Liberal "anti-war" analysts of U.S. Mideast policies are busy persuading their audience that the Administration is "making mistakes." By mistakes they mean policies which will leave "our country" weaker, not stronger.

Of course they refer to "our country" instead of the ruling class or the working class. And the "mistakes" turn out to be things which indeed hurt the working class, but which ruling-class leaders believe will help the big U.S. capitalists.

It’s very popular among egotistical liberal columnists and academics to criticize policies as mistakes — but this criticism actually helps the rulers, because it suggests that no attack on the capitalist system is needed, that everything can be fixed by electing some "smarter guys" (like Kennedy or Roosevelt or even Clinton). Liberal writers have been pointing out serious "mistakes" for centuries. We might ask: "If you’re so smart, how come the rich keep getting richer?" Their "mistake" kind of criticism gets us nowhere.

The three main "mistakes" which the liberals, including the most active of the anti-war liberals, pin on the U.S. in the Iraq war are:

•The Bushies (actually, the imperialist ruling class — including the Powell types) don’t understand that invading Iraq will inflame Arab and Muslim masses against the U.S. and lead to more terror attacks, not less.

•The imperialists have a "mistaken" notion that U.S. armed forces can get in and out of the Mideast quickly, thus avoiding a big backlash.

•The U.S. could pursue its noble aims in the Mideast with much less opposition if it leaned on Israel to make a reasonable accommodation with the Palestinians.

But before smugly agreeing that these are really blunders, we should at least investigate the possibility that these policies are well understood by the ruling class and that the "mistake" theories merely serve to confuse the opposition — the working class and its sympathizers. So, here goes.

The most dangerous cloud on the ruling-class horizon today is its increasing inability to control various turbulent oil regions, most of which are in Arab and/or Muslim-dominated areas. The old system of buying off a family of sheiks is breaking down. And in newer areas of oil exploration and delivery (Central Asia, including Afghanistan) there never were any rulers the U.S. could rely on. Therefore, for many years, but especially beginning in 1997, U.S. think-tanks endowed by big money have been developing plans to use the U.S.’s powerful military to insure its influence in the most crucial areas. The Project for a New American Century, founded in 1997 and including Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz among its leaders (New York Times, 3/23) has been working vigorously on hard-line plans. This is not a sudden Bush brainstorm!

Although Clinton had already called for bombing Iraq in 1998 (NYT, 3/23), the 2000 election maneuvers brought to Washington a team better suited to carry out active military imperialism. However, as Vietnam demonstrated, it’s dangerous to make a big, long-term U.S. military commitment unless it can be sold to the people here. If the rulers really wanted to go "quickly in and quickly out," they could have carried it off almost any time. But this was—and is — a LONG-RANGE plan. They need broader support.

The September 11 attacks gave them the rallying-point they needed for such a long-term commitment. Considering how much information about flight-trained terrorists was gathered by U.S. agencies before September 11, one might even suspect that the failure to frustrate the event before it happened was partly due to Washington intentionally looking the other way. At any rate, 9/11 came, and the road to long-term commitment of U.S. armed might for imperialist adventure became much smoother.

If this analysis is correct, then "mistake" number one disappears. That is, although it is true that the invasion of Iraq will help Al-Qaeda types to recruit, still more terror attacks in the U.S. will be useful for the ruling class to keep rekindling the flame and maintain at least partial support of U.S. workers for Mideast wars. The ruling class is not stupid. To them a terror incident is a pinprick. But it disarms some working-class resistance to war and fascism. It helps their plan.

"Mistake" number two — that U.S. rulers think they can get the army in and out of the Mideast quickly — is untrue to begin with. The U.S. has no intention of getting out quickly. However, in the attempt to sell the Iraq war here and in the UN, quickness was made a virtue by the spin doctors. People who say the rulers are making a mistake on this are, unfortunately, merely swallowing their lie.

The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz think-tank (Project for the New American Century) in a September 2000 confidential report said that removing Saddam was the beginning, not the end of the strategy. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." The wider strategic aim, it insisted, was "maintaining global U.S. pre-eminence." (Guardian Weekly, 3/26)

"Mistake" number three is supposed to be that the U.S. should have first gotten a deal for the Palestinians (or should hurry up and get one). But from the point of view of a long-term U.S. imperialist commitment in the Mideast, an alliance with Israel is a big asset. Israel already bombed Iraq’s nuclear plants over a decade ago. When the time comes to put extreme pressure on Iran to cancel its nuclear program, who could be better than Israel to have in your corner? And many other missions can be imagined where Israeli expertise in certain kinds of warfare would be necessary. Israel’s willingness to actually engage in important missions, and in spying and relaying local knowledge, etc. are a big plus for U.S. imperialists. The so-called big minus — that U.S. alliance with Israel angers Arabs — is really of little importance once you’ve committed yourself to a Mideast imperialist agenda, because the Arabs and/or Muslims are going to increasingly resent you under any circumstances.

