The first shots were fired by the French air-force taking out Libyan armour on the road to Benghazi. This is a bit confusing given what the West was demanding in Libya was a “No Fly Zone” – unless Gaddafi has an army of Transformers, tanks usually cannot fly. In reality we do not have a “No Fly Zone” – we have a concerted bombing campaign against Libya, with plenty of flying being done by NATO aircraft.

These airstrikes are justified on the basis that they are all that remains between Gaddafi and the destruction of the Libyan uprising. After weeks of euphoria throughout the Arab world, with almost all of Libya bar Tripoli falling to the uprising it looked like Gaddafi would be the next despot to be overthrown. In the past week however, it appears that Gaddafi has consolidated his forces - paramilitaries, mercenaries and special forces led by his son Khamis – and is launching a devastating offensive against the rebels. The failure to take Tripoli allowed Gaddafi to regroup and now he has retaken the oil towns along the coast, and his army stands at the gates of Benghazi – the centre of the uprising.

After the UN Security Council supported a No Fly Zone over Libya, Gaddafi called a ceasefire in his offensive. For a while it appeared as if the threat of force alone had saved the uprising. But Gaddafi’s ceasefire was not genuine, he continued to attack Benghazi and the predictable response from the Western powers began.

Some have justified the airstrikes as the only way to save the uprising – and it’s clear from footage in Benghazi that there is support from the rebels for the airstrikes. However while Gaddafi was making considerable gains, the rebels still showed the ability to fight off Gaddafi’s forces in the city of Misurata (the last rebel stronghold in the west of Libya) and at Adjabiya (the last town before Libya’s second city, Benghazi). The rebellion is not a spent force yet, and taking Benghazi would have been a much harder task than the coastal oil towns – it’s where the rebellion would (and perhaps may still) make a bloody last stand, an urban battle in which Gaddafi’s tanks would have been of less use.

The reality is that stopping Gaddafi’s forces from overrunning the rebels could never be done just by stopping his airforce – his forces on the ground are the ones taking the towns and cities, and ultimately it’s the armour and infantry that Gaddafi has consolidated that the rebellion needs to defeat. The “No Fly Zone” has always been a pretext for a much wider bombing of Gaddafi’s army and Libyan towns and cities. The civilian casualties we have seen so far have already provoked the Arab League to call for an end to the bombing, with it’s General Secretary saying “What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone. What we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb-X14nH9kw

The bombing of Libya has been pushed through the UN because the Western powers are desperate to coopt and control the Arab revolutions in their own interests. The USA/UK would have been quite happy to see Gaddafi crush the rebellion discreetly and decisively in it’s early days, and maintain stability in the region but Gaddafi’s brutality made him an unreliable ally. That’s what led to formerly close European allies of Gaddafi to burn their bridges with him, and even go as far as to recognise the rebels as Libya’s legitimate Government. Now that it looks like Gaddafi may remain in control of most of Libya – including the oil fields – the West is now intervening to remove him through their own military force.

While Gaddafi may be an eccentric figure, attacked as an lunatic in the press, Libya is not an irrelevant basket case. It is the richest country in Africa, with the highest standard of living on the continent, and it’s oil wealth makes it an important regional player. Libyan oil money has been used to fund a variety of African rebellions, and an alleged assassination attempt against the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Gaddafi was also a major supporter of the IRA in the 80s, providing the group with an entire trawler of arms – The Eksund – which could have given the Provisionals victory over the British in Northern Ireland if it had not been intercepted by the French Navy. It’s the fear that Gaddafi will align himself with anti-western guerillas throughout Africa – like the brutal RUF in Sierra Leone – that is partially motivating the US/UK to remove him with air strikes. Having a “rogue state” awash with oil money on the Mediterranean cost is not something any of the Western powers are keen on if it can be avoided.

As well as playing an important role in Africa, Libya is also a major supplier of oil to Europe. It provides Spain and Italy with 22% of it’s crude oil – explaining why Gaddafi and Berlusconi got so pally with each other. The civil war in Libya endangers the economies of these European states as the price of oil skyrockets. Also Gaddafi’s brutality has led to Western powers to break links with him – if he stays in power and consolidates his hold over the oil fields in Libya, the West will be denied access to Libya’s natural resources due to sanctions they themselves have imposed. This would be disastrous for many Western oil companies – BP alone have a £900 million dollar deal with Libya. It’s these massive profits which make it clear why there is a bombing campaign in Libya, but not an intervention in the pro-Western state of Bahrain which has been occupied by Saudi troops.

The bombing in Libya marks the return of the discredited “humanitarian intervention” – the idea that NATO aircraft can police the world and bring democracy at the point of a Tomahawk. Many readers of this site may be too young to remember Tony Blair’s war against Serbia in 1999 – often touted as a success compared to the failure of Iraq and the ongoing quagmire in Afghanistan. The 73 day NATO bombing of the Serbs was justified as bringing to an end the racist ethnic cleansing of the Kosovars by the Milosevic regime. The reality was that

‘They ran out of military targets in the first couple of weeks,’ said James Bissell, the Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia. ‘It was common knowledge that NATO then went to Stage Three: civilian targets. Otherwise, they would not have been bombing bridges on Sunday afternoons and market places.’ Admiral Elmar Schmahling, head of German Military Intelligence, said, ‘The plan was to first put pressure on the civilian population and second to destroy the Yugoslav economy so deeply it would not recover.’

NATO spent most of it’s bombing campaign attacking Serb society – while the actual ground forces of Milosevic ran rampant in Kosova. NATO managed to destroy only 14 tanks in the bombing campaign – but did successfully attack state-run Serbian TV and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. If and when the West runs out of military targets to bomb in Libya, you can expect them to target soft civilian infrastructure to push Libyan society to breaking point, just as it did in Serbia.

During the bombing of Serbia there was one significant, brave section of opposition to the air strikes alongside the SSP – that of the Scottish National Party. Alex Salmond was condemned as the “Toast of Belgrade” by Robin Cook, who later transformed into an “anti-war” leader during the run up to the invasion of Iraq. This time round though it appears that the SSP is alone in opposing the bombing – SNP MP’s have went as far as to use the attacks on Libya as a justification to maintain British RAF bases in Scotland.

