From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:39:35 -0400
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>(WW News Service)
Subject: wwnews Digest #321
WW News Service Digest #321
1) NATO countries fear being dragged in
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2) Israel launches offensive, then pulls back
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3) How U.S. destroyed progressive secular forces in Afghanistan
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4) Jobs, not war!
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5) Oil companies happy
by "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: lauantai 22. syyskuu 2001 16:15
Subject: [WW] NATO countries fear being dragged in
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
AS U.S. WAR SEEMS IMMINENT:
NATO COUNTRIES FEAR BEING DRAGGED IN
By John Catalinotto
The Bush administration has attempted to use the
catastrophic loss of lives at the World Trade Center to both
mobilize the U.S. population for war and line up traditional
U.S. allies for a military strike.
Veteran right-wing cold warriors--Vice President Dick
Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy
Paul Wolfowitz--have organized the forward charge. Their
proposals have followed a long-term U.S. strategy
established in the 1990s.
This includes: using NATO as the core of an international
intervention force, a world cop. Calling on the Japanese
military, which is constitutionally forbidden to intervene
abroad, in a supportive role. And then, based on the
experience of the Gulf War of 1991, forming a broader
coalition that includes more unstable U.S. client states in
the Middle East and South Asia.
As of Sept. 17, initial displays of solidarity with the U.S.
government from the NATO powers have turned into warnings to
the Bush administration to avoid any immediate strike and to
choose the target very carefully. The big-business official
media here have reported these warnings.
At home, the administration tried to channel the initial
outpouring of solidarity with the victims of the attacks
into patriotic and pro-war directions. More U.S. flags could
be seen flying than ever in recent memory. Right wingers
made sporadic attacks on Muslim, Arab or South Asian people.
Even among the stunned populous, however, voices have been
raised questioning what was behind the attacks, calling for
no new war moves and demanding that there be no racist
attack on Arab or Muslim people here.
Many people compared the event to the attack on Pearl Harbor
in 1941. However, there are many differences. One is that
millions of youths rushed to enlist in the U.S. Armed Forces
in 1941. Now, while inquiries doubled over the first few
days, few additional people joined up.
Nevertheless, the U.S. military buildup continues.
Orders to call up the reserves have been approved. Rumsfeld
said the 35,000-plus members of special forces like Navy
Seals, Army Rangers and Green Berets and Air Force Special
Tactics groups are "important to our country."
Despite all the dangers and warnings, the Bush
administration is preparing for a calamitous war. In all its
public statements, the administration names as the initial
target of that war the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and
Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, whom they allege was
behind the strikes of Sept. 11.
Afghans have been fleeing the cities, fearing U.S. bombing
raids and possible invasion.
Richard Perle, another veteran cold warrior now heading
Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board, mentioned not only
Afghanistan but also Iraq as a potential target. Since Iraq
sits astride enormous oil reserves, it is a much more
inviting target for the big oil corporations so close to the
Bush administration.
WOLFOWITZ: 'ENDING STATES'
Wolfowitz made the single most aggressive statement on Sept.
13.
"It's not just simply a matter of capturing people and
holding them accountable," he said, "but removing the
sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who
sponsor terrorism." In other words, Wolfowitz was making a
direct threat that U.S. troops may be used to occupy any
country Washington chooses to blame.
On Sept. 12, for the first time in NATO's 52-year history,
the alliance declared that the attacks on one member--the
United States--were an act of war against the entire 19-
member alliance. It pledged military support for any U.S.
retaliation.
This was an obviously illegal use of the NATO charter's
Article 5, which refers to an attack on a NATO member by
another state's military.
Wolfowitz is rumored to be the author of the so-called
Pentagon White Paper published by the New York Times in
March 1992. This paper set out the strategy to maintain U.S.
dominance in every region of the world and to show other
countries--including U.S. allies--"that they need not aspire
to a greater role." NATO was to be the main instrument of
U.S. domination in Europe, forcing the European imperialist
powers to follow the U.S. lead.
Before and during the U.S.-led war against Yugoslavia,
Washington's strategists proposed expanding NATO's role,
turning it from an anti-Soviet alliance into a sort of world
cop against any country or movement that resisted capitalist
globalization. The aggressive war and 79-day bombing
campaign against the Yugoslav people was the first such use
of NATO.
