“Plan Tipnis” Seeks to Further Destabilize & Create the Conditions for a Coup in Bolivia

GOBIERNO Denuncia Plan Tipnis Para Afectar Estado de Derecho

Cambio, LA PAZ 

MARTES, 26 DE JUNIO DE 2012

Política

El vicepresidente Álvaro García Linera dijo que la estrategia usa la demanda legítima de la tropa policial y la vincula con la llegada de la marcha de la Cidob.

El Gobierno, ante el desconocimiento del acuerdo por parte de un sector de policías de base y la proximidad a La Paz de la marcha de la Cidob, confirma la aplicación de una estrategia subversiva denominada Plan Tipnis, que busca desestabilizar y crear las condiciones de un golpe de Estado en el país.

Citando reportes de Inteligencia y de prensa, el Gobierno, a través de un boletín del Ministerio de Comunicación, señala que el plan arrancó el 21 de junio con el motín de la Asociación Nacional de Suboficiales, Sargentos, Clases y Policías (Anssclapol) por demanda salarial, la que no se desactivó con el acuerdo de nueve puntos firmado la madrugada del domingo.

“La estrategia continuaba bloqueando y boicoteando la solución del conflicto policial con la posición intransigente de exigir como salario básico Bs 3.000, para luego convocar a maestros, trabajadores afiliados a la COB y activistas que marchan a La Paz con el apoyo del Gobierno Municipal paceño y funcionarios ediles”, señala parte de la denuncia gubernamental.

En rueda de prensa, el vicepresidente Álvaro García Linera confirmó que el Plan Tipnis tiene dos fases golpistas.

“Está en la fase inicial de apresto golpista, y en la segunda etapa buscan muertos (…) Hay comunicaciones radiales que vinculan (el conflicto policial) con el Plan Tipnis. Eso no es reivindicación, uno dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, diez veces hablan de bombas molotov, asesinar a militares, quemar unidades militares, de limpiar (matar) al ministro (de Gobierno) Carlos Romero y hacer golpe a Evo”, dijo García.

Los ideólogos del Plan Tipnis, a los que llamó “fuerzas oscuras”, se aprovechan de una demanda legítima de los policías y los manipulan. Denunció, por ejemplo, que el ex candidato político de Unidad Nacional, de Samuel Doria Medina, sacó armas de la UTOP el día del motín policial. El domingo, la ministra de Comunicación, Amanda Dávila, confirmó la circulación de comunicados públicos que señalan atacar con bombas molotov a ‘los plomos’ que custodian el Palacio de Gobierno.

La vinculación con el Tipnis tiene que ver con la coincidencia del arribo a La Paz, este miércoles, de la marcha de la Confederación de Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano (Cidob), liderada por el suspendido dirigente Adolfo Chávez. El domingo, el presidente Evo Morales, desde el centro minero Coro Coro, culpó a un grupo de policías de afanes de desestabilización que buscan su derrocamiento.

El dirigente de la Central Obrera Boliviana (COB) Simeón Jaliri denunció que el Plan Tipnis es la “sorpresa” de la que habló en pasados días Adolfo Chávez a su llegada a La Paz. “Este dirigente (Chávez), ha tenido varias reuniones con el ex asesor de Juan Del Granado, (Javier) Zárate y el ex candidato de UN Juan Carlos Soraide para coordinar”, dijo Jaliri.

Los analistas políticos Marcos Domich y Hugo Moldiz coinciden en que se trata de una estrategia de la derecha para gestar un golpe de Estado.

DATOS

• La opositora Unidad Nacional (UN), a través del diputado Jaime Navarro, según radio Fides, confirmó la estrategia de ese partido para llegar al Gobierno, pero “por votos y no un golpe”.

• El Gobierno denunció que en el motín de un sector de la tropa policial, que comenzó el jueves, se incrustaron actores políticos, como el ex mayor de policías David Vargas y el ex policía militante de Unidad Nacional Juan Carlos Soraide, entre otros.

Domich apunta a la derecha y al imperio

El analista político Marcos Domich considera que los aprestos subversivos contra el Gobierno y la democracia boliviana se gestan desde hace tiempo y detrás de éstos está el imperio a través de sus operadores de la derecha boliviana, como Unidad Nacional (UN) y el Movimiento Sin Miedo (MSM).

“Hemos afirmado antes el plan golpista que se liga con la marcha de la Cidob contra la consulta en el Tipnis”, dijo.  En su análisis, el objetivo final de estos afanes políticos es tomar el Palacio de Gobierno y en su opinión eso sería “grave”.

“Sin embargo, el pueblo no debe amedrentarse en salir a defender el proceso revolucionario que tuvo un elevado costo recuperarlo”, afirmó. “No hay duda de que es parte de la ofensiva imperialista de carácter global”, agregó. →

Rio Summit “Good Versus Evil” Advert Displays Blatant Racism and Imperialism at Core of Avaaz

June 22, 2012

“Demonization is a psy-op, used to sway public opinion and build a consensus in favor of war. Psychological warfare is directly sponsored by the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence apparatus. It is not limited to assassinating or executing the rulers of Muslim countries; it extends to entire populations. It also targets Muslims in Western Europe and North America. It purports to break national consciousness and the ability to resist the invader. It denigrates Islam. It creates social divisions. It is intended to divide national societies and ultimately trigger ‘civil war.'” — Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

 

The Avaaz “Good Versus Evil” campaign for the Rio Summit. Above: A downloadable poster as found on the Avaaz Press Centre published in the Financial Times. Vilification: Note the dark cast/ugly sky behind the leaders Avaaz would wish you to believe are “evil,” versus the light and sun shining through over the Imperialist, obstructionist “leaders” that Avaaz is attempting to convince you are “good.”

Keith Harman Snow (war correspondent, photographer and independent investigator, and a four time Project Censored award winner) discusses the art of so called “humanitarianism” via the industrial non-profit complex with precision and candor in his many lectures.

Keith Harmon Snow discussing western NGOs and Africa: (running time: 2:54):

The following is an excerpt from part one of an in-depth investigative report titled “Avaaz: Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War” by investigative writer and ecological activist Cory Morningstar, to be published by Wrong Kind of Green:

 

 The Behavioral Economics of Hatred

 

“Within George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, the purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is to “satisfy the citizens’ subdued feelings of angst and hatred from leading such a wretched, controlled existence. By re-directing these subconscious feelings away from the Oceanian government and toward external enemies (which likely do not even exist), the Party minimizes subversive thought and behavior.” [Source: Wikipedia] Orwell did not invent the term “two minutes hate” however; it was already in use/utilized in the First World War by British writers to satirize German propaganda.

 

In a somewhat similar fashion, an economist’s definition of hatred is the willingness to pay a price to inflict harm on others, according to Edward Glaeser, Princeton-educated economist and professor at Harvard.

 

In an article published in Harvard Magazine titled “The Marketplace of Perceptions,” author Craig Lambert writes:

 

“The psychological literature, [Edward Glaeser] found, defines hatred as an emotional response we have to threats to our survival or reproduction. ‘It’s related to the belief that the object of hatred has been guilty of atrocities in the past and will be guilty of them in the future,’ he says. ‘Economists have nothing to tell psychologists about why individuals hate. But group-level hatred has its own logic that always involves stories about atrocities. These stories are frequently false. As [Nazi propagandist Joseph] Goebbels said, hatred requires repetition, not truth, to be effective.'”

 

“‘You have to investigate the supply of hatred,’ Glaeser continues. ‘Who has the incentive and the ability to induce group hatred? This pushes us toward the crux of the model: politicians or anyone else will supply hatred when hatred is a complement to their policies.'”

 

One can safely state that the behavior of economics of hatred has been a key component in the psychology behind the recent Avaaz campaigns attacking the sovereign states of Libya, Bolivia and Syria.

 

The two minutes hate has risen again.

