workers vanguard no 817 - 09 january 2004

7/29/2019 Workers Vanguard No 817 - 09 January 2004

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WfJRIlERS 'ANIIJARI oC!:No. 817 ~ 1 i ~ X . 5 2 3 9 January 2004

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U.S. "liberators" train tank guns on Shi'ite Muslims demonstrating in Baghdad.J A ~ U A R Y 5-The media blitz celebrat-ing the capture of Saddam Hus,ein couldnot disguise the fact that the Americanmilitary occupation of Iraq i, not goingwell for U.S. imperialism. The re,istancecontinues, chalking up 10,,1..'5 for theAmerican side evelY day. The Iraqi people arc ~ c c t h i n g \\ith anger at the strutting(;.S. "Iil"lcratllr(l Palestinianstudents who were hdd f(l[ [ \ \ 0 monthsdescribed their ordeal in a .\',llio/1(22 Dec,:mher 20(3) article titled, "Glliltyof Being a Paleqinian in Iraq": "For thefirst se \ en days \\c \\ere giwn no f'Jod orwater. ... All the time they \"ere poinlingtheir gL!llS at us. They made us fe d that\\ e ap: going to die now. the'Y g(lnna killus now." Before being released, the two,tudents were compelled to sigll a document 'tating that "the L.S. 1111Ltary borcno re,ponsibiiity fur what had happenedto them while they \\ere in '.:ustod)."Yet, to be out of jail and "free" in uccu-pied Iraq is ab o to suffcr a t,'rrifying dailygaullllet of privation and p1'o\ oeation.Iraq's Labor ~ 1 i n i q r ) h a ~ , estimated th:1I

much ,\,; 70 JJPrcem nf the \\ orkfllrcc isunemployed. The capital city is " L i ~ ' k c ' d out ]6 hours a day and the lights arl: nohrighter elsewhere in thc countr). Tothe lack of electrical pO\\er and p()tahlewater, add the absence of phone line" thebroken ,ewer lines, the schonls reducedto rubble, the uncollected garhage, the

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Edward SaidPassionate Advocateof Palestinian Freedom,Human DignitySEE PAGE 3L-______ _.______ _


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Federal Court RulesAgainst Ashcroft, Bush on PadillaOn December 18, the United StatesCourt of Appeals for the ~ e c o n d Circuitruled, by a two-to-one vote, that the federal government could not legally detainAmerican citizen Jose Padilla as an"enemy combatant." Padilla was arrestedon 8 May 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare airport on a "material witness" warrantbased on his alleged associations with AlQaeda. But after a month the Fedsdeclared Padilla an "enemy combatant"with fantasies of exploding a "dirtybomb." They sent him to a military brig,where he has been held without anycharges being filed, with no prospect of ahearing or trial, and without even accessto a lawyer. The Court of Appeals orderedSecretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld torelease Padilla from military custodywithin 30 days, noting that Padilla is"entitled to the constitutional protections

extended to other citizens."

The Padilla ruling joins a growing listof judicial decisions that have called intoquestion some of the more egregiousaspects of the Bush administration's driveto fortify an imperial presidency andshred the Bill of Rights. The same day asthe Padilla ruling, the Ninth Circuit Courtof Appeals in California issued an orderallowing access to attorneys for the morethan 600 detainees held as "enemy combatants" at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court also ruledthat the detainees' indefinite imprisonment without any hearing was unlawful.Declaring that its duty is "to prevent theExecutive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliensalike," the court ruled that the law wasunconstitutional because it would ensnareanyone who did anything from donatingto an orphanage run by a banned group tobuying "cookies from a bake sale." Two

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Lenin on ImperialismVarious liberals and pacifists promote thenotion that organizations like the UnitedNations, by bringing tORether the countries

of the world, including the imperialistpowers, could be forces for peace. In theearly 20th centurY, the social democrat KarlKoutsh similarlv maintained that the impe-rialist jJ()\\'ers could establish a stable andpeaceful dil'isio/l of the lI'orld ecollomy. But

TROTSKY as Lenin explained in Imperialism, the High- LENINest Stage of Capitalism, written amid thecarnage of the first illterimperialist world Imr, without socialist rel'Ollition to sl\'eepaway the system of capitalism, imperialist rivalries inevitably lead to illlperialist I\'ors.

Let us consider India, Indo-China and China. It is known that these three colonialand semi-colonial countries, with a population of six to seven hundred million, aresubjected to the exploitation of the finance capital of several imperialist powers: GreatBritain, France, Japan, the U.S.A., etc ... Let us assume that al l the imperialist countriesconclude an alliance for the "peaceful" division of these parts of Asia; this alliancewould be an alliance of "internationally united finance capital." There are actual examples of alliances of this kind in the history of the twentieth century-the attitude of thepowers to China, for instance. We ask, is it "conceivable," assuming that the capitalistsystem remains intact-and this is precisely the assumption that Kautsky does makethat such alliances would be more than temporary, that they would eliminate friction,conflicts and struggle in every possible form?The question has only to be presented clearly for any other than a negative answer tobe impossible. This is because the only conceivable basis under capitalism for the division of spheres of influence, interests, colonies, etc., is a calculation of the strength ofthose participating, their general economic, financiaL military strength, etc. And thestrength of these participants in the division does not change to an equal degree, for theeven development of different undertakings, trusts, branches of industry, or countries isimpossible under capitalism ...

