Stop the War on Yemen!

STOP THE WAR ON YEMEN! SAUDI AND US IMPERIALIST HANDS OFF YEMEN’S REVOLUTION!

14-04-2015 – The Middle East is once again spiralling out of control as a result of yet another US backed war. As of March 26, Saudi bombs are raining down on Yemen, with the full political and even logistical support of the US empire. In fact, Saudi Arabia declared war on Yemen in the United States itself. Saudi Arabia’s envoy to the US Adel al-Jubeir listed the countries that will participate in a criminal act of aggression against a popular revolution – the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Jordan and Morocco.[1] Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan are conspicuous with their participation in the reckless act of criminal lawlessness, as they, have been arming funding and training ultra-reactionary jihadists waging a brutal war against the popularly elected secular government of the Syrian Arab Republic for the past 4 years at least. But make no mistake, this war takes place under the direct patronage of the US empire. The US and their Saudi Arabian, Israeli, Turkish and assorted Gulf Monarchy allies have so far failed in their attempt to overthrow the Syrian government led by President Assad. It’s almost as if this failure has led them to simply start another war.

Above: Photo shows a rally in Aden in 2011 supporting the former People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen). The rally was also commemorating 20 years since a secession move by South Yemen was crushed by former dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh supported by Al Qaeda.

The bitter irony of this murderous rampage by US allies is that this is a war to suppress a genuinely popular revolution in Yemen, led by the Ansar Allah movement, or the Houthis. The criminal US led war by proxy on Syria was justified in terms of supporting an alleged “revolution” led by “rebels” fighting for “democracy” in Syria. This “revolution” was nothing but imperialist sponsored carnage, using unhinged jihadists who in their vast majority were not Syrian, and thus were despised by the vast majority of Syrian citizens. The assistance to that fake revolution jars with US and Saudi attempts to crush a revolution which is genuinely popular, as the Houthi led rebellion certainly is. The reasons for this are not hard to understand. The Houthis have been consistently opposed to the US as well as Al-Qaeda, as well as being opposed to Israel, the US lap-dog in the region – which is also backing the current Saudi strikes against Yemen. So, for the West, a fake revolution carried out by bloodthirsty lunatics is worth backing with all available resources. At the same time, the West simply cannot tolerate a popular revolution in an Arab country in the Middle East. War must be waged to put it down – even if via surrogates such as Saudi Arabia, Israel the Gulf Monarchies, which was and is the current modus operandi against sovereign Syria.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, in an interview with PBS Newshour, warned Iran against “waging war across international boundaries”. Kerry stated that “Iran needs to recognise that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilised or while people engage in overt warfare across lines – international boundaries – in other countries”.[2] He has got to be kidding. Accusations against Iran waging war in other countries pale in comparison to the actual US funding and/or arming ultra-reactionary forces in Syria, Ukraine, Hong Kong and Venezuela. Moreover, in the same way that the US repeatedly claimed that Russia was “invading” Ukraine without a shred of evidence, the US did not supply a shred of evidence that Iran was overtly or covertly backing the Houthis in Yemen. It is true that the Houthis subscribe to Shia Islam, which predominates in Iran, whereas the ultra-reactionary Wahabism which predominates in Saudi Arabia is a branch of Sunni Islam. Yet viewing this as a purely religious conflict misses the point entirely.There are geopolitical alliances being made on a world scale on either side, with the US and its allies on one side, and an anti-imperialist bloc on the other. With the US stand Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain etc – along with the UK, France and Germany. The anti-imperialist bloc contains Russia, China, Iran, Belarus, Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, the DPRK and others. The alliances are not at all cemented in place, and the anti-imperialist bloc contains forces and countries who often work with US imperialism. It is nonetheless in the interests of workers, to side with the anti-imperialist side without necessarily politically endorsing every ally. 

