>exclusively secured by the 1953 CIA-led counter-revolution.
>The Israeli state, as a settler regime, was inherently in
>conflict with its far more numerous indigenous Arab
>neighbors, and was also entirely dependent on the United
>States as its ultimate guarantor and protector.
>
>MONARCHY OR PARLIAMENT MADE NO DIFFERENCE
>
>It didn't matter in the Nixon Doctrine what form of
>government existed in the U.S. allies/clients in the Middle
>East. The form of government was vastly different in Iran
>than it was in Israel. The first was a blood monarchy, an
>absolutist totalitarian regime. The other was a
>parliamentary democracy, but based on a theocratic settler
>regime that embodied institutional discrimination and
>exclusion of the indigenous Arab people. Imperialism was
>"loyal" to Israel and to the Shah regardless of the
>contrasting political form of the governments.
>
>Today the slogans used to mobilize public opinion in the
>United States against the Iraqi government have to do with
>the political form of government. Iraq is a "dictatorship"
>or "Saddam is a brutal despot."
>
>The political form of government is of great consequence
>for the people in any country, but it has not even secondary
>importance to the imperialist establishment. Support for or
>opposition to any particular political form of government
>does not drive or motivate U.S. strategy.
>
>What really drives U.S. policy and motivates any specific
>strategy or foreign policy doctrine is the dominant class
>interests of U.S. capitalism in a region of the world. This
>is what is missing in public consciousness and is precisely
>what any legitimate anti-sanctions or anti-war movement must
>reveal. Otherwise, the broad public and the anti-war
>movement are left in a fog, completely susceptible to the
>propaganda of the Washington political establishment.
>
>IRANIAN REVOLUTION SHATTERS NIXON DOCTRINE
>
>The 1979 revolution in Iran was one of those great
>historical events that shake the established world at its
>foundations. The fact that it was later hijacked by
>conservative clerical obscurantism does not negate how
>stunned and threatened U.S. imperialism was by this genuine
>people's revolution. Fifty thousand died as the battles
>between peaceful protesters and the U.S.-backed Iranian
>regime grew fiercer each week in the months leading up to
>the revolution.
>
>President Jimmy Carter, who had just saluted the loyal
>puppet on the Peacock Throne as an "island of stability in a
>sea of turmoil," had to quickly reshape U.S. policy. One of
>the two pillars of the Nixon Doctrine had not only vanished
>but actually seemed to transform into its opposite.
>
>Iran in 1979 not only ceased to be a puppet regime, one
>that had ably relieved the Pentagon of the dangerous and
>dirty work of direct suppression in the region, but it
>became a bastion of anti-imperialist agitation mainly
>directed against the United States, which was rightly
>targeted for having been the deposed Shah's most important
>patron.
>
>The Carter Doctrine, also known as the doctrine of Rapid
>Deployment Forces (RDF), supplanted the Nixon Doctrine.
>
>ELEMENTS OF CARTER DOCTRINE
>
>A Rapid Deployment strategy combined two features: (1) New
>technologies in aircraft and troop transport vehicles and a
>new generation of powerful and more compact conventional
>weapons and (2) the use of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the
>other Gulf States as a location for Pre-Positioned Bases.
>
>Pre-Positioned Bases were complete U.S. military bases in
>terms of storage and supply--minus any actual military
>personnel. This had the advantage of allowing the Saudi
>monarchy and the other frightened ruling royal families in
>the Gulf to accommodate the demands of the Pentagon while
>still insisting that soldiers from the United States were
>not occupying their "sacred" territories.
>
>Anti-imperialist sentiment in the Arab world was still too
>high and the waves of the Iranian revolution were still
>resonating too forcefully throughout the region for these
>ruling monarchies to dare admit that they were out-and-out
>clients of Washington.
>
>The Carter Doctrine was based on the assumption that the
>Pentagon might eventually have to do the work of policing
>the Gulf itself. The Pre-Positioned Military Bases did
>eventually become the staging area for Operation Desert
>Storm in 1990. Without the construction of the Pre-
>Positioned Bases during the decade between 1979-1990 it
>would have been impossible for Bush to so rapidly deploy
>hundreds of thousands of U.S. soldiers to the Gulf between
>August and November 1990.
>
>Although the Carter Doctrine or Rapid Deployment
>envisioned the direct use of large-size U.S. military forces
>to protect "U.S. interests" in the Middle East, it was still
>a far-off pipe dream for policy planners in 1979-1980. The
>anti-war sentiment at home was still strong from the
>recently concluded Vietnam War and the anti-imperialist
>sentiment in the Middle East was still too big an obstacle.
>
>The decision to allow Pre-Positioned Bases by the ruling
>royal families in the Gulf was the consequence of their fear
>that the Iranian revolution would sweep away their fragile
>monarchies. They still had to be balanced by a concern that
>they not appear to have become absolute puppets of the
>United States.