 

Imperialist Pimps of Militarism, Protectors of the Oligarchy, Trusted Facilitators of War

 

 “I am convinced that some NGOs, especially those funded by the U.S.AID, are the fifth column of espionage in Bolivia, not only in Bolivia, but also in all of Latin America.” — Evo Morales, February 2012

 

In 2001, it was George W. Bush, who propelled an illegal invasion of Iraq by way of relentless pounding of repetitive messaging of discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq coupled with incessant images of the twin towers being destroyed. This psyops reverberated throughout a mainstream media that obediently fed the lies to the masses. The role of the media was absolutely essential. Yet, in spite of Bush calling for the invasion of Iraq, citizens of the globe, in united cohesion, held the largest mass protests and peace vigils the world had ever witnessed.

 

Today, however, the push to invade under the guise of humanitarianism is no longer a message from predominantly Imperialist governments alone. Rather, there is a new game in town. Flash forward one decade to 2011 and the push for war no longer comes from the lone vacuity of despised war criminals such as George Bush nor his charismatic alter-ego, Barack Obama. Rather, the message is now being spoon-fed to global society via the “trusted” NGOs, with Avaaz, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch at the forefront.

 

A decade later, thanks to the non-profit industrial complex partnered with corporate media, it is now “the people” – having been swayed by fabrications, omissions and lies – who lead the demand for invasion of these sovereign states. And, most ironic, it is not the so-called “right” at the vanguard; rather, it is the “progressive left.”

 

Although now seemingly normalized, one must consider it slightly ironic that it is no longer the progressive left beating the drums against war. Rather, as in the case of climate, it is primarily the countries seeking to free themselves from the chains of Imperialist enslavement that vocally oppose the escalating destabilization campaigns, with the most recent victim of Western aggression being Syria. At the United Nations assembly on 16 February 2012, the 12 states that voted against the resolution to condemn Syria at the United Nations included North Korea, China, Russia, Iran and Syria, along with states who primarily compose the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA): Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua. And it is not a coincidence that the leaders of most of these same states that continue the struggle for autonomy are all similarly vilified and demonized by the corporate-media complex, joined recently by the non-profit industrial complex.

 

“The threats against Syria, co-ordinated in Washington and London, scale new peaks of hypocrisy. Contrary to the raw propaganda presented as news, the investigative journalism of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung identifies those responsible for the massacre in Houla as the ‘rebels’ backed by Obama and Cameron. The paper’s sources include the rebels themselves. This has not been completely ignored in Britain. Writing in his personal blog, ever so quietly, Jon Williams, the BBC world news editor, effectively dishes his own ‘coverage’, citing western officials who describe the ‘psy-ops’ operation against Syria as ‘brilliant’. As brilliant as the destruction of Libya, and Iraq, and Afghanistan.”

— History is the enemy as ‘brilliant’ psy-ops become the news by Award–winning journalist John Pilger [1] June 21, 2012

Demonization is a key psy-op, directly sponsored by the U.S. Pentagon and intelligence apparatus to influence and sway public opinion and build consensus in favour of invasion. [2] A recent example can be extracted from the failed 2011 destabilization campaign against the Morales government in Bolivia led by U.S.-funded NGOs including the “Democracy Centre,” which declared: “But the abuses dealt out by the government against the people of the TIPNIS have knocked ‘Evo the icon’ off his pedestal in a way from which he will never fully recover, in Bolivia and globally.”

 

A similar situation (with developing nations, rather than the “environmental movement,” taking the lead) has taken place on the issue of climate change. ALBA nations, with Bolivia at the forefront, led the charge while the non-profit industrial complex purposely and grossly undermined the strong positions necessary to mitigate the climate emergency. The climate justice movement was acquiescent and thus kowtowed to the “big greens.” There was no justice to be found, only a cohesive hypocrisy amongst the professional left that flourished like a cancer.

 

Today, in 2012, with the recent “approved” invasion and annihilation of Libya, which, prior to the NATO-led invasion, had the highest standard of living in Africa, the Imperialist states are frothing at the mouth over the prospects of invading/occupying Syria under the carefully orchestrated guise of “humanitarian intervention.” If one looks closely, we can witness a steady transformation, well underway within the meticulously maintained, well-greased gears of the propaganda machine – a machine that continues to be refined. The blurring of lines between corporate power, the corporate media complex, the non-profit industrial complex, and the United Nations continues to accelerate, while simultaneously the veil begins to lift.

 

Further Reading:

The Grotesque and Disturbing Ideology at the Helm of Avaaz

http://wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/03/07/the-grotesque-and-disturbing-ideology-at-the-helm-of-avaaz/

U.S. Orchestrated Color Revolutions to Sweep Across Latin America in 2013-2014

http://wrongkindofgreen.org/2012/04/06/u-s-orchestrated-color-revolutions-to-sweep-across-latin-america-in-2013-2014/

[1] John Pilger has been a war correspondent, film-maker and author, and has twice won British journalism’s highest award, that of Journalist of the Year. He has also been named International Reporter of the Year, and won the United Nations Association Peace Prize and Gold Medal.

[2] “Demonization is a psy-op, used to sway public opinion and build a consensus in favor of war. Psychological warfare is directly sponsored by the Pentagon and the U.S. intelligence apparatus. It is not limited to assassinating or executing the rulers of Muslim countries; it extends to entire populations. It also targets Muslims in Western Europe and North America. It purports to break national consciousness and the ability to resist the invader. It denigrates Islam. It creates social divisions. It is intended to divide national societies and ultimately trigger ‘civil war.'” Source: Prof. Michel Chossudovsky

Syrian Crisis: Three’s a Crowd (Part 1 of 3 Part Series)

Although Empire has always engaged in a civilizing mission to implant liberalism in “authoritarian” cultures, its latest incarnation of liberal imperialism is less the overt cultural colonialism of the past, characterized by Orientalist tropes, and more a campaign which markets an attractive liberal ideology to more discerning intellectual consumers. Thus, unlike its cruder predecessor, which was easier to detect and hence resist, today’s intellectual imperialism works in far more insidious ways on account of its affected benevolence and seeming universalism, both of which facilitate its internalization.

By Amal Saad-Ghorayeb

Al-Akhbar

June 12, 2012

The conflict in Syria has recast the political fault lines in the Mideast. Divisions that were once demarcated by ideology and religion, are today centered around the issue of overthrowing the Assad government. Arab leftists, nationalists and Islamists are now divided between and amongst themselves over the Syrian question, and have borne yet another quasi-movement, the anti-interventionist “third-way” camp. Third-wayers, comprised of intellectuals and activists from academia, the mainstream media and NGOs, support elements in the home-grown opposition, reject the Syrian National Council (SNC) on account of its US-NATO-Israeli-Arab backing, and reject the Assad leadership on account of its repression of dissent and its alleged worthlessness to the Resistance project.

While the third-way camp is anti-Zionist and pro-Palestine in orientation, this hardly constitutes a political position. The Palestinian cause has become deeply etched in the Arab collective subconscious and has even become an increasingly pervasive slogan in western liberal activist discourse. Now the real litmus of Arab intellectuals’ and activists’ commitment to the Palestinian cause is no longer their support for Palestinian rights, but rather, their support for the Assad leadership’s struggle against the imperialist-Zionist-Arab moderate axis’ onslaught against it.

Although part of our duty as intellectuals is to call for political reforms and a greater inclusion of the homegrown, legitimate opposition in the reform process, this must be done in a manner which neither undermines the regime’s current position vis-à-vis our shared enemies.Supporting Assad’s struggle against this multi-pronged assault is supporting Palestine today because Syria has become the new front line of the war between Empire and those resisting it. The third-way progressive intellectuals are failing to see the Syrian crisis through this strategic lens. They have shown an inability to “take a step back from the details and look at the bigger picture,” to quote Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

The third-way campaign against Assad only serves the strategy and interests of the US and Israel, who have made no secret of the fact that his fall would help them achieve their wider strategic ambitions of weakening Iran and resistance forces in Lebanon and Palestine. Moreover, agitation against the regime on the basis of unsubstantiated allegations of war crimes further incites sectarian oppositionists who identify the regime with Alawis, thereby indirectly fanning the flames of Sunni-Shia tension in Syria and the region at large. →

Imperialists Encroach Upon Nepal and India Through Funded NGO’s

Exclusive for telegraphnepal.com

( Published May 2nd 2012 in the Telegraph Weekly)

by Bhupen Singh, Media academic, India

Mr. Bhupen Singh, a journalist and media expert from India, has edited two books on Indian counter culture and media. He is actively involved in human rights and anti globalization movements inside India.