Ruling classes do make mistakes. But in the case of the Iraqi war, events are well-explained by examining the real long-term aims of the imperialist ruling class. We gain nothing by lamenting the "stupidity" of the Administration. A clear look at their plans takes events out of the "mistake" category and puts them into an analysis which confirms that stopping such wars depends upon fighting to smash the imperialist ruling class — not mocking it. This fight, in turn depends on the growth of communist organization among the working class — and finally on revolution.

Meanwhile, we can’t rely on liberalism.

Unions In Decline - Workers Lose

U.S. union membership has been declining for 45 years. In the late 1950s, 35% of private industry was unionized. Last year it was down to 8.5%, a drop of 75%! Over the last 20 years there have been massive layoffs, huge wage and pension cuts, workers forced to pay for their health benefits and outsourcing to low-wage areas here and abroad and to slave labor in U.S. prisons. This is fascism in the workplace.

The union leadership’s response has been a combination of give-backs in all areas ("until times get better"), collaborating with the bosses against foreign competition ("buy American"), relying on Democrat Party politicians and supporting the U.S. imperialist invasion of Iraq. That is one helluva losing strategy — except for the bosses.

Capitalism is driven to strive for maximum profits. Capitalist production for ever-larger market share inevitably leads to overproduction. This forces the capitalists to reduce labor costs through mass layoffs and give-backs. This also reduces the capitalists’ ability to sell their products and leads to a downturn in the economy.

Over the past 20 years, these downturns have produced market pressures that have forced corporations to revamp their business practices. In steel and auto this led to "lean" and "modular" production efficiency, automation, increased productivity, outsourcing, and large-scale layoffs.

The 1978 deregulation of the airlines produced low-cost competing airlines and huge losses among the unionized section of the industry. Pan Am and Eastern airlines went under, some merged or were absorbed by others. To stay in business they have demanded huge "voluntary" concessions from the workers or threatened to file for bankruptcy in order to break union contracts.

Sect. 1113 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code gives the court the right to void union contracts if the company can prove it "seriously hampers business." This has already happened at US Airlines, and is being threatened by United and American Airlines (world’s largest carrier) unless the unions agree to $1.8 billion in concessions. The capitalists use the state to crush the workers — the legal road to fascism - while the CEOs rake in millions in salaries, bonuses and stock options.

In comparing the leverage on both sides, a New York Times article (4/17) noted, "The unions were driving a Volkswagen Bug and the company an 18-wheeler."

The bosses try to force the working class to pay for the crisis of capitalism. The AFL-CIO operates like a business, functioning within the rules of the capitalist market and the bosses’ laws and state apparatus. The "labor leaders" act as junior partners of the ruling class, telling workers to surrender to the bosses’ demands or lose their jobs and union contracts. They urge workers to join with their bosses against "foreign competition" and "Buy American" or "Stand Up for Steel," rather than uniting with workers overseas against all bosses. As the final icing on the capitalist cake, Sweeney’s AFL-CIO supports the U.S. rulers’ imperialist slaughter in Iraq.

Could red leadership of the unions change this picture?

Could red leadership of the unions change this picture? To a limited extent. Communists fight to sharpen the class struggle, resist the bosses’ demands for concessions; break the bosses’ laws and organize class-wide solidarity whenever one group of workers is under attack or out on strike; general strikes of workers, city-wide and industry wide; and no support for the bosses’ adventures abroad, rather unity with our brothers and sisters worldwide — "workers of the world unite!"

The bosses’ would not sit idly by and watch a communist-led working class take the offense. They would (and do) use the full power of their state apparatus to jail and shoot rebelling workers, calling out the National Guard and the Army to break strikes (as was threatened on the West Coast docks). But in the course of these battles, communist leadership can emerge and workers can learn how to eventually seize state power with communist revolution.