Every real Socialist supports the overthrow of Gaddafi and the establishment of a democracy in Libya – but we shouldn’t be tempted into believing that the same Western powers who sold Gaddafi arms in the past, and back every other Arab despot have the interests of the democracy movement at heart. The West will use it’s military force not only to remove Gaddafi but to back whichever faction of the Libyan opposition will be the most friendly to their interests. Imperialism has never been progressive, and the only people we should trust to bring democracy and freedom to Libya are the Libyan people themselves.

Russians, shortarse Frenchmen, artistic pictures of horses and people who duet with Blue: Just some of the things that the US government HATES

The publication last week of the first few batches of leaked US embassy cables has brought whistleblower website WikiLeaks – as well as the fate of its founder and editor in chief Julian Assange – dramatically to the front pages and top bills of news media around the world. As this article was being drafted, Assange, the website’s principal spokesperson and main public figure, is reported to be have been taken into custody in London, in connection with alleged sex offences in Stockholm in August this year. Unlike some others, SSY prefers to take rape allegations seriously, at least until substantial evidence suggests we should do otherwise.

To deal with this issue first, first of all let’s say something – Wikileaks is not Julian Assange, and Julian Assange is not Wikileaks. Attempting to repress and punish Wikileaks for being inconvenient and worrying to the establishment is not the same as a man being arrested because he is suspected of the very serious crime of rape. Let’s not confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks (with Assange as its public face), as we will go on to discuss, has made a brilliant contribution to anti-imperialist activism and we absolutely applaud it for that. Do not let the fact that Wikileaks has got the right ideas about freedom of information blind us to the fact that rape is one of the most reprehensible crimes someone can commit, and that violence (sexual, physical, psychological, emotional) against women (which the overwhelming majority of the time goes unpunished) should be opposed in all its forms – and perpetrators brought to justice where it has been committed.. We offer no opinion on whether Julian Assange is guilty of the crimes that he has now been charged with. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But neither is it appropriate for socialists to promote the position that the women who have made allegations against him should be disbelieved, simply because Assange’s organisation Wikileaks do good things, or because of what the women have said on the internet in the past, or because they are women – which is what a lot of the ‘Defend Assange’ stuff out there on the interwebs is boiling down to. Just because we consider someone to be a “good man” who promotes some of the same ideals that we do does not mean that, if they HAVE abused women, they should get away with it, sticking it to the man yeah? Many men, men who consider themselves to be left wing, are using this arrest as an excuse to propagate often repeated rape myths, and this is unacceptable. Rape myths should always be challenged, no matter how suspicious you find the timing of Assange’s arrest. It’s sad to see people we respect, like Naomi Wolf join in the reactionary smear campaign against the women who reported Assange to the Swedish authorities. This is a misguided approach to anti-imperialism. You have to be anti-patriarchy too, or sorry, you’re not a socialist. For a brilliant article on the meaning of the word ‘consent’, visit Feministe. No means no, and tricking someone in to consenting to sex is rape. That goes in all cases, not just the ones where there’s no left wing icons who might be involved. Now, on to the substantial issue of the leaked cables..

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006, originally adopting a wiki-style of organisation (similar to Wikipedia, where users could freely upload, edit and discuss documents. However it has since taken on a far tighter editorial policy, as it became clear the wiki format wasn’t appropriate for the organisation’s aims.

The ongoing release of US embassy cables – taken from the US military internet system SIPRNet (insert Terminator joke here) and representing a database of some quarter of a million secret communications from US embassies around the world – is just the latest in a long line of high profile stories broken by the organisation.

These include the website’s role in releasing the membership lists of the British National Party (BNP) in November 2008 and October 2009, the release of US military footage of an airstrike in Baghdad that appeared to show the gunning down of civilians and journalists, their involvement in the controversial so-called “climategate” leak of emails from the University of East Anglia and the 2009 Trafigura scandal concerning the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, and this year’s release of many thousands of secret documents concerning the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

What's an assange? A smelly orange?

As Assange told an audience of journalists and students in London earlier this year, the idea behind the website was to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the internet to “find a way to not be scared to publish…anything”. Unlike the journalism of mainstream media organisations, WikiLeaks perceives of its duties being primarily to its sources – to publish what they say they will publish, not to step back or take things down; to protect those sources as much as possible – as well as to what Assange refers to as “achieving just reform”.

It is perhaps unsurprising that such a project has inspired a vitriolic reaction in the seat of power. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has condemned the most recent leaks as life-endangering, ‘illegal’ and a threat to US national security. Others have taken this much further, with former Vice-Presidential candidate (and likely future Presidential candidate) Sarah Palin describing Assange as “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands” and calling for him to be “pursued with the urgency we pursue al Qaeda and Taliban leaders”, while other political leaders have openly called for his assassination. As has been repeatedly pointed out by WikiLeaks’ spokespeople and supporters, no evidence of anyone’s life being endangered has been forthcoming, and the timing of the releases and the care taken in their publication makes the endangerment of individuals unlikely. Also of note is that US authorities were approached prior to publication to ensure anything they felt might have been explicitly dangerous to individuals could be redacted – the US however refused to cooperate.

The embassy cables released to date have contained so many revelatory details that stories that would otherwise have ran for days have been almost buried in an avalanche of new disclosures. So far we have discovered that the US has been spying on UN officials, that leaders of various Arab states have been calling for a US attack on Iran (as Noam Chomsky has pointed out, despite opinion polls showing the populations of those countries perceive the US and Israel as by far the greatest threats in the region), that the Labour government “put measures in place” to protect the US during the Iraq inquiry, and much more. It’s a lot to sift through, and according to Assange only 200-odd cables out of a staggering 25,000 have been released so far. You can browse the cables by which country you want to hear US diplomacy staff slag off using this handy Guardian guide.

Wank, wank, daft guy, wank

In this then sense WikiLeaks is very much a political project, both with respect to press freedom and independence, and with challenging US power. In an online Q&A session with Guardian readers, it would even seem that Assange is informed by something of an anti-capitalist perspective. In response to a question about press freedom and the west, he answered:

“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be “free” because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade.”

However it would be misleading – as some have attempted – to try and claim WikiLeaks and Assange to any particular political current or outlook. As Assange told the audience in London earlier this year:

“[…]we can all have particular brands of politics, but I say it’s all bankrupt. And the reason it’s all bankrupt, and all current political theories are bankrupt…is because actually we don’t know what the hell is going on. And until we know the basic structures of our institutions, how they operate in practice… until you know that, how can you possibly make a diagnosis?”

