assata Shakur the first woman on its list of most wanted “terrorists”.

11^th. Frame-up in Philadelphia. Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook) was a Black power advocate from 1968 when (at age 14) he helped found the Philadelphia chapter of the BPP. The FBI and local police soon targeted him for surveillance. At the time of his arrest in 1981 Abu-Jamal was a radio reporter and also working part-time as a taxi driver. His case ^[11].

♦ Incident and arrest. Around 4:00am on 1981 December 09, white police officer Daniel Faulkner stopped a car driven by Abu-Jamal’s brother (William Cook) while Abu-Jamal was parked across the street in his taxi. The traffic stop escalated into an argument during which Faulkner apparently struck Cook with his flashlight. At some point, Abu-Jamal ran across the street to the site of the altercation. Ultimately, there was gunfire resulting in the death of Faulkner and the serious wounding of Abu-Jamal. Police then arrested Abu-Jamal, and he was subsequently charged and prosecuted for the murder of Faulkner. The prosecution alleged: that Cook assaulted Faulkner who then attempted to subdue Cook, that Abu-Jamal then came and shot Faulkner in the back, that Faulkner then shot and wounded Abu-Jamal, and that Abu-Jamal then fired additional shots at close range killing Faulkner.

♦ Trial. A rigged trial (in 1982) ended in a first-degree murder conviction and a death sentence. Relevant defects in the case follow.

(1) Predetermined outcome. Abu-Jamal contends that the trial was conducted so as to prejudice the outcome. He was not permitted to act as his own advocate or to have the assistance of his own choice. His court-appointed attorney never asked him for his account of the event. He was removed from the courtroom during much of the proceeding. The prosecution used 11 of its 14 peremptory challenges to eliminate potential Black jurors thereby ensuring a mostly white jury (10 white, 2 Black). Moreover, a court stenographer stated (in a 2001 affidavit) that she had overheard the judge say during the time of the trial “I’m going to help them fry the nigger”.

(2) Bribed and coerced witnesses. The key prosecution eye witnesses were bribed and/or coerced to identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter. One (Robert Chobert) was on parole from a conviction for arson, had prior arrests for drunk driving, and was driving an unlicensed taxi at the time of the shooting; he recanted in 2001. Another was a prostitute (Cynthia White) who had confided (in 1982 according to Yvette Williams who provided a sworn affidavit in 2002) that police had coerced her to identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter even though she had not actually seen the shooting. Another prostitute (Veronica Jones) said that police had offered her favorable treatment if she would corroborate Cynthia White. A police informant (Pamela Jenkins) testified at a hearing (in 1997) that police had (unsuccessfully) pressured her (in 1982) to falsely testify that she had witnessed the killing. Jenkins also testified the she had seen Ms White in contact with police in 1997, but the prosecution responded to defense requests for White’s testimony by producing a death certificate (later proven to be fraudulent) purporting that Ms White had died in 1992.

(3) Nonexistent confession. Two prosecution witnesses (police officer Bell and hospital security officer Priscilla Durham) testified that Abu-Jamal had confessed at the hospital where he was about to be treated for his wound. Police officer Wakshul who accompanied Abu-Jamal to and at the hospital wrote in his original report that “the negro male made no comments”, but some months later Wakshul claimed to have remembered hearing the alleged confession. The defense sought to examine Wakshul in court but was prevented from so doing because the judge refused a defense request for a continuance when the prosecution claimed the officer was then vacationing and unavailable. Ms Durham’s stepbrother swore in a declaration (in 2003) that she had told him (in conversation near the end of 1983) that she never heard the alleged confession but had testified otherwise because of pressure from the police. Moreover, the hospital doctors have asserted that Abu-Jamal was incapable of making any such statement at the time.

(4) Faulty forensics. A prosecution forensic expert testified that characteristics of the fatal bullets were consistent with those produced by the type of .38 caliber gun which Abu-Jamal had (legally) in his possession at the scene. A 2009 report on Forensic Sciences by the National Academy of Sciences finds that bullet and cartridge match comparisons are unreliable due to undefined match criteria and examiner subjectivity. Moreover, no tests were made: of Abu-Jamal’s gun to determine whether it had been recently fired, or of his hands to determine whether he had recently fired a gun. Further, the police did not preserve the crime scene, and this was extremely unusual in cases of the killing of a police officer.

(5) Rebuttal eyewitnesses. Potential defense witnesses, who may have witnessed the shooting, refused to testify at the original trial, asserting fear of the police. Witnesses who did testify for the defense (in 1982) had not seen the shooting. Two eye witnesses came forward later to say that Abu-Jamal was not the shooter. One (William Harmon) said the killer fled in a car which picked him up right after he killed Faulkner. The other (William Singletary) identified the killer as William Cook’s passenger. In 2001 William Cook gave an affidavit saying: that he argued with Faulkner who then struck him several times with stick or flashlight causing his face to bleed and then frisked him, that he was in his car looking for the registration demanded by Faulkner when he heard the shots, and that he did not see Faulkner shot nor who shot Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal stated (in his 2001 affidavit) that during the event: he heard shouting, then saw the police vehicle, then heard gunshots, then saw his brother appearing disoriented across the street, then ran to him and was shot by the police officer, did not shoot the police officer, and did not see who did.

(6) Confessed killer. In 1999 a man (Arnold Beverly) provided an affidavit that he and another man killed Faulkner as hit men on behalf of corrupt police officers who were angry over Faulkner’s interference in their receipt of payoffs to protect illegal vice activities. Beverly, who was slightly wounded by an unexpected gunshot during the assassination, asserted that he had concluded afterward that, rather than those police facilitating his escape from the scene as promised, they had planned on killing him at the scene so as to close the case and preclude further investigation. Beverly’s escape and Abu-Jamal’s unplanned appearance provided the opportunity to use Abu-Jamal as scapegoat. When Beverly came forward with his confession, Abu-Jamal’s lead appeal attorney considered this claim unbelievable and opposed its use while other members of his team saw it as the key to a successful appeal. The latter resigned when Abu-Jamal went along with the lead attorney. In 2001 a new legal team petitioned for Beverly to be deposed; but, because the defense had not provided the information at the previous hearing, it was ruled inadmissible. William Cook asserted in his 2001 affidavit that his passenger (Kenneth Freeman) at the time of the shooting had later confided to Cook that he had been involved in the pre-arranged killing of Faulkner. Cook states that Freeman left the scene just before police arrived following the shooting; and other witnesses (Cynthia White in her original police statement and Dessie Hightower in 1982) describe a man fitting the description of Freeman or of Beverly leaving the scene at that time. William Singletary testified (in 1995—96) that that man was William Cook’s passenger. Three years after the Faulkner killing Freeman was found dead under suspicious circumstances. Moreover, three FBI corruption investigations of Philadelphia police were in progress at the time of the Faulkner killing, and these resulted in some 30 police officers, some of whom were involved in Abu-Jamal’s arrest, going to prison on corruption convictions.

(Ω) Fix. There are issues on both sides concerning the credibility of the witnesses and other evidence for the actual killing. Moreover, there is no indisputable evidence as to who started the shooting or as to who shot Faulkner. However, it should be evident to fair observers: that there is considerable doubt as to Abu-Jamal’s guilt, that the 1982 trial was fixed to ensure a guilty verdict, that the refusal of the prosecution and courts to provide access to potentially crucial witnesses (White and Wakshul) was a denial of due process, and that justice would require reversal of Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction.

♦ Appeals. Under current rules in US courts, once convicted, one is presumed guilty. A conviction will be overturned on appeal only if the convict can prove: (1) his/her innocence beyond any reasonable doubt; or (2) that conviction occurred only because of egregious procedural errors or willful prosecutorial misconduct (such as withholding exculpatory evidence or knowingly presenting perjured testimony). Moreover, many judges hold a bias in favor of police and prosecutors. Thus, Abu-Jamal’s appeals, with one exception, have been rejected by the courts. The exception was to overturn the death sentence on account of improper jury instructions. Abu-Jamal remains in prison without possibility of parole. Numerous individuals and human rights organizations (including: NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International) have expressed concern over the lack of fairness and impartiality in the trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Robert F Williams (2016 May 19).

[2] Wikipedia: Malcolm X (2016 Jun 08).

Felber⸰ Garrett: Malcolm X assassination – 50 years on, mystery still clouds details of the case (2015 Feb 21) @ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/21/malcolm-x-assassination-records-nypd-investigation .

Ali⸰ Zaheer: What Really Happened to Malcolm X (2015 Feb 17) @ https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/17/opinion/ali-malcolm-x-assassination-anniversary .

Leland⸰ John: Exonerations Only Deepen Mystery Shrouding Malcolm X’s Killing (N Y Times, 2021 Nov 18) @ https://portside.org/2021-11-19/exonerations-only-deepen-mystery-shrouding-malcolm-xs-killing .

[3] Wikipedia: Black Panther Party (2016 Jun 01).

[4] Wikipedia: Bunchy Carter (2016 May 30).

[5] Wikipedia: Fred Hampton (2016 Jun 02).

[6] Wikipedia: Marshall “Eddie” Conway (2016 May 01).

