Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier

The ouster of Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi, following four days of nationwide mass protests, has placed power in the hands of a military junta which is committed to the defense of the economic interests of the country’s ruling class and to the geo-political aims of American imperialism.

The removal of the hated Mursi regime has evoked jubilation. However sincere and deeply felt this sentiment may be, the fact is that Mursi’s overthrow has placed the army, not the masses, in power. None of the essential demands that motivated the mass protests—for decent jobs, livable wages, adequate social services, and democratic rights—will be met by the military regime.

The military has intervened for one overriding purpose: to pre-empt and suppress the growing political movement of the Egyptian working class. The coalition government that it unveiled last night is in no way a genuine expression of the democratic strivings of the working class. Rather, the new ruling structure is a sinister coalition of reactionary forces, which includes long-time henchmen of Hosni Mubarak, various Islamic politicians, and several liberal politicians with close connections to the US-based International Monetary Fund. None of the individuals and organizations has either a mass social base or advances a popular social program.

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Alex Lantier

In a series of interviews, UN investigator Carla del Ponte said that sarin gas used in Syria was fired by the US-backed opposition, not the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Her account explodes the lies on which Washington and its European allies have based their campaign for war with Syria, according to which the US and its allies are preparing to attack Syria to protect its people from Assad’s chemical weapons. In fact, available evidence of sarin use implicates the Islamist-dominated “rebels” who are armed by US-allied Middle Eastern countries, under CIA supervision.

Del Ponte’s statements coincide with the flagrantly illegal Israeli air strikes on Syria, which have been endorsed by President Obama. These acts of war mark a major escalation of the US-instigated and supported sectarian war for regime-change in Syria, itself a preparation for attacks on the Syrian regime’s main ally in the region, Iran.

Del Ponte is a former Swiss attorney general who served on Western-backed international courts on Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She currently sits on a UN commission of inquiry on Syria.

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Alex Lantier

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he and President Barack
Obama are wary of intervening in Syria just as U.S. forces are
trying to withdraw from 12 years of war in Afghanistan...

“We saw their humanitarian intervention in Iraq, in Libya, and now we see it in Syria.” - Bashar al-Assad

In testimony before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee on Wednesday, top US defense officials announced that they are deploying 200 troops of the 1st Armored Division to Jordan. They will establish headquarters near the Syrian-Jordanian border and plan for a rapid build-up, involving 20,000 or more US troops, awaiting orders from the White House to invade Syria.

A US invasion force would reportedly include Special Forces troops and regular units preparing for operations inside Syria, as well as air defense units guarding against possible retaliatory Syrian air strikes on Jordan.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Senate committee that these deployments are part of “robust military planning for a range of contingencies,” carried out by the United States and its European and Middle Eastern allies.

At the same time, Washington is carrying out an international diplomatic offensive setting the stage for war with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The topic of US military operations against Syria will reportedly be on the agenda of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s discussions in Turkey this weekend, of General Martin Dempsey’s talks with Chinese officials next week, and of Hagel’s upcoming talks with military officials in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

As US officials admitted, invading Syria would likely involve the United States in a regional war throughout the Middle East. Hagel said that a US intervention in Syria “could have the unintended consequence of bringing the United States into a broader regional conflict or proxy war.” He noted that this “could embroil the US in a significant, lengthy, and uncertain military commitment.”

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Alex Lantier

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the South Korean capital, Seoul, yesterday on the first leg of a three-nation East Asian tour dominated by escalating US threats against North Korea over its nuclear program. Kerry arrives for talks today in China and is traveling on to Japan tomorrow.

In Seoul, Kerry reiterated that the United States and its allies will not tolerate any nuclear program in North Korea, which is thought to currently have a few crude nuclear bombs. He said, “We are all united in the fact that North Korea will not be accepted as a nuclear power. The rhetoric that we’re hearing from North Korea is simply unacceptable by any standard.”

Kerry did not spell out how Washington plans to halt North Korea’s nuclear program and force the North Korean regime in Pyongyang to give up the weapons it has developed.

Over the last several weeks, however, Washington has signaled its readiness for nuclear war. It has repeatedly flown nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers to the Korean peninsula for military exercises. At the same time, it has deployed additional missile batteries and warships to the region.