US and Saudi hostility to Yemen stretches back to the days of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY). In 1969 a leftist movement took power, which subsequently allied itself with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The USSR at that time played a progressive role of assisting some nations as a counterweight to US imperialism. At the same time, it also ultimately engineered the replacement of some PDRY leaders with ones more compliant with the Soviet bureaucracy. In the end, in 1990, one of these leaders , Ali Salim Al-Beidh, agreed to dissolve the PDRY and accede to the pro-capitalist, pro-Saudi and US backed Ali Abdullah Saleh.[3] It was in opposition to the pro-US Saleh that the movement which later became the Houthis arose. In recent times, the Saudi and US leaders have stated that their aim is to re-install Abd Rabu Mansour-Hadi, a US backed favourite who took power in 2012, but was forced to resign and flee Yemen in the face of the Houthi rebellion. The Houthis, being Islamic based, do not represent full liberation, especially for women. But the victory of the US and Saudi Arabia over the Houthis would double or triple the oppression of Yemeni men and women, in a country which is one of the poorest in the entire region. 

The government of the United States, supported by the UK and France, has long proffered itself as an advocate and proponent of “democracy”. Yet at the moment, the US is politically and logistically backing an alliance of ultra-repressive absolute Gulf monarchies, against a popularly supported political revolution, which aims to put in place a democratic constitution.[4] The US is not really trying to hide this involvement: the Pentagon has admitted that US Stratotankers are refuelling Saudi war-planes in mid-air, to allow continuous bombing.[5] So on the one hand the US arms and funds jihadists fighting a proxy war against the Syrian government, and on the other hand refuels the warplanes that are raining death down on a victorious revolutionary, if religiously led, movement in Yemen.

It is staggering hypocrisy for the absolute monarchy of Saudi Arabia to lecture Syria about the treatment of its citizens, and then go on to fund and arm blood-crazed jihadists in an attempt to overthrow its government. The Washington Post, for example, reported in 2013, that Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving is far more extensive than preventing them from getting behind a steering wheel. Saudi women must have a “male guardian”, a father or husband or brother, who has material power over her as a parent has over an infant. The women must have the permission of the male guardian to work, attend school, or receive medical treatment.[6] Compare this to secular Syria, where women have all the rights women in the West have, protected and guaranteed. The Western backed Saudia Arabia, an unelected feudal monarchy, then lectures Yemeni rebels about “legitimacy”.[7]

For all of their Western backed tyranny, the Saudis do quite rightly fear the potential of a Yemeni revolution, complete with some degree of anti-imperialist politics, on their doorstep. The Houthis appear to have some political limitations, but for all of that, they are leading a revolutionary movement against US/Saudi/Israeli domination of the region, and by extension, are resisting the encroachments of world imperialism. They may or may not have the backing of Iran – but the Saudis nor the US have not provided hard evidence of this. In any case, an independent Yemen would most likely follow the course of Iran,Russia, China, Cuba, Syria, the DPRK and to an extent Venezuela, in opting for development outside the claws of the Washington/Paris/London/Canberra nexus. In the eyes of Washington, this simple aim on its own is enough to be declared an enemy of “freedom”.

Unfortunately, the anti-war movement in Australia is at a chronically low ebb, and currently is ill-equipped to oppose another Western backed war on a Middle Eastern country. This is partially due to the lack of a class struggle and internationalist leadership of the Trade Unions, and partially due to the capitulation of large parts of the left in the closely related war on Syria. Most of the left and “socialist” parties, with some exceptions, in this country, have lined up behind the Australian and US governments in their war for “regime change” against the Syrian Arab Republic, under the guise of supporting a “Syrian revolution”. This has persisted despite much evidence that the “revolution” is in fact Western armed and funded, and the “rebels” are in fact ultra-reactionaries with little or no political support in Syria. Wittingly or unwittingly, most of the left has gone into battle with, rather than against, “our own” government, as it assists the US empire in attempting to destroy an independent state, in a similar way in which Libya was obliterated. The left parties who provided propaganda cover for the war on Syria also provided propaganda cover for the war on Libya. 