The administration has also requested that Japan contribute
military forces to support U.S. actions.
By Sept. 13, the Bush administration appeared to have lined
up NATO and was trying to expand its support for something
like the "coalition" forces that occupied Saudi Arabia and
made war on Iraq in 1991. Now, however, there was a more
than implied threat that any nations refusing to join the
U.S.-led campaign could be considered enemies and attacked.
According to the Sept. 14 New York Times, "Secretary of
State Colin L. Powell used language similar to the bellicose
phrases he employed in 1991, when he said of Saddam
Hussein's army in Kuwait, 'First we're going to cut it off,
and then we're going to kill it.'" Powell was head of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 war.
All the administration spokespeople have used terms like
"war," "protracted war," "campaign" and the "wrath of the
United States."
According to the Times, the so-called campaign "could
involve American forces in protracted fighting against a
number of Asian and African countries, like Afghanistan,
Iraq, Sudan and even Pakistan."
Powell more or less gave an ultimatum to the Pakistani
regime that it must assist Washington in pressuring the
Taleban to turn over bin Laden or it will face the
possibility of itself becoming a target. After a seven-hour
meeting, the ruling group of generals in Pakistan decided to
go along with Powell's demands.
Bin Laden's group originated in Afghanistan among guerrillas
who fought the progressive government there and the Soviet
troops that government had called on for support. The
Pakistan Secret Services and the Pakistan military, with
funding and financing by Washington, trained them.
All U.S. threats against sovereign nations made under the
excuse of hunting terrorists, all the calls for a "war"
violate the Charter of the United Nations.
END OF VIETNAM SYNDROME?
Along with lining up international allies, the Bush
administration has also sought to exploit the Sept. 11
tragedy to whip up patriotism and mobilize the population
for war. Such a protracted war would undoubtedly produce
casualties among U.S. forces, too, especially if there are
land battles and an occupying army.
Since the U.S. war against Vietnam, the U.S. population has
refused to support military adventures that result in
extensive casualties among U.S. youths.
When 18 U.S. Marines died in Somalia in 1993-while involved
in an operation that killed 1,000 Somalis--that was enough
to force a pull-out of U.S. forces. The Pentagon refused to
admit any casualties in the extended air campaign against
Yugoslavia, and remained reluctant to intervene by land to
the very end.
Pentagon generals and U.S. political leaders have chafed
over this obstacle to military moves. In Gen. Wesley Clark's
book "Waging Modern Warfare," he complains that he considers
this a serious weakness in the U.S. armed forces and
concludes it must be overcome. Clark commanded NATO forces
during the assault on Yugoslavia.
The Bush crew apparently believes the anger and fear over
the Sept. 11 attack gives it an opportunity to demand such
sacrifices and get away with it.
As a first step, Bush won a blank check from Congress for
military action. The Senate voted 98 to zero to authorize
war measures, the House 420 to one. Barbara Lee of
California was the only dissenter.
On Sept. 14, Bush authorized a call-up of as many as 50,000
reservists and National Guard. The Pentagon said that so far
it requires 13,000 for the Air Force, 10,000 for the Army,
3,000 for the Navy, 7,500 for the Marines and 2,000 for the
Coast Guard.
In the active military, the XVIII Airborne Corps
headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C., was put on alert. This
corps is made up of the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne,
the Third Infantry Division and the 10th (Mountain)
Division.
Warships in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region are reported to
have begun movements and increased secrecy regarding their
locations.
NERVOUS IN EUROPE
By Sept. 16, the European governments, without directly
taking on Washington, were expressing second thoughts about
giving the Pentagon carte blanche to lead them into some new
version of the Crusades anywhere in the Middle East or
Central Asia.
"The worst thing we could do would be for the West to go
against the Islamic world," German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fisher said. "We must not push Islam in general into the
corner of terror because that would make matters worse."
Fischer was a complete hawk in the NATO aggression against
Yugoslavia.
French Defense Minister Alain Richard said: "Armed action is
only one of the ways of responding. ... What is necessary is
a way that does not provoke other elements of instability."
The strongest rebuff came from Italian Defense Minister
Antonio Martino, according to a Sept. 16 French Press Agency
report. Martino said: "The term 'war' is inappropriate. It
is not a conflict between states and Italian troops will not
go anywhere. I feel I am in a position to categorically
exclude calling on the army."