Kerry ominously implied that in case of conflict, the United States would respond with overwhelming force against North Korea, which is utterly outclassed militarily. He said, “Kim Jong-un needs to understand, as he probably does, what the outcome of the conflict would be.”

Kerry also warned against North Korea carrying out missile tests, as Pyongyang had said it might do on April 10. The deadline passed without Pyongyang launching a missile, however.

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Alex Lantier

North Korea was designated a member of the “Axis of Evil” by the Bush administration in 2001 and remains a target of constant vilification in the Western press.

American F-22 stealth warplanes arrived in South Korea yesterday, placing East Asia on hair-trigger alert as Washington escalated its confrontation with North Korea, ostensibly over the country’s nuclear program.

Normally stationed at Kadena Air Force Base in Japan, the jets are being deployed to Osan Air Base in South Korea, amid ongoing Foal Eagle US-South Korean military exercises.

The F-22 deployment came after two weeks of intensifying military tensions and demonstrations of US firepower against North Korea. On March 19, the US sent nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to South Korea, and last week the US sent two B-2 stealth bombers to practice dropping dummy bombs on a South Korean bombing range.

The deployment of US heavy bombers was a blunt threat that, in the event of military conflict in East Asia, Washington is prepared to use nuclear weapons. This threat is directed not only at North Korea, but also at China, the main target of US operations in the region, which provides essential supplies of food and fuel to the North Korean regime in Pyongyang.

As for North Korea, a small and poor country of 25 million people, the B-2 flights were a signal that Washington is prepared to annihilate the country. B-2 bombers carry 16 B83 nuclear bombs, each with a yield of 1.2 megatons—75 times the power of the atomic bombs the United States dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. If two B-2 bombers dropped their payloads on North Korea, they would destroy all its large and mid-sized cities.

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Alex Lantier

This article was first published on 15 June 2010

For anyone who was still undecided, the New York Times has made it official: the war in Afghanistan is an imperialist war of plunder.

This is the inescapable conclusion of yesterday’s lead article, “US Discovers Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,”[*] on Pentagon plans to hand over Afghan mineral resources to major mining corporations and financial firms.

The New York Times cited “senior American government officials” saying that US surveying teams had found “nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan.” At current market prices, this includes $421 billion in iron ore, $274 billion in copper, $81 billion in niobium (a metal used in producing superconducting steel), $51 billion in cobalt, $25 billion in gold, $24 billion in molybdenum, and $7.4 billion in “rare earth elements.” The Times left out the value of Afghanistan’s extensive supplies of gemstones and natural gas. Nonetheless, it concluded that Afghanistan might “be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world.”

This bonanza is safely in the hands of the US military and major transnational corporations, the Times explained.

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Alex Lantier

The exposure of the bloody record of US Special Forces raids and air strikes in Afghanistan highlights the criminal character of Washington’s deployment of troops and drones to Niger, announced on Friday, ostensibly to fight Al Qaeda. Niger is a strategically located country near oil pipeline routes for the massive Nigerian oil industry and itself home to some of the world’s largest uranium mines. France last month invaded its neighbor, Mali, with US support. As in Afghanistan, these forces will soon be engaged in the torture and murder of African civilians and opponents of US imperialist intervention.

A meeting of Afghanistan’s National Security Council (NSC) chaired by President Hamid Karzai asked US Special Forces to leave Wardak and Logar provinces in two weeks, following an NSC review of reports that the American troops had tortured and murdered Afghan civilians.

The statement issued by the Afghan government—itself a puppet regime set up by the United States and its allies—is a damning indictment of the US-led NATO occupation of Afghanistan, now in its thirteenth year.

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Alex Lantier

The imperialist powers are escalating the war in Mali. Britain has pledged to deploy troops, and the US is planning a base for drone aircraft in the region, as French troops marched into the rebellious north of its former colony.

British authorities said they would deploy hundreds of troops, concentrating on training French-backed Malian government forces and providing “force protection” for the trainers. British Special Forces are already reportedly in Mali, working with the French. Britain has also sent C-17 transport aircraft to help France deploy troops to Mali.