>
>The U.S. fully achieved its goal of gaining access for
>Pre-Positioned U.S. Bases during the Iran-Iraq War.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <008c01bf7d9c$d2aa4e90$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Strike of Moroccan farm workers rocks Spain
>Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:25:09 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>AFTER RACIST ATTACK ON IMMIGRANT:
>
>GENERAL STRIKE OF MOROCCAN
>FARM WORKERS ROCKS SPAIN
>
>By G. Dunkel
>
>A strike by immigrant farm workers in southern Spain has
>been suspended while the associations leading the strike
>consider a government offer to improve their housing and
>compensate them for mosques and shops destroyed in three
>days of racist attacks.
>
>>From Feb. 6 to Feb. 9, roving bands of racists using metal
>bars, gasoline bombs and rocks had roamed the streets of El
>Ejido, overturning cars with Moroccans and other Africans in
>them, burning their houses, shops and shanties, and beating
>them.
>
>This led to major protests on the following weekend. Many
>immigrants marched through the town carrying banners reading
>"We want peace." Local people gradually joined in. At the
>head of the demonstration were a number of multiracial
>families.
>
>The general strike has cost the growers around El Ejido
>from $5 million to $15 million. The workers also organized
>roving picket squads and neighborhood defense groups.
>
>Author Juan Goytisolo and Sami Naãr, a leader of the
>Citizens Movement and a member of the European Union
>parliament, described the racist attacks as a "Nazi-style
>pogrom modeled on what was done in the 1930s." (Le Monde,
>Feb. 11)
>
>The growers tried to break the strike by importing scabs
>from Romania. The Spanish press tried to excuse this as
>relieving social tensions in El Ejido by replacing African
>workers with European workers.
>
>The press there has praised the "homogeneous" nature of
>Spanish society, with only 2 percent immigrants. What they
>fail to point out is that the Spanish state controls many
>nations, such as the Basques, Catalans and Galicians, who do
>not consider themselves Spanish.
>
>Spain colonized parts of Morocco, and still controls the
>enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which were seized by the king
>of Castile shortly after the fall of Granada in 1492.
>
>The Moroccan paper LibÇration, under the headline
>"Moroccans in terror," declared that "this explosion of
>racist hate turned into a real pogrom." Al Ittihad Al
>Ichtiraki, newspaper of the Socialist Union of Popular
>Forces, deplored the racists' slogan "Death to the Moors,"
>which it said is 500 years old in Spain.
>
>It attacked the silence of the Spanish political parties,
>which are worrying about their chances in national elections
>scheduled for next month. "Such a silence," the newspaper
>added, is "the beginning of a tragedy, as the example of
>Austria shows." A right-wing party with pro-Nazi sentiments
>has been incorporated into the Austrian bourgeois government
>for the first time since World War II.
>
>It was not only the political parties that failed to react
>to the violence in El Ejido. The cops took three days to
>arrive, claiming they needed to gather forces to deal with
>barricades of flaming tires that blocked the roads.
>
>FROM RAGS TO RICHES--FOR THE BOSSES
>
>El Ejido was once the poorest section of the poorest
>province in Spain, a country whose economic development was
>arrested and cruelly distorted under four decades of rule by
>the fascist Gen. Francisco Franco. In the 15 years since
>Spain joined the European Union and the EU eliminated trade
>barriers between members, the area around El Ejido has
>become crowded with greenhouses that supply most of the
>winter vegetables for Europe's 300 million people.
>
>It is now one of the richest areas in Spain. But the
>agricultural workers are among the poorest.
>
>Profitable greenhouse cultivation demands intensive stoop
>labor for a few months a year. The work is performed in
>stifling heat. Even with unemployment in Spain officially at
>15 percent, Spanish workers wouldn't take such jobs at $25 a
>day. Rather than raise wages, the growers turned to Morocco,
>just a short boat ride across the Mediterranean.
>
>Some of the Moroccans have no papers. Others are filtered
>in through the two enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla.
>
>Even the Spanish government admits that the housing and
>social situation of Moroccans in Almeira is deplorable. Over
>half live in shacks without running water. Some have only a
>sheet of plastic over their heads and sleep on the ground.
>The local utility refuses to sell them tanks of butane gas
>for heating and cooking.
>
>Spain has major economic interests in Morocco besides
>cheap labor. Their electric grids are interconnected.
>Spanish companies have invested in Moroccan oil exploration,
>mining, power generation and a whole host of other key
>industries.