- END -
(Copyright 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
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: lauantai 22. syyskuu 2001 16:16
Subject: [WW] Israel launches offensive, then pulls back
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
TOOK ADVANTAGE OF CRISIS:
ISRAEL LAUNCHES OFFENSIVE, THEN PULLS BACK
By Joyce Chediac
The Israeli government launched a major military escalation
into the West Bank and Gaza after the attacks on the
Pentagon and World Trade Center. Areas under the control of
the Palestinian Authority were pummeled by land, sea and
air, bringing the total Palestinian death toll to 635 since
Israeli assaults began a year ago.
"The Israelis are exploiting the world's preoccupation with
events in the U.S. to carry on with their crimes against the
Palestinian people," said Yasir Abed Rabbo, a senior aide to
Yasser Arafat.
Israel used U.S. F-16 fighter planes and Apache helicopters
in its assaults.
Even as Israeli troops, tanks and helicopters were battering
the Occupied Territories, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
accused the Palestinian Authority of "terrorism."
Sharon hardened Israel's diplomatic stand. On Sept. 16, he
announced plans to create a "buffer zone" that would seal
off the West Bank.
The same day he called off cease-fire talks scheduled with
Arafat and refused to meet the Palestinian Authority at all
unless it could first "guarantee" a 48-hour cease-fire on
the part of Palestinian resistance.
Also on Sept. 16, the Israeli Army announced plans to
establish an 18-mile-long "closed military area" in the
northern part of the West Bank border between the
Palestinian cities of Jenin and Tulkarm. The closure order
would go into effect Sept. 24.
"Anyone violating the closure order will be arrested and put
on trial," an Israeli Army spokesperson said.
CEASE-FIRE ANNOUNCED
But then, on Sept. 18, a cease-fire was announced. Arafat
ordered his forces not to return fire even if fired upon.
Israel pulled its troops out of Palestinian-controlled
territory and said it would refrain from offensive action,
according to the Sept. 19 New York Times.
The U.S. government has made no public statement condemning
the Israeli aggression. However, Secretary of State Colin
Powell did converse with Sharon on Sept. 16. Afterwards
Sharon, not wanting to look like he was following U.S.
orders, told Israeli radio that Powell "did not exert any
pressure'' on Israel to agree to truce talks.
Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat had earlier called
the plans for a closed military area "the most dangerous
thing this Israeli government is undertaking." He added that
its purpose was "to prepare for an all-out assault on the
Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Authority areas."
The Arab press also viewed this as part of a plan by Israel
to recapture the areas of the Occupied Territories currently
under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
WEST BANK: 60 TANKS BESIEGE JENIN
Arab newspapers report that Palestinian cities have been
turned into areas "of real war between the invading Israeli
forces and the Palestinian citizens who hurried to defend
their cities." (ArabNews.com, Sept.14)
Israeli forces imposed a siege on Jenin after positioning 60
tanks and armored carriers and a large number of troops
around the town and its refugee camp. The Israeli military
randomly shelled homes and cars, made tank incursions into
the town, and blew up the governor's offices. The assault
faced stiff Palestinian resistance.
Jericho and the adjacent refugee camp of Aqbat Jaber were
shelled.
Israeli occupation forces opened fire at Kharbatha junction
in the district of Ramallah, fatally wounding Rafat Al Malhi
while he was driving to work. When people came to rescue
him, Israeli soldiers stopped them and left him bleeding for
90 minutes before an Israeli ambulance arrived at the scene.
Resistance has been continuous and fierce in many areas.
In Ramallah on Sept. 16, about 600 Palestinians marched
toward an Israeli Army checkpoint to protest Israel's
blockade--tightened that day after a weekend incursion by
Israeli troops. Troops responded with tear gas, rubber-
coated steel bullets and live rounds.
GAZA SUFFERED LAND, SEA AND AIR ASSAULTS
Israeli forces launched air, sea and land assaults on
Palestinian positions in the impoverished Gaza Strip, home
to nearly a million refugees. Helicopter gunship missiles
destroyed a Palestinian military intelligence headquarters
in Gaza City.