In contrast to this, some on the left have argued that the leaks have told us nothing we didn’t already know. Leaving aside that reports so far have only covered a fraction of the database, this is clearly a bit of an overstatement. As with the Pentagon Papers undermining the US case for war in Vietnam, the leaking of the embassy cables has opened up aspects of US power to a level of scrutiny previously unimagined. While it mostly confirms what many of us already knew about the role of the US empire in world politics, it would be foolish to dismiss such knowledge as of no use, or to pretend that the details don’t matter. While the contents of the cables might not substantially change our understanding of global power relations and US imperialism, they will be a valuable resource for activists, journalists and historians.

Assange and Wikileaks’ lack of ideology beyond a commitment to sharing information and protecting and supporting whistleblowers is appropriate in the project of trying to create a genuinely free news media – even while it might sometimes be counterproductive for those with progressive aims (witness for example the tremendous – and unjustified – ammunition given to climate change-deniers by the release of the University of East Anglia emails last year). In cases like this, those who fund mainstream news outlets have been able to use their money and power to criticise scientific consensus, and nearly trash the reputation of some of the most valuable climate scientists in the world at present.

Tellingly, as the whistleblower’s website hints at what a genuinely free and critical news media might look like and achieve, mainstream press commentary – as well as some mind boggling leftie websites – has echoed the US government and right-wing politicians attacks as irresponsible and dangerous. The weakness of the mainstream media and its subservient relationship to political and economic power is what makes WikiLeaks so vitally important. What the US government and politicians have failed to grasp in focusing so much on Julian Assange is that WikiLeaks can and will continue without him; and if one site is shut down another can appear to take its place.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell our state secrets to Wikileaks

The man who the US government have identified as the source of the leaks, Bradley Manning, is now languishing in solitary confinement in a US army prison in Kuwait, facing 52 years in jail. A huge injustice, THIS is what you call a political arrest. Manning is a young Welsh guy, who joined the US army and found himself putting his intelligence and technological skills and to use working for US intelligence gathering agencies in Iraq. Evidently he realised the extent of the deception, unfairness and murder being committed by the American government, and the ease with which he could access so much secret information. He was already having a shit time in the army, especially badly treated by the repressive Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy which forces LGBT people to live a depressing lie or be kicked out of the army. For an example of how homophobic the rhetoric around this issue can be, check out this lovely piece by the vile Ann Coulter (choice quote: “Let’s check our “Gay Profile at a Glance” and … let’s see … desperate for acceptance … delusions of grandeur … yep, they’re both on the gay subset list!”). It’s a separate discussion, but if readers are interested in the debate around the campaign to end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, a short while ago there was an open letter sent to vocal campaigner Lady Gaga from a gay Iraqi fan which is worth a read.

Clearly, Manning was fucked off with working for an oppressive murder machine like the American government. A lot of people are, but Manning, it’s alleged, chose to do something about it, and he’ll go down in history for it.

Manning is suspected mainly based on this discussion with a former hacker, who reported him to the authorities. Whistleblowers put themselves at great risk to expose the awful truth about war and corrupt governments. They do an incredibly important job for democracy. All socialists and progressive people should support the growing campaign to defend Bradley Manning. Don’t fall prey to the reactionary idea that Wikileaks are “putting lives at risk” by revealing the truth about the American and other capitalist, imperialist governments. They’re saving lives. There have been 108, 094 documented civilian deaths in Iraq since the war began in 2003, and who knows how many haven’t been counted. Up to 34, 240 documented deaths in Afghanistan. We deserve the truth, and those innocent people deserved to live.

(Co-authored by Neil B)

We gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight the Taliban

Today is Remembrance Sunday, a day when we stop for a moment of silence, or watch veterans’ parades, or wear red poppies on our tops “to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts”.

It was originally named the Earl Haig Appeal after the man who caused tens of thousands of needless deaths in World War I. There is nothing to celebrate about the first World War. It was a completely unjustified war for colonies, wealth and markets.

Today, Remembrance Sunday is basically a state-enforced institution, where criticism and dissent of the principle of celebrating this is not on any level tolerated, and this year it has reached fever pitch. Virtually every UK citizen is subjected to a form of hysterical bullying to participate. No one is allowed to be featured on the BBC unless they are wearing a red poppy, all political leaders wear them – even if it deeply offends the people that they are visiting – and children are forced to buy and sell them in schools.

This year, it has arrived in a fanfare of glitz and glamour, with the commercialisation of Poppy Day more noticeable than ever before. The Saturdays opened the ‘celebrations’ in London this year, inexplicably. On The X Factor, that barometer of our society’s values, the judges wore £84.99 diamond encrusted poppies, bringing a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘conflict diamonds’. (This is of course unfair, we all know that Cheryl Cole has a deep sympathy and understanding for the sacrifices made at Ypres and the Somme, and is an avid fan of the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen). Obviously you’ve got to spend more to remember more.

At the heart of the “celebrations” this year has been the commodification of wholesale slaughter and the monetization of mass murder. The poppy has become a fashion statement, one that’s supposed to display your commitment to Britain, to ‘our heroes’ and to the continued fetishisation of the ‘glory’ of war. Wearing a poppy for many people is genuinely about remembering those who were forcefully drafted against their will into a horrific world war, but you can now buy t-shirts that proclaim ‘I *poppy* our heroes”. In today’s world, the ‘heroes’ fixation is a direct endorsement of the imperialist and unjust wars Britain is still undertaking in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earl Haig: how can he be a hero? He doesn't even have any superpowers. Get back to us when you've been bitten by a radioactive spider.

Another reason people buy poppies and the various new related merchandise is because the poppy fund is a charity which provides for veteran soldiers. It’s an indictment of our fucked up priorities that we expend so much energy talking about how much we value the heroism of fighting for Britain in wars, yet it’s left to a charity to provide for those who have survived them. One in eleven prisoners in the UK formerly served in the armed forces. Up to a quarter of homeless people are former servicemen and women. There are countless veterans suffering from mental health issues who aren’t receiving proper support (although at least we no longer execute returned soldiers for suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder like we used to). The politicians that brandish their poppies are directly responsible for this – they don’t actually care about veterans – they prefer the idea of veterans to the reality of what life is like for those who have seen the horrors of war. The poppies they wear allow them to justify their inaction. It shouldn’t be left to charity donations to pay to look after veterans.