Sujit Mainali for The Telegraph Weekly and its online edition telegraphnepal.com interviewed this Indian media veteran on several facets of Nepal’s politics and its regional dimensions.

Below the excerpts of this exclusive interview: Chief Editor.

TQ1. During an informal sharing with the  representative of the telegraphnepal.com, some political analysts of Nepal who are closer to the Nepali Congress (NC) party, have expressed their dissatisfaction that India now prefers Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai than any leaders of the NC, which is presumed to be closer to New Delhi since its formation. Mr. Singh, can you please tell us why the relation of India with the political parties of Nepal and its leaders witnesses frequent shift? What should Nepal and India do to make bilateral relations more stable?

 Singh: The first thing we need to understand here is (from) which quarters do these questions arise from? This also demonstrates the Indian establishment’s undue influence on Nepalese politics. It is a poor indicator of the state of things for any sovereign country when it engages in debates of such nature.

Since Nepal’s PM is Bhattarai, it is but natural for the Indian government to deal with him. Most definitely, it does not mean that India favors the Maoist party. The neo-liberal Indian state has been generally averse to communists in South Asia. India is apprehensive of a ‘domino effect’; the sort which America perceived at the time of the Vietnam War: that Vietnam’s neighboring countries too would have communist governments at their helm if communism were allowed to flourish there.

The Indian state harbors the suspicion that the communist movement in Nepal might strengthen the one in India. It also perceives that the Maoist party in Nepal is close to China. Therefore, New Delhi and Bhattarai can hardly be called natural allies.

It is, however, disturbing to note that any political party in Nepal would want to appease India and be in its good books.

TQ2. A section of analysts in Nepal accuse Indian academicians/leaders for making comments on Nepal in a superficial manner without understanding the ground realities of the existing Nepali affairs. Do you think some flaws remain in the understanding of Indian Intellectuals vis-à-vis Nepal and its internal affairs?

Singh: Intellectuals, either in India or Nepal, never belong to a homogenous category. Some are from the ruling class who have gained prominence after the advent of neo-liberalism and are merely spokespersons for the state apparatus. The media has had an important role in the spiraling growth of such debates, be it in the print arena or the television or any other for that matter. The intelligentsia also orchestrates such debates in universities. →

THE NEXT PUPPETS: How NGOs are Indoctrinating Young African Politicians to Serve Western Interests

E.Africa

10 May 2012

“In the three module-training of one week each conducted in some of the best hotels in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, participants are introduced to western ways of thinking and living. Like the media propaganda that was called Development Communication, this indoctrination is not called by its real name; it is described using innocent phrases like capacity building, value-based leadership, gender mainstreaming, and others.”

By YAHYA SSEREMBA

In a 2010 science fiction action film, Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio plays an exceptional thief whose specialty is to extract valuable commercial information from the minds of tycoons. Like a hacker who penetrates computer systems and secretly accesses data, DiCaprio enters into the subconscious of his targets and digs out their secrets as they dream. His excellent espionage skill prompts a wealthy businessman to use him to bring down the business empire of a competitor.

Thus DiCaprio embarks on his toughest mission ever, this time not to steal an idea, but to plant one in the mind of the competitor that should drive the target to destroy his own business empire. In real life and in Africa particularly, western organizations are busy playing DiCaprio by indoctrinating whoever they expect to gain political influence sooner or later. Their goal is to make the next generation of African leaders receptive to western whims and caprice.

Prominent among such organizations is the International Republican Institute, National Democratic Institute, Christian Democratic International Center, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, and Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. These organizations, ideologically dissimilar as they may claim to be, have a common agenda of entrenching and perpetuating western subjugation of Africa.

Their capacity to posture as innocent apostles of good governance, democracy and human rights – concepts that the West defines and twists according to its interests – makes them the least suspected of Euro-American strategies for global dominance.

The quest by the West and the rest for dominating Africa is not new. Through the millennia of known history Africa has suffered intrusion after intrusion, invasion after invasion, occupation after occupation. This recurrent violation of the continent’s self-determination was once perpetrated by races claiming biological superiority that granted them the right to rule over “biologically inferior” Africans.  It is this illusion that the Blacks are intrinsically inferior that motivated Europeans to enslave Africans en masse – first in the New World and later in Africa during colonialism. →

Who is the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) & Who Are Their Sponsors?

WKOG admin: If you are still among the disillusioned who believe that the United Nation’s is key to “saving” humanity and solving our multiple global crisis, we hope the following “strategic alliance” (their words) may awaken you from your slumber. In fact, this elite NGO is located within the UN premises. Not in the secretariat building itself, rather, UNA-USA is located on the opposite side of the street, also secured by UN security. Never has it been so blatant, that the United Nations has morphed into nothing more than an instrumental tool for the Imperialist states and corporate oligarchy.

From the UNA-USA website:

“In 2010, UNA-USA formed a strategic alliance with the UN Foundation. Under the new alliance UNA-USA continued as a robust membership program of the UN Foundation. Together, UNA-USA and the UN Foundation are pooling their talents to increase public education and advocacy on the work of the UN. UNA- USA works closely with the UN Foundation’s sister organization, the Better World Campaign, whose mission is also to strengthen the U.S.-UN relationship.”

From the site:

Sponsors

UNA-USA is able to build stronger links between the US and the UN due to the enthusiastic support of our individual and institutional donors.

 

Thanks to their commitment, UNA-USA is able to educate thousands of young students around the world about global issues; press Congress to strengthen ties between the US and the UN; ensure that the US signs the Convention on Cluster Munitions and advocate for full US support for the International Criminal Court.

 

We invite you to learn more about some of the institutions that have recently supported UNA-USA and its programs and campaigns. For a full list of individual and institutional donors, please see our Annual Report.

 

	Merrill Lynch Global Philanthropy
	The Annenberg Foundation www.whannenberg.org
	The Bank of America Charitable Foundation www.bankofamerica.com/foundation/
	United States Agency for International Development www.usaid.gov
	United Nations Foundation/ Better World Fund www.unfoundation.org
	Ford Foundation www.fordfound.org
	Rockefeller Brothers Fund www.rbf.org
	Newman’s Own Foundation www.newmansown.com
	The Oprah Winfrey Foundation www.oprah.com
	US Department of State www.state.gov
	Deutsche Bank www.community.db.com
	Goldman Sachs Foundation www.gs.com/foundation
	American Jewish Committee/ Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights www.ajc.org
	The Ross Institute www.rossinstitute.org
	Microsoft www.microsoft.com/mscorp/citizenship
	National Geographic Education Foundation www.nationalgeographic.com/foundation
	The New York Times Company Foundation www.nytco.com/company/foundation
	The Open Society Institute www.soros.org
	The Starr Foundation http://www.starrfoundation.org/

UN Foundation/UNA-USA Strategic Alliance

Donors 2007-2008 (Last Published Annual Report)

$1,000,000 +

• The Annenberg Foundation
• Better World Fund
• Merrill Lynch & Company
• Foundation, Inc.
• Procter & Gamble
• Estate of Arthur Ross
• Josh S. Weston
• $500,000 +
• Newman’s Own Foundation
• $100,000 +
• Anonymous
• The Central National-Gottesman
• Foundation
• Charina Foundation, Inc.
• William P. Carey
• Anna J. De Armond
• Laurence D. Fink
• The Ford Foundation
• William J. McDonough
• Richard L. Menschel
• George D. O’Neill
• Open Society Institute
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc.
• E. J. Rosenwald
• The Edward John and
• Patricia Rosenwald Foundation
• Arthur Ross Foundation, Inc.
• Janet C. Ross
• Seton Hall University
• The Starr Foundation
• United States Agency
• for International Development
• Ira D. Wallach
• Kenneth L. Wallach
• Miriam G. and
• Ira D. Wallach Foundation
• The Whitehead Foundation
• The Oprah Winfrey Foundation
• $50,000 +
• The Altus One Fund, Inc.
• The Blackstone Group
• Blum Family Foundation
• Marcelino Botin Foundation
• Christopher W. Brody
• Gustavo A. Cisneros
• Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation
• Stanley Druckenmiller
• The Marc Haas Foundation, Inc.
• The William and Flora
• Hewlett Foundation
• Japanese Chamber of Commerce
• & Industry of New York
• The Monterey Fund, Inc.
• Margaret T. Morris Foundation/
• Richard Menschel
• National Philanthropic Trust
• Ploughshares Fund
• The Philanthropic Collaborative, Inc.
  Lily Safra
• Polly Thayer Starr Charitable Trust
• United States Institute of Peace
• Enzo Viscusi