>
>Spain is an imperialist country, although smaller and
>poorer than others in Europe. The ruling class is no less
>greedy, grasping and exploitative than the super-rich
>anywhere else--only less powerful.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
>Message-ID: <009201bf7d9c$f4161000$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: [WW] Fighting erupts in Kosovo as U.S. tightens military hold
>Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:26:05 -0500
>Content-Type: text/plain;
> charset="iso-8859-1"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>-------------------------
>Via Workers World News Service
>Reprinted from the Feb. 24, 2000
>issue of Workers World newspaper
>-------------------------
>
>CAMP BONDSTEEL:
>
>FIGHTING ERUPTS IN KOSOVO
>AS U.S. TIGHTENS MILITARY HOLD
>
>By G. Dunkel
>
>Kosovska Mitrovica is the latest battleground of the
>U.S./NATO war in Kosovo. Its intensity has been lowered to
>sniper attacks and exchanges of rifle fire and grenades, but
>people are still dying and the stakes are high.
>
>When two French soldiers of the NATO occupation force,
>often erroneously called "peace keepers," were wounded Feb.
>13, the struggle again burst onto the front pages of the
>press.
>
>But the festering tensions in Kosovo had actually burst
>into the open on Feb. 3 when a bus carrying 49 Serbs from
>Suvo Grlo to Kosovska Mitrovica, 20 miles away, was shot up
>by rocket grenades. French troops had been assigned to
>protect the bus but that didn't stop the attack.
>
>Two elderly Serbs were killed and a number of the riders
>were seriously injured.
>
>Days of attacks and counterattacks followed in Kosovska
>Mitrovica, a city divided by the River Ibar with about 7,500
>Serbs and non-Albanians, along with 1,500 ethnic Albanians,
>living in the northern part of the city and 90,000 ethnic
>Albanians living in the southern part.
>
>Serbs from all over Kosovo, driven from their homes by the
>KLA, have moved to Kosovska Mitrovica, along with Gorani,
>Roma, Albanians who support the Yugoslav government, and
>others.
>
>When Serb neighborhood defense squads moved against an
>Albanian apartment house they suspected as a terrorist base
>or refuge, their actions were presented as "ethnic
>cleansing" by the big-business media. The same media,
>however, never question the absence of Serbs from the
>southern section of the city.
>
>According to various reports, in the first week of
>February, seven Albanians living in the Serb section of the
>city were killed and nine were wounded. Two separate grenade
>attacks were made on cafes in the Serb section, wounding
>over 22 people, some so seriously they were considered
>likely to die. Six French soldiers were wounded trying to
>keep Albanians from crossing the bridge over the Ibar. They
>had come under fire from the Albanians.
>
>KFOR (Kosovo Forces under UN command) moved German and
>Dutch units into Kosovska Mitrovica to reinforce the French
>as well as a UN police force. They also placed the city
>under a strict four-day curfew. British troops were later
>moved in to control the bridges over the Ibar.
>
>Suvo Grlo came under fire from rocket grenades. It is a
>small Serb hamlet in a predominantly Albanian section of
>Kosovo.
>
>The first two weeks of February have seen the most serious
>violence in Kosovo since the end of the U.S./NATO bombing
>campaign in June.
>
>KLA TRIES TO BREAK OFF MACEDONIA
>
>Hashim Thaci, the political leader of the KLA and one of
>the four members of the UN-recognized council for Kosovo, in
>late January had met with the ethnic Albanian leader of
>Macedonia. They declared that the only solution for the
>Balkans would be a "Greater Albania."
>
>The Los Angeles Times, in a front-page report Feb. 6 on a
>conference in Munich, Germany, said there were "ticking time
>bombs in the Balkans capable of exploding into new wars."
>
>The report mentioned that Gen. Leonid G. Ivashov, Russia's
>international military relations chief, called talks about
>the expansion of NATO and a U.S. missile shield "songs of
>praise for warfare." That statement drew bitter
>denunciations from U.S. officials, reminiscent of the Cold
>War.
>
>Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya, according to
>an French Press Agency report on the same conference, said,
>"Facts have proven that interfering in other countries'
>internal affairs in the name of human rights or humanity
>will only be counterproductive. It will, instead of
>protecting human rights, undermine regional stability and
>directly jeopardize international peace and security."
>
>The Pentagon has just finished Camp Bondsteel, the largest
>U.S. military base built on foreign soil since the Vietnam
>war. The U.S. has the biggest military contingent in Kosovo,
>even though only a few U.S. police appear to have been
>directly involved in Kosovska Mitrovica.
>
>This base was built quickly, at a huge cost, even though
>the UN estimates that only 50,000 of the 100,000 families in
>Kosovo, whose homes were destroyed, have even a minimal roof
>over their heads this exceptionally cold winter. The
>economies of other Balkan nations like Macedonia and Romania
>are still reeling from the effects of the war.
>
>But the United States has its base, its imperialist
>stronghold, astride the main land between Europe and the
>Middle East and within striking distance of the route
>Caspian oil will take from its origin to Europe.
>
>The military presence of the United States and its
>imperialist partners has inflamed the powder keg. It has not
>calmed national antagonisms but sharpened them.
>
> - END -
>
>(Copyleft Workers World Service. Everyone is permitted to
>copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but
>changing it is not allowed. For more information contact
>Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail:
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message
>to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org)
>
>
>
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