Here at SSY, we don’t agree with glorifying war and British imperialism. The actions of British troops today in Afghanistan and Iraq are far from heroic. For decades, the memory of the evils of fascism has been used to justify other imperialist conflicts which are in no way comparable, e.g. Kenya (even today, British forces based in Kenya for training continue to rape local women with impunity, which has been going on for three decades; these women are slandered by the British, and rejected by their own communities as well), Malaya, Yemen and Ireland. Remembrance Day, alongside the far more blatant Armed Forces Day, has been hijacked to promote and endorse the militarisation of British life and to encourage young people to sign up, for the “glory” of being remembered as a “hero” after you’ve been blown to bits fighting for the geopolitical and ideological aims of the elite who will never represent you.

We’re not the only ones who don’t appreciate every part of the message of the ideology of Remembrance Day. Legitimate dissent is not tolerated when it comes to Poppy Day – just look at the recent “ban sick bastards” style headlines when the Green Brigade, a left-wing Celtic fan group had a half time banner display in protest at the club’s decision to impose a poppy on the Celtic shirt, going against the wishes of the majority of fans. In Glasgow, it’s fair to say that there’s a lot of people who don’t appreciate being forced to participate in a celebration of British troops who caused misery in the north of Ireland for so many years. Like SSY, the Green Brigade has no problem with the individual choice to wear a red poppy, but rather to the bullying nature of the political campaign which expects everyone to wear poppies and to support the cause without reservation.

On a state visit to China last week, David Cameron and pals caused offence by wearing the poppy, without thinking of the fact that in the 19th Century British forces went to war with China to force them to accept imports of our opium (which is of course derived from poppies). This is a clear example of why a little bit more historical memory about the role of British forces and the British Empire in the world is necessary. The peoples who were wronged by Britain haven’t forgotten, even if we have.

This is what our generation does to remember the war dead. Not in our name, we don't want it to happen again

An official alternative to the poppy cult is the White Poppy Campaign, advocated by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). The idea is to remember the deaths of all who have died in wars, not just soldiers, and to advocate peace, not militarisation. This campaign has not been without controversy. In 1986, Maggie Thatcher (gonny just die already?) expressed her “deep distaste” for the white poppy symbol, and their spread in Canada has proved contentious to the point of being banned from being sold at markets and has drawn public criticism from the Royal Canadian Legion. You’re unlikely to see a white poppy on tv, where red poppies are ubiquitous throughout November.

The above views might seem controversial to some, but this year, veterans (and even the Queen’s composer) have spoken out against the use of the red poppy as a “political tool”. Former SAS soldier Ben Griffin rightly stated that

“Calling our soldiers heroes is an attempt to stifle criticism of the wars we are fighting in.

It leads us to that most subtle piece of propaganda: You might not support the war but you must support our heroes, ergo you support the war.”

Remembrance Day should be about honouring those who died needlessly in needless wars. The best way to honour the dead, and the point of remembering, is to ensure it never happens again. Anti-militarism and dissent against war is the way to honour those people, not diamond encrusted poppies, military parades and the stifling of dissent. As a youth organisation, we are proud of our record of opposing military recruitment and the lies spread to young working class folk to persuade them to become cannon fodder for the imperialist war machine that is the British Army.

Last word goes to the late Harry Patch, the last surviving person to have served in World War I

“Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88VPZ74zk6w

Most of the mainstream media has reported the rebellion as being a protest at “austerity measures”, but there’s lots of evidence that something more sinister is going on. On Wednesday the government passed a law which restricted bonuses automatically given to cops on promotion. However, the government has actually doubled the real wages of the police over the last four years, meaning that they wouldn’t be losing money – it was part of an effort to reduce bureaucracy. Many, including President Correa and his ministers, have been suggesting the protest was in fact a cover for an attempt to seize power by the right wing opposition, headed by former President Lucio Gutierrez, who was himself overthrown by a popular uprising of people angry at his neoliberal policies in 2005. Further evidence that this was a coup attempt is found in the co-ordinated planning of the plotters, with members of the airforce seizing control of the capital’s airport while cops attacked the parliament building.

After the coup plotters had shut down the airport and several important highways, President Correa went down to the main police barracks to attempt a dialogue with them. As he explained himself later:

“This morning, we were, as is our custom, going to have a dialogue to explain to them what we wanted to do, for no one has supported the police or improved their salaries as much as our government, but seeing the reaction I felt betrayed by them.  There I realized who was behind it: some of them called me ‘a liar” and said that Lucio [Gutiérrez] had given them more support.”

Then, in a display of rampant badassery, he shouted at them “If you want to kill the President here I am. I will not take one step back, come and kill me if you have the guts.”

The cops responded by pelting him with tear gas and stones, forcing him to take refuge in a hospital where they put him under siege. However, by this point crowds of ordinary people were out on the streets to defend the government, and were trying to fight off the attackers. From a balcony, he tore off his tie and shouted “”If they want me, here I am. I leave here as president of a worthy country or they take me out as a corpse.” (See 1:50 into the video below. Somehow, you just can’t see David Cameron or Gordon Brown acting this awesome, can you?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOwpnpQoccM

However, the rebellion was already starting to unravel, as the high command of the military made absolutely clear they remained loyal to the government. After sunset, troops started to move in on the besieged hospital, and, firing on the rebel police with automatic rifles and stun grenades, burst through their lines and rescued the President, taking him to the Presidential palace.

From there he addressed crowds of supporters, declaring:

“I give so much thanks to those heroes who accompanied me through this hard journey. Despite the danger, being surrounded, ministers and politicians came, to die if necessary. With that bravery, with that loyalty, nothing can defeat us.”

