Joseph Kishore

Mitt Romney officially accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president on Thursday evening, in a speech before the national convention in Tampa, Florida. The speech concluded a three-day convention during which the Republicans put on display the right-wing program upon which they are campaigning.

The Republican platform is significant not simply for what it says about the party—a deeply reactionary organization—but the entire American political system. Amid the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the ruling class, represented by both big business parties, is moving to escalate attacks on the working class.

In terms of policy, the main focus of the Republican campaign is the “economy”—i.e., demands for further corporate deregulation, the elimination of all constraints on profit-making, and the dismantling of Medicare and other social programs to further enrich the financial aristocracy. The Obama administration has pursued these policies over the past four years, and the Republicans are working to shift the political debate even further to the right.

Romney, a former CEO of an asset-stripping firm with a personal fortune of some $200 million, cynically expressed his concern for high levels of unemployment, declining wages, and record poverty. This comes from a candidate who personifies Wall Street speculation and is on record declaring that he is not concerned about poor people!

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Joseph Kishore

A picture of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (R) and his
father, the late president Hafez, is seen at the site of an ex-
plosion in a police building in Damascus. (Kh. al-Hariri)

Any military conflict with Syria could quickly involve its principle allies—Iran, Russia and China. American imperialism is creating the conditions for a global catastrophe.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad declared Tuesday that the country was in a state of war as intense fighting erupted in the capital Damascus between the government and opposition forces that are backed by the US. There were also reports of British special operations forces entering the country from neighboring Turkey.

The fighting came the same day as a belligerent speech by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before the Turkish parliament, threatening a military response to any Syrian troop movements near the border of the two countries. This followed a meeting of NATO members, including Turkey and the US, to discuss a coordinated response to the downing of a Turkish jet by Syria late last week.

“We will not fall into the trap of warmongers,” Erdogan said, “but we will not stay silent in the face of an attack made against our plane in international airspace.” Turkey’s “wrath is fierce and intense when it needs to be,” he added.

Erdogan also said that Turkey would provide “all possible support to liberate the Syrians from dictatorship,” i.e., to assist opposition forces in overthrowing the Assad government.

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Joseph Kishore

Led by the United States, the major powers have issued a series of bellicose statements and threats after Syria shot down a Turkish F4 Phantom jet that had entered its airspace. Backed by the Obama administration, the Turkish government has taken actions that mark a major step in the direction of all-out war.

Representatives of NATO countries will participate today in a meeting called under Article 4 of the alliance convention, which provides for discussion between members on joint action against a threat.

While the meeting is not being held under Article 5, which calls for military action of all NATO members, Turkey said on Monday it would press NATO to consider Article 5 at the meeting. It is also the first time Article 4 has been invoked since Turkey did so against Iraq in February 2003—one month before the US-led invasion.

After speaking with the US over the weekend, Turkey shifted from its initially more measured tone. “It was an act of war,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc added that Turkey will use “all rights granted under international law until the end. This also includes self-defense. This also includes retaliation many-fold.”

Behind the scenes, the United States is employing a well-tested modus operandi: engage in a series of provocative measures that amount to acts of war, then reply with extreme belligerence to any response, using it to justify even more provocative measures.

For months, the US has been engaged in stoking civil war in Syria, funneling arms with the help of several Gulf monarchies. Over the weekend, Saudi Arabia announced, with the approval of the US, that it would begin paying the salaries of members of the opposition Free Syrian Army, effectively bankrolling (with payment in dollars or euros) anyone fighting against the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad.

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Joseph Kishore & James Cogan

Earlier this month, President Obama declared that with the departure of American combat troops the US was “leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people”. — Nothing could be further from the truth.

Bombings ripped through sections of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 63 people and injuring nearly 200. The attacks, which mainly targeted Shiite Muslim areas, took place in the midst of intensifying sectarian conflicts, as different factions of the Iraqi elite battle over political and economic power in the wake of the departure of US combat troops.

One of the deadliest attacks was from a suicide car bomb near the central government’s Integrity Commission building and the Christian Nuns Hospital, which killed 25 people and injured more than 60. The combined death toll from the bombings made Thursday the deadliest day in Iraq in more than a year.