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part 2 (2002 May 31) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=626.

[7] Wikipedia: Rice-Poindexter case (2016 May 15).

Buffalo Chip: The Real Story of the Rice/Poindexter Case (2002) @ https://www.freedomarchives.org/Documents/Finder/DOC510_scans/Buffalo_Chip/510.buffalo.chip.SpringFall2002.pdf .

[8] Wikipedia: Geronimo Pratt (2016 Jun 07).

Democracy Now (daily shows): Former Black Panther Leader, Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, Wrongfully Imprisoned for 27 Years, Dies in Tanzania (2011 June 06) @ https://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/6/former_black_panther_leader_and_political.

[9] Lendman⸰ Stephen: Veronza Bowers Jr – Another Victim of America’s Criminal Justice System (2009 Jul 13) @ http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/our-prisoners-war-pow/43472-please-read-who-veronza-bowers-jr.html.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit: Veronza Bowers Jr v. Jeffrey Keller United States Parole Commission (2011 Aug 26) @ https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1578637.html.

[10] Wikipedia: Assata Shakur (2019 Apr 03); Panther 21 (2016 May 17); Black Liberation Army (2016 May 06).

Williams⸰ Evelyn A: Statement of Facts in the New Jersey Trial of Assata Shakur (2005 Jun 25) @ http://www.assatashakur.com/facts.htm.

Boardman⸰ William: Assata Shakur, FBI’s White Whale? (2013 Jun 11) @ https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/17881 .

[11] Wikipedia: Mumia Abu-Jamal (2016 Jun 10); Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal (2016 Apr 18); Arnold Beverly (2016 Mar 21).

Wells⸰ Robert: A New Look at the Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/01/a-new-look-at-the-framing-of-mumia-abu-jamal/ .

Aktuell Declarations:

Declaration of Yvette Williams (2002 Jan 28) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20020227mde01en.html; Mumia’s Attorneys Charge DA With Faking Witness Death (2002 Mar 11) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20020323mde02en.html;

Declaration of Mumia Abu-Jamal (2001my03) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20010518msi00en.html; Affidavit of Arnold R Beverly (1999je08) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20010518msi02en.html;

Declaration of Linn Washington (2001my03) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20010518msi03en.html; Declaration of Terri Maurer-Carter (2001ag28) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20010903mde02en.html; Declaration of Kenneth Pate (2003ap18) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20030510mde00en.html; Supplemental Declaration of William Cook (2001ap29) @ http://www.mumia.de/doc/aktuell/20010518msi01en.html.

§ 7. REMOVING UNRULY MALCONTENTS IN THE FIRST NATIONS!

1^st. Militant resistance. The US government has a long history of atrocious abuse of the indigenous nations and their peoples throughout its territory. These abuses include: genocidal wars, ethnic cleansings, coerced assimilation with suppression of the native languages and cultures, forcing their peoples into conditions of degrading poverty, imposition of fraudulent and inequitable treaties, subjugation as subordinate nations, routine violations of treaty rights, corrupt administration of their governance, theft of their land and resources thru outright seizures and thru imposition of inequitable leases to US capitalists, and so forth. In mid-20th century Amerindian resistance grew and produced a number of activist organizations. The American Indian Movement [AIM] (founded in 1968) adopted a militant posture and gained nationwide prominence. The poverty and lack of opportunity on reservations had induced many Amerindians to move to urban areas where they concentrated in urban slums and suffered the afflictions common to other disadvantaged racial minorities. AIM responded by starting remedial projects: health programs, education and job training programs, legal rights centers, and so forth. In 1969 AIM joined Fred Hampton’s original revolutionary Rainbow Coalition. During the next few years AIM brought public attention to Amerindian grievances thru participation in a series of militant protest actions including: the occupation of Alcatraz (1969—71), the Thanksgiving Day occupation of the replica Mayflower (1970), the occupation of Mount Rushmore (1971), a brief occupation of Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] headquarters (1971), the “Trail of Broken Treaties” cross-country caravan and protest which included the occupation of the BIA offices (1972). The FBI and DoJ decided that AIM was a “threat to national security” and set out to destroy it. ^[1]

2^nd. Frame-up in Milwaukee. As AIM activist Leonard Peltier was sitting in a Milwaukee restaurant (in 1972 November), two off duty cops picked a quarrel with him. Then, as he was leaving, the same two cops jumped and beat Peltier. They then arrested Peltier on a charge of attempted murder (of themselves) with what was later shown to be a nonfunctional gun. Fearing that he would be killed or railroaded to prison on perjured police testimony, Peltier obtained release on bond and then fled. In 1978, while in prison following his frame-up conviction for the premeditated murders of two FBI agents, he was finally brought to trial on this “attempted murder” charge. At trial the girlfriend of one of the two cops testified that her cop friend had shown her a photo of Peltier prior to the incident and had told her that “he was going to help the FBI get a big one”. Thus, it became clear that the entire incident had been a set-up and fraud. The prosecution’s case then collapsed, and the jury acquitted this “notorious AIM felon”. ^[2]

3^rd. Repression on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Tribal members on the (Oglala Lakota) Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota had formed the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization [OSCRO]:

to seek justice for Oglala victims of racist attacks in neighboring off-reservation communities where the white perpetrators were routinely given impunity or biased leniency, even in murder cases; and
to seek reform of tribal government then ruled by a corrupt and autocratic tribal Chairman, Dick Wilson, who engaged in blatant favoritism, with respect to jobs and other benefits, for his relatives and cronies.

In 1973 some tribal councilors brought misconduct charges against Wilson (who held the chairmanship from 1972 until 1976), and the tribal council then voted 11 to 7 to suspend him, but he managed to have his impeachment trial stopped. Wilson had already organized his own private militia, Guardians of the Oglala Nation [GOONs], which he illegally paid with tribal funds and used to suppress his political opponents. When several hundred Oglala gathered to protest the quashing of the impeachment trial, the BIA sent in a force of the US Marshals Service [USMS] to sustain Wilson’s position. A few days after the foiled impeachment trial, some 200 local protestors and AIM activists occupied the remote Reservation village of Wounded Knee (site of the 1890 massacre of over 200 Lakota men, women, and children by a trigger-happy US Cavalry Regiment). Using the action to publicize Amerindian grievances, the occupiers demanded: the removal of Wilson, and negotiations to address US violation of its treaty obligations. USMS, FBI, and other police cordoned the area thereby creating a standoff with frequent shooting from both sides. After 71 days the occupiers ended the occupation and withdrew. One FBI agent, two occupiers, and one visitor had been killed; and 13 individuals wounded. During and after the Wounded Knee siege, the Wilson regime and his GOONs intensified repression of his political opponents of whom more than 60 were killed during the following 3 years, while the Reservation’s homicide rate grew to 17 times the US average. Meanwhile, the DoJ indicted 185 individuals for alleged crimes involving their actions in occupying Wounded Knee; these included: arson, theft, assault, and interfering with federal officers. Numerous trials followed, the most prominent being the government’s 1974 show trial of AIM leaders, Dennis Banks and Russell Means. This (8 ½ month) trial ended when the judge ruled that the prosecution had committed such egregious misconduct, including withholding of evidence and use of perjured witness testimony, that dismissal was the only appropriate outcome. Nevertheless, the DoJ persisted in its persecution of AIM leaders. ^[3]

4^th. Assassination by “snitch-jacketing”. The FBI made a practice of infiltrating targeted organizations with informants and provocateurs whom it used to disrupt said organizations. One such FBI asset, Douglas Durham, had wormed his way to become head of security for AIM. In late-1974 Durham was exposed and subsequently expelled from AIM. At the time, FBI and other state agencies were subjecting AIM activists and allies on the Pine Ridge Reservation to an on-going violent and often lethal repression. AIM leaders, knowing that the DoJ was seeking (by means illegal as well as legal) to destroy them, became justifiably fearful that informants were reporting their every action to the FBI. Meanwhile, FBI infiltrators made remarks and allegations to stoke such fears, while rumors and backbiting by individuals with personal jealousies and resentments created fertile ground for often unwarranted suspicions and accusations. Moreover, much of the AIM leadership then succumbed to witch-hunt obsessions leading to the murder of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash. Details ^[4].

♦ Snitch-jacketed. Beginning in the winter of 1975 Anna Mae, who had become AIM’s most prominent and influential female leader, was repeatedly subjected (by multiple AIM activists and leaders) to suspicions and accusations of being an FBI informant. Among her earliest accusers was Theda Nelson Clark, an aspiring rival for leadership. The FBI twice arrested Anna Mae with others (in September and November) on weapons charges, and she bonded out of jail days after each arrest. FBI agent David Price interrogated Anna Mae and tried to induce her to become a cooperating “witness” against other accused AIM leaders. When she refused, he predicted that she would be dead within the year. Thus, was Anna Mae “snitch-jacketed” as the FBI failed in its efforts to coerce her into serving as a DoJ “witness”.