He said he hoped the events of the day would serve “as an example to those who want to bring a change and stop the citizens’ revolution without going through the polls”. He added that he “would not forgive nor forget what had happened”, and that there would have to be a “deep cleansing of the national police.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfaNX5AgJw

The coup attempt was universally denounced by Latin American leaders, and, as Fidel Castro predicted earlier in the day, was so unsuccessful that even the Obama administration was forced to condemn it. However, that shouldn’t blind us to the possible role of the US in supporting the Ecuadorian right. Last year the US government initially came out against the right wing coup against democratically elected Honduran President Manual Zelaya, only to endorse the coup regime at the earliest opportunity when it tried to stage fake elections to give itself legitimacy. Research later found that US agencies such as the Millenium Challenge Corporation had been pouring money into Honduras in the months running up to the coup, and after it had been violating the ban on funding the coup regime. It’ll be interesting to see what real investigative reporters are able to dig up about Ecuador in coming weeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXHmMqLDeKU

Rafael Correa was elected in 2007. In power, he followed the path mapped out by Venezuela and followed by radical governments in other Latin American countries such as Bolivia in convening a constituent assembly to write a new constitution and refound the country. He was relected under the new constitution last year. The Ecuadorian constitution is one of the most progressive in the world, since it had strong input from Ecuador’s social movements such as the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). This means its particularly strong on ecological issues: nature is recognised as having rights as part of the constitution, as is the human right to water and the demand for food sovereignty. The constitution also recognises the indigenous concept of “sumak kawsay” or “living well.” The government has also embarked on significant programmes of wealth redistribution.

The Justice League of Latin America: Correa with Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales

However, there are real contradictions, along lines that are familiar to anyone who’s read about the struggles of social movements and indigenous people in Bolivia. There is a tension for the government between recognising the rights of indigenous people and the environment, and the need for Ecuador to develop economically in order to be able to stand independent of control by the US and the developed world. Many activists who were initially supportive of the government feel that they have got the balance wrong, favouring mining and oil extraction over people and the biosphere. This is reflected in the fact that yesterday CONAIE declared they were neither with the coup plotters or the government. As Al Giordano of Narco News puts it:

“The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, ‘you want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on.’

. . .The CONAIE’s grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d’etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d’etat. It is saying to Correa; we’ll have your back, when you have ours.”

That said however, there’s no doubt that the defeat of yesterday’s coup should be celebrated. The motives of the rampaging cops wasn’t protection of the biosphere or indigenous rights, but rather a return to the naked neoliberalism, racism and slavish obedience of US imperialism that characterised Ecuadorian governments in the past. Their victory would have been a victory for Latin American capitalists and oligarchs; for the fascist terrorists of the Cuban exile movement and their new pals the Venezuelan exiles; for organised crime and narcoterrorists like the Colombian far right; and for US imperialism and the CIA. While Rafael Correa may not be perfect, his government has changed things radically in Ecuador for the better, and that’s why thousands of people came out on the streets yesterday to successfully defend him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ3PQQTB8XM

Ecuadorian cops thought they were the shit, but they reckoned without being outclassed by THE PRESIDENT

The Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa

Yesterday marked the celebration of 50 years of independence for the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In 1960, Congo was finally able to free itself from one of the most brutal regimes in all of colonial Africa: Belgian control. Of all the European colonial powers, the Belgians were notorious as the worst for their ruthless exploitation of the Congo’s resources, and their horrendous violence against its people.

Since independence, there’s not been much for people to celebrate, with a 32 year brutal dictatorship followed by a state of total civil war which is the second worst war in the history of humanity, and has claimed for more victims than world war one.

Around the world, not many people think about the almost unimaginable death toll of the wars in Congo, and when they do it’s only to confirm racist stereotypes about independent Africa. The Congo today is not only the home of a devastating war, but also unbelievably high rates of sexual violence, preventable disease, illiteracy and poverty.

But the blame for the disastrous state of the Congo today shouldn’t be put at the door of the Congolese people. Rather, its European powers, and later the US, that must accept responsibility for turning swathes of Central Africa into a hell on Earth.

The horrors of colonialism began for Congo in the 15th century with the arrival of the first European explorers. Portuguese and others pressed inland to the country from the Atlantic coast, and at the same time Muslims from Zanazibar and East Africa came from the East. They both sought slaves for selling into the highly profitable system of the Atlantic slave trade. The profits that made Europe into the richest continent on Earth came from the forced capture of Africans for sale in the Americas and Carribbean, and from the commodities that their forced labour produced: sugar, cotton, tobacco. At the same time, Muslim slave traders from the East sold those captured to the middle east.

To enslave people the Europeans and their African partners used the methods of total war. They would go to an area, burn a village to the ground, kill all those who were to old or incapable of being productively put to work, and take the rest to the coast for sale in chains. The forces that did this are the direct ancestors of the genocidal forces that continue to devastate the country today. The slave gangs became the Belgian administrations enforcers, who then became the police and military of the post-independence dictatorship, and today the descendants of these same groups are the militia men conducting the Congolese civil war.

Despite these raids, the European powers were for a long time reluctant to actually colonise the Congo because it was mostly rainforest, with heavy rainfall, and not generally good land for agriculture and long term settlement. This started to change in the 19th century, when the growth of European industry led to a demand for raw materials that could be procured in the area, mainly rubber, but also copper and ivory. The various European powers quarreled over who would control the region, until it was resolved at the Berlin Conference in 1884. The one man who emerged as ruler of Congo was the Belgian King Leopold II.

Genocidal mass murderer: Belgian King Leopold II

Leopold’s rule was extraordinary: a gigantic country bigger than western Europe was effectively his own personal property. He controlled it through a dummy organisation, the Association Internationale Africaine, of which he was the sole shareholder and chairman. He employed white agents, who then commanded black troops who had mainly been kidnapped as children and raised as slaves. It’s easy for people today to ignore how the system of conscripting child soldiers into a brutal militia had its origins in the colonial period.

The white agents, known as the Force Publique, were responsible for fulfilling quotas of rubber and other commodities, which were sold for the profit of King Leopold. These were produced by forced labour of the Congolese population. Men were forced to work while their wives were held hostage and sexually assaulted. Any areas that resisted were burned to the ground, and the people slaughtered: troops were paid by the number of human hands they could present to prove who they had killed.

The process of extracting the rubber itself was brutal. The rubber came from wild vines in the jungle, which workers would be forced to slash, then lathering their bodies with the rubber latex. When this hardened it was painfully scraped off the skin, taking workers’ body hair with it.