The announcement came after talks Sunday between British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande. A Downing Street spokesman said, “The prime minister made clear that we fully support the French government’s actions …. The prime minister went on to explain that we are keen to provide further assistance where we can, depending on what French requirements there may be.”

The United States is also extending military assistance to France, offering on Saturday to refuel French warplanes with US tanker airplanes after talks between US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian. Many French fighter-bombers operate from bases in France, flying to Mali through Algerian air space and bombing targets in Mali. This places them on the outer edge of their operating radius, requiring refueling.

At the same time, Washington is in discussions with Niger and other neighboring countries of Mali to find a possible base for US drones. The US already deploys small manned surveillance planes from a base in the military side of the Ouagadougou airport in Burkina Faso. This is one of a series of informal bases tied to the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), whose only official base in Africa is a joint Franco-American base in the East African coastal city-state of Djibouti. US officials said that drones flying from Niger or Burkina Faso would monitor the flow of supplies and weapons from Libya across the Sahara to northern Mali.

They could also attack ground targets, extending the US war of remote-controlled assassination—currently waged in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of the Arab Peninsula and East Africa—to the Sahel. The New York Times reported that Washington has “not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens.”

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Ernst Wolff and Alex Lantier

French aircraft and ground troops attacked Islamist rebel forces in northern Mali on Friday and over the weekend, while hundreds more French troops arrived in Mali’s capital Bamako.

Without even consulting the parliament, which will take up the issue today, French President François Hollande declared an open-ended war in Mali, ostensibly to help the Malian government fight Al Qaeda-linked forces among the rebels. He said the war would last “as long as necessary.”

The Islamist Ansar Dine militia reportedly threatened to overrun a major Malian government airfield in nearby Sévaré, which is considered vital for any military intervention in northern Mali. This militia has controlled much of northern Mali since last April, after Tuareg forces fleeing the NATO war in Libya forced weak and divided Malian government forces out of the northern part of the country. For months, France and its NATO allies have been planning war in Mali.

On Thursday, the rebels captured the village of Konna after heavy fighting with government forces. The French Air Force retaliated, striking Konna on Friday and killing approximately 100 people. A French helicopter pilot was reportedly killed by small arms fire, and 11 Malian soldiers fighting alongside the French were killed. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Islamists were driven out of Konna but remained in the area after “intensive fighting.”

Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Bouamana told Al Jazeera, “The terrorist French military bombed Konna. The hospitals are now filled with the injured—women, children, and the elderly are the main victims. It’s impossible to know how many have been killed, but the number is huge. Only five of those killed were our fighters. The rest are all innocent civilians killed by the indiscriminate bombing of the French air forces.” Denying that his organization had ties to Al Qaeda, Bouamana added that Mali “will be the Afghanistan of the region, and France’s downfall.”

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Alex Lantier

NATO coalition forces have killed eight women and girls in
an airstrike. The airstrike came shortly before dawn. (RAWA)

In the latest atrocity carried out by US-led occupation forces in Afghanistan, an air strike killed nine young women shortly before dawn Sunday morning in Laghman province’s Alingar district, near the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The women, aged 18 to 25, were reportedly gathering firewood in a mountainous area NATO forces claimed was being used by insurgents as a base for attacks on Kabul. Laghman provincial officials said that seven more women and girls had also been wounded in the attack, including some as young as 10 years old.

Mourning villagers carried the dead women to the provincial capital, Mihtarlam, in protest. They showed the corpses wrapped in blankets to journalists and lay them down outside the Laghman governor’s residence, demanding an investigation of the massacre and the trial of those responsible.

Commenting on the attack, Alingar District Governor Alif Shah said: “We strongly condemn it—killing innocent women is not justifiable at all. The operation was not coordinated with the Afghan authorities.”

After initially denying reports of civilian casualties and claiming that the strike had destroyed a group of 45 insurgents, the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) released a statement declaring that “ISAF takes full responsibility for this tragedy.” It extended its “regrets and sympathies” to “civilians who died or were injured” in the ISAF attack.

ISAF spokesman US Air Force Captain Dan Einert said that ISAF is investigating the attack. The US-backed regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that it would launch its own investigation.

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