♦ Murder. In 1975 December, the aforementioned Theda Nelson Clark and two low-ranking associates: abducted Aquash, transported her to a location where multiple AIM leaders interrogated her, and subsequently murdered her at a remote location on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Multiple AIM “witnesses”, most with probable biases and/or culpability to conceal, make conflicting allegations so that it is unclear: which AIM leaders conducted the interrogation, who gave the order to execute her, and how deeply FBI provocateurs were involved. In any event this assassination: resulted in major recriminations within AIM, brought discredit upon its leaders, and finally contributed to the splitting and implosion of the organization.

5^th. Frame-up in Fargo. From the start of the conflict between Dick Wilson with his supporters and his opponents (including OSCRO and AIM), the federal agencies – BIA, FBI, USMS, and DoJ – naturally sided with the Wilson regime which leased tribal lands to nearby white ranchers and politically influential American capitalists under inequitable contracts deemed unfair to reservation residents ^[3]. The FBI provided Wilson’s GOONs with intelligence on AIM activists and other opponents of the Wilson regime and looked away while the GOONs assaulted, terrorized, and murdered Wilson’s critics. The FBI also perpetrated warrantless no-knock assaults on homes as it used the Pine Ridge Reservation to train its first militarized commando (i.e. SWAT) teams. Meanwhile, the FBI and DoJ targeted AIM members and supporters for prosecution on any and every possible charge. This hostile environment created the tension which evidently erupted into the shootout at the Jumping Bull Ranch. The DoJ ultimately managed to pin a bogus murder charge on Leonard Peltier. Details ^[5].

♦ Inceptive events. On 1975 June 26, two FBI agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, in unmarked cars were following a red pickup truck which they believed belonged to an Oglala alleged to have stolen a pair of cowboy boots. As they entered the Jumping Bull ranch (where several AIM members were camped) shots were fired, and a shootout then ensued between the feds and the AIM activists. There were more than 30 people at the ranch including women, children, and other non-belligerents. By the end of the confrontation the ranch was surrounded by some 150 armed agents (FBI, BIA, local police, and GOONs). Which side fired first is in dispute. Casualties: the two FBI men were wounded by fire from the AIM side and then killed execution-style by person unknown; AIM member, Joe Stuntz, was killed by a government sniper. FBI investigators and DoJ prosecutors, embarrassed by their failures to obtain convictions of AIM leaders involved in the Wounded Knee occupation, responded by pursuing only prominent AIM members – the objective being to convict some AIM leaders on charges of having murdered the two FBI men. For this purpose, they indicted three prominent AIM members who had participated in the shootout, namely: Leonard Peltier, Robert Robideau, and Darrelle Butler. In September Butler and Robideau were arrested. Peltier fled to Canada, where he was arrested and extradited to the US (1976 December). While Peltier was not yet in custody, Robideau and Butler were tried and acquitted (1976 July, with judge McManus presiding) when their jury concluded that, with the level of violence and government intimidation on the Reservation, they could plausibly claim to have acted in self-defense during the exchange of gunfire.

♦ Trial. Peltier was subjected to a rigged trial (in Fargo, ND in 1977) before an all-white jury which convicted him on two counts of first-degree murder. The judge then sentenced him to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment. The improprieties in the legal proceedings were as follows.

(1) The FBI coerced one, Myrtle Poor Bear, to allege in a signed affidavit that she had been Peltier’s girlfriend and had seen him kill the two FBI men. In fact, she had never met Peltier and was not present at the shootout. The FBI then used this false affidavit to obtain Peltier’s extradition from Canada.

(2) Ms Poor Bear recanted her allegations against Peltier, but the judge refused to permit the defense to present her as a witness (claiming: that she was too mentally unstable to provide competent testimony, and that exposure of the FBI’s extradition fraud would prejudice the jury against the prosecution). The judge also refused to allow the defense to present evidence of other cases where the FBI had been rebuked for tampering with evidence and witnesses.

(3) An FBI agent changed his story by testifying at trial that the vehicle, which the two agents had pursued and whose occupant had fired at them, was Peltier’s red and white van. In fact, the two FBI agents had identified the pursued vehicle as a red pickup truck, and it was red pickup trucks which the FBI first sought and searched after the shootout.

(4) The prosecution alleged at trial that the two FBI agents had been killed by Peltier’s AR-15 rifle. The prosecution also asserted that Peltier’s AR-15 was the only one present, but it was later compelled to admit to the appellate judge that several other AR-15 rifles were present in the area and possibly present at the shootout. An FBI ballistics expert testified that extractor marks on a shell casing found at the scene matched Peltier’s rifle; he also testified that a more accurate firing pin test had not been performed because of damage to Peltier’s gun. Some years after Peltier’s conviction, a FOIA request produced documentation of a pre-trial FBI ballistics test on the firing pin which proved that the shell casing had not been fired by Peltier’s AR-15. The DoJ had withheld this crucial exculpatory evidence from the defense during trial.

(5) No trial witness identified Peltier as the person who killed the FBI men. And during Peltier’s appeal (in 1986), the prosecution admitted that it had no real evidence to establish who fired the fatal shots. Nevertheless, the appellate court refused to overturn the conviction based on the prosecutor’s new assertion that the jury had found Peltier guilty of “aiding and abetting” the murders, notwithstanding that the prosecution had never actually pursued that issue at trial. Moreover, this allegation would have applied equally to Robideau and Butler, whose jury (having heard all of the defense case) had acquitted them.

(6) Other apparent violations of Peltier’s rights to a fair trial include: the arbitrary and never-explained replacement of the judge (McManus) originally assigned to preside by another judge (Benson) more disposed to exclude evidence favorable to the defendant, an undisclosed FBI pre-trial meeting with trial judge Benson, infiltration of FBI informants into the defense team, the presentation of coerced testimony by juvenile witnesses who had been intimidated by the FBI, and the DoJ use of tactics to frighten and bias the jury by always transporting them to and from court under escort by a SWAT team.

♦ Evaluation. Many organizations and individuals have examined the case and concluded: that the DoJ and federal courts violated Peltier’s right to a fair trial; that he was targeted and convicted for his political associations; that the government has no evidence that he committed the murders for which he was convicted, and that he should be immediately released from prison. These include: Amnesty International, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, National Lawyers Guild, Center for Constitutional Rights, European parliament, Belgian parliament, Italian parliament, several Nobel Prize winners, and many other well-known advocates for human rights.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: American Indian Movement (2016 May 19).

[2] FOIA Documents – U.S. v Leonard Peltier (CR NO. C77-3003): Post-Trial Actions – Criminal (ac 2016 Jun) @ https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/LEGAL/CRIMINAL.htm .

[3] Wikipedia: Wounded Knee Incident (2016 Jun 01); Wounded Knee Massacre (2016 Jun 12); Dick Wilson (2016 Apr 22).

Wagner & Lynch PLLC: Wounded Knee – the Massacre, the Incident, & the Radical Lawyer (2013) @ http://seoklaw.com/wounded-knee-the-massacre-the-incident-the-radical-lawyer/.

[4] Wikipedia: Anna Mae Aquash (2016 May 11); American Indian Movement (2016 May 19).

News From Indian Country [NFIC]: Annie Mae Timeline (2007 Jun) @ https://indiancountrynews.net/index.php/news/investigations/286-aquash-peltier-timeline-1975-2010/2101-annie-mae-timeline-i-wounded-knee (= part 1 which includes links to parts 2, 3, & 4).

Anonymous: A Biography of Anna Mae (2016 Jun 12) @ https://www.dickshovel.com/bio.html .

Donnelly⸰ Michael: Killing Anna Mae Aquash, Smearing John Trudell (2006 Jan 17) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2006/01/17/killing-anna-mae-aquash-smearing-john-trudell/ .

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ Part1 (2002 May 24) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=622 .

[5] International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee: Facts (ac 2016 Jun) @ https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/home/facts/ .

Free Leonard: Quick facts – Case of Leonard Peltier (ac 2016 Jun) @ https://freeleonard.org/case/ .

Amnesty International: Cases – Leonard Peltier (ac 2016 Jun) @ www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/cases/usa-leonard-peltier.

BlackElectorate.com (archives): Hip-Hop Fridays – COINTELPRO – The Untold American Story ~ part 2 (2002 May 31) @ https://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=626.

§ 8. SYMPATHY, COMPASSION, ASSOCIATIONS, SPEECH – “TERRORIST” ACTS?

1^st. Criminalizing sympathy for a persecuted people. Sami Al-Arian is a refugee Palestinian Arab. After growing up in Kuwait and Egypt, he came to the US for his university education. Upon earning his doctorate, Al-Arian obtained a position as professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida [USF] (in Tampa in 1986) where he soon obtained tenure and received many awards for his academic work. He also served as imam in a local mosque and became a prominent advocate for civil rights for Muslims and for the human rights of the Palestinian Arabs oppressed by the State of Israel. Moreover, he expressed sympathy for the Palestinian intifada [unarmed mass resistance to the Israeli occupation] (1987—93). For that, first American Zionists, then the US government targeted Al-Arian. Specifics ^[1].