The bombings followed moves by the Iraqi central government led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who heads the dominant Shiite Muslim bloc in the parliament, to politically destroy several prominent Sunni politicians.

On Monday, Iraq’s Judicial Council issued an arrest warrant for Vice President Tariq Al-Hashemi, charging him with coordinating bombing attacks and running an assassination squad to target Shiite officials. Maliki is also seeking a parliamentary no-confidence vote to oust Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Multaq, the leader of a Sunni-based party.

Fuelling sectarian tensions, Maliki immediately suggested that his Sunni rivals were culpable for the blasts. He stated: “The timing of the crimes and the choice of their areas confirms again to all those in doubt the political nature of the objectives that these people want to achieve.” No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, though media speculation has focused on the Sunni-dominated groups associated with Al Qaeda.

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Joseph Kishore

The entire “debate” within the political establishment over the NDAA testifies to the collapse of any commitment to democratic rights within the American ruling class.

The Obama administration declared Wednesday afternoon that it was abandoning its nominal threat to veto a military authorization bill that explicitly authorizes the indefinite military detention of anyone the federal government declares to be a terrorist or supporter, including US citizens.

The final passage of the bill is now virtually assured by the end of the week. It marks a new stage in the collapse of the most basic democratic rights in the United States and the erection of the framework of a military-police state.

From the beginning, the administration has supported all fundamental components of the bill, while criticizing it largely from the standpoint of defending executive power. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that a few cosmetic changes this week ensured that it “does not challenge the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the American people.”

A few hours later, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation, 286-136, with support from both big business parties. Democrats split 93-93 on the bill, while Republicans voted for it by a margin of 193-43.

The Senate is expected to vote on it Thursday, before it arrives at the president’s desk. Both houses of Congress had already passed earlier versions of the same legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

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Joseph Kishore
WSWS

More than one hundred days into the Libya war, the US-NATO strategy is ever more nakedly aimed at political assassination.

US and European war planes have repeatedly bombed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s compounds, killing his relatives. Frustrated by the duration of the operation, which is stuck in an effective stalemate, military strategists are increasingly focusing on attempts to remove the Libyan head of state, transferring power to other forces within the regime. This is to be accomplished through a revolt within Gaddafi's inner circle or, absent that, assassination.

Earlier this week, Mike Turner, a Republican Congressman and member of the House Armed Services Committee, reported a discussion with Admiral Samuel Locklear, in which the commander of NATO in Italy explicitly acknowledged the assassination policy. According to Taylor, Locklear “explained that the scope of civil protection was being interpreted to permit the removal of the chain of command of Gaddafi's military, which includes Gaddafi.”

On Tuesday, Stratfor, a think-tank with close ties to the US state apparatus, commented that war crime charges against Gaddafi from the International Criminal Court “provides added impetus to NATO's current strategy of using airpower to try to assassinate the Libyan leader as a means of accomplishing the mission: regime change.”

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Joseph Kishore & Barry Grey
WSWS

Mother and daughter raped & murdered by Obama's ‘rebels’
in Misurata

Obama [has] proclaimed the right to launch military action against any country whenever US “interests and values” are at stake.

As the American military expands its campaign against civilian population centers, killing at least 19 people in a single incident on Monday, Senators John Kerry (Democrat of Massachusetts) and John McCain (Republican of Arizona) have introduced legislation that would retroactively authorize the Obama administration’s war.

More than 90 days into the war, the administration is now in open violation of the War Powers Act, which requires congressional authorization for military action within 60 days, and, failing that, the withdrawal of US forces within the next 30 days. Obama has flouted even this minimal requirement for oversight of executive war-making.

Amidst suggestions from some members of House of Representatives, primarily Republicans, that they might move to cut off funding for the war, Kerry and McCain are spearheading a drive to obtain a vote by the Democratic-controlled Senate sanctioning the military aggression. A vote is expected some time this week or next. According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Kerry-McCain resolution has broad support from Democrats as well as many Republicans.

The resolution provides a legal fig leaf for the bombing of Libya to continue for up to one year. Of particular significance is its language, which asserts the broadest possible basis for US military operations.

It expressly authorizes the use of the US armed forces “in support of United States national security policy interests” in Libya. The aim is to set a precedent for expanding the basis for US military interventions even beyond the preemptive war doctrine laid down by the administration of George W. Bush.