Anti-tank missiles hit a Palestinian police station in Rafa,
near the Egyptian border. Also in Rafa, a 35-year-old
Palestinian man whom witnesses said was mentally disabled
wandered into the streets during the shooting and was killed
by shots fired from a nearby Israeli watchtower.
In Nusseirat, Israeli warships fired three shells,
destroying most of a Palestinian naval building on the
beach, according to an Agence France Press photographer on
the scene.
Israeli soldiers fired on a taxi at a checkpoint near a
settlement, killing one Palestinian. Elsewhere in Gaza,
soldiers fired live rounds at children throwing stones.
Doctors reported five children wounded.
The cease-fire is only a temporary measure that could
collapse at any time if Israel renews its all-out aggression
against the Palestinian people. All progressive people,
especially those in the United States, must be on alert to
show solidarity with the besieged Palestinian people and
demand a genuine solution to this struggle that respects
their national rights.
[Information in this article comes from dispatches in the New
York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters,
Agence France Press, ArabNews.com--a web site that carries
the front pages of Arab newspapers--and LAW: the Palestinian
Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the
Environment.]
- END -
(Copyright 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)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: lauantai 22. syyskuu 2001 16:17
Subject: [WW] How U.S. destroyed progressive secular forces in Afghanistan
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
HOW U.S. DESTROYED PROGRESSIVE SECULAR FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN
By Deirdre Griswold
[The media are suddenly full of opinions about Afghanistan,
now that the Bush administration is accusing Osama bin Laden
and other Islamic fundamentalists of being behind the
attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In the 1980s, the reactionary political elements now ruling
Afghanistan were working with the CIA to overthrow a
progressive Afghani government supported by the Soviet
Union. After the spending of an ocean of blood and billions
of U.S. dollars, the reactionaries won.
Washington was happy and unconcerned as its protégés went on
to butcher Afghani progressives, restore landlordism and
repress women while fighting among themselves.
The eventual triumph of the Taleban faction represented a
catastrophe for the Afghani people. Just in the last year
thousands of Afghani refugees have died of starvation and
exposure and Kabul, the capital, is such a wasteland that
the U.S., demanding vengeance, can't even find anything to
bomb.
On Oct. 10, 1996, Workers World printed the following
article about how the U.S. strangled a popular revolution
led by the Progressive Democratic Party of Afghanistan
(PDPA) against feudalism and imperialism.]
Not that long ago, the bourgeoisie could still feel pride in
their revolutionary history. They continued to celebrate the
1789 French Revolution and many other great victories in the
struggle against feudal oppression.
They even spoke approvingly of the 1917 overthrow of the
czarist autocracy in Russia. The problem, they said, was
that the Bolsheviks had spoiled that struggle for democracy
by going too far.
But capitalism in this rotten age of U.S. imperialist
conquest of the globe has degenerated so far from its
revolutionary roots that it is now, to borrow a phrase from
Henry Kissinger, to the right of the czar. And it is
celebrating the return of absolute feudal rule in
Afghanistan.
The powerful media engines, their reach multiplied by the
most modern technologies, are presenting the world with
instant photographic images of a lynching--that's all it was-
-of the few progressives left in Kabul. .
To make the deed more palatable, the media use adjectives
like "butcher" to describe former President Najibullah and
his aides. Dragged out of the United Nations compound where
they had sought asylum for the last four years, they were
beaten to death and then left hanging for all to see.
But among themselves, foreign-policy experts for the U.S.
establishment know that the Afghani progressives' real crime
was that they tried to carry out a social transformation in
their country in the direction of socialism.
What authority bears witness to this? None other than the
U.S. Department of the Army itself.
The Pentagon puts out what it calls country study books on
almost every country in the world. They are updated every
few years. These books contain basic information for the use
of U.S. personnel traveling or working abroad. There's
nothing classified in them. They're available in most
libraries.
"Afghanistan--a Country Study" for 1986 has of course the
anti-communist line expected of a Pentagon publication. But
it also contains much useful information about the changes
instituted by the Afghani Revolution of 1978.
FREEING WOMEN AND PEASANTS
Before the revolution, 5 percent of Afghanistan's rural
landowners owned more than 45 percent of the arable land. A
third of the rural people were landless laborers,
sharecroppers or tenants.
Debts to the landlords and to money lenders "were a regular
feature of rural life," says the U.S. Army report. An
indebted farmer turned over half his crop each year to the
money lender.