♦ Persecution. Al-Arian contributed to the creation of World and Islamic Studies Enterprise [WISE] which facilitated educational projects including dialogue between American and Middle Eastern scholars. Zionist individuals and organizations defamed WISE and Al-Arian with accusations of fronting for terrorists, and they began a campaign for his destruction. This included: academic boycotts instigated by the (Zionist) Anti-Defamation League [ADL]; inducing government refusal to grant his 1994 application for US citizenship despite the fact that he met all of the requirements; a 3-year federal investigation (1995—98) which produced no charges; his repeated suspension and eventual firing by USF in defiance of mass protests by students and faculty and despite his never having committed any misconduct; and the deportation of his wife’s brother after three years in jail (1997—2000) on never-proven accusation of links to terrorism (based on “secret evidence”). In 2000 Al-Arian co-founded the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom [NCPPF] which sought to exclude the use of secret evidence in prosecutions.

♦ Post-9/11 targeting of Muslims.

(1) In 2001 October, the DoJ created a list of some 8,000 men (permanent residents, students, etc.) from Muslim countries to be interviewed by anti-terrorism task forces; none of those interviewed were found to have links to terrorism.

(2) In 2002 September DoJ created the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System [NSEERS] requiring some 140,000 male visa-holders from Muslim countries: to be photographed and finger-printed, to be interviewed and have their financial information copied, and to comply with repetitive and confusing registration requirements. Because of innocent mistakes, thousands were detained, or barred from re-entry, or placed in deportation proceedings. Members of Congress reported (in 2016) that “no known terrorism convictions resulted from the program”.

(3) Another “war on terror” project was Operation Green Quest which involved raids in scores of cities against Muslim homes, businesses, charities, and other entities flagged as having ties, however remote, to suspected Muslim “terrorists”. Records were seized and assets frozen while investigations continued in secrecy with victims deprived of redress. Here again, no significant contribution against actual terrorism.

♦ Arrest and trial. In 2003, after nine years of secret wire-taps of Al-Arian’s communications, the DoJ (using the 2001 Al Qaeda terror attacks as pretext for a greatly expanded persecution of Arab and Muslim dissidents) indicted him and three others on charges of racketeering for Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ] (which the State Department had designated as a terrorist organization in 1995). The prosecution case rested upon transcripts of secret wire-taps of Al-Arian’s communications from 1994 until his arrest in 2003. These included some phone conversations and faxes with leaders of PIJ made before such contacts became illegal in 1995. None of these communications reflected advanced knowledge of any attacks carried out by PIJ. Moreover, PIJ had never carried out any attacks outside of Palestine. At trial (in 2005) the jury: acquitted two co-defendants on all counts, acquitted another on some and deadlocked on other counts, and acquitted Al-Arian on 8 of 17 counts while deadlocking (10 to 2 favoring acquittal) on the remaining 9 counts. One of the two jurors who refused to acquit admitted that the prosecution had no real evidence but assumed guilt-by-association based on Al-Arian’s previous contacts with PIJ.

♦ DoJ perfidy . By 2006 Al-Arian had been: deprived of his career and livelihood, held in jail (mostly in solitary) for over three years, and was facing retrial by a DoJ determined to destroy him. In order to put an end to this suffering and reunite with his family, he agreed to a cynical plea offer by which he pled guilty to one count and agreed to be deported after completion of his sentence (which would be recommended to be at the lower end of the specified range and would thus end after another eight months). The judge, however, with disregard for Al-Arian’s actual history, denounced him as an unrepentant terrorist and imposed the maximum sentence thereby requiring him to remain in prison for another 19 months. The prosecutor had also given assurances that Al-Arian would not be subject to further charges and would not be required to assist the government in any manner. However, federal prosecutors in Virginia demanded his testimony in their witch-hunt prosecution of the International Institute of Islamic Thought [IIIT], which had provided some funding for Al-Arian’s political advocacy groups including WISE and NCPPF. FBI raids, pursuant to Operation Green Quest, in 2002 had targeted IIIT (which, in its mission statement, describes its purpose as to “promote moderation, inter-faith dialogue, and good citizenship”) and 19 other Muslim business and non-profit entities in Virginia; but ultimately no evidence of IIIT involvement with terrorism was found. Al-Arian (who at this point was officially an unwanted alien slotted for deportation): refused to testify based on the state’s previous promise, was held in contempt, and appealed. His appeal was rejected because the promises upon which he had relied were not included in writing in his plea agreement. Based on his sense of the shame which would come from acting in any way which could be construed as being an informant against persecuted fellow Muslims, he persisted in his refusal to cooperate, and another 13 months were added to his sentence. In 2014 federal prosecutors finally concluded that further prosecution of Al-Arian on contempt charges was pointless, and they began deportation proceedings. The US deported him to Turkey in 2015 February.

2^nd. Criminalizing compassion. After the Kuwait War (1990) the US and British governments (under President Clinton and Prime Ministers Major and Blair) had insisted upon continuing a UN-mandated sanctions regime (ultimately lasting 1990—2003) purportedly to punish Iraq for other alleged offenses but actually to punish its people for continuing to accept Saddam Hussein as their President (notwithstanding that they had little choice in that matter). These sanctions were so restrictive that they caused an estimated half-million deaths of mostly children (for example by denying access to the means to operate systems for providing safe drinking water); and that provoked two successive UN assistant Secretaries-General (who were assigned to administer the sanctions) to resign in protest. Various groups defied or evaded the sanctions regime, and these included some humanitarian groups in the US. One such was Voices in the Wilderness [VIW] (now known as Voices for Creative Nonviolence), which (between 1996 and 2003) deliberately and blatantly challenged the sanctions regime by sending more than 70 delegations to Iraq to deliver food and medicine to needy Iraqis. Another organization providing relief to poor and sick Iraqis was Help the Needy [HTN], a Muslim charity which had been founded by Doctor Rafil Dhafir in Syracuse, New York. DoJ prosecuted both VIW and HTN, but with extremely different treatments ^[2].

♦ Muslim charity specifically targeted. The FBI arrested and the DoJ indicted Doctor Dhafir and four associates (in 2003) for alleged violations of the sanctions regime. Dhafir, who was charged with 14 counts, did not accept the DoJ contention that his actions were criminal; and he refused to accept a plea offer. The DoJ then added another 46 counts to his indictment and began a media campaign to brand him and his associates as “terrorists”. His fellow defendants were coerced into accepting extorted plea deals. Dhafir was tried and convicted on all of 59 counts – sanctions violations (with related counts of money laundering, tax evasion, wire and mail fraud, and visa fraud) plus 25 counts of Medicare fraud.

♦ Trial. This trial was rigged to produce conviction regardless of the lack of actual evidence. Specifics follow.

(1) HTN sent nothing to Iraq except food, clothing, medicine, and money to be spent for the benefit of poor Iraqis. None of this went to or thru the Iraqi government.

(2) The wire and mail fraud and the visa fraud allegations rested upon the presumption that the provision of food, medicine, and so forth constituted actual criminal acts.

(3) The money laundering charges rested upon prosecution claims that HTN money, which had been transferred to Jordan to facilitate purchase of aid for the Iraqi people, mostly provided financial benefit to Dhafir with little aid going to Iraqis. Dhafir can be faulted for doing most of the HTN accounting personally (in order to minimize administrative expenses and use more of the money for the relief of needy Iraqis), and the prosecution exploited this error. Nevertheless, the government had not investigated in Jordan or Iraq and had no actual evidence for this accusation. Moreover, Dhafir, having no children of his own for which to provide, had actually contributed $1,400,000 of his own money to the charity, far more than he took out to cover his expenses.

(4) The tax evasion charge was based upon HTN having worked thru another non-profit organization (a common practice) rather than having its own separate tax exemption. In fact, HTN had actually requested its own tax-exempt status, but its application had been put on hold at the instigation of the FBI. Even if HTN’s practice were a violation, the IRS normally settles such issues with no more than a fine.

(5) Medicare fraud involves reimbursements for fictitious services to non-existent patients or for fictitious illnesses. The prosecution did not dispute that Dhafir’s patients had received the reimbursed care; its case rested solely upon its assertion that he was not entitled to Medicare reimbursement because his claims forms for chemotherapy had been filled out incorrectly. Moreover, Doctor Dhafir: maintained his oncology practice in underserved Rome which required an 80-mile round-trip commute, treated many cancer patients despite their lack of the means to pay, and earned much less than if he had practiced in nearby Syracuse.

(6) Dhafir was not charged with any act of terrorism, but state agents conducted a media campaign alleging that HTN and its participants were “terrorists”, and this was in a time when the 2001 Al-Qaeda attacks had provoked widespread public fear. Moreover, the prosecution repeatedly insinuated at trial that Dhafir and HTN were connected to anti-American terrorists, and the judge barred the defense from rebutting this innuendo. Thus, the trial was conducted in atmospherics such that Dhafir would be convicted, not based on any acts with criminal intent, but based on prejudicial emotion and guilt-by-insinuation. The Executive Director of the ACLU of Central New York issued a statement faulting the trial for its gross lack of fairness.