As of April 22, the Saudi-led coalition had called a halt to the bombing phase of “Operation Decisive Storm”. A spokesperson for the Saudi kingdom announced in a press conference in Riyadh, that the operation will now move on to a new operation called “Restoring Hope”.[8] Less than 48 hours later,however, the bombing of Houthi positions had resumed.  The absurdly Orwellian titling of these “operations” hides the fact that the war against Yemen will continue using other methods. US warships are reportedly also moving into the waters surrounding Yemen.

The war on Yemen is not just yet another war in a far-away country, with little relevance to workers in Australia trying to eke out a living. This war is both an extension and an escalation of the drive towards world war which the faltering world casino capitalist economy inevitably invokes. Currently, Australian workers are being bombarded with a massive corporate media campaign glorifying the Anzac story 100 years on. The purpose of this campaign is not just to remember the fallen – if it ever was. In truth the ruling elite are ready to sacrifice the working class yet again in the service of another empire – this time that of the US. The Anzac campaign is part of an effort on behalf of the ruling class to garner working class support behind current and future wars that will be waged wherever and whenever capitalism is unable to lift itself out of economic failure. It is the ultimate indictment of the capitalist system – 100 years after the “Great War”, the ruling classes representing the corporate elite stand ready to plunge the globe into another “war to end all wars”.

The war on Yemen, and the potential world wars against Russia and China, are directly linked to the war on working Australians at home. Workers here are suffering high unemployment, the highest cost of living in the world, and a continual degrading of public health, education, transport and other public services. Those still in work frequently are pushed to breaking point with unrealistic workloads, often unsafe working conditions, for deteriorating wages. Class collaborationist Union leaders are repeatedly selling out their own members, where Union members exist. It is time we fought back against not only the war on Yemen, but the war on living conditions for working people here, as part of an offensive against the decaying but still dangerous capitalist system. Hands Off Yemen!

         MARXIST-LENINIST  FRONT

         mlf20701@gmail.com

         www.marxistleninistfront.blogspot.com.au

        

         0421 408 692

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[1] https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/28/18770550.php - Article by Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency

[2] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/kerry-warns-iran/

[3] https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2015/03/28/18770550.php - Article by Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency

[4] http://journal-neo.org/2015/04/02/revolutionary-yemen-faces-wall-street-saudi-attack/ - by Caleb Maupin

[5] http://www.airforce-technology.com/news/newsus-kc-135-stratotanker-refuels-saudi-led-coalition-warplanes-for-yemen-airstrikes-4550049

[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/28/saudi-arabias-oppression-of-women-goes-way-beyond-its-ban-on-driving/

[7] http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/04/13/saudi-arabias-other-war/ - by Eric Draitser

[8] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-22/saudi-arabia-ends-yemen-air-campaign/6410850?section=world

All Out on April 4

ULTRA-NATIONALISM, RACISM AND BIGOTRY ARE NO SOLUTION. WORKERS CAN DEFEAT FASCISM! ALL OUT ON APRIL 4!

20-03-15 – Working people and the oppressed should take note – fascism arises due to two conditions being present. The first is an economic collapse of the capitalist system. The second is the absence of a genuine class struggle left wing party and mass movement prepared to lead workers in a struggle for socialism. Here we see the beginnings of such a collapse, and the organised left is largely dispersed. Hence we see shoots of fascism arising – this time under the guise of “Reclaim Australia”. National rallies are being held in capital cities and some regional areas, organised by various ultra-nationalist groups, on April 4, which has triggered anti-fascist counter demonstrations. The MLF urges all workers and their supporters to mobilise for the counter rallies. In Brisbane, the planned action is at King George Square at 11am.