The period of the turn of the 20th century set the pattern for Congolese history down to modern times: a brutal regime of violence to enforce ruthless exploitation of the region’s natural resources. Of course, none of the profits were seen by the people but instead enriched foreign elites such as the Belgian Royal family. What’s extraordinary is that the colonial regime was justified on the basis of bringing “civilisation” to Africa, when in fact it was the most brutal, uncivilised regime possible.

The mistreatment of the Congolese people came to be acknowledged even in Europe as a tremendous crime against humanity. A British report estimated that at least 10 million people had been killed as a result of Leopold’s regime, both directly and through the spread of tropical diseases in his miserable work camps. Authors like Joseph Conrad and Arthur Conan Doyle brought attention to the conditions there.

Victims of Belgian militias, who were paid by the hand

As a result control was transferred from the the royal family to the Belgian parliament in 1908. However, the regime remained pretty similar, with brutal exploitation, with mining of copper and other minerals becoming more important. The people were deliberately kept undereducated, and what education they did receive emphasised the importance of European history and Christianity, as part of Belgium’s “civilising mission” in the country.

But throughout the 20th century resistance began to grow to colonial rule, with periodic armed revolts and riots. From the ’50s onwards, the independence of other former European colonies in Africa spurred the Congolese to get more socially and politically organised and demand independence from Belgium.

Over time one group became the most politically influential: the left wing Mouvement National Congolais, led by Patrice Lumumba. Lumumba favoured a unitary government for the entire territory of Congo, and was a fierce critic of imperialism throughout Africa. He argued for social justice, and using the resources of Congo for the benefit of the people.

In 1960, following a series of riots, the Belgians were forced to concede that they had lost control of the situation, and Congo was granted independence with Lumumba as Prime Minister. At the independence day celebrations, Leopold’s descendant King Baudouin spoke smugly about the good the Belgians had done in the country. Enraged, Lumumba got up to make unrehearsed, impromptu speech that blasted the horrors of the colonial regime.

“We have witnessed,” he said, “atrocious sufferings of those condemned for their political opinions or religious beliefs, exiled in their own country, their fate truly worse than death itself.” Lumumba continued: “We have seen that … a black traveled in the holds, at the feet of the whites in their luxury cabins. Who will ever forget the massacres where so many of our brothers perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown?”

You can hear Lumumba’s independence day speech, with English subtitles here.

Patrice Lumumba

Belgian capitalists were terrified about what the new government would do, as were the rich of the other European countries and the US. They feared that Lumumba would nationalise the mines and rubber plantations. Both the Belgians, and the US, through the CIA, began to formulate plots to have him overthrown. Various ideas were considered, including giving him CIA made poisoned toothpaste. In the end, he was arrested by Congolese soldiers and shot, after which his body was dissolved in acid. Today, a group of lawyers and investigators are attempting to prosecute former Belgian civil servants (now in their 90s) for complicity in the murder.

After this, the chief of the army, Mobutu Sese Seko, rose to power with the backing of the US and western interests. He began a brutal one man dictatorship that was to last until 1997. The wealth of Congo continued to be looted for the benefit of western companies, with Mobutu getting his own substantial cut. He used this to flaunt spectacular consumption, such as his legendarily sumptuous private jet, one of the most expensive in the world because of how it was furnished.

He also brutally suppressed all opposition, imprisoning, torturing and executing anyone who tried to stand up to him. He was only able to do this because of the military and financial support of western powers, primarily the US, who backed him because he was anti-communist, and stood up to liberation forces in neighbouring countries that wanted to take Africa in a socialist direction.

Mobutu was finally overthrown in a rebellion that swept to power in 1997, largely unopposed because no one wanted to fight for the hated dictator, and died in exile.

Meeting his boss: Western backed brutal dictator Mobutu with Ronald Reagan

Since then, Congo has been in a state of near total war. In addition to the old commodities, it is now a key site for global capitalism because it holds reserves of coltan and other rare minerals that are crucial for making mobile phones and other electronic devices. As the world demand for electronics has rocketed, these have become ever more valuable. The leaders of the countries surrounding Congo have scrambled to support their own militias in the country in order to get access to these resources. They can’t be sold directly by the militias, so they are sold through countries like Rwanda or Uganda, whose exports of coltan are way higher than should be possible through their natural reserves. They then make their way into the hands of multinational electronics corporations, who go on to use them to manufacture devices, one of which you are probably using right now to read this article.

The direct connections between capitalist industry and the war in Congo can be seen through facts like the spike in violence there was around 2000, as militias scrambled to take advantage of the increased demand for coltan caused by the launch of the Playstation 2.

The impact of the ongoing war has been devastating. The pattern that was established by western colonialism has continued down to the present day, and the same companies (in many cases the same families) now control the country today, but through local clients rather than directly. Brutal militias enforce control of key resources, and annihilate anyone that gets in their way. Rape is used systematically as a weapon of war. This is all conducted by people who themselves have been brutalised by years of war and dictatorship. Congo has been a place where this kind of violence and torture has been normalised by the official regime for a long time. The blame for that lies with Belgium and the western powers.

Known as Africa’s world war, the war in Congo has claimed more lives than any other war in history apart from World War Two. Many establishment observers will claim this is because “the west doesn’t care”, or “we stand by and let it happen.” But this is neo-colonialist logic that wants to blame “the natives” for all the problems, and claims that the only real problems is that white westerners aren’t there to sort everything out.

The truth is that the west is there. Although we hear very little about this war in the news, and it isn’t on most people’s radar, Congo is very much a part of the global capitalist system. The other African powers that control different militias are able to do so with the support of the US and its allies, who provide military aid and financial support to ensure their interests are upheld in Central Africa. The Rwandan government for instance has been hailed as heroic by the west despite its leaders complicity in mass killings in the 1990s. It’s not that our governments stand by and let genocides happen. It’s that these genocides wouldn’t be possible unless the people carrying them out were serving the interests of the western elites.

Coltan mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Congo today is a very, very long way from the dreams that some of its people had for the future had 50 years ago, at the time of independence. Socialism is a far off prospect – just peace and basic decent living conditions for the people at this point look like a utopia. The solution to Congo’s problems is for an end to come, finally, to the imperialist foreign interference that has brought them such misery. Although we might not realise it, our fate as people of the richer part of the world is intertwined with peoples like the Congolese who produce the resources that keep our economies going, under horrific conditions, away from our understanding and attention. The best way we can help them is work here for the overthrow of our imperialist government, and a move away from an economy based on the neo-colonial exploitation of the poor world.