(7) No action whatever was ever taken against US-based oil companies – Bay Oil and Odin Oil – for their willful profiteering violations of the sanctions. VIW, which had given advance notice to the government of its intent to defy the sanctions law, was fined $20,000 which it refused to pay. None of its participants (who are white American Christian peace activists) was jailed for their repeated violations of the sanctions law; and the fine was never collected. Meanwhile, state agents intent upon bolstering their careers thru easy convictions in the “war on terror”, subjected HTN and other Muslim charities to drastically different treatment. They were shut down; their assets were seized; their principals were accused of terrorism, imprisoned, and then coerced to make false confessions in plea deals or take their chances in rigged trials where they would face decades in prison. Dhafir (who had been a US citizen for over 25 years) and his associates in HTN were Arab-American Muslims. They were subjected to massive government surveillance, harassment, defamation, arrest, and prosecution for acts of charitable compassion. 150 local Muslim families were interrogated by Immigration agents and FBI agents. Doctor Dhafir received a sentence of 22 years in prison where he remains (scheduled for release in 2022).

3^rd. More criminalizing of Muslim charities. The Holy Land Foundation [HLF] was the largest Islamic charity in the US. It distributed charity – food, clothing, healthcare services, et cetera – thru established local zakat [charity] committees in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine. Because it provided charitable relief to victims of Israeli persecution, HLF was targeted first by Zionists and then, at their behest, by the US government ^[3].

♦ Islam in Palestine. 90% of Palestinian Arabs are Muslim. Naturally, they vary widely in their devotion to religious prescriptions. Hamas, which is a political and social force within Palestinian Muslim communities, was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the (Islamist) Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood [MB]. It has never had the allegiance of more than a fraction of Palestinian Muslims. Until 1989 MB (and Hamas) maintained peaceful relations with the Zionist state, and its leaders had met regularly with Israeli leaders. Because MB was hostile to the secular and leftist Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO], the Israeli state: had happily encouraged the former as a potential alternative Palestinian leadership to that of the PLO, and had refrained from interfering when MB Islamists perpetrated violent attacks against secular groups aligned with the PLO. However, violent Israeli repression impacted all Palestinians (including Hamas adherents) in the occupied territories, and overwhelming Palestinian support for the First Intifada (1987—93) finally induced Hamas to embrace the resistance to Israeli occupation. When Hamas responded to Israeli violence by forming a military arm to retaliate with its own violent attacks on Israelis, the Zionist state branded Hamas as a “terrorist” organization. In 1995 the US accommodated its Israeli ally by also branding Hamas as a “terrorist” organization.

♦ Target. Although a Hamas fundraiser (Musa Abu-Marzuk) had provided financial support at its founding (in 1989), HLF was not an affiliate of Hamas, and its activities had nothing to do with violent resistance to Zionist oppressions. Nevertheless, Zionist groups targeted HLF with smears and demands for revocation of its tax-exemption. HLF continued its charitable work until 2001, when the US government used the Al-Qaeda attacks as pretext for a so-called “war on terror” which became largely an attack on civil liberties with widespread targeting of (mostly innocent) Arab-American activists and US-based Islamic institutions. One such target was HLF. The federal government (in 2001 December): seized its assets, shut down its operations, and branded it as a “terrorist” organization.

♦ Trials. In 2007 the DoJ brought the HLF and five of its principal officers (now known as the Holy Land Five) to trial on allegations of providing material support to a designated terrorist organization (meaning Hamas). The jury in this trial (which included violations of the defendants’ due process rights) acquitted on some counts and deadlocked on the others. A more egregiously rigged retrial in 2008 resulted in convictions on all remaining counts. Specific violations of due process follow.

(1) The prosecution contended that, by providing charity to needy Palestinians thru the local charity committees which the prosecution alleged were controlled by Hamas, HLF was bolstering Hamas’ popularity and thereby providing material support for “terrorism”. Thus, the prosecution sought conviction of the accused based upon guilt-by-association.

(2) The prosecution’s classification of the local charities as agents of “terrorism” was baseless. The relevant facts: (1^st) the local committees were independent entities devoted to charitable purposes, and their leaders included individuals with no ties to Hamas as well as those who were members or sympathizers with Hamas; (2^nd) immediately after the US had listed Hamas as “terrorist”, HLF had sought advice from the federal government as to which, if any, of the charities were deemed unacceptable; (3^rd) none of the charity committees was listed by the US as a terrorist organization; (4^th) the US (thru its USAID program) had provided funding for many of the same local charity committees until 2006 – for five years after the HLF had been shut down; and (5^th) the prosecution acknowledged that none of the funding of the charities was used for acts which the US deemed to be “terrorist”.

(3) The prosecution was permitted, over defense objections, to present two unidentified Israeli state security agents as “expert” witnesses for the purpose of tying the charity committees to Hamas. The anonymity of these “experts” prevented effective defense cross-examination to challenge their credentials and the validity of their assertions thereby violating the defendants’ 6^th Amendment rights to confront and rebut their accusers.

(4) In the retrial the only significant change in the prosecution’s presentation was its move to bolster its case by introducing additional “evidence” which consisted of untestable assertions, hearsay, and irrelevant material, all of which served only to prejudice the jury against the defendants. The appeals court (in 2011): ruled this additional “evidence” inadmissible, then astonishingly asserted that its use did not affect the outcome, and finally refused to overturn the convictions.

(Ω) The Holy Land Five are: Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu-Baker, Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad El-Mezain. Their prison sentences were: 65 years for each of the first two, and 15 to 20 years for the other three.

4^th. Criminalizing the dissemination of a forbidden viewpoint. Al-Manar is a satellite television station licensed by the government of Lebanon. It broadcasts to an audience of 10 to 15 million viewers worldwide. It is aligned with the (popular Shia-rooted) Hezbollah political party which, like some other parties in Lebanon, has a militia aligned with it. The Hezbollah militia (since 1982) has led the resistance to Israeli invasions and occupations of Lebanese territory and thereby incurred the enmity of the US (which is Israel’s patron and ally). Al-Manar’s broadcast content includes: dramas, soap operas, sports, and other family entertainment, plus talk shows many of which focus on politics or religion. Its political viewpoint is clearly anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist. Israeli forces (in 2006) repeatedly bombed Al-Manar facilities in Beirut – acts which were in direct violation of international law. These attacks were condemned by the International Federation of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists. The US government has classified both Hezbollah (since 1997) and Al-Manar (since 2004) as “terrorist” organizations. The US and a few of its allies have acted (thru bans and other obstructions) to block viewer access to Al-Manar broadcasts. Case in point follows ^[4].

♦ Prosecution. In 2006 DoJ indicted Javed Iqbal and Saleh Elahwal, who were the proprietors of a business (HDTV Corp.) which provided its viewers with satellite television transmissions from a number of Arabic-language broadcasters including Al-Manar (2005—06). DoJ based this prosecution on its contention that, by providing the Al-Manar broadcast to interested viewers in the US, the accused were “providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization”. Facing the very real threat (in the then-current post-9-11 political environment) that a trial would end with conviction and very long prison sentences, both Iqbal and Elahwal accepted deals by which they were each required to plead guilty to a single count in exchange for more lenient prison sentences. Iqbal and Elahwal got 69 and 17 months respectively for exercising their free speech rights by doing business with a speaker of which the Israeli and US governments disapproved.

♦ Speech recast as crime. Their conviction was condemned as a violation of their civil rights by representatives of the New York affiliate of the ACLU, and of Reporters Without Borders. It required an evasion and distortion of the substance of the free speech guarantee in the US Constitution. Specifics.

(1) Regarding Hezbollah. It is a recognized political party in Lebanon with a broad base of popular support. After other militias agreed to demobilize (in 1991), Hezbollah’s militia was authorized by the Lebanese government to continue as a “resistance force”. Notwithstanding vilifying allegations by the US and some of its allies, Hezbollah was not engaged in hostile military action against the US nor seeking an opportunity to do so. It condemns all terrorist attacks on innocent civilians such as those perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and other extreme Islamist groups.

(2) Regarding allegations of “terrorism”. Even if there were any validity to the classification of Hezbollah’s military operations as “terrorist” acts, there is no valid basis for extending that designation to Al-Manar, since it has never been used to assist Hezbollah’s military operations.

(3) Regarding the accused doing business with Al-Manar. HDTV Corp. accepted payment from Al-Manar for providing its broadcast to interested viewers in the US. The accused therefore contended: that they had simply provided a medium for the dissemination of Al-Manar’s speech, and that this service was a lawful exercise of free expression. The DoJ contended that: it was not prosecuting for the dissemination of the viewpoint and content of the broadcast, but for the provision of the rebroadcast service (which it asserted was “material support”). In effect the DoJ: made the ludicrous argument and pretense that broadcasting of content was somehow different from dissemination of said content, and further argued that the government could outlaw serving as a broadcast medium for certain speakers without infringing the free speech rights of said broadcaster. Both the trial and appellate courts have evaded the clear intent of Constitution’s “free speech” clause and accepted those DoJ arguments; and, on that basis, the courts “validated” the convictions. Evidently, many judges in US courts were (and are) willfully blind to the facts: that censorship was the actual objective of the government; and that convictions in such “war-on-terror” trials, however contrived, were intended to advance the careers of DoJ prosecutors and the political fortunes of demagoguing politicians.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Sami Al-Arian (2016 Jun 13); Sami Al-Arian indictments and trial (2016 May 28); National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (2018 Dec18).