Make no mistake, the flag waving “patriotism” and nationalism of “Reclaim Australia” hides the psychotic and fascist tendencies of neo-Nazism. One of the targets of their vicious bile is anyone who practices the Islamic faith, with their wildly false claims about Sharia Law and Halal food. But anyone who is a migrant, Aboriginal, ethnic or any minority, person of colour, gay or lesbian, or a worker who is a member of, or supports Unions, are also targets of fascists, potentially for deadly extermination. This is why fascists cannot be treated as just others who have a differing political opinion. Their actions present a clear and present physical danger to anyone who appears “foreign”, indigenous, or to workers and their organisations – especially Trade Unions. Fascists must be prevented, by any means necessary, from publicly marching or organising in public. This is a simple matter of self-defence.

Fascism sprouts, and can very easily thrive, in the absence of an organised and politically aware labour movement. In Australia today, the Union movement is almost totally hamstrung by treacherous pro-capitalist, and often pro-ALP, leaders and officials. These misleaders have colluded, and often helped implement, at least 30 years of austerity measures against workers, even before they were known as such. When workers and their supporters are continually sold out and betrayed by their own Union leaders, the demoralisation can easily turn in other directions. Anyone providing answers – even fascists, are then considered. If sufficiently organised, the intervention of a revolutionary workers’ party linked to the Unions has the power to prevent the drift to the far- right. If such a workers’ party does not exist, it must be built.

The other condition which has enabled fascism to rear its ugly head now, is the near total absence of an anti-war movement. Capitalism remains in a dire economic crisis, and this drives ever more reckless war provocations, principally by Western imperialism. In recent years, NATO, fully backed by Canberra, destroyed Libya and lynched former leader Colonel Gaddafi in the streets. This was after funding and arming Al-Qaeda and other jihadists against the former Libyan government. At the same time, the US empire was funding, arming and training similar jihadists against the Syrian Arab Republic, and is still doing so five years later. Unfortunately, not only has the majority of leftist parties not opposed the US led wars for “regime change” on Libya and Syria, they have given backhanded support to them, albeit under the guise of backing an imaginary Libyan or Syrian “revolution”. The fact that the only people participating in these alleged “revolutions” were US/Saudi/Israeli/Turkish/Qatari armed jihadists, was, for them, a minor matter.

The whipping up of anti-Islamic bigotry to justify war abroad and the shredding of any semblance of democratic rights for workers at home, is no minor matter, however. Deluded individuals who blame “Islam” for the problems stemming from the economic and social disintegration of capitalist society are conveniently being used by the very Labor and Liberal governments they no doubt scorn. They are also perhaps unaware that the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and now ISIS are almost entirely creations of US led imperialism, dating back to the arming of the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The US led war in Afghanistan against the USSR, backed by Canberra, eventually succeeded in contributing to the counterrevolution which destroyed the Soviet bloc – which was indeed the long standing aim of the US empire. 

In a similar way, the aim of the US empire, along with its Saudi/Israeli/Qatari/Turkish allies, is the overthrow of the sovereign Syrian Arab Republic. The arming, funding and training of all manner of Salafist, Wahabist, Al-Qaeda and the manufactured “ISIS” groups are all efforts to prosecute this aim. Politically backing this project are the US lackey imperialist states of the UK and France, and the junior imperialist Australian state. Once Syria is taken out, Iran will be deprived of a major ally, which will be an easier target. Once Iran has gone, the larger US targets of Russia and China beckon. 100 years after the original Anzac landing, the Abbott government, fully supported by Shorten, are using flag waving ultra-nationalism to create another war myth of diggers going to fight a good fight. That they are scapegoating Muslims here and abroad to serve their aim of endless war, as well as exterminating even basic democratic rights for workers here, should indicate to us the depths to which they are prepared to sink. 

The severe Islamophobia, whipped up by the Federal Government, is inseparable from the wars it is either waging or preparing for. “ISIS” – which is armed by the very states claiming to wage war against it – is a convenient cover. It is thus impossible to oppose the Islamophobia and fascism of “Reclaim Australia” without also opposing the drive to imperialist war. Ultimately imperialist war can only be halted through the overthrow of the capitalist state and the establishment of a worker’s government. While we work towards this goal, we must now sweep the incipient fascist movement off the streets, so that workers and all minorities can walk the streets of their own town in safety. Fascism must not be allowed to flourish, for by then it will be too late. In order to defeat the threat of fascism and potential world war, workers here must at a minimum demand:

Australian troops out of the Middle East! 

Victory to Syria!  

Defeat Islamophobia by defeating the “war on terror”! 

Mobilise workers to sweep fascism off the streets!

MARXIST-LENINIST FRONT

MLF20701@gmail.com

www.marxistleninistfront.blogspot.com.au

They Lied! Labor Party Re-Starts Privatisation in QLD

THEY LIED! LABOR PARTY RE-STARTS PRIVATISATION OF QUEENSLAND’S STATE ASSETS! MOBILISE WORKERS TO REVERSE PRIVATISATION AND REDUCE THE COST OF LIVING! 

08-03-15 - It was a lie. Just one day before the recent Queensland state election, Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader of the then opposition Annastacia Palaszczuk stated “Under Labor, Queenslanders will own Queensland’s assets and the jobs they create.” (QT website 30-01-15) In fact, the whole election campaign run by the ALP focused on the Liberal National Party (LNP) plans to sell $37 billion worth of state assets, and a claim that the ALP would not entertain this. This was transparently false. Barely a month after the narrow election victory, Premier Palaszczuk announced that there would be selling of public assets, such as “old” public housing stock, as part of “day to day business transactions”!! (ABC news website 03-03-15) The ALP Deputy Premier Jackie Trad stated that assets that are “non-strategic” could be slated for being sold, i.e. privatisation. Trad claimed this was not a broken election promise, as the ALP had only committed to not selling strategic assets. Trad also indicated that some major asset sales, for which contracts had already been signed, would go ahead. (Brisbane Times website – 05-03-15)

The lessons for the working class are clear. No capitalist party – the ALP, the LNP, or any other, can be trusted to do scarcely anything other than serve the interests of millionaires and billionaires, at the expense of workers, pensioners and students, and others struggling to get by. The ALP, just like the LNP, governs for the elite sections of Australian and international capital, and is prepared to use any amount of taxpayers resources to help bail out capital in the midst of the worst capitalist economic crisis in history. During times of such crisis, illusions in social-democracy actually increase, not decrease. In the absence of genuine class struggle, the idea that “all we can do” is to vote for the ever so slightly more liberal major party appears as the only option. Hence at times such as these it is more necessary than ever for pro-working class Union members and left parties to agitate for the breaking of illusions in social-democracy, which in our case largely takes the form of support for the ALP, and to a lesser extent the Australian Greens. This needs to be done in the process of agitating for, and attempting to spur on, class struggle. 

The idea that workers can vote against privatisation, and have privatisation halted, within the existing parliamentary system, has been exposed as fraudulent. Yet this is precisely the false notion that almost the entire Trade Union leadership promoted and carried out in the lead-up to, and during the election campaign. The Queensland Council of Unions (QCU) initiated and funded a “Put the LNP last” campaign. The implication was that they were not calling for a vote for any party, but only a vote against the LNP. Yet this can be seen through like a pane of glass. Without saying so openly, the call to “Put the LNP last” was, in the context of a corporatised two party system, a call to vote ALP. Yet it was the ALP who began the privatisation of state assets in Queensland, which dramatically escalated under former Premier Anna Bligh. The ALP’s privatisation of roads, freight rail, ports and forests was the main reason why the ALP was almost wiped out as a parliamentary party in the 2012 election, and it was the LNP’s continuation of privatisation which led to its dumping earlier this year. No sooner do we have the ALP back in government the privatisation of state assets begins again! Nor is voting independent a guarantee against privatisation either. Peter Wellington, the independent member for Nicklin, who has made some valid criticisms of the excesses of the former LNP government, agreed that the sale of land should go ahead, and that he was only opposed to sales of “necessary infrastructure”. (Sunshine Coast Daily – 06-03-15) This is an identical bogus claim to oppose privatisation as that of the ALP, who has incidentally rewarded his support for forming government with the position of speaker of parliament.