$25,000 +

• American International Group
• Anonymous
• Diego Arria
• Bailye Family Charitable Foundation
• Bloomberg L.P.
• Christopher and Barbara Brody Fund
• Leo Burnett
• Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Inc.
• CMS Endowment Foundation
• Golden Family Foundation
• Harvey W. Greisman
• Carl B. Hess
• Thomas J. Hubbard
• MasterCard Worldwide
• McKinsey & Company, Inc.
• Raffiq A. Nathoo
• Nike, Inc.
• PepsiCo Foundation
• Peter G. Peterson
• Jonathan Roberts
• Daniel Rose
• Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Fund
• Alfred and Jane Ross Foundation, Inc.
• Alfred F. Ross
• Saatchi & Saatchi
• Leo Schenker
• Schenker Family Foundation
• Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation
• The Tides Foundation
• US Trust Company of New York
• Richard A. Voell
• Richard and Virginia Voell Family Fund
• Zilkha Foundation

$10,000 +

• AARP
• AEA Investors, Inc.
• Amelior Foundation
• Loreen Arbus Foundation
• The Beir Foundation
• BNP Paribas North America
• Bressler, Amery & Ross
• Larry Brilliant
• Joan Ganz Cooney
• Chubb Corporation
• Estate of Jean M. Cluett
• Catherine Curtin
• Mr. and Mrs. Michel David-Weill
• Virginia A. de Lima
• Charles M. Diker
• Valerie & Charles Diker Fund, Inc.
• Michael Douglas
• William H. Draper
• Fried, Frank, Harris,
• Shriver & Jacobson
• General Cable
• Grey Global Group, Inc.
• Hearst Magazines
• Leonard C. Hirsch
• Geoffrey R. Hoguet
• Holthues Trust
• J & AR Foundation
• Jeannette and H. Peter Kriendler
• Charitable Fund
• John V. Hummel
• The Joyce Foundation
• Tsutomu S. Karino
• Richard L. Kauffman and
• Ellen Jewett Foundation
• Kennedy Smith Foundatio
• KPMG Peat Marwick, LLP
• The Iara Lee &
• George Gund III Foundation
• George S. Loening
• MediaVest Worldwide
• Lori P. Mirek
• Theresa Mullarkey
• Leo Nevas
• Nevas, Nevas, Capasse & Gerard
• The New York Times Company Foundation
• The Nostalgia Network, Inc.
• Barbara and Louis Perlmutter
• Peter G. Peterson & Joan Ganz Cooney Fund
• Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
• Harriet Pillsbury Foundation
• Robert S. Rifkind
• Nancy Rubin
• Sheldon H. Solow
• Solow Management
• Richard H. Stanley
• Starcom
• Tiffany & Company
• United Nations Foundation
• Weiss Foundation
• Wieden and Kennedy
• Ward W. Woods
• The Woods Foundation
• Yahoo! Inc.

$5,000 +

• A&E Television Networks
• Adolfo Camarillo High School
• ADP Foundation
• Georgette Bennett
• Georgette Bennett and
• Leonard Polonsky Family Fund
• Margaret K. Bruce
• Caribbean Kids Fund
• Janet C. Cassady
• The Coca-Cola Company
• Consolidated Edison Co.
• of New York, Inc.
• Ronald Davenport
• Dow Chemical Company
• FedEx Corporation
• Good Family Foundation
• Greentree Foundation
• Nedenia Hartley
• Hess Foundation, Inc.
• Ruth Hinerfeld
• Gregory B. Kenny
• Charles and Mary Liebman
• Lifetime Entertainment Services
• MCJ Foundation
• Hope S. Miller
• The Minneapolis Foundation
• Leo Nevas Family Foundation
• Nuveen Investements
• The David and
• Lucile Packard Foundation
• Henry G. Parker
• The Prudential Insurance
• Company of America
• Margaret Purvine
• Stephen Robert
• Rockefeller & Co., Inc.
• Mendon F. Schutt Family Fund
• The Select Equity Group, Inc.
• Frank L. Smith
• Sports Marketing & Entertainment, Inc.
• The Susan Stein Shiva Foundation
• Frances W. Stevenson
• Lee B. Thomas
• The Melinda and Wm. J.
• vanden Heuvel Foundation
• John L. Vogelstein Charitable Trust
• Wachovia Corporation
• Malcolm H. Wiener
• The Malcolm Hewitt
• Wiener Foundation
• The Winston-Salem Foundation
• Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Mortimer B. Zuckerman

 

For the full list see page 24 of the report.

 

 

 

BROOKINGS INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES NEXT MOVE IN SYRIA – WAR

May 9, 2012

Libya & the Left | NATO, Rebels & ‘Revolutionary’ Apologists

The International Bolshevik Tendency (IBT)

Feb 17,2012

Upon hearing of Muammar Qaddafi’s execution, U.S. President Barack Obama, who had shared a photo-op with him as recently as 2009, proclaimed: “working in Libya with friends and allies, we’ve demonstrated what collective action can achieve in the 21st century.” Obama was particularly pleased that, “Without putting a single US service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives,” and alluded to future targets:

“In a line aimed at the region’s other despots, the president said, ‘Today’s events prove once more that the rule of an iron fist inevitably comes to an end.’

“Asked if that sends a message to Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, who has mounted a brutal crackdown on protesters, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney simply restated existing policy that Assad ‘has lost his legitimacy to rule.’”
—New York Post, 21 October 2011

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden compared the outcome in Libya to earlier, less successful adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“In this case, America spent $2 billion total and didn’t lose a single life. This is more of the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has been in the past.”
—Ibid.

Israeli journalist Orly Azoulay praised Obama’s “new war doctrine,” pointing to the integration of “massive air power” and “local rebel forces”:

“General Gaddafi’s death is yet another victory for the new war doctrine adopted by United States President Barack Obama: No ground forces in enemy countries, but rather, utilizing massive air power—including drones—in order to pulverize enemy strongholds. In Libya’s case at least, this doctrine also included cooperation with local rebel forces.”
—Ynetnews.com, 21 October 2011

This is a fair summary of events in Libya—“massive air power” destroyed the armed bodies loyal to Qaddafi and opened the door for local quislings to scramble to fill the vacuum. Yet things do not always go according to plan, and it is sometimes easier to depose an existing regime than to impose a viable successor, as NATO discovered in Afghanistan a decade ago.

In both Libya and Afghanistan, the immediate result of “regime change” was the installation of new puppet leaders with strong American connections. Afghan President Hamid Karzai—who was appointed leader at a conference in Bonn, Germany in December 2001—had worked with the CIA as a fundraiser for the anti-Soviet mujahedin 20 years earlier. Libya’s new prime minister, Abdurraheem el-Keib, who holds American citizenship, attended school in the U.S. and taught at the University of Alabama before moving to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to chair the Electrical Engineering Department at the Petroleum Institute, where his research was partially funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. With this background, he seems well qualified to oversee the return of Libya’s oil and gas fields (which had been nationalized under Qaddafi in the early 1970s) to Western control.

For Military Defense of Neocolonies Against Imperialist Attack!

Marxists, unlike social democrats, unconditionally defend the right of subjugated nations to resist the predations of the “advanced capitalist” global powers. In 1956, revolutionaries backed Egypt against a joint British/French/Israeli intervention aimed at reversing the nationalization of the Suez Canal. When the U.S./UK and others attacked Serbia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq two years later, Marxists took sides—despite the reactionary character of the regimes headed by Slobodan Milosevic, Mullah Omar and Saddam Hussein.