[2] Bayoumi⸰ Magda: About Dr.Dhafir (2005 Sep) @ http://www.dhafirtrial.net/about-this-site/about-dr-dhafir/ .

Hughes⸰ Katherine: Anatomy of a “Terrorism” Prosecution: Dr. Rafil Dhafir and the Help the Needy Muslim Charity Case (2012 Jan 31) @ https://truthout.org/articles/anatomy-of-a-terrorism-prosecution-dr-rafil-dhafir-and-the-help-the-needy-muslim-charity-case/; and related links.

Hughes⸰ Katherine: Denial of Due Process to Muslims Disgraces Us All (2007 Nov 18) @ https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=opedne_katherin_071118_denial_of_due_proces.htm .

Wikipedia: Sanctions against Iraq (2016 May 06); Kathy Kelly (2016 Apr 12).

Democracy Now (daily shows): Voices in the Wilderness Ordered to Pay $20K for Bringing Aid to Iraq (2005 Aug 16) @ https://www.democracynow.org/2005/8/16/voices_in_the_wilderness_ordered_to .

[3] Wikipedia: Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (2016 Jun 10); Hamas (2019 Apr 03) ~ § 5.1 Gaza Islamic roots and establishment of Hamas.

Murphy⸰ Maureen Clare: New evidence hoped to free Holy Land Five (2013 Nov 01) @ https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/new-evidence-hoped-free-holy-land-five.

Free the Holy Land Five: The Case (ac 2016 Jun 14) @ freedomtogive.com/holy-land-five-case/.

[4] Wikipedia: Al-Manar (2016 Mar 23); Hezbollah (2016 Jun 12) ~ § 1 History, § 5 Political activities, § 10 Targeting policy.

Rashbaum⸰ William K: Law Put to Unusual Use in Hezbollah TV Case, Some Legal Experts Say (2006 Aug 26) @ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/26/nyregion/26hezbollah.html?_r=0.

Chayes⸰ Matthew: New Charges Possible in Hezbollah TV Case (2007 Jan 23) @ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/new-charges-possible-in-hezbollah-tv-case/47160/.

Goldstein⸰ Joseph: First Amendment Defense Is Pursued in Hezbollah TV Case (2007 Apr 09) @ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/first-amendment-defense-is-pursued-in-hezbollah/52057/.

Weiser⸰ Benjamin: A Guilty Plea in Providing Satellite TV for Hezbollah (2008 Dec 23) @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/nyregion/24plea.html.

§ 9. HOW OTHER LIBERAL “DEMOCRACIES” DEAL WITH UNWANTED DISSIDENTS.

1^st. Germany. In the last free election before the 1933 Nazi takeover of the German state, the Communist Party [KPD] had obtained 16.9% of the popular vote. Hitler’s first act of political repression was to outlaw the KPD, which had become and then remained the most active and steadfast domestic party in the resistance against the Nazi regime. Since 1956 the Federal Republic of Germany, with the approval of its Cold War allies, has outlawed the KPD (because of its sympathy with the German Democratic Republic [East Germany] and the USSR.) ^[1]

2^nd. France. While the French government and the Algerian National Liberation Front [FLN] were still at war but engaged in negotiations over terms for Algerian independence, French police perpetrated two massacres of peaceful protestors ^[2].

♦ The Paris Massacre of 1961. That October 17 some 30,000 French citizens of Algerian ethnicity rallied peacefully in Paris in support of FLN demands for an end to French colonial rule of Algeria. Under orders from Paris police chief, Maurice Papon: police obstructed the rally, shot into the crowd of peaceful protestors, detained 11,000 without charge, subjected captives to brutal beatings and other forms of torture, and murdered an estimated 200. Another 125 were murdered by rightwing police in the weeks preceding and following the week of October 17. Many of these murder victims were drowned, by either having been beaten unconscious or having been bound before being thrown into the Seine River. Others were beaten to death at police headquarters and other places of detention while senior officers ignored protests by rank-and-file police who objected to the brutality. The perpetrators enforced silence thru threats of reprisal against witnesses.

♦ The Charonne Metro Station Massacre (1962 February 02). Under orders from Papon, rightwing police violently attacked members of the leftist General Confederation of Labor who were peacefully protesting against the Algerian War and the Secret Army Organization [OAS] which was then conducting a campaign of terrorist violence to prevent the creation of an independent Algeria. When protestors sought refuge in the stairwell entrance to the Metro Station, some of the police hurled iron grates down upon them killing nine and injuring many others.

♦ Impunity. President Charles de Gaulle, along with his prime minister and the interior minister, actively protected the perpetrators of both massacres from being exposed or brought to justice.

3^rd. Britain. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1966—98), which began with Unionist paramilitary violence against peaceful protests over rampant civil discrimination against the Catholic and largely republican minority, British state agents perpetrated egregious violations of human rights ^[3].

♦ Violations. Local police and British military forces:

used internment [indefinite detention without charge] of hundreds of individuals on mere suspicion of possible sympathy with republican paramilitaries;
routinely tortured such detainees;
targeted (initially only, and thereafter mostly) republicans despite much of the violence being perpetrated by the Unionist paramilitaries who had initiated it; and
used a shoot-to-kill policy in arrests of (often unarmed) republican suspects.

♦ Collusion. Local police and British state forces also provided most of the intelligence used by Unionist paramilitaries to find and murder dozens of mostly civilian leaders of republican sympathies. These included lawyers who represented republican victims and defendants. Notable examples. Patrick Finucane, human rights lawyer for republican political prisoners, was assassinated (1989) by unionist paramilitaries acting in collusion with MI5. Rosemary Nelson was another lawyer who had represented republicans in high-profile cases. Members of the British state security forces: physically assaulted her (1997), subjected her to death threats, publicly designated her as a target, and provided intelligence on her to a loyalist paramilitary which then assassinated her by car-bomb (1999). MI5 participated in the official inquiry into her assassination despite the objections of her family who feared that MI5 would suppress evidence of official culpability. The inquiry confirmed the threats by local state agents, but no action was taken against them.

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Communist Party of Germany (2016 Jun 07).

[2] Wikipedia: Paris Massacre of 1961 (2016 Mar 13).

[3] Wikipedia: The Troubles (2016 Jun 15); Pat Finucane (2016 Jun 07); Rosemary Nelson (2019 Mar 20).

§ 10. CIVIL LIBERTIES IN THE “FREE WORLD”!

1^st. Unwarranted surveillance. Covert spying on dissident citizens is another common practice.

♦ Files on individuals. The US and its major allies engage (no differently than states which they have often condemned for such behavior) in covert spying on their own citizens. Examples ^[1].

(1) The NSA monitored nearly every overseas cable sent or received by Americans from 1947 until 1975 and shared the info with other interested agencies.

(2) From 1959 the CIA began illegal domestic spying operations which eventually created files on over 7,000 Americans and 1,000 domestic groups, while providing information on another 300,000 persons to other state agencies.

(3) Between 1960 and 1974 the FBI created files on over 500,000 Americans.

(4) The US Army indexed 100,000 Americans on account of their opposition to the Vietnam War.

(5) At one point during the old War more than 26,000 Americans were listed to be interned in case of “national security emergency”.

♦ Five eyes. The US, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have (since the 1950s) operated an espionage alliance called variously “Five Eyes” and UKUSA. Five Eyes operates a global surveillance network (called ECHELON) which secretly intercepts massive quantities of military, diplomatic, commercial, and personal electronic communications data. Monitored communications include those of: telecom operators (AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, et al); search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, et al); financial institutions (Mastercard, VISA, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication); and other service providers. The Five Eyes states circumvent legal prohibitions against warrantless spying on their own citizens by outsourcing the interception of the communications of their own citizens to a Five Eyes partner which then secretly shares wanted intelligence with the targeted citizens’ own government. The existence of many participating spy agencies was kept secret from their own countries’ citizens for more than 2 decades until exposed by investigative journalists or parliamentary committees. These eventual exposures include: CSEC (Canada 1974), NSA (US 1975), GCHQ (Britain 1976), ASIS and DSD (Australia 1977), and GCSB (New Zealand 1980). Moreover, the existence of the Five Eyes alliance was not publicly revealed until 2005. The Five Eyes countries also share human and other non-electronic surveillance information on one another’s citizens. Several allied states in Europe and Asia (Norway, Denmark, France, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea), as well as Israel, collaborate in this intelligence sharing. ^[2]

♦ Programs. The US government operates dozens of programs thru which it conducts mass surveillance; and its foreign allies operate similar programs. US examples ^[3].

(1) Main Core, originally created in 1982, is a federal government database which (without court approved search warrant) collects and stores personal and financial data (as of 2008) on some 8 million Americans whom the intelligence agencies (FBI, NSA, CIA, and others) deem (often for trivial reasons) to be “threats to national security”. These individuals may be tracked, questioned, and/or detained in time of crisis. Main Core remained secret until exposed in 2008.