An armed forces day message to unarmed civil rights protesters

Today the city I call home didn’t feel like home for me. The city centre of Glasgow, like towns and cities all over Scotland, played host to a massive display of weaponry, Union Jacks, and mass recruitment to the British military.

Today is armed forces day, the second time that an annual “celebration” has been held, allegedly to “Show Your Support for the men and women who make up the Armed Forces community.”

I want to make clear from the outset that I have no problem with charities collecting money to support soldiers and veterans. God knows, the way that people who leave the military are treated by the state, they need it. 20,000 veterans, traumatised and psychologically damaged from their experiences, are in prison, probation or parole. As many as a quarter of those sleeping rough in the UK may have been in the forces, and there are hundreds of veterans on the streets or in hostels. Then there’s the harder to measure damage the wars the British government has engaged in has caused to British troops: the mental health problems, the alcoholism, the divorces, the suicides.

But you wouldn’t have heard much about that today. In Glasgow, although the charities that pick up the pieces of these broken lives were round the fringes of George Square, the heart of the city centre was instead given over to a massive celebration of British imperialism, war and military recruitment.

There were scores of kids encouraged to play in armoured cars, behind faux machine gun emplacements or on an artillery piece, that was aimed at the city chambers. There was face painting and an inflatable assault course. And there were the sickening t shirts, with messages like “Paras Regiment: If you can hear them coming you’re already dead.” A sensitive message to display shortly after the report of the Bloody Sunday inquiry.

Armed forces day had its origins as a project of Gordon Brown’s when he was still the Chancellor back in 2006, and was originally called ‘Veterans Day’ before being rebranded last year. It was the watered down version of what he really wanted, which was a ‘Britain Day,’ a day of celebratory British nationalism that took place under the Union Jack. He said of the flag:

“All the United Kingdom should honour it, not ignore it. We should assert that the Union flag by definition is a flag for tolerance and inclusion.”

Get them young. . .

The problem with the historical narrative that Brown was promoting is that the Union flag isn’t a flag that represents tolerance or fair play. It’s rightly been called the Butcher’s Apron, because it was the flag of colonial oppressors in every region of the world, and today it is the flag that foreign armies of occupation fly as they subdue the peoples of Afghanistan (before that Iraq.) It’s the flag that represents the murderers of Bloody Sunday and the continued occupation of Ireland. It’s not my flag, and I refuse to celebrate it.

Knowing that his beloved day of British Imperial Patriotism would perhaps prove too controversial, Brown sneaked it through under the cover of a day to celebrate veterans. Because veterans are politically sacrosanct. No mainstream political figure would want to be seen as disrespecting British troops, and it opposing Britain day when it’s portrayed as a day for veterans would be much harder.

But socialists have a duty to be tell the truth, however unpopular it may be with some. The truth about the British army is that it has defended the interests of the British ruling class, one of the most ruthless and powerful groups of exploiters the world has ever known, all over the surface of our planet. The great Scots poet and socialist Hamish Henderson once said the British army had been only been progressive at two times in its history, 1640 (at the time of the English revolution) and 1940 (when it fought against German fascism), and both times it changed back to a force of reaction very soon after.

Over recent years SSY has campaigned actively outside army recruitment shops, and in schools, colleges and universities, against military recruitment. We have taken our message directly to the youth of Scotland that the military is not a career you should choose. It’s a job where you can be paid less than the minimum wage for risking your life; where the work you do can scar you mentally and physically for the rest of your life; and where ultimately you will be told to put your life on the line in conflicts that have absolutely nothing to do with defending your family and friends, and everything to protecting the interests of the economic elite that govern the British isles.

Scotland's youth: marching towards the next British war?

Today, I am ashamed to say that, as far as I’m aware, there was no organised challenge to the biggest army recruitment fair we’re likely to see all year. As an activist, I must take my share of the blame for that. I don’t know how many people signed up in Glasgow today, but you can bet that the government gained a lot more willing cannon fodder to send to the killing fields of Afghanistan. At one point in the square, I passed two women, and overheard a comment that chilled me: “He’s away to see how old you need to be to sign up.”

Another bizarre and incongruous feature of the day was the presence of SNP government ministers on the platforms. How a party that claims to be for Scottish independence can feel comfortable presiding over a gigantic celebration of British nationalism is beyond me, but there they were. Nicola Sturgeon was at the parade in Glasgow, and First Minister Alex Salmond at the one in Aberdeen. Presumably, along with keeping the monarchy as the overlord of an “independent” Scotland, the SNP would be happy to see Scottish troops continue to play their historic role as the frontline grunts of the Queen’s army as well.

Last year, a small group of Irish republicans attempted to challenge armed forces day in Glasgow. However, they quickly came under attack from a massive group of loyalists chanting “No Surrender” who’d been there for the parade. If there was anything similar today I wasn’t aware of it.

Next year we must do better. It’s been announced that Edinburgh is to play host to the main parade for the whole of the UK. This will once again be an excuse for a recruiting bonanza for the British military. We can’t allow this to go unchallenged, for the world to think this is completely a good thing and that no one has a problem with it.

But for any kind of counter protest to be effective, and safe for those taking part (not to mention preventing everyone involved from being arrested en masse) it will require mass numbers. We need to start getting organised now. I intend to raise the issue at SSY conference next week, and through the SSP as well. Let’s try and bring together a broad umbrella of everyone who isn’t happy at Scotland’s capital being used as a recruiting ground and a celebration of the British military. Calling all pacifists, anti militarists, anti war campaigners, Irish republicans, Scottish republicans, solidarity campaigners with nations devastated by British imperialism, anarchists, socialists and general dissenters: let’s not let them get away with this.

Scottish, not British!

(Since 1945, the British military has been at war in India, Palestine, Malaya, Korea, Suez, Kenya, Cyprus,  Borneo, Vietnam, Yemen, Oman, Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost all these wars were about preventing peoples from ruling themselves when it conflicted with British Imperial interests.)

Philip Lardner seems to think he's an MP already. He's not.

A wannabe Conservative MP for North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner, was today suspended from his party for expressing extreme right-wing views for the SECOND time in less than two years.