The attack on Libya, like the earlier interventions in Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq, was preceded by a barrage of lies—in this case focused on claims of a wholesale slaughter of civilians by the Qaddafi regime following the 17 February 2011 “Day of Rage” protest. The chief source for these reports was Al Jazeera, the news agency operated by the rulers of Qatar, who supplied weapons and hundreds of soldiers to the insurgents. The lurid tales of “massacres” of civilians by the Libyan air force turned out to be grossly exaggerated.

On 2 March 2011, two weeks before the bombs began to fall, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Congressional subcommittee “that the Pentagon has no confirmation that Libyan strongman Muammar al Qaddafi is using his air force to kill civilians” (CBS News, 2 March 2011). On 22 March 2011, after the bombing had commenced, USA Today carried an article by Alan Kuperman of the University of Texas noting that, “Despite ubiquitous cellphone cameras, there are no images of genocidal violence, a claim that smacks of rebel propaganda.” Two weeks later Richard Haass, president of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, wrote that the “evidence was not persuasive that a large-scale massacre or genocide was either likely or imminent” in Libya (Huffington Post, 6 April 2011).

It is now clear that there was no more “genocide” in Libya than “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq in 2003. Justifying military aggression with lies is a time-honored practice, as Adolf Hitler reminded his top commanders on 22 August 1939, as final preparations were underway for attacking Poland:

“I shall give a propaganda reason for starting the war, whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth. When starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory.”
—quoted in Hitler and Stalin, Alan Bullock

This has certainly been the case in Libya. No one in the bourgeois media has shown much concern about following up on stories of civilian massacres by the regime, which had been so important in legitimizing military intervention. The fact that much of the international “revolutionary” left eagerly swallowed and regurgitated this imperialist propaganda—and has yet to admit they were hoodwinked—testifies to their political adaptation to the capitalist social order.

The UN Security Council, professing profound concerns about the well-being of ordinary Libyans, used these tales to justify the imposition of sanctions, the freezing of Libyan assets abroad and the creation of a “no-fly zone.” The latter resulted in the insertion of NATO airpower into what had previously been a civil war between the Qaddafi regime and imperialist-linked dissidents centered in Benghazi.

Estimates of total casualties inflicted by the 9,600 “humanitarian” bombing sorties carried out by British, French and other NATO aircraft from April to October 2011 vary considerably, but it is generally agreed that thousands of Libyans were killed (many of them civilians) and many thousands more seriously wounded. NATO bombs massively damaged Libya’s infrastructure and displaced tens of thousands of people from their homes. The pretence that this destruction was motivated by a desire to “protect” civilians is belied by the casual indifference with which victims of NATO’s air war have been treated.

After months of bitter conflict, the cumulative effect of the imperialist bombardment (supplemented by opposition militias aided by hundreds of foreign special forces) succeeded in decimating Qaddafi’s military. According to many accounts, the most effective indigenous forces fighting the regime were Islamists, some of them linked to Al Qaeda. For the most part, however, the “rebels” were not a major factor, apart from their value in drawing fire from Qaddafi’s forces, who thereby made it easier for NATO airstrikes to target them. The role of the ragtag anti-Qaddafi fighters, like the politicians of the Transitional National Council (TNC—aka National Transitional Council), who enjoyed the backing of the imperialists from the start, was to put a Libyan face on “regime change.”

In a 1915 pamphlet entitled, “Socialism and War,” the great Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin declared that in cases of imperialist military attacks (“humanitarian” or otherwise) on neocolonial countries, “every Socialist would sympathise with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slaveowning, predatory ‘great’ powers.” There is no ambiguity: revolutionaries militarily side with oppressed countries against imperialist attack regardless of the crimes (real or imagined) of the ruling regime. When Mussolini attacked Ethiopia in 1935, Leon Trotsky immediately responded: “Of course, we are for the defeat of Italy and the victory of Ethiopia” (“The Italo-Ethiopian Conflict,” 17 July 1935). The fact that chattel slavery persisted under the regime of Haile Selassie was irrelevant:

“If Mussolini triumphs, it means the reinforcement of fascism, the strengthening of imperialism, and the discouragement of the colonial peoples in Africa and elsewhere. The victory of the Negus, however, would mean a mighty blow not only at Italian imperialism but at imperialism as a whole, and would lend a powerful impulsion to the rebellious forces of the oppressed peoples. One must really be completely blind not to see this.”
—”On Dictators and the Heights of Oslo,” 22 April 1936

NATO’s victory over Qaddafi, by vindicating Obama’s supposed “new war doctrine” for U.S. imperialism, helps pave the way for future aggression in Africa and the Middle East. The eagerness with which the overwhelming majority of the world’s self-proclaimed “Trotskyist” organizations accepted the imperialist narrative graphically illustrates their distance from the political heritage they claim to represent. Instead of forthrightly standing for the military victory of Qaddafi’s forces over NATO and its proxies, these revisionists supported the latter as representing a “revolutionary” movement or, at best, adopted a position of effective neutrality. In doing so, they turn their backs on the anti-imperialism of the Communist International under Lenin and Trotsky.

Rationalizing Support for Imperialist Auxiliaries

Probably the most overtly pro-imperialist position was taken by the British Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), which blandly observed:

“The most far-reaching of the [North African] uprisings so far has been in Libya. Of course it is unusual in that its ultimate success was dependent on military intervention by NATO.”

•     •     •

“Successful campaigning by the Western left to prevent NATO intervention would have flown in the face of the express wishes of the revolutionary movement itself, and resulted in a massacre in Benghazi which would have been a tragedy in itself but also an enormous defeat for the ‘Arab Spring’ as a whole.

“Workers’ Liberty didn’t oppose the [NATO] intervention.”
—5 October 2011

The AWL’s characterization of the motley collection of long-time imperialist assets, Islamic reactionaries and defectors from the Qaddafi regime in Benghazi as the leaders of a “revolutionary” movement whose wishes had to be respected was widely shared by many supposedly Trotskyist groups, although most were less candid about NATO’s central role in the conflict and less willing to spell out the ultimate logic of their position. Instead, they employed varying combinations of factual misrepresentation, non sequiturs and special pleading in awkward attempts to maintain some pretence of “anti-imperialist” orthodoxy while supporting NATO’s “rebel” proxies (who were falsely equated with the courageous youth who had earlier brought down the hated pro-imperialist dictators in Tunisia and Egypt).

Alan Woods, a leading figure in the ultra-opportunist International Marxist Tendency (IMT), was among those offering the most unqualified endorsement of NATO’s Benghazi allies:

“[Frederick] Engels explained that the state is armed bodies of men. In Benghazi and other cities controlled by the rebels, the old state has ceased to exist. It has been replaced by the armed people, revolutionary militias, which Lenin said were the embryo of a new state power.”
—“Uprising in Libya: Tremble, tyrants!,” 23 February 2011

An essentially similar, if slightly more restrained, assessment was advanced by the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI—from which the IMT split in 1992), which also characterized the Benghazi uprising as a “revolution” while warning that it might be “hijacked by remnants of the Qaddafi regime, pro-bourgeois opposition ‘leaders’, reactionary tribal leaders and imperialist interests” (“Gaddafi must go! It’s a fight to the finish,” 28 February 2011). A few weeks later the CWI was denouncing the UN “no-fly” zone as an imperialist military intervention:

“The UN Security Council’s majority decision to enact a militarily-imposed ‘no-fly-zone’ against Libya, while greeted with joy on the streets of Benghazi and Tobruk, is in no way intended to defend the Libyan revolution. Revolutionaries in Libya may think that this decision will help them, but they are mistaken. Naked economic and political calculations lay behind the imperialist powers’ decision.”
—“No to Western Military Intervention—Victory to the Libyan Revolution—Build an Independent Movement of Workers and Youth!,” 19 March 2011

While recognizing that “The largely self-appointed ‘National Council’ that emerged in Benghazi is a combination of elements from the old regime and more pro-imperialist elements” (Ibid.), the CWI continued to hail the supposed “Libyan revolution” spearheaded by the TNC.