(2) PRISM is an NSA data collection program which covertly (with the cooperation of the applicable companies) intercepts internet communications (email, VoiP, photos, videos, file transfers, etc.) throughout the US and much of the rest of the world. Cooperators include: internet service providers, search engines, browser providers, SKYPE, social media, and so forth. PRISM was created in 2007 as a continuation of previous covert electronic spying programs. Although its intercepts are supposed to be limited to specific approved targets, actual operations are replete with: open access by operational personnel, little oversight, fake justifications, self-granted exceptions, etc. Consequently, there is no effective enforcement of the nominal restriction. The project’s existence remained secret until exposed in 2013 by NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

(3) MAINWAY is a program thru which NSA has secretly collected and stored telephone metadata (phone numbers of caller and recipient plus time, locations, and durations of calls) on the landline and cell calls routed thru the systems of the four largest telephone companies in the US. MARINA performs the equivalent function on internet communications. The telecom companies and internet service providers evidently also provide access to their lines so that, with secret Presidential approval, NSA can eavesdrop on calls without a judicial warrant and has used the results to order investigations of tens of thousands of Americans.

(4) The Mail IsolationControl and Tracking program [MICT] photographs the outside of every piece of mail processed in the US and provides the information to state agents upon request without a warrant. MICT was created in 2001, but not publicly revealed until 2013.

(5) Wikipedia lists more than 20 other programs thru which the US government conducts secret surveillance, most of which can and often do target Americans.

(Ω) Since 2001 the US and allied states have used terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda as pretext for an intensification of such massive surveillance of their citizens.

2^nd. “global war on terrorism”. The US and its Western allies also used the Al Qaeda attacks of 2001 September as a pretext for an expansion of repressive policies masquerading as a so-called “global war on terrorism” [GWoT]. Components of this GWoT have included violations of international human rights law and other abuses ^[4].

♦ Preemptive war. The US and British governments asserted, totally in violation of international law, a bogus “right” to wage preemptive wars (as in the Iraq War commenced in 2003).

♦ Militarism. The US also uses the GWoT as “justification”: for expansive military spending, and for expansion of its imperial military presence (bases, alliances, training missions, etc.) in more and more foreign countries.

♦ Extraordinary rendition. There was also the practice of “extraordinary rendition” by which the US CIA in collaboration with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service [SIS aka MI6]: covertly abducted individuals in foreign countries, secretly transported them to “black sites” hosted by third countries, and then tortured the victims to elicit information and confessions. The nightmarish cruelty which was inflicted upon the victims included: sedate the victim, blindfold him and cut off his clothes, administer a forced enema or insert a suppository in his anus, outfit him in a diaper and jump suit, transport to unknown location (black site), hold for years in often horrific conditions, deprive of sleep, inflict repeatedly torture, force to sign a confession, deprive of all contact with loved ones, allow no access to lawyer or court of law, allow no hope for an end to the ordeal. The purpose of such renditions which actually began in the 1990s under US President Clinton, was to evade US and British laws mandating due process and prohibiting torture. It was then much expanded under US President George W Bush, with 54 countries (including most European Union [EU] member states) known to have been complicit in these operations. From 2001 until 2009 there were at least several hundreds of victims (some of whom were ultimately proven to be entirely innocent of any involvement with terrorist acts or the perpetrators thereof). The abductees included some 100 kidnapped from EU member countries, often with the complicity of the country’s own government. In 2009, the 2^nd US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that US law does not allow victims of extraordinary rendition to sue the US or its personnel for torture inflicted overseas.

♦ Torture of POWs. US forces also tortured prisoners of war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at the US base in (US-occupied) Guantanamo, Cuba.

♦ Evisceration of civil liberties. The GWoT was also the pretext for US, Britain, and many of their allies to enact laws and policies infringing the civil liberties and due process rights of their own citizens. Examples. The USA Patriot Act (2001) authorizes: indefinite detentions of immigrants; secret searches of homes and businesses; National Security Letters which permit the FBI to search telephone, email, financial records, and library records without a court order; and FBI gag orders prohibiting the recipient of a National Security Letter from telling anyone else (including his/her own lawyer). The British government eviscerated important civil liberties by authorizing and using: detention without trial, laws restricting dissident speech, and reductions in checks on police powers.

3^rd. Imperial interventions in the peripheral countries. The liberal “democratic” regimes which govern in the US and its Western allies posture as champions: of a so-called “free world” of pluralist democracies, and of respect for human rights and civil liberties. However, they and their client regimes have actually perpetrated and/or abetted a long litany of terrorist wars and brutal repressions which have subjected millions of people to harassment, detention, torture, and murder for no cause other than: their (actual or suspected) leftist associations or sympathies, or for simply being in the way of the bullets and bombs or other instruments of imperial aggression. A few of the more notable examples. ^[5]

♦ The routine practice of instigating, orchestrating, and/or abetting coups d’etat against popular governments (mostly democratically elected) which refused: to comply with imperial dictates (such as to outlaw law-abiding Communist Parties), or to give free reign for the exploitative abuses of transnational capital. There have been dozens of instances beginning with Syria (1949). Such coups were invariably followed by brutal repression (often including mass murder) of dissidents by the ensuing coup regime.

♦ Instigating and funding of rightwing insurgencies against leftist governments. Afghanistan (1978—92) – 1 million dead, 3 million disabled, and 5 million displaced. Nicaragua (1981—89) – the populace terrorized by “contras” with much torture, rape, and gruesome murders, and a death toll of 80,000.

♦ Harsh (sometimes murderous) economic sieges [sanctions] imposed to destabilize governments which refused to comply with imperial dictates, the effect being to punish their populations. Against Cuba (1960—) – much economic hardship endured by the population. Against Iraq (1991—2003) by severely restricting imports of food, medicines, and the means to purify contaminated drinking water – half a million needless deaths (mostly children).

♦ Military invasions to remove governments noncompliant with imperial dictates. Egypt (1956) – thousands (including civilians) killed and wounded. Cuba at Bay of Pigs (1961) – 176 defenders and some civilians killed, and others wounded. Gabon (1964) – dozens killed and dissidents subsequently repressed with detention, torture, and murder. Grenada (1983) – more than 400 civilians killed. Panamá (1989) – thousands (mostly civilians) killed, thousands more wounded, 20,000 made homeless. Iraq (1991) – at least 100,000 civilians killed. Iraq (2003—11) – an estimated 700,000 civilians killed.

♦ Military and diplomatic support for client regimes which used brutal repression including death squads to murder tens of thousands of suspected regime opponents – at least 140,000 in Guatemala (1954—96); 20,000 disappeared and murdered in Argentina (1974—83); 4,000 murdered in Haiti (2003—06).

♦ The CIA providing lists to coup regimes as they hunted, tortured, and murdered every suspected Communist whom they could find. Iraq (1963) – 5,000 detained, tortured, and murdered. Indonesia (1965) – at least 500,000 murdered. Chile (1973—76) – 3,000 disappeared or otherwise murdered.

♦ Military interventions to support client regimes against popular revolutionary insurgencies with torture and murder of suspected supporters of the resistance. Algeria (1954—62) routine use of torture and murder by French forces. Vietnam (1965—73) 40,000 to 80,000 mostly noncombatants tortured and murdered by US and client regime operatives (in Operation Phoenix).

Noted sources.

[1] Wikipedia: Mass surveillance in the United States (2016 Jun 03); List of government mass surveillance projects (2016 Jun 12); Project SHAMROCK (2019 Apr 02); FBI index (2018 Nov 13).

Lyon⸰ Verne: Domestic Surveillance – The History of Operation CHAOS (1990) @ https://www.serendipity.li/cia/lyon.html .

[2] Wikipedia: Five eyes (2016 Jun 12); UKUSA Agreement (2016 Jun 15).

[3] Wikipedia: Main Core (2018 Mar 26); PRISM (surveillance program) (2019 Apr 23) ~ § 1 Media disclosure of PRISM, § 2 The program; MAINWAY (2019 Apr 25); MARINA (2019 Feb 08); Mail Isolation Control and Tracking (2018 Jul 12); List of government mass surveillance projects (2016 Jun 12).

[4] Wikipedia: Criticism of the War on Terror (2016 Mar 22); Extraordinary Rendition (2016 Jun 11); & related articles.

ACLU: Surveillance under the USA/Patriot Act (ac 2019 Apr) @ https://www.aclu.org/other/surveillance-under-usapatriot-act.

§ 11. FINDINGS.

1^st. The state. In class-divided social orders, government takes form as the state, to which a public service apparatus may be attached.

♦ Usage. The state, in its naked essentials, is the organized institutional coercive apparatus which the ruling class uses as it deems necessary:

to enforce its laws,
to defend and/or expand its previous conquests,
to uphold the established “rights” and privileges of the dominant and favored interest groups, and above all
to defend and preserve the existing social order.

♦ Component agencies. The coercive state apparatus consists of a number of agencies.

(1) Legislative bodies: make laws for the defense of the existing capitalist social order, impose taxes, and allocate public resources for all governmental operations including each of the enforcement agencies of the state.

(2) Regulatory agencies make and enforce rules governing commercial activities.