That doctrine repudiated the post-World War II framework of international law, which incorporated the principles affirmed in the Nuremburg trials of Nazi leaders, outlawing war as an instrument of policy and permitting it only when required for self-defense.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which formed the basis for the Nuremberg trials, expressly prohibits war as “an instrument of national policy” (and therefore also “national security policy interests”) except in matters of self-defense. This pact remains a binding treaty under international law, and therefore is incorporated in US law as well.

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Joseph Kishore
WSWS

“It is not the first time they have killed our poor and innocent people. We don’t accept their apologies. They have apologized in the past but continue killing our people again and again.”

On Tuesday, March 1, the US military massacred nine children in an airstrike in Afghanistan’s northeastern Kunar province. The attack, which prompted mass protests, is only the latest atrocity in the region, coming less than two weeks after another attack left as many as 65 civilians dead.

The nine children killed Tuesday were collecting firewood in the Pech Valley area of Afghanistan. They were targeted by helicopter gunships sent from a nearby base run by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). A video report from Al Jazeera shows the burial of the nine children, all under fourteen. NATO forces claimed that they were responding to rocket attacks.

This latest incident is part of a regular campaign of terror directed at the Afghan people. Countless numbers of civilians have been killed. Often there is no direct evidence of these war crimes, with most casualties simply labeled by the US military and an obedient media as “insurgents” or “Taliban.”

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Joseph Kishore
WSWS

As the 111th congressional session came to a close, the Obama administration and the US media have stepped up the propaganda offensive over the past two days to justify an even further shift to the right by the political establishment next year.

The “narrative” being constructed takes the following form:

The two years of the Democratic-controlled Senate and House of Representatives, along with the Obama administration, carried out historical social reforms on a scale not seen in decades. For some unexplained reason, these measures led to a defeat for the Democrats in the 2010 elections. Since the elections, and supposedly in response to popular pressure, Obama has shifted into a more “bipartisan” spirit, which has already produced fantastic results in the “lame-duck” session since the election.

This eruption of self-congratulation was led by Obama himself at an afternoon press conference on Wednesday. The lame-duck session, the president declared, was “the most productive post-election period we have had in decades, and…it comes on the heels of the most productive two years that we have had in generations.”

The overriding theme of the conference was Obama’s pledge to work with Republicans more closely in the coming year. As a Time magazine article noted (under the headline, “Obama’s Lame-Duck Comeback: Hello, Bipartisanship”), “In his 34-minute press conference on Wednesday [Obama] used the words ‘common ground’ three times, the word ‘bipartisan’ twice, the phrase ‘other side of the aisle’ twice, ‘came together’ three times and ‘across party lines’ twice.”

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Joseph Kishore
WSWS

Julian Assange must be vigorously defended. The World Socialist Web Site calls on all working people—and all those seeking to oppose imperialism and the attack on democratic rights—to mobilize their collective strength to demand an immediate end to the persecution of Assange and WikiLeaks.

Over the past several months, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been the target of a state-orchestrated campaign based on trumped-up allegations of sexual misconduct. He was named in an international arrest warrant, detained in a London prison, initially denied bail and held in isolation for nine days. Assange’s lawyers are fighting extradition to Sweden while he remains under virtual house arrest.

The extradition of Assange to Sweden could be followed by his extradition to the US. There are reports of discussions between the American and Swedish governments, and a grand jury has purportedly been convened in Virginia to charge Assange with violations of the US Espionage Act. Government officials and politicians have branded Assange a “terrorist.” Some have called for his assassination.

The vendetta against Assange is a political provocation that has all the characteristics of a dirty tricks operation.

The exploitation of charges of sexual and personal misconduct as a cover for a political attack is a well-known modus operandi. Those who might be sufficiently gullible to take the charges in Sweden at face value should recall previous cases: the FBI’s taping of bedrooms and hotel rooms used by Martin Luther King, Jr. to obtain evidence of extramarital affairs; Nixon’s break-in at the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s therapist in search of personal information damaging to the leaker of the Pentagon Papers; more recently, the use of the Monica Lewinsky scandal by the Republican Party and its media backers in the rightwing conspiracy to drive President Bill Clinton from office.

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