The CWI’s competitors in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) took an essentially similar approach—touting the “revolution” while warning that appeals to the West for funds and NATO air support invited imperialist “blackmail”:

“Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC), the body that grew out of the revolution, made a series of simple demands in the first crucial days of the uprising. It asked for the recognition of the TNC, access to the billions in sequestrated regime funds in order to buy weapons and other crucial supplies, and an immediate halt to the ‘mercenary flights’ that provided Gaddafi’s regime with its foot soldiers.”

•     •     •

“The West, in effect, blackmailed the revolution.”
—Socialist Worker, 26 March 2011

Like the IMT and CWI, the SWP treated the 17 February 2011 protests that kicked off the revolt as largely spontaneous in origin:

“Inspired by the events in Egypt and Tunisia, a loose network of young activists joined by notables, among them judges and respected lawyers, called for peaceful protests on 17 February. These protests, despite the modest demands, turned into the first public displays of opposition to the regime.”
—Socialist Review, April 2011

In fact, it was not “a loose network of young activists” but rather the imperialist-linked National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (NCLO—subsequently subsumed by the TNC) that initiated the 17 February demonstrations, as the SWP subsequently admitted. While not explicitly repudiating its previous claim that the protests had originated with “a loose network of young activists,” the May 2011 issue of Socialist Review stated that: “Exiles in the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition coordinated with dissidents to plan a ‘Day of Rage’ for 17 February.” There was no need to “blackmail” the NCLO, an organization whose founders included people with a long-standing connection with the CIA, as documented in our 1 April 2011 statement (see “Defeat the Imperialists!” reprinted on 37).

The “Trotskyist” publicists for the Benghazi rebels initially brushed off reports of support for the imposition of a “no-fly” zone and played up expressions by the TNC of formal opposition to foreign military intervention. For example, on 1 March 2011, the IMT wrote:

“According to Al Jazeera, Abdel Fattah Younes, Libya’s former interior minister who defected to the opposition, has stated that the idea that the people would welcome foreign troops was ‘out of the question.’

“This has been confirmed by Hafiz Ghoga, spokesperson of the newly formed ‘National Libyan Council’ [i.e., TNC] that has been set up in Benghazi. Ghoga is quoted as saying: ‘We are completely against foreign intervention. The rest of Libya will be liberated by the people…and Gaddafi’s security forces will be eliminated by the people of Libya.’”
—”No to imperialist intervention in Libya”

The TNC’s initial posture of opposition to Western intervention may have been motivated by a desire to consolidate popular support and rebut the regime’s (essentially correct) claim that the leaders of the revolt were in league with foreign interests whose chief objective was to re-appropriate Libya’s fossil fuel resources. During the first few weeks, several prominent figures (including both the justice and interior ministers) defected, and the Benghazi rebels, along with their backers, may well have hoped that the regime would simply implode. As Qaddafi’s loyalists regained their balance and moved to recapture Benghazi, the TNC began desperately demanding NATO air cover. The fact that this shift apparently failed to produce any sort of rift within the rebel camp refutes the narrative of a hijacked revolution.

There was, in fact, no “Libyan revolution”—the Benghazi revolt was, at its core, an expression of a long-standing division among the traditional ruling elites in which an unstable amalgam of monarchists and former Qaddafi loyalists (joined by cadres of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group) made a bid for power. Their revolt tapped a deep well of popular anger and resentment, and most of the TNC’s supporters doubtless imagined that they were involved in another chapter of the “Arab Spring” which had already toppled dictators in the region. But the revolt in Libya had a different character right from the outset, which explains the enthusiastic support from Washington, Paris and other NATO capitals.

By mid-March 2011, as the bombing was about to commence, even the IMT expressed some uneasiness about the character of the “rebel” leaders they had been promoting:

“These people successfully stepped into the vacuum of leadership that emerged in Benghazi when the state collapsed in the face of the revolution, but rather than strengthening the revolution, they weaken it. There are also Islamists, who can be of no appeal to working people in the cities. There are human rights activists and pro-democracy groups, whose main objective is some kind of bourgeois democracy, but who do not take into account the social and economic demands of ordinary working people. Side by side with all these there is the revolutionary youth and the working class and poor.”
—”Why has the revolution stalled in Libya?,” 17 March 2011

A few weeks later the IMT downgraded its assessment of the “rebel leaders” even further, comparing them to “the Karzai regime in Afghanistan or the Maliki regime in Iraq”:

“This brings us to the role played by the Interim Council that was established in Benghazi. This Council was thrown up by a situation in which the masses had brought down state power, but did not know what to replace it with. There was a de facto power vacuum created. In this situation accidental elements came to the fore, who are now clearly playing a counter-revolutionary role.”
—”Libyan Interim Government—agents of imperialism,” 1 April 2011

The TNC leadership was indeed counterrevolutionary, but it was hardly “accidental”—it was made up of representatives of most opposition formations, including the initiators of the 17 February “Day of Rage.”

In October 2011, as the imperialists celebrated Qaddafi‘s murder, Alan Woods was still blathering about a continuing “Libyan Revolution”:

“It is a confused and contradictory situation, the outcome of which is as yet unclear. On the one hand, the mass movement, including the working class, is pushing for its own demands. On the other hand, the bourgeois elements are manoeuvring with the imperialists to take control of the situation. The main motor force of the Revolution is the young rebel fighters who are honest and courageous but also confused and disoriented and can be manipulated by the fundamentalists and other demagogues.”
—”After the death of Gaddafi: Revolution and counterrevolution in Libya,” 21 October 2011

The essential elements of the situation were clear enough—NATO had orchestrated a low-overhead “regime change” in Libya, designed to reopen its oil and gas fields for foreign exploitation. However “confused and disoriented” young Libyans may have been, it is hard to imagine that they were more befuddled than those IMT members who took Woods’s brainless objectivism seriously.

Unlike the IMT, many former boosters of the TNC-led “Libyan revolution” had some inkling that when Tripoli fell, it was the imperialists, not the Libyan masses, who had come out on top. The British SWP, for example, schizophrenically “celebrated” Qaddafi’s fall while acknowledging that the main beneficiaries were likely to be Western oil corporations:

“The end of Gaddafi’s regime is a cause for celebration. He will be the third Arab dictator to fall this year.

“But the nature of the struggle in Libya is now fundamentally different from the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt that originally inspired it. It became so once Western forces decided to appropriate it.”

•     •     •

“The imperialist powers hijacked the Libyan revolt and bent it to their own needs. They forced the new rebel authority in Benghazi to reaffirm trade contracts and international oil deals.”
—Socialist Worker, 20 August 2011

Other groups also pushed the notion of a “hijacked” revolution. The French Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste (NPA), which in March 2011 had co-signed a declaration with the Stalinist Communist Party and others demanding that French imperialism recognize the TNC, issued a 21 August 2011 statement insisting that while events in Libya had paralleled the “revolutionary processes underway in Tunisia and in Egypt,” somehow “under cover of a resolution from the UN, the member countries of NATO attempted to hijack the process underway by an aerial military intervention.”

Socialist Action (SA), an American group historically linked to the NPA, also hailed the Libyan “revolution,” but attempted to give its backing of the TNC a leftist spin by offering “political support in their fight against the quislings who would turn over Libya to imperialist intervention” (Socialist Action, March 2011). The fact that the TNC quislings were soon actively demanding imperialist intervention presumably contributed to SA’s eventual decision to rethink its position. But as NATO was preparing to go in, Socialist Action (along with the rest of what remains of the late Ernest Mandel’s “United Secretariat of the Fourth International” [USec]), was critical of “the role of Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro in their one-sided, if correct, denunciation of imperialism’s interests and intentions in this affair, while denying or ignoring Qaddafi’s repression and murders” (Ibid.). It is hardly surprising that such left-nationalist or Stalinist bonapartists (whom SA and the USec have fawned over for years) were not particularly concerned by Qaddafi’s anti-democratic transgressions. But at least they understood what the imperialists were up to and did not ascribe a transcendent “revolutionary” dynamic to the TNC.