(3) Revenue agencies collect the taxes and other fees which the state imposes.

(4) Law enforcement agencies include: police, prosecutors, judiciary, jails and prisons, parole managers, etc.

(5) Agencies for preserving internal order include: militias, gendarmes, constabularies, and domestic surveillance agencies.

(6) Agencies for conducting and/or regulating foreign relations include: regular armed forces, foreign intelligence agencies, the diplomatic corps, immigration and border control agencies, et cetera.

♦ Repressive function. A repressive internal security operation is a normal function of the state in capitalist countries. It is used to harass, disrupt, and suppress organized political activity, including peaceful advocacy and protest: (1) by opponents of the existing social order, and/or (2) by other troublesome dissidents. This is so, to whatever degree the dissidents are deemed to be a threat to the social order or to the ruling powers. Under authoritarian regimes there are few constraints upon the use of such repression against unwelcome dissidents; and victims commonly number in the tens and hundreds of thousands imprisoned, tortured, and/or murdered. Liberal “democracies” differ in that they pretend to be tolerant of peaceful dissent and to respect civil liberties and the rule of law. However, such tolerance is typically limited to those dissidents whose activities can be easily ignored as posing no real threat: to the social order, or to any powerful interest group. While the US and other Western states hypocritically condemn adversary countries for alleged persecutions of their “democratic” oppositions, these Western “democracies” perpetrate their own persecutions of dissidents who engage in universally legitimated but unwelcome dissent [legitimated by the United Nations under its 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]. In actual fact, these “democracies” concoct “national security” pretexts to “justify” all manner of civil rights violations, both overt and covert, against targeted dissidents. These violations (perpetrated by the state) include:

legislation criminalizing specified contents in dissent and/or branding particular dissident groups as criminal;
unwarranted surveillance;
interference with landlords, employers, service providers, and so forth in order to sabotage the ability of the targeted individual or group to conduct lawful business;
surreptitious theft and/or destruction of property and records;
dissemination of false accusations, bogus rumors, forged correspondence, false-flag flyers, and/or other such in order to defame and discredit;
infiltration of provocateurs who act – to disrupt, to incite naïve members and followers to commit acts of discrediting violence, and to sow dissention within and conflict between targeted groups;
searches and seizures without probable cause to suspect any criminal act;
detention without charge or on bogus pretext;
torture of detainees;
violent acts (including murder and assassination) against a targeted person or group either directly by state agents or indirectly thru use of a violent rightwing gang or a hostile rival group; and
prosecution in rigged trials – using: coerced confessions, false/bribed/coerced testimony, withholding of exculpatory evidence, juries predisposed to convict, and/or improper judicial rulings which prejudice the proceedings against the accused – where convictions and long-term imprisonments on trumped up allegations are actually to punish dissident opinions and/or associations despite absence of genuine proof of any actual significant criminal act.

Thus, as Friedrich Engels observed [in Introduction to ‘The Civil War in France’ (1891)] “the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression on one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy” ^[1].

2^nd. Active measures. The capitalists, their politicians, the educators and mainstream media, and other influential establishment institutions maintain a pervasive ongoing propaganda to whitewash capitalism, discredit socialism, and vilify any organization which threatens the power and privileges of capital (especially when said organization is a proponent of social revolution). This propaganda is often largely effective. However, sometimes crises or other conditions arise where much of the populace no longer readily accepts that propaganda message. When anti-capitalist critiques or socialist ideas or proponents of social revolution gain substantial popular sympathy, capitalists and their agents naturally become alarmed and turn to the state for action to remove this threat to their cherished social order.

♦ How the ruling class acts to save capitalism. Within the confines of liberal “democracy”, the state has three options which it can use for this purpose.

(1) Selective repression. US examples: the Palmer Raids and the criminalization of anti-capitalist social-revolutionary organizations following the Great War; and the anti-Communist witch-hunts and re-criminalization of the Communist Party from the late 1940s to late 1950s.

(2) Ameliorative reforms (not to replace capitalism, but to save it). US example: New Deal labor rights legislation and welfare programs during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

(3) Combination of ameliorative reform and selective repression. US example: mass surveillance plus COINTELPRO and other mostly covert repressions along with Great Society welfare programs and human rights legislation (1960s and 1970s).

♦ Defense of civil liberties. Whenever the ruling capitalist class in a liberal “democracy” has perceived a revolutionary social justice organization as a serious threat to the social order, it looks for a national security pretext to justify repressive measures to destroy said organization. In the US, for example, state forces (DoJ, FBI, police, etc.) found the requisite pretexts and used massive repression to destroy the Communist Party [CP], the Black Panther Party [BPP], and the American Indian Movement [AIM]. Although there may be times when it is not possible to effectively defend against such state repression, there are policies which organizations can utilize in order to avoid making themselves unnecessarily vulnerable to it. Accordingly, revolutionary social justice organizations must: learn the lessons from the errors of past victims, and take some essential precautions. Some such precautions (not an exhaustive list).

(1) Vetting. The organization must carefully vet new recruits; and (insofar as possible) it must avoid being identified with provocative rhetoric, personal corruption, criminal activity, and other discrediting behaviors.

(2) Containing infiltrators, provocateurs, and other disruptors. The organization must not permit: the snitch-jacketing and/or expulsion of a member based on unsupported assertions and/or fabricated or misconstrued “evidence”; obsessive witch-hunts in pursuit of possible infiltrators; the magnification of normal differences into internal factional strife; gossiping, rumor-mongering, personal backbiting; or any other disruption of its effective operation.

(3) Avoiding traps. The organization, especially when targeted by the state, must be alert to the possibility that troublesome communications and/or actions are false-flag operations.

(4) Unity of purpose. The organization must: educate its members with respect to its principles, programmatic objectives, methods, and policies; and require their adherence to same.

(5) Tactics. While nonviolence must not be an absolute principle; it must be standing policy with exceptions generally only in situations of clearly justified self-defense. Civil disobedience should be used, if at all, very selectively with careful consideration as to its personal and political consequences; and, if and when used, it must be carefully and appropriately targeted so as to achieve positive results without making enemies unnecessarily.

(6) Anti-imperialism. While the organization must forcefully and consistently oppose militarism and imperialism, it must not become an agent of a foreign entity (as was the case with the CP) nor allow itself to be unnecessarily so perceived.

(7) For additional precautions, see noted article by Brian Glick ^[2].

3^rd. Democracy? Capitalism is incompatible with actual democracy.

♦ Presumption. Proponents of liberal “democracy” often presume that acts of repression perpetrated by “democratic” governments are: only aberrations, and/or committed by rogue operatives. This presumption rests upon the pretense that liberal “democracies” are actually democratic rather than politically dominated by those holding a predominance of economic power. The reality is otherwise.

(1) The “democratic” regime in any capitalist country is one in which the people may elect the governing officials from among competing candidates and parties, but the major candidates and parties are mostly funded by, and beholden to, the capitalists.

(2) The major information media and educational institutions are administered and operated by individuals who accept and support the existing capitalist social order.

(3) Successful election campaigns, with rare exceptions, depend upon money.

(4) It is normally the moneyed interest groups which have most access to, and influence over, elected office-holders.

(5) The working people are told to passively rely upon elected politicians who pretend to be devoted to acting in their best interest.

(Ω) Thus, the capitalists rule; and, as Karl Marx observed [in The Civil War in France (1871)] the actual result of popular elections in a liberal “democracy” is the electorate “deciding once” every few years “which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in” government ^[3]. Consequently, if democracy means rule by the people, then liberal “democracy” is not really democracy; it is plutocracy.

♦ What then is the alternative? Democracy is real only when the majority class, the working class (with its allies), actual rules. Such popular rule can exist only when the workers (or at least a sizable fraction thereof) are politically engaged in the governing process rather than passively relying upon politicians. In order to achieve the power to rule, the working class (with its allies) will need to engage in struggles for social justice during which they will re-educate themselves, overcome their divisions, and embrace solidarity values. When the working class exercises actual power in the political governance of their civil society, they will find that the concentration of economic power in the possession of the capitalist class results in practices which exploit labor and put the predatory pursuit of profit and wealth accumulation above the satisfaction of human and social needs. With this realization, a ruling working class will naturally choose to replace this capitalism with a social order which will be designed to satisfy those human and social needs. Consequently, those who want to preserve capitalism, will naturally tend to fear and oppose any move to replace the liberal “democratic” regime with a real democracy; and it is entirely normal for their “democratic” state to use repressive measures, as is perceived necessary, in order to preserve the existing social order.

Noted sources.

[1] Engels⸰ Friedrich: Introduction to ‘The Civil War in France’ (1891 March 18) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm (where it is split into “Introduction” and “Postscript”, the quote being in the latter).

[2] Glick⸰ Brian: COINTELPRO Revisited – Spying and Disruption (ac 2016 May 31) @ https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/FBI/COINTELPRO_Revisited.html .

[3] Marx⸰ Karl: Civil War in France (Third Address, 1871 May 30) ~ § III (re Paris Commune) @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm.

AUTHOR: Charles Pierce. DATE: 2021 Nov 21 (latest update). {+62p}

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