Lardner, a primary school teacher in Erskine, Renfrewshire, was thrown out of his party today by embarrassed Tory party chiefs after homophobic comments published on his website came to light this morning. The offending comments have since been removed, but Pink News reports that Lardner wrote that he believed homosexuality to be ‘somewhere between unfortunate and simply wrong’, and in a lengthy diatribe, argued in favour off the reinstating of Section 28, a law which banned teachers from ‘promoting’ homosexuality in schools. Lardner wrote: ‘I will not accept that their behaviour is ‘normal’ or encourage children to indulge in it… Toleration and understanding is one thing, but state-promotion of homosexuality is quite another.’

Ironically, this makes North Ayrshire and Arran perhaps most of the one most polarised constituencies in Britain, without even stepping outside of Labour and the Tories – the incumbent MP is Katy Clark, one of the very few genuine socialists left within the Labour Party, who is defending a majority of 11,000 at this election.

Lardner, on the other hand, typifies the Empire Loyalist/Monday Club right fringes of the Tory party – his extreme views extend well beyond his er, ‘traditional’ views of the family.  Lardner denies the existence of climate change, which he claims is a myth perpetrated by brainwashing ‘carbon-loonies’ out to ‘spoil enjoyment of nice, warm weather’.

His initial suspension from the Conservative Party came in July 2008, after he expressed admiration for white-supremacist  politician Iain Smith, who presided over white minority rule in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. He also stated that Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which said that mass immigration to Britain would lead to bloodshed, had ‘in a small way come true’. In 2005, Lardner expressed his support for British colonialism and imperialism, writing: ‘Take a look at Zimbabwe or a dozen other human-induced African disasters and ask yourself whether the average African would rather be living (or more often than not dying) at the hands of his “free” African brothers, or have a Royal Navy warship sitting benevolently in the harbour?’

LGBT rights' protesters picketing Tory HQ

Lardner contested the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections in the same constituency. At a hustings meeting on the Isle of Arran, Lardner hysterically shouted down group of stunned 16 year olds, who had objected to his stance on trident nuclear weapons, and screamed that they needed to show ‘greater respect for the armed forces, and spend more time looking at war memorials’. Lardner has also gone to great lengths to promote himself in the local press as a defender of the ‘indigenous population’ on Arran, and against foreign invaders. Of red squirrels, that is – but could there be subtle undertones in this rhetoric of his now well reported racist, anti-immigration views? SSY speculates… almost certainly.

Following his original suspension, Lardner was approached by the BNP, who urged him to join the party that is ‘his natural home and one that would fully support these statements instead of condemning and then sacking him’. SSY can also reveal that Lardner has stuck up for the rights of BNP members to work as police and prison officers – occupations which have a ban on BNP membership – arguing that ‘loyalty to your nation’ should not be used a pretext to make you a ‘banned person’.

SSY can only speculate what may come next, but we’re fairly sure that a future in politics may still be a possibility for Lardner. He intends to stand as an independent ‘common sense’ candidate (lol!) next week, but when he (somehow) fails to get elected, and if the BNP still seem a bit too extreme, I’m fairly sure he’ll be able to find a nice home in UKIP: climate denying, immigrant-hating, europhobic, racist, empire-loving… UKIP and Lardner were MADE for each other!

A while ago I did an article about violent videogames, where I jokingly made reference to accidentally shooting civilians in a helicopter gunship. Watching this footage thats been leaked on the internet of insurgents and civilians (including a reuters cameraman) being slaughtered makes you wonder how far war is from a videogame today. The gunship attacking the crowd doesn’t appear to be at threat, with the pilots chatting casually – and then laughing when they make the kill.

This isn’t the first time journalists have been killed by the US Army – the Al Jazeera offices were bombed not just in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan as well. This slaughter of journalists might have been a mistake, but the attack on Al Jazeera offices twice in two wars must be a deliberate attack on a tv station that is critical of the war on terror.

The footage of this attack must have been extremely hard to obtain, and leak without risk of discovery and or court martial from the US military – it’s very likely there are many more cases like this across Iraq, that we will never see footage of. The mainstream media has ignored research done by institutions like ORB predicting over a million Iraqi casualties, with Iraq Body Count research showing the single largest cause of death was from US/UK forces attacking from the air.

The Daily Mail has whipped itself into a frenzy, calling Zuma a “vile buffoon” and a “sex-obsessed bigot”, as well as repeatedly calling him “Zulu Boy”.

The Telegraph is appalled that he has been invited after  describing the British as “condescending imperialists” and think Her Maj ought to teach him some manners.

The BBC is obsessed with his multiple marriages.

The Guardian’s front page pictured the Queen next to Zuma’s wife Thobeka Stacey Madiba, as if to contrast liberated white womanhood against Mrs Zuma as chattel.

Let’s get some things straight. Jacob Zuma isn’t a very nice man. He’s a corrupt, homophobic, misogynist, rapist.

But most Heads of State and people of power are pretty distasteful, if you look in to it.  The Queen has hosted Mugabe and Ceau?escu, for goodness sake, as well as being big buddies with George W Bush.

So how come the media aren’t reporting on Zuma’s corruption, or his politics, or what he’s done in his role as President? How come they’re not using his actions to talk about issues of rape, women’s rights, gay rights, and equality in South Africa and the rest of the world today?

All we’ve learnt from the media coverage of Zuma’s visit is that we can all point and laugh at the crazy brown man, mock him and his culture and call him ‘Zulu Boy’ and get away with it. It all stinks of racism and white supremacy.

If the British media wants to criticize Zuma, maybe they could have reported on the South African feminists fighting for equality under Zuma’s regime, such as Pumla Gqola, whose wonderful myth-busting article on polygamy cuts right to the chase:

The point of the matter is not whether in a feminist republic we’d force Zuma to choose one wife or banish him… We’d probably banish Zuma for many more reasons, least of which his preference for multiple partners.

How come the white ruling class only give a shit about women’s rights when they’re trying to justify their own racism?

Drone attacks in Pakistan

I found the above map via boingboing. It shows attacks by unmanned robotic drones committed by the US within Pakistan. The analysts who produced it write:

“Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about 2/3 of total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32%.”

Of course, what defines a militant in this kind of situation could be pretty elastic. But what this seems to be showing us is that at least a third of the people we are sending robots to kill are completely innocent Pakistani civilians.