"When the PDPA took power, it quickly moved to remove both
landownership inequalities and usury," says the Pentagon
report. Decree number six of the revolution canceled
mortgage debts of agricultural laborers, tenants and small
landowners.
The revolutionary regime set up extensive literacy programs,
especially for women. It printed textbooks in many languages-
-Dari, Pashtu, Uzbek, Turkic and Baluchi. "The government
trained many more teachers, built additional schools and
kindergartens, and instituted nurseries for orphans," says
the country study.
Before the revolution, female illiteracy had been 96.3
percent in Afghanistan. Rural illiteracy of both sexes was
90.5 percent.
By 1985, despite a counter-revolutionary war financed by the
CIA, there had been an 80-percent increase in hospital beds.
The government initiated mobile medical units and brigades
of women and young people to go to the undeveloped
countryside and provide medical services to the peasants for
the first time.
Among the very first decrees of the revolutionary regime
were to prohibit bride-price and give women freedom of
choice in marriage. "Historically," said the U.S. manual,
"gender roles and women's status have been tied to property
relations. Women and children tend to be assimilated into
the concept of property and to belong to a male."
Also: "A bride who did not exhibit signs of virginity on the
wedding night could be murdered by her father and/or
brothers."
The revolution was challenging all this.
Young women in the cities, where the new government's
authority was strong, could tear off the veil, freely go out
in public, attend school and get a job. They were organized
in the Democratic Women's Organization of Afghanistan,
founded in 1965 by Dr. Anahita Ratebzada.
Ratebzada's companion, Babrak Karmal, was one of the young
revolutionaries who had formed the People's Democratic Party
of Afghanistan in that same year and would later become
president of the country.
REPRESSION AND REVOLUTION
A revolution was literally thrust upon this young party in
1978. The reactionary government of Mohammad Daoud, which
was close to both the shah of Iran and the United States,
arrested almost the entire leadership of the PDPA on April
26, 1978. There had been a huge funeral procession just a
week earlier for a murdered member of the party, and the
progressive masses in Kabul saw the new arrests as an
attempt to annihilate the party just as the military junta
had done to the workers' parties in Chile in 1973.
An uprising by the lower ranks of the military freed the
popular party leader, Nur Mohammad Taraki--the soldiers
actually broke down his prison walls with a tank. Within a
day, Daoud was overthrown and a revolutionary government
proclaimed, headed by Taraki.
This uprising of the soldiers and the city masses, many of
them low-paid civil servants in a country with very little
industry, was every bit as glorious as earlier revolutions
against feudal tyranny in Europe. It held the promise of
breaking down the old traditions based on oppression and
fear.
The leaders of the PDPA were educated, although some, like
Taraki, came from very poor families. But they had been to
Kabul University, some had studied abroad, and they yearned
to bring enlightenment and material progress to Afghanistan.
Had all this happened 150 years ago, the feudals would have
been overthrown and Afghanistan welcomed into the fold of
progressive bourgeois nations. But that was before the age
of imperialism, and especially before the era of proletarian
revolutions and the Cold War.
The U.S. CIA began building a mercenary army, recruiting
feudal warlords and their servants for a "holy war" against
the communists, who had liberated "their" women and "their"
peasants. Washington spent billions of dollars every year on
the war.
The only country in the area ready to help the Afghani
Revolution was the Soviet Union. The USSR intervened
militarily. But it could not defeat this well-armed counter-
revolutionary force.
Every battle was a test not only of Soviet military might
but of the political resolve of its leaders. They finally
withdrew the troops in 1989 as the shift to the right within
the USSR became critical.
The war in Afghanistan began some 18 years ago. It continued
long after the last progressive government in Kabul fell in
1992. The recent stage has been an orgy of destruction as
rival reactionary groups fought for control of the capital,
now mostly destroyed.
More than 2 million Afghanis have been killed in this
struggle, and millions more made refugees. Now half the
remaining population--the women--have been returned to the
status of property without a single human right. A poor man
unable to pay his debts can have his hand cut off for theft.
The schools and clinics built by the revolution are in
ruins. The Taleban--a fundamentalist group supported by
Pakistan that was trained and armed by the U.S. CIA--has
taken the capital and is pursuing the war northward, toward
the border with what were the Central Asian Soviet
republics.