Therefore, in the realities of the capitalist system, and not in the banal philistine fantasies of English parsons, or of the German "Marxist," Kautsky, "inter-imperialist" or"ultra-imperialist" alliances, no matter what form they may assume, whether of oneimperialist coalition against another, or of a general alliance embracing all the imperialist powers, are inevitably nothing more than a "truce" in periods between wars.Peaceful alliances prepare the ground for wars, and in their turn grow out of wars; theone conditions the other, producing alternating forms of peaceful and non-peacefulstruggle on one and the same basis of imperialist connections and relations withinworld economics and world politics.-v. 1. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916). ~ ' S . l r l I t . 3 nr r

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f ! / ! ! ! f . . ! ! y o ~ 4 l ! l i ' l ~ f l . 1 ! . . IRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Alison SpencerEDITOR: Alan Wilde

EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Michael DavissonPRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan FullerCIRCULATION MANAGER: Jeff Tho masEDITORIAL BOARD: Rosemary Palenque (managing editor), Bruce Andre, Ray Bishop, Jon Brule,Karen Cole, Paul Cone, George Foster, Liz Gordon, Walter Jennings, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers,James Robertson, Joseph SeymourThe Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League(Fourth Internationalist).Workers Vanguard (ISSN 02760746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July andAugust (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December. by the SpartacistPublishing Co . 299 Broadway, Suite 318, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 7327862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861(Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York. NY 10116. Email address: [email protected] subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Periodicals postage paid at New York. NY POSTMASTER: Send addresschanges to Workers Vanguard. Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116.Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial VIewpoint.The closing date for news in this issue is 6 January.

iNo. 817 9 January 20042

Jose Padillawith relatives.He has been heldincommunicadofor 19 months.

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weeks earlier, on December 3, the courtoverturned the part of Clinton's 1996Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that made it a felony to provide'material support" to groups designatedas "terrorist." With support for the government's attack on civil liberties eroding(including among some bourgeois circles), Attorney General John Ashcroft'sJustice Department was also forced to letYasser Esam Hamdi, a U.S. citizen apprehended in Afghanistan and declared an"enemy combatant," meet with an attorney for the first time, in anticipation of aSupreme Court appeal.

We welcome the Padilla ruling and theother legal setbacks to the admini"tration's attacks on civil liberties in thename of the bipartisan "war on terror."However, the recent court rulings againstthe government are partial and reversible, with the government making clearits intention to appeal them to theSupreme Court. Moreover, the Court ofAppeals went out of its way to assure theBush administration that Padilla could behanded over to civilian authorities forprosecution on criminal charges or heldin a civilian prison under the same"material witness" pretext on which hewas originally arrested. The court wenton to counsel Bush that "he can ask

Congress-which has shown its responsiveness-to authorize additional powers," leaving open the possibility thatthe government could detain citizens as"enemies" and disappear them, as longas Congress says it's okay. These rulingsessentially reaffirm the constitutionalseparation of powers between the judiciary, executive and legislative branches.The rulings indicate that some of these"war on terror" measures-especiallythose that eviscerated the role of thecourts-have eroded the standard division of labor within the capitalist stateand angered the courts.With Ashcroft's proposed Patriot Act TI,the White House would have unchallengeable authority to strip citizenshipfrom Americans providing "material support" to "terrorism." The Democrats havelargely supported the administration'smilitary adventures abroad and evisceration of constitutional rights at home,including the USA-Patriot Act whichradically curtailed due process rightsfor immigrants accused in "terror" cases.These legal measures represent a qualitative diminution of democratic rights, butthey are the fruit of decades of attempts toincrease the repressive apparatus of thestate. Just as the Clinton administration

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Justice, New York Style:First They Shoot the Man,Then They Sue the Family

For the past four years, the Buschfamily has been waging a legal battleagainst the New York Police Departmentover the August 1999 fatal shooting ofGidone Busch, a mentally ill HasidicJew. The Busch family sued the six copswho shot Gidone as well as the cityadmini stratio n in federal court. U nfortunately, they did not win. Now, in a despicable and depraved move, the cityadministration is suing the Busch familyfor $176,000 to get back legal costs!After suffering the grief of their loss, thehardship of a four-year battle and an outrageous verdict clearing the cops, theBusch family is now faced with the vindictive legal assaults of Mayor MichaelBloomberg's lawyers in an attempt todrain their financial resources.The killing of Gidone Busch cameamid a reign of police terror in New YorkCity-like the sadistic torture of Haitianimmigrant Abner Louima and the deathsquad-style execution of black AfricanAmadou Diallo. According to witnesses,Gidone was holding a hammer at the timehe was killed. Much like how the copswho killed Diallo were acquitted becausehis reaching for a wallet was considered "threatening," the cops who killedGidone were cleared of any wrongdoing

on the basis that the hammer posed a"threat." This was in spite of the fact thatthese cops shot a volley of 12 bullets intoa mentally ill man whom they were originally called upon to help! A 28 December New York Times article, "The Intersection of Troubled People and ArmedPolice," describes how the cops form asemicircle around the "emotionally disturbed person" with guns drawn.The Bloomberg administration's legalassault on the Busch family is an assaulton all those in the cross hairs of theNYPD, particularly black people andimmigrants. It sets a dangerous precedent: when you sue the cops for brutallybeating you or killing a loved one, notonly will they likely be acquitted, butyou may be held