Building a mass PLP among the workers is the only way out of the ravages of capitalism. Communist leadership of unions can raise the stakes to challenge the system itself, but the unions cannot defeat the profit system. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Wiping out this system requires a communist party. Communists in the labor movement organize struggles to produce more and more communists, building our strength to where capitalism can be destroyed.

Airlines’ Give and Take: Unions Give, Bosses Take; Workers’ Unity Needed

The current crisis in the airline industry shows that in such times the unions’ role is to deliver the workers to their exploiters. The entire industry is either in, or threatening, bankruptcy, mainly to void their union contracts. Since 9/11, over 100,000 jobs and billions in wages and benefits have been lost, with no end in sight.

The current crisis dwarfs Reagan’s firing of thousands of air traffic controllers during the 1981 PATCO strike. The AFL-CIO’s passivity in the face of that attack opened the door to two decades of union-busting and strike-breaking. Then, as now, the AFL-CIO leadership is worse than useless.

On April 25, American Airlines (AMR) workers surrendered $1.62 billions in give-backs. AMR bosses threatened to eliminate employee pensions by declaring bankruptcy if the workers didn’t agree to these give-backs, while the top five executives voted themselves million-dollar bonuses and a special trust fund to guarantee the obscene pensions of the top 45 bosses.

In the past, when bankruptcy threatened, executives had to "get in line" behind other creditors to collect any retirement money. Now, through "secured trusts," these big shots own the pension funds, no matter what happens. The pensions of 70,000 Motorola workers are under-funded by $1.4 billion while the company socked away $38 million into a special pension trust for the top executives.

Union Flip-Flops

AMR workers were furious and, bowing to an outcry from the rank and file, union leaders refused to sign the concessionary contracts. "Good for them!" said one Boeing inspector. "Somebody had to put an end to this management arrogance." But the union leaders then reversed themselves and agreed to the give-backs after American CEO Donald Carty resigned.

To add insult to injury, the New York Times (4/26) ran an article claiming the "unions have been taking such a pounding … because they have been so successful." By that logic, if we worked for nothing, we wouldn’t have to give concessions!

"Will [airline] worker wage cuts become a model for other companies?" asks this same article. "The airline unions, like the steel and auto workers, are far weaker….But like the others, the airline unions hope to avoid the scrap heap by cooperating with employers, perhaps by granting concessions…"

We saw this cooperation at our last union meeting when we were told to lobby our state legislators to do "Whatever It Takes" to get Boeing to build its new jet plane in Washington State. What will it take? Boeing wants state college tuition increases to be free of any limitations imposed by state government. They also want a freeze on unemployment benefits. Attack our kids and the 35,000 laid-off Boeing workers!

We must reject the rules and laws of capitalism and set our sights on a communist alternative. Our class will not spontaneously learn this lesson, no matter how hard things get. Only resolute work by our Party over a long period will drive this home for the vast majority of our class. This means increasing the sale of CHALLENGE, patient long-term building of ties with workers and initiating class struggle, from within the union if possible, or outside it if necessary. We can’t let the unions’ capitulation hold us back.

We should do "Whatever it takes" to support the airline workers’ fight against concessions: flyers, picket lines, demonstrations and ultimately a general strike in aerospace. Initiating class struggle, prepared for with increased CHALLENGE sales and personal ties, can open the door for more recruitment to PLP. "Whatever It Takes" to pave the road to revolution!

For U.S. imperialism to rule the world, it must have a loyal army. There have been several major examples of soldiers — especially those who were drafted — rebelling against their orders. In Vietnam, mass desertions, rebellions, sabotage and shootings of officers helped force an end to U.S. aggression. Another example occurred during the U.S. Siberian invasion of the fledgling Soviet Union in 1918 (the subject of a future article). Still another occurred following the end of World War II.

The war in the Pacific ended on August 14, 1945. The GI’s who helped defeat Japanese fascism had done their job and were ready to return to their families and resume normal lives. But the rulers had other plans.

In 1942, a ruling-class strategy meeting sponsored by the National Industrial Conference Board began mapping plans for the post-war world. U.S. rulers wanted to establish themselves as the dominant force in Asia and exploit the colonies of the former Dutch and French imperialists, from Indonesia to Indo-China, with all their oil, rubber and other valuable resources.

China, led by Mao Tse-Tung’s Chinese Communist Party, was the major challenge to U.S. hegemony and inspired billions of oppressed workers and peasants throughout Asia. The bosses plotted to encircle China by controlling Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines (a U.S. colony since 1898) down to Vietnam. Many of these areas contained potential nationalist and/or communist challenges.