The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) has been the most active in building campaigns to oppose the privatisation of state assets in Queensland. It has organised a “Not4Sale” drive which has been active. However, the leadership of the ETU ensured that it was tailored almost entirely towards electoral ends. There were many pickets and actions organised, outside speaking engagements for the former Premier, or any LNP member. While some of these actions are indeed useful, the only political message put forward was essentially that voting ALP will protect public assets. This was false, and Union members’ money was effectively used to campaign for the ALP. And more damage is done in reinforcing illusions amongst workers not only in the ALP, but in the capitalist system. By continually insisting that there is a more liberal wing of the Australian ruling class that will look after you if you only give it a go, the ETU leadership set up the workers for more and more defeats – as we have now experienced with the ALP committing to selling off more public housing. The pro-ALP ETU leadership was unfortunately joined by some leftist parties, who uncritically endorsed the “Not4Sale” campaign, with its unstated call to vote ALP. By contrast, we in the MLF refused on principle to join the implicit vote ALP campaign, albeit under the rubric of “Put the LNP last”. We called on workers, in the absence of any genuine pro-working class candidates, to cast a blank ballot, but commit to class struggle outside and where necessary, against parliament.

It’s an old saying, but it still rings true. That is, if you vote for one of the two major parties as a lesser evil, you end up with both the lesser evil and the greater evil combined. At election times, many workers come under pressure of their own conservative Union leaders and other liberal wings of the ruling class, to cast a vote for the ALP regardless of how often or how poorly the ALP treats them. It’s a zero sum game. Firstly, it tends to delay serious class struggle for several more years, at which time workers are again called upon to vote ALP, even if in a disguised way such as “Put the LNP last”. The focus on elections and parliament, consciously fostered by treacherous Union leaders, assisted by opportunist left parties, demoralises workers more and more, as they can feel their material well-being, and that of future generations, getting worse and worse. What is urgently needed is a switch of focus to serious class struggle, which can take many forms, but ultimately must include Union led industrial action. It is through this struggle, rather than the endless cycle of parliamentary elections for parties of the ruling class, that has the potential to win real gains for working people, which will then flow on to other areas such as the provision of public services and the genuine preservation of the natural environment. The mobilisation of working people for this task can include workers running their own candidates for election to the rulers’ parliament, but it can never afford to be subordinate to this parliament – ultimately an anti-worker organ.

The only assemblies that workers’ should respect are the representative bodies that form as a result of a successful revolution, with the establishing of a workers’ republic. And these bodies themselves will be a transitional form subordinate to the struggle for workers’ rule in Europe, Japan and the United States, joining with the existing socialist states. Until such time, workers in Queensland need to embark on the path of class struggle to win immediate gains now. There are many negative flow on effects from the relentless drive to privatise, including mass unemployment, unaffordable electricity, water and public transport costs. To contain any struggle against these elements, the government are also trying to normalise the militarisation of public areas and public transport, using fully armed police, combined with Translink ticket inspectors dressed in para-military get-up, who are simply there to harass and prosecute citizens. Enough!  

We cannot afford to go even further backwards. Some of the demands that we suggest should be raised and fought for immediately are:

-          Stop and Reverse Privatisation! Full public ownership of the roads, ports, railways, electricity generation, distribution and supply, water services, state forests, state land, state primary and secondary schools!

-          To address unemployment, a shorter work week with no loss in pay!

-          Stop all public housing sell-offs, and dramatically increase public housing stock!

-          Abolish all water charges! Abolish all toll roads! Halve electricity costs!

-          For concession prices for the unemployed on public transport! Halve all public transport costs! Abolish the Tertiary Transport Concession Card!

-          No armed cops on public transport! Stop the intimidation of public transport users! No prosecution for not having a ticket or go card! 

MARXIST-LENINIST FRONT

0421 408 692

MLF20701@GMAIL.COM

WWW.MARXISTLENINISTFRONT.BLOGSPOT.COM.AU