This is the hideous face of counter-revolution. Afghanistan
has been dragged back more than 100 years. But it was the
most modern weapons and communications systems, made in the
USA, that killed the progressive dream of a generation of
Afghani social revolutionaries.
- END -
(Copyright 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:
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From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: lauantai 22. syyskuu 2001 16:18
Subject: [WW] Jobs, not war!
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: JOBS, NOT WAR!
The airline industry laid off 65,000 workers in the week
after the attack on the World Trade Center. That number is
expected to reach more than 100,000.
In addition, Boeing announced it is now planning 30,000
layoffs in its civilian aircraft production division.
The airline bosses say that the layoffs are necessary
because of the new conditions brought on by the WTC attack.
But the truth is that, because of the deepening economic
recession, the airline industry was already in deep trouble.
Layoffs may have been planned well before the attack, but
the bosses are using the attack as a excuse for making them
ruthless. Ask any airline worker. They can tell you that
things were difficult before Sept. 11. Midway Airlines
declared bankruptcy a month ago, but used the attack as the
reason to suddenly shut down, stranding passengers and
flight crews all over the country.
Layoffs and shutdowns were already spreading before the
attack, with unemployment at a four-year high.
Even the White House and Congress, which are expected to
turn over $24 billion to the airline bosses, don't believe
that the layoffs and shutdowns are because of the WTC
attack. The New York Times reported Sept. 19, "In developing
an aid package for the airlines, administration officials
and members of Congress were grappling with how to separate
the financial effect of the terrorist attacks from the
economic woes the industry had before last week."
They may be "grappling," but in the end they'll turn over
billions to the airline bosses. They'll do it with speeches
declaring that it is their patriotic duty.
Why is it their patriotic duty to bail out the airline
bosses, but it is not the patriotic duty of those bosses to
protect the jobs of the workers?
This is federal funding, after all. Workers all across the
United States are paying for this bailout with their tax
dollars. So why aren't these funds being used to guarantee
jobs?
The Democrats are not much different than the Republicans on
this. There are no calls to save the jobs of airline
workers, just calls to save the airline companies. Rep.
Richard Gephardt, a leading Democrat who gets lots of
support from labor unions, mumbled something about getting
assurances that laid-off workers will be able to collect
unemployment checks. Has he ever tried to live off the
meager sum paid in unemployment compensation? In Alabama,
that could be as little as $45 a week.
The media frenzy and war hype is hiding the reality of the
economic recession. Capitalism was in crisis before the
attack.
The stock market plunge--the biggest one-day fall ever--was
a sign that the big capitalists expect the recession and the
capitalist economic crisis to deepen.
In the past, whenever Washington announced a war move, the
stock market would shoot up. This has been true ever since
World War II. It was especially noticeable during the
Vietnam War, where every escalation announced by the White
House would find a corresponding rise on the stock market.
Not this time. The war talk in Washington has not raised the
stock market. In fact, the drop in the market showed the
uncertainty and divisions in the ruling class. None seem to
believe that the war buildup will solve capitalism's deeper
crises.
There is one answer in this time of crisis. The billions
that Congress is spending should be put to use protecting
the jobs of all--those whose jobs were lost because of the
destruction of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, airline
workers who are being told that they are being laid off
because of the attack, and all other workers whose jobs are
threatened.
Putting the money into jobs, not war, is the only way to
provide security for the lives and livelihoods of all the
workers affected.
- END -
(Copyright 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)
From: "WW" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: lauantai 22. syyskuu 2001 16:18
Subject: [WW] Oil companies happy
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 27, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
OIL COMPANIES HAPPY
The return of unbridled feudal tyranny to Afghanistan is
considered a "very positive development" by the U.S. energy
company Unocal Corp. Together with Delta Oil Co.
of Saudi Arabia, it is seeking to
build both a gas and an oil pipeline from Pakistan to
Turkmenistan via Afghanistan. Chris Taggart, executive vice
president of the company, says these projects are "now more
likely to succeed than they were two weeks ago." These are
multi-billion-dollar projects that promise huge profits to
the transnational oil
companies.
The U.S. government indicated
it will recognize the new regime soon, despite its ultra-
reactionary character.
--Oct. 10, 1996
- END -