Socialist Action‘s line change (which they have yet to acknowledge as such) was not made public until after Tripoli had fallen to the TNC/NATO alliance in August. In a 2 September 2011 statement entitled, “Imperialist Victory Is No Gain For Libyan People,” Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action’s leading figure, wrote:

“In the early days of these mass protests, there were unmistakable but only modest indications of the independent character of at least a portion of the anti-Gadhafi leadership, as when anti-government protesters unfurled massive banners from rooftops, declaring, ‘No Foreign Intervention: The Libyan People Can Manage It Alone.’ Even then, it was not always clear whether opposition to foreign intervention referred to troops on the ground only, since major elements of the opposition had announced early on, and even demanded, support by U.S./NATO forces and a ‘no-fly zone.’”

At a point when it appeared that the Qaddafi regime might melt down, it made sense for the leaders of the TNC lash-up to assert their preference for rearranging Libyan society without foreign supervision. However, as soon as Qaddafi’s supporters proved capable of organizing a serious counter-offensive, the TNC’s tune changed. In his statement, Mackler acknowledged the abrupt shift in attitude:

“Whatever self-organization was evidenced in the earliest days of the mass protest was essentially spontaneous and created to organize the distribution of food and the coordination of vital services as Gadhafi’s forces bombarded Benghazi. We have yet to see any indication that these organizational forms gave rise to or were based on independent political forces aiming at developing a program to advance the interests of the masses. Nor is there evidence that they took on the task of consolidating an alternative to the leading bourgeois and pro-imperialist forces, which fully understood the need to rush to the ‘leadership’ of the mass movement.

“Given the political void among the anti-Gadhafi forces, the TNC was quickly recognized as the nation’s ‘legal’ government….The Europeans’ and Americans’ public pretensions of ‘protecting civilians’ from Gadhafi’s forces rapidly gave way to their real objectives—‘regime change’ pure and simple.”

Characterizing the conflict after NATO’s intervention as an “imperialist-led conquest of Libya,” the SA statement continues:

“The right of self-determination of all oppressed nations, even those led by heinous dictators, must be supported as against imperialist interventions. Imperialism’s defeat in any confrontation with oppressed nations weakens its capacity for future interventions and opens the door wider for others to follow suit. While revolutionary socialists have every right and obligation to criticize and oppose dictatorships everywhere, these criticisms are subordinate to the defeat of imperialist intervention and war. Revolutionaries are not neutral in such confrontations. We are always for the defeat of the imperialist intervener and would-be colonizer.”

This implies, but stops short of explicitly stating, that socialists should have taken a position of militarily supporting Qaddafi’s forces against the imperialists and their TNC proxies (rather than pretending that a revolution was unfolding as Socialist Action and its co-thinkers did). Mackler’s statement also fails to acknowledge the role of the CIA-connected NCLO in organizing the original “Day of Rage,” and instead treats the Benghazi events as essentially spontaneous in origin. He does, however, note that with the TNC’s ascension to power, “we are compelled to recognize the tragic truth that a severe defeat has been inflicted on the Libyan people”:

“Today the imperialist boot is on the ground in Libya and deeply implanted. The Libyan masses have not been liberated. Thousands have been killed. Imperialism’s sights are now focused on doing the same in Syria and eventually in Iran.”

While belated and inadequate, SA’s line change does at least recognize that the overthrow of Qaddafi was a victory for imperialism and a defeat for working people and the oppressed. This represents a clear shift to the left, the origins and ultimate implications of which remain unclear.

Ken Hiebert, a long-time USec supporter in Canada who is critical of Socialist Action’s change of position, inquired why—if March 2011 marked the beginning of “a six-month imperialist-led onslaught that wrought death and destruction on the Libyan people”—SA was “still calling for Victory to the Uprising! as late as April 28, 2011[?] Why is it that only in the September issue of their paper does SA revise its view?” Hiebert suggests that the logic of SA’s new position means that those groups that wanted to see a victory by Qaddafi’s forces against NATO were “more far-sighted than the leadership of SA.” He also wonders, if “the only force that could oppose the imperialist intervention was the Libyan army, shouldn’t we have been supporting the army and it [sic] leadership?” But thus far, to our knowledge, Socialist Action has not chosen to respond.

To avoid promoting politics that lead to “severe defeats” in future, Socialist Action needs to answer Hiebert’s questions and make an honest accounting of the roots of their original mistake and the process through which they came to reject it. They should also explicitly state that in hindsight they recognize the necessity to side militarily with Qaddafi’s forces against NATO.

WSWS: NATO Defeatist, but not Libyan Defensist

The policy that Socialist Action retrospectively adopted parallels the one arrived at by David North’s World Socialist Web Site (WSWS—aka Socialist Equality Party [SEP]). Initially the WSWS (18 February 2011) observed:

“The events in Libya are part of the uprising that is engulfing the Middle East and North Africa. The protesters themselves draw a parallel between what is happening in Libya and what has already taken place in Egypt and Tunisia.”

There is no question that the mass mobilizations in Tunisia and Egypt resonated in Libya, and doubtless most of those who demonstrated against Qaddafi saw themselves as participating in a revolt inspired by the overturn of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak. But it is also indisputable that the 17 February 2011 “Day of Rage” which kicked off the Benghazi uprising was initiated by the NCLO, which was founded by Libyan “dissidents” with long-standing CIA connections.

Unlike the left groups which began by identifying the Benghazi revolt with those in Tunis and Cairo and then proceeded to claim that a good revolt had been “hijacked” by bad elements, the WSWS did not shrink from the unpleasant truth about the pro-imperialist character of its leadership. While still characterizing the rebellion as a “legitimate popular uprising,” the SEP leadership quickly decided that it was morphing into something else:

“What began as a popular revolt against the repressive Gaddafi regime is increasingly being channelled, with the help of an interim administration in Benghazi, Libya’s second city, into the pretext for an imperialist intervention. Such an operation would seek to establish a de facto client state in Libya. It would help imperialist forces assert control over the country’s large oil and gas fields and serve as a bastion of reaction against the working-class uprisings sweeping the entire region, from Morocco to Iraq.”

•     •     •

“Inside Libya, Gaddafi’s former justice minister, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who now heads the opposition National Libyan Council in Benghazi, called for foreign air strikes and a no-fly zone. Citing sources within the council, the New York Times reported that this stance was adopted at a heated council meeting where ‘others strongly disagreed’. There has been deep opposition to such a call within popular protests against Gaddafi, because of fears of a return to neo-colonial rule—fears that Gaddafi is exploiting to posture as a defender of Libyan sovereignty.”
—5 March 2011

When NATO bombing commenced, the question of Libyan sovereignty was indeed clearly posed, and the nature of the conflict changed from being an intra-elite struggle to a fight between a neocolonial regime and a coalition of imperialists and their lackeys. The attitude of Marxists changed accordingly—from defeatism on both sides to military support for Qaddafi and his supporters against the imperialists and their TNC auxiliaries. The WSWS correctly assessed NATO’s intervention as intended:

“to ensure that any regime that replaces Gaddafi serves not the interests of the Libyan people, but rather the demands of Washington and Big Oil. The US hopes to use Libya, moreover, as a base of operations for suppressing revolutionary movements of workers throughout the region.”
—18 March 2011

The next day the WSWS issued the following appeal:

“The World Socialist Web Site calls on workers and young people to reject the war propaganda under a humanitarian guise with the disgust it deserves. The fight against political oppression, social exploitation and war is inseparable from the building of a socialist movement that unites the international working class in a struggle against capitalism and imperialism.”
—19 March 2011

What was missing was a call for military support to Qaddafi’s forces attempting to resist the imperialist assault. This was not an accident—the unwillingness to adopt a Libyan defensist position derives from the SEP’s contention that Lenin’s policy of recognizing the right of all nations to self-determination is no longer applicable. This position was spelled out in a 1994 document entitled, “Marxism, Opportunism and the Balkan Crisis”:

“In politics, terms which had a definite social and class content in one period often come to represent something quite different in the next. This is the case with the slogan of ‘self-determination.’

“Vast changes in world economic and political relations have created corresponding changes in the character of the national movements….

“Can one speak today of the national bourgeoisie of Bosnia, or Kazakhstan or Kashmir seeking to ‘capture the home market,’ thereby creating conditions for the ‘victory of commodity production’ and hence a fuller development of the class struggle?

“On the contrary, these new ethnocentric movements seek the Balkanization of existing states. Rather than proposing to create a home market, they desire more direct economic ties with imperialism and globally-mobile capital. The ‘right to self-determination’ is invoked as a means of advancing the interests of small sections of the local bourgeoisie.”

The political conclusion drawn by the SEP is that “there is no answer to the problems of national divisions” short of socialist revolution. The political logic of such sterile ultimatism was evident in the WSWS treatment of events in Libya. While denouncing the imperialist assault (and accurately describing the TNC as “dominated by recent defectors from the regime, along with CIA assets and other reactionary forces” [24 March 2011]) the SEP’s response was profoundly flawed by its refusal to takes sides in what boiled down to an attempt to re-impose neocolonial rule.

Workers Power—Centrist Confusionism & Imperialist Lackeys

While failing to defend Qaddafi’s forces, the SEP at least pointed out the predatory intent of the NATO powers and their Libyan auxiliaries in the TNC. The same cannot be said for the British Workers Power group (flagship of the League for the Fifth International [L5I]), well known for incongruously combining leftist rhetoric with grossly opportunist positions. It was no surprise to find that Workers Power’s initial take on what it termed the Libyan “revolution” was virtually identical to that of the IMT, CWI, SWP and assorted other revisionists. When NATO started bombing, the L5I loudly denounced the UN-mandated imperialist intervention, while continuing to “unconditionally support” the imperialist quislings of the TNC:

“The rebellion against Gadaffi’s dictatorship deserves unconditional support and that is not altered by the UN decision….

“Those who oppose powerful states have the right to get hold of arms wherever they can and to take advantage of any weaknesses in their oppressors’ situation. That remains true even where the weaknesses are the result of imperialist action. If, under cover of the no-fly zone, Libyan insurgents and revolutionaries can retake positions, undermine the morale or the loyalty of Gadaffi’s troops and even advance on the capital, Tripoli, that is a step forward for the Libyan revolution and should be welcomed.

“At the same time we must oppose the US, British and French attack.”
—“Victory to the Libyan Revolution!,” 19 March 2011

A week later Workers Power sought to explain why, if indeed it opposed the imperialist attack, it refused to side with Qaddafi:

“Others on the left decided to support Gaddafi when the bombs started falling, calling on all the Libyans to form an anti-imperialist united front. This position assumes that the working class should automatically side with those targeted by imperialism, irrespective of political context or the war aims of either side….Are the workers and the poor of Libya supposed to make common cause with Gaddafi so that he can continue his repression of their revolution?”
—“Nato over Libya—the tide begins to turn,” 26 March 2011

Workers Power viewed NATO’s military intervention into what had been a nascent civil war as an opportunity “the forces of the democratic revolution” (i.e., the TNC and its followers) should take advantage of: “It would be bizarre, indeed, to refuse to continue the campaign against Gaddafi’s repressive apparatus because it had been weakened by imperialist action!” (Ibid.). As the months went on, the L5I leadership was compelled to offer a series of shifting rationalizations for supporting NATO’s proxies. In June 2011, the L5I asked: “Are the rebels fighting on the ground simply tools of imperialism? No. First as we have said the NATO powers did not give weapons or munitions to the rebels—i.e. they did not enhance the latter’s independent capacity to overthrow Gaddafi” (“Libya and the struggle against imperialism,” 15 June 2011).

How then to explain the widely-publicized presence of hundreds of NATO and other special forces sent in to stiffen the TNC militias? The article continues:

“Despite having military operations in Libya for three months a direct command structure to liaise between the NATO air force and naval actions and the Benghazi ground forces was only established in early June.”

The existence of a “direct command structure” linking the rebel militias and NATO controllers might seem to most people to be pretty good evidence that the former were being wielded as “tools of imperialism.” Workers Power admitted that the “rebels” not only had a “pro-imperialist counterrevolutionary leadership,” but had been involved in “racist pogroms against sub-Saharan Africans.” Yet none of this made any difference:

“Socialists will always support a genuine mass movement that is fighting for democratic rights against a dictatorship, no matter how ‘anti-imperialist’ their credentials….

“In Poland in the 1980s it was right for socialists to support Solidarnosc as a mass trade-union movement—again despite the pro-capitalist, pro-catholic, policies of its leadership. In France in the Second World War Paris was liberated by a Communist Party led resistance movement that was certainly not anti-imperialist in any sense.

“The crucial perspective within all these social movements is to fight for a revolution within the revolution. Every revolutionary movement carries within it the seeds of a counter-revolution, whether it is the threat of co-option or bureaucratisation. The threat for the Libyan resistance is very real—the TNC is staffed with ex Gaddafi men, pro-privatisation, pro-imperialism and anti-working class.”
—Ibid.

Revolutionary movements are not, as a rule, led by those with “pro-imperialist and anti-working class” programs. In Russia in 1921 there was a “genuine mass movement…fighting for democratic rights against a [Bolshevik] dictatorship” that extended from the confused Kronstadt mutineers to the hardened counterrevolutionary officers of the White Army. The “socialists” who supported this movement (like Workers Power and other leftists who backed Lech Walesa and the rest of the capitalist-restorationist leaders of Poland’s Solidarnosc in 1981) were acting as shills for imperialism. In a polemic aimed at Workers Power written a few years prior to the triumph of counterrevolution in the Soviet bloc, we observed:

“The duty of revolutionists is to tell the truth—not to ascribe ‘revolutionary’ dynamics to reactionary political movements. In following the leadership of Solidarnosc, the bulk of the Polish workers were acting against their own historic class interests.”
—”Solidarnosc: Acid Test for Trotskyists,” 1988

The same could be said of those workers in Libya who identified with the TNC. In a statement marking the triumphant entry of NATO’s proxies into Tripoli, Dave Stockton, one of Workers Power’s founding cadres, wrote:

“Those imperialists who once supported him [Gaddafi] have gone over to opposing him and are trying to bring him down—to them we say: get out of the way, this has nothing to do with you, the people of Libya alone will defeat Gaddafi and his wretched cronies….”
—”Should socialists support the Libyan revolution?,” 22 August 2011

Who was Stockton hoping to fool? The “people of Libya” did not bring down Qaddafi—NATO did, as even the newest recruit to Workers Power must be aware. Stockton neatly encapsulates the rightist thrust of the L5I’s crystallized confusionism by observing: “In conclusion, socialists always oppose imperialism but they do not always support those who are fighting imperialism.”

Contrary to Workers Power, revolutionaries always, and without exception, militarily side with those neocolonial forces resisting imperialist aggression. It is impossible to “always oppose imperialism” without also militarily supporting those who resist attempts to reimpose neocolonial rule, however unpalatable their leaders may be. This policy, which originated with the Third (Communist) International under Lenin, and was upheld by the Fourth International of the 1930s and 1940s, retains all its validity today for reasons Trotsky spelled out over 70 years ago:

“The struggle of the oppressed peoples for national unification and national independence is doubly progressive because, on the one side, this prepares more favorable conditions for their own development, while, on the other side, this deals blows to imperialism. That, in particular, is the reason why, in the struggle between a civilized, imperialist, democratic republic and a backward, barbaric monarchy in a colonial country, the socialists are completely on the side of the oppressed country notwithstanding its monarchy and against the oppressor country notwithstanding its ‘democracy.’

“Imperialism camouflages its own peculiar aims—seizure of colonies, markets, sources of raw material, spheres of influence—with such ideas as ‘safeguarding peace against the aggressors,’ ‘defense of the fatherland,’ ‘defense of democracy,’ etc. These ideas are false through and through. It is the duty of every socialist not to support them but, on the contrary, to unmask them before the people.”
—“Lenin and Imperialist War,” 30 December 1938

 

WATCH: NGOs Lobbying for War

Russ Baker, founder and editor-in-chief for WhoWhatWhy.Com, Gives RT his take on NGO’s.

http://youtu.be/lD5jWS6_sBE

WATCH: Why Accept Intellectual Domination? Academic Imperialism | Claude Alvares

Claude Alvares of India speaking about resistance to academic imperialism at the International Conference on Academic Imperialism held at Al-Zahra University in Tehran, Iran, on 1-2 May 2010. Extended highlights from the conference are available at the TV Multiversity channel on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/tvmultiversity

Thanks to Lizzy Phelan.