In the Philippines, the People’s Anti-Japanese Army (a communist-led peasant guerrilla army known as the "Huks"), had cleared central Luzon (the largest of the Philippine islands) of the Japanese invaders and threatened to become the dominant force in the country. U.S. GI’s were grateful to the Huks. Their defeat of the Japanese occupiers saved thousands of GI’s lives, leaving U.S. soldiers very little to do militarily.

With the war over and U.S. soldiers ready to go home, they were told there "weren’t enough boats" to transport them, as if boats could only sail in one direction. Pressured by the GI’s about being forced to remain after the defeat of the enemy, an Army Colonel blurted out that they were staying to put down the Huks!

A GI on the U.A. Armed Forces newspaper managed to get this story past the censors and into the paper. In early January of 1946, United Press International (UPI) published the story worldwide. At that very time, Truman’s Secy. of War Porter, holding an unrelated press conference, was asked if the story was true. Unprepared for such a question, Porter spilled the beans — the troops would stay, according to the point system established for them during the war.

When that news reached the Philippine capital of Manila, "democracy’s army" filled the bars, dejected at being forced to stay long after the war’s end. On Sunday morning, thousands entered Manila carrying their weapons. Their mood was ugly. The MPs disappeared and the brass vanished. The GI’s formed two huge columns and snaked their way through the city. That evening some soldiers met and published a leaflet, exposing the government and sending friendly greetings to the Huks. The next morning, 15,000 met in a big field in the city and selected a leadership committee. They then called up General Stier, the Commanding Officer in the Western Pacific. He agreed to meet with a committee of five.

The 15,000 GI’s formed a column led by the five-soldier committee, and crossed the Pasay River, moving towards military headquarters. The committee was ushered into a room full of generals, who urged them to call off the scheduled evening meeting. The committee made it clear there was no way they could.

That evening, 35,000 GI’s showed up for a mass "go home" demonstration. The soldiers applauded when an enlisted lieutenant read greetings to the Huk guerrilla force.

By the end of the week, GI delegates came from all over the Philippines to an abandoned theatre on the outskirts of Manila and formed a committee of about 100. They represented tens of thousands of GI’s whose backgrounds cut across all lines, from cities all over the U.S., with but one goal in mind: the desire to go home.

The next day the brass flew the five-man committee back to the U.S. and gave them immediate honorable discharges. Soon the needed transport ships were "found" and the troops were sent home.

The "go-home" movement spread throughout Asia and Europe. The GIs’ refusal to obey orders was a major blow and set-back to U.S. imperialism’s timetable. It demonstrated once again that if the rulers cannot maintain the loyalty of the troops, they can not wage their imperialist wars.

Some people have been impressed enough by the French government’s opposition to U.S. Iraq policies to carry "Viva La France" signs in demonstrations against the U.S./British invasion of Iraq. This idea is a big mistake. The French and U.S. capitalists both spread death and misery for workers, only on a different scale and in different places. This article reviews some of the imperialist actions of French capitalists, and the scams they use to cover them up.

The French capitalists emerged from the Second World War in uneasy control over a huge colonial empire. They then held over 4,000,000 square miles of colonial territory including Vietnam, Syria, French Guiana, and nearly half of Africa, including, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Cameroon, Gabon, Ivory Coast, etc. Unable to put down bitterly fought anti-colonial rebellions, especially in Vietnam and Algeria, France conceded independence to most of its former colonies in the 1960s. It developed a neo-colonial apparatus to dominate its former African colonies and extend its power over other French-speaking Africans. A key strategy of French capitalists for control of Africa is its recruitment and support of pet dictators, for example, Mobutu in the former Zaire, Bongo in Gabon, Houphouët-Boigny in the Ivory Coast, and Eyadema in Togo. Bribed with French government money in the form of "development aid" or secret funds from Elf, the oil company formerly owned by the French government (now TotalFinaElf), these hatchet men make sweetheart deals with French companies for resources like oil, uranium and other minerals, wood, etc., and stuff billions into Swiss banks while African workers live in miserable poverty.

The French government maintains control of the currency and credit of many French-speaking African countries, but financial power alone has not been nearly enough to maintain domination over Africa by French capital. A network French intelligence agencies, Elf operatives, and friendly dictators have carried out numerous assassinations of politicians and activists, organized coups, and fomented civil wars. An essential part of French neo-colonial policy has also been repeated direct military intervention. France still maintains military bases in five African countries, and has sent in its troops several dozen times since1960, sometimes openly, sometimes disguised as mercenaries. As recently as September, 2002, both French and U. S. troops intervened in the Ivory Coast. The most notorious French intervention, however, was its support of the "Hutu Power" mass murderers in Rwanda, an intervention which exposed the murderous nature of French African policy.

Before independence in 1962, Belgium ruled Rwanda as a colony, pitting the minority Tutsi against the majority Hutu. After seizing power in 1973, Juvenel Habyarimana set up a Hutu-dominated regime that organized persecution and ethnic cleansing of Tutsi. From the mid-70s, France armed and trained Habyarimana’s military, and sent French troops in the early1990s to protect his regime from a Tutsi-controlled guerrilla movement, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR). When Habyarimana died in a plane crash in 1994, his "Hutu Power" government started a previously organized massacre of Tutsi, killing nearly a million over a three-month period.

France sent more troops, but instead of stopping the mass murder, they helped protect Europeans and the Hutu organizers of the genocide, getting them out of the country ahead of the FPR. The U. S. government helped the massacre, too, by opposing U. N. Security Council intervention, even after the reality of genocide had become widely known. Why should these imperialists bother to stop the killing? As French President Mitterand said to an associate in the summer of 1994, "In those countries, a genocide is not too important." (Le Figaro, 1/12/1998)

After being embarrassed by its role in the Rwandan genocide, the French government tried to polish up its image by cutting back its military forces, but continues to intervene to prop up its African puppets. Of course, it isn’t always successful, being disappointed when in 1997 the U. S.-backed Kabila family ended up running the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

French capitalists are acutely aware of their rivalry with the U. S. business empire, in Africa and elsewhere. In his recent trial for bribery of French and African politicians, the former CEO of Elf justified his actions by the need for his company to compete with "an Anglo-Saxon world." "We are David against Goliath. The politicians must support us everywhere." (Le Monde, 4/2/03) Leading the newly strengthened European Union, French capitalists have recently overcome—temporarily, at least—their traditional rivalry with German bosses in order to challenge the U.S. over Iraq. This E.U. challenge to the U.S. will certainly not go away, whether the U.S. and France are able to make deals over Iraq or not.

French capitalists are particularly worried that U. S. oil companies are challenging them in West Africa, which the French bosses have regarded as their "backyard," where there has been a huge expansion of oil exploration. When the government of Congo-Brazzaville was going to do business with Exxon and Occidental, Elf helped the "Cobra" militias of Denis Sassou Nguesso conquer power in 1997, killing thousands. In other areas, however, the big US oil companies are making important inroads. ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, and Petronas (a Malaysian company) are building a big project in Chad (a former French colony), without TotalFinaElf participation. In non-French speaking Africa, TotalFinaElf and ExxonMobil have both paid huge "signing bonuses" to the government of Angola to develop major new fields there. ChevronTexaco, BP Amoco, and Royal Dutch/Shell to are also active in Angola.

As David to the U. S. Goliath, the French government often presents itself as anti-imperialist, advocating "North-South cooperation" of rich and poor countries. Since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the French government has posed as a friend of the Arabs, embargoing arms sales to Israel for many years, while doing business with countries under U. S. sanctions, like Iran, Iraq and Libya. The widely read French magazine Le Monde Diplomatique, which is published in many languages and subsidized by the French government, is quick to denounce CIA crimes, and features liberal critics of U.S. policy, like Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. It has only mild criticisms, however, of France’s imperial crimes in Africa. Le Monde Diplomatique, is one of the main sponsors of the World Social Forum, a big conference held yearly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and also subsidized by the French government. Claiming to be anti-imperialist, the Forum opposes "neo-liberal globalization," (i.e, the WTO and free trade) and advocates "returning control" of the movement of capital to nation-states, instead of U. S.-dominated organizations like the World Bank and the IMF. In other words, the Forum wants to reform capitalism, not end it, and do so in ways that would benefit capitalist powers other than the U. S.

Whatever fig leaves it puts on, the naked truth is that France is an imperialist state, driven by its corporations’ drive for profits to exploit millions of workers, and led by racist killers. Its imperial interests make it resist its rival, the U. S. empire, but that does not make it an ally of workers. Instead of "Viva la France," the slogan for workers of all countries should be "Death to all imperialists."