Out of Iraq?
The US government representative Paul Brenner crept out of Iraq under a heavily armed escort having handed over power to their puppet regime. The Coalition went in with a bang and goes out with a whimper. Unfortunately the illegal invasion and savage occupation has killed thousands of Iraqis. It has created an enormous resentment against the west and the conditions for terrorist organisations to grow rapidly. The world has become a much less safe place for us all.
These are facts.
But Blair and his New Labour mechanics have a wildly different vision. They say they see the invasion as defeating an evil tyrant and the occupation as bringing about an open and democratic government for Iraq. And yet they have done almost nothing to bring this about. They have failed to bring to court those in Britain who armed and supported Saddam Hussein during the long and destructive Iran/Iraq war. They have on only one occasion stood up to the US in Iraq. They have allowed British troops to mistreat prisoners and to hand others over to the US authorities for mistreatment and torture following directives received from the highest levels of the White House.
The one occasion they didn't follow US orders was when the Pentagon encouraged the British to launch an attack on disputed Iranian positions on the border. On this occasion the officers on the ground acted without referring the decision back to Hoon, the US's Manchurian candidate in the UK. The officers didn't want a war with the Iranian army in front of them and the Iraqi insurrection in the rear. The troops on the ground know they are facing an uprising that is more than a few international terrorists and remnants of the Hussein regime. The news of this insubordination emerged at a secret military conference in London. The source was almost certainly Brigadier Ian Dale, Deputy chief of staff, Combat Service Support and part of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.
Hoon however won't be stopped in his drive to carry out his US masters' wishes to expand the Middle East conflict to Iran. He has announced that the British Special Boat Squadron members recently arrested and then released by Iranian authorities had been kidnapped from the Iraqi side of the border. His unsubstantiated account is deliberately designed to increase the tension in the area and to prepare the way for an eventual attack on Iran.
The Pentagon's plan is not to launch a full scale invasion but to try to repeat the Israeli government's air attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities in 1981. This unprovoked attack has not been forgotten. In 1991, Maj. Gen. David Ivry, commander of the Israeli Air Force at the time of the raid, received a framed satellite reconnaissance photo of the destroyed reactor. The photo was inscribed:
With thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job you did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm!
The photo was signed by Dick Cheney, then US Defense Secretary and now Vice President.
A tactical problem the Pentagon has is that if they don't "take out" Iran's nuclear capacity then Israel will try to. Bush and Sharon have already held talks over such a possibility. Such a pre-emptive strike could set the whole of the Middle East alight. The growth of US- and UK-encouraged Israeli nuclear capacity, which now includes submarine-based nuclear warheads, has increased the instability of the area.
In the 1950s and 1960s conspiracy theorists used to demonise the Pentagon as a secret agency completely out of the control of the President and the democratic process. There was an element of truth in those theories. Today the situation is more complex. The President and his neo-con allies appear to be engaged an alliance with the Pentagon to militarily dominate the world. The payoff is the protection of the US oil billionaires and their profits. This alliance excludes not just Senate and Congress but also the CIA. What is clear is this alliance is one of equals. The Pentagon is making policy decisions independently of the President.
One story that illustrates this is the role played by Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress. The Iraqi National Congress was set up after Operation Desert Storm to undermine Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. The Pentagon paid many millions of dollars to support this group of largely discredited exiles. This includes over 27 million dollars in the last four years. Despite the ending of Hussein's regime the Pentagon continues to give money to the Congress.
Ahmed Chalabi ran a bank in Jordan. He fled after irregularities were discovered and he was convicted in his absence of embezzlement, fraud and illegal currency trading. Deputies in the Jordanian Parliament are seeking his extradition from Iraq.
It was the Iraqi National Congress that provided the "evidence" of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the collaboration between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein. No one else has come up with any evidence. The CIA said that it all should be treated with caution. The Pentagon pushed its paid stooges' version.
The Disinfopedia (http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki) quotes The New Yorker to explain how discredited this source was before the invasion.
In March 2002, Seymour Hersh reported in The New Yorker that "A dispute over Chalabi's potential usefulness preoccupies the bureaucracy" within the U.S. government, "as the civilian leadership in the Pentagon continues to insist that only the INC can lead the opposition. At the same time, a former Administration official told me, 'Everybody but the Pentagon and the office of the Vice-President wants to ditch the INC.' The INC's critics note that Chalabi, despite years of effort and millions of dollars in American aid, is intensely unpopular today among many elements in Iraq. 'If Chalabi is the guy, there could be a civil war after Saddam's overthrow,' one former CIA operative told me. A former high-level Pentagon official added, 'There are some things that a President can't order up, and an internal opposition is one.'
After over a year of occupation and hundred thousand troops and thousands of secret agents scouring over Iraq we now know there were no weapons of mass destruction and no evidence of collaboration with Al Qaida. Despite this the Iraqi National Congress was a reported source for some contacts between Hussein and Al Qaida only last week! The Pentagon doesn't like to give up on its investments.
It was INC's evidence that Blair and Bush used to invade Iraq and kill over 10,000 Iraqis.
However the situation is even murkier. The Pentagon might be good at conspiracies but they have no experience at running a spy network. It doesn't need my Yemeni uncle to tell me (however he has) that the Iranian secret service would infiltrate the Iraqi National Congress. After the years of war with Iraq, Iran has a major interest in ensuring that Iraq emerges as weak as possible after the recent conflicts. Iran "allowed" the Iraqi National Congress to open plush offices in Tehran in 2001. There is even some circumstantial evidence that the Iranians managed to turn Chalabi. However there is no doubt the "evidence" about the weapons of mass destruction supplied to the Pentagon was carefully managed by the Iranian secret service.
Members of the Iranian Information Ministry (which runs the secret service and models itself on the KGB) are even boasting that they have managed to destroy Iraq while their army failed to do so.
And as for Chalabi it is reported that his family has over 400 million dollars worth of contracts handed out by the Pentagon in the "new" Iraq.
Iraq Occupation Focus
A group of activists from across the anti-war movement have set up 'Iraq Occupation Focus' to inform people in Britain about the reality of the occupation and build opposition to it. One of the central activities will be the production of a regular information bulletin, not as a rival to existing groups and forces, but as a service to the broader anti-war movement.
They have produced a fact sheet exposing the handover fraud in Iraq. This is essential reading for those seeking to expose New Labour's shameful and illegal involvement in Iraq.
Check out their website at http://www.iraqoccupationfocus.org.uk
How Bush is loved
Last year, in an interview with the online magazine Salon, Mr Reagan (junior) renewed his critique, making clear his distaste for the Bush administration.
The Bush people have no right to speak for my father, particularly because of the position he's in now," Mr. Reagan said then. "Yes, some of the current policies are an extension of the 80s. But the overall thrust of this administration is not my father's - these people are overly reaching, overly aggressive, overly secretive and just plain corrupt. I don't trust these people.
Only Blair hasn't noticed.
The importance of elections
Or how the AGS did in Leeds
The Alliance for Green Socialism stood 12 candidates in Leeds as well as standing a full six in the Yorkshire and Humber Euro elections. Their results were mixed.
In the key ward of Chapel Allerton they failed to make their expected breakthrough despite an excellent and long campaign. My close colleague Garth Frankland achieved his highest ever local vote at 1188. The AGS's second candidate Bev Samuels (Red Rose) standing for the first time also did very well with 932 votes. Around 60 people helped out. The AGS wishes to thank to all of them and the voters. The campaign focussed on the occupation in Iraq and its cost to the Leeds tax payers, the importance of the environment and the need for a democratic open council. The AGS also managed to increase its Euro vote.
The AGS's canvass returns indicated a much closer result. The Chapel Allerton failure could be put down to a number of factors:
- Both the New Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats fielded new candidates who worked more energetically than their predecessors
- The Yorkshire Evening Post and other local media maintained almost a complete blackout on the election campaign. Only national events were reported, which acted against smaller local parties.
- The expanded ward boundaries brought in significant numbers of voters who had previously not heard of the AGS
- Our canvass returns were not sufficiently discounted for the desire of voters to want to please the canvassers
- The postal ballot diluted the immediate appeal of a "new" party
- The postal ballot somehow managed to create hundreds of last-minute votes which all seemed to go to the established parties
- The strange last-minute intervention of Green Party
The New Labour candidates were forced to issue a leaflet saying that they personally were against the Iraq war; however Leeds City Council couldn't be involved in international politics. That is why the previous Council invited Nelson Mandela to open Mandela Gardens in the city centre! In fact the New Labour group had explicitly rejected by 5 votes to 30 a resolution supporting Glasgow Council's condemnation of the illegal invasion of Iraq.
The Liberal Democrat's propaganda kept on mentioning the "war" but failed to call for the troops to be withdrawn or to link the issue to the £100 million a week the occupation is costing. Neither the Liberal Democrat nor Green Parties raised the impact of the invasion on Leeds in Council. They could have but chose not to. The AGS's stance on the war did win them votes but the Lib Dem literature helped to create some deliberate confusion.
In the rest of Leeds the AGS did rather better than expected. They came in front of two Tory candidates in Harehills and polled over 500 votes in the Moortown and Roundhay wards. In the three wards where the AGS clashed with the BNP, although they got more votes, their totals were about a third less than in the rest of the city. The AGS collected over 5500 votes in Leeds.
| Leeds Alliance for Green Socialism Results
|
|---|
| Alwoodley
| Brian Jackson
| 291
|
| Chapel Allerton
| Garth Frankland
| 1188
|
|
| Bev Samuels
| 932
|
|
| Mandy Munro
| 694
|
| Gipton & Harehills
| Wendy Frankland
| 288
|
|
| Azar Iqbal
| 271
|
| Guiseley & Rawdon
| Gareth Christie
| 217
|
| Harewood
| Fiona Christie
| 327
|
| Headingley
| Jeannie Sutton
| 329
|
| Moortown
| Mike Davies
| 542
|
| Otley
| Louis Frankland
| 251
|
| Roundhay
| Malcolm Christie
| 508
|
The Socialist Party comrades Dave Jones and Kevin Wilson had 177 and 179 votes each in Beeston and Holbeck wards. Kath Owen from Respect, a former Socialist Alliance candidate, polled 520 in Hyde Park and Woodhouse. The AGS moved its selected candidate for Hyde Park to another ward in order to give Kath a clear run.
Over 100 socialists stood in the local elections in England and Wales under different left political banners. In the main they consisted of people who had subscribed in different ways to the early days of the Socialist Alliance. The numbers standing were not too different from when that organisation was at its height.
The biggest concentrations of candidates were on Merseyside with 51, Coventry with 14, Leeds with 14 (12 AGS and 2 SP) and Walsall with 10. There were other candidates across the country including AWL supporters in Manchester and Sheffield. Respect in contrast stood fewer local candidates throughout the whole country than the AGS did in Leeds alone.
Dave Nellist and Karen MacKay of the Socialist Party were re-elected under the new boundaries while Rob Windsor lost by 16 votes. This might be because he generously took time out to launch the AGS and Socialist Party election campaign in Leeds. Pete Smith in Walsall standing under the banner of Democratic Socialist Alliance People before Profit ran New Labour a close second. Alison Brown also considerably increased her vote in Sheffield.
Despite his disappointment over Chapel Allerton Garth Frankland told me, "I believe that the only way of building a real living socialist movement is from the base up. This is the opposite approach to that of the SWP and MAB. Local election campaigns especially those that are linked to campaign issues such as hospital, school and post office closures are essential. They take us out of meetings on to the streets to work with real people. It is a method of testing our ideas out in practice and above all it gives us the possibilities of learning about the realities of politics. It is not the only way but the results of an election are a litmus test that shows the gap between what is needed and where we actually are. And our job is to bridge the gap."
After Ridsdale close Education Leeds
The Alliance for Green Socialism has led the campaign to kick out Ridsdale.
- They lobbied the Council twice
- Called for his removal in newsletters and election material
- Held public meetings
New Labour set up Education Leeds after pressure from the Blair Government. They appointed Ridsdale to chair its management body, the rest of which consists of two senior non-educational council officials and two managers from Capita. Capita collects huge fees from the Council for running Education Leeds.
This set-up had an enormous advantage for New Labour. It enabled them to distance themselves from the extensive school closure programme and the inevitable disaster that the PFI schemes will bring in Leeds. No wonder Councillor Wakefield (former leader of Leeds City Council) and Charles Clarke (Education Minister) praised Ridsdale for his disastrous period as Chair
What is more sinister is that the Tories and Liberal Democrats refuse to distance themselves from the praise and are planning to continue Leeds' undemocratic method of running education. And there is complete silence from the Green Party on this issue.
Education Leeds was set up as a temporary measure to deal with an alleged crisis in Leeds education. If this crisis has passed then it should be closed down now. If it hasn't, it has failed and again it should be closed down. Either way it is not fair on the children and staff of schools in Leeds that hundreds of thousands of pounds are being siphoned off for the rich shareholders of Capita and their unaccountable managers.
Education Leeds has proceeded by means of the BIG lie, ie that there is a surplus of school places in the city and therefore schools have to close. This has never been proved.
The AGS believes the resignation of Ridsdale means the time has come to close down Education Leeds and transfer the administration to a democratically elected Education Committee. The Alliance for Green Socialism is heartened by its victory in helping to force the resignation of Ridsdale and pledges to continue to campaign for Education Leeds' closure.
George Mudie, my long-time friend, has also raised the question of Ridsdale's removal and the closure of Education Leeds. This is not the first time that George and the AGS have campaigned side by side. Together they make a formidable team and the new hotchpotch regime running Leeds City Council would be well advised to listen to them. Now they have felt the success in removing Ridsdale, they will renew their efforts over Education Leeds. It is inevitable that they will win. Leeds City Council could cut out some of the political agony and wasted expenditure, as well as the embarrassment in asking the new Chair to go, by acting now.
The blue, yellow and green coalition
The removal of the New Labour administration in Leeds had its own inevitability. Once the council leadership allowed the election campaign to be hijacked by a bunch of no-hope big hitters from London they were finished. See Umbrella 73. They, along with all the other parties, failed the voters of Leeds by not presenting a worked-out manifesto for the city.
Some correspondents in the Leeds Yorkshire Evening Post have written to challenge a view put about by some that Labour's defeat was due to voters rejecting in the invasion of Iraq. However this was undoubtedly a factor and benefited the Liberal Democrats in Leeds who often mentioned it in their election material. They failed to mention their support of the occupation.
The new administration in Leeds will be led by its strongest component, the Tories, as they have the clearest ideology. But it will not make too much difference to Leeds. Councillor Keith Wakefield attacked the rotating leadership of the new administration by saying "Effective relationships with police, business leaders and community leaders are only formed over time with a trust slowly built up."
Stuart Bruce puts this position more clearly on his Middleton blog:
One theory is that power and money are persuasive motivators. If they were really putting the interests of the people of Leeds first the Tory/Liberal/Green coalition wouldn't have agreed to the ridiculous notion of a rotating leadership. First we'll have the Liberal Pinky, and then in six months it's over to Tory Perky, and before we know it we're back to Pinky and then Perky! It's no way to run an organisation with a budget of almost £2 billion and more than 30,000 employees - let alone a successful and dynamic city like Leeds.
Ensuring Leeds' continued growth while closing the gap between our wealthiest and most deprived communities requires strong clear leadership. A leader that can encourage and motivate business to locate in the city, while working closely with our partners in the voluntary and public sector.
Bruce like Wakefield attacks the rotating leadership concept as well as the obvious opportunism of the three partners involved in the hotchpotch. Socialists have no problem with rotating leaderships because they reject the capitalist, top-down, anti-democratic model of society so beloved of Blairite third wayers. The real problem is the lack of direction for the city. Instead we will get day to day pragmatic compromised decisions that in practice will be no different from those of New Labour. The Greens in particular will suffer because they will be thrown a few crumbs to help them in Wortley plus some window dressing over environmental issues and in return they will support the Tories drive towards even faster privatisation. This will include the selling of the airport and the privatisation of the sports centres.
New Labour did not have its own election programme for the City. It used New Labour national local government manifesto. It did not put forward a single original idea of its own. This means it was open to pressure from business and above all completely subservient to the New Labour Government. A government that has consistently pursued Tory policies albeit with a human face. This is why the gap between the rich and the poor in Leeds has continued to grow and why the city does not have landmark schemes such as the trams. And of course following the dictates of a Government acting on behalf of the banks and finance houses of London allows Leeds to fall further behind London.
Polices to change this will not be delivered by the Tories and their allies and they were not delivered by New Labour. The next two years are going see the development of very different politics in Leeds. Unfortunately this might not be very pretty or edifying or good for the City.
-- Half-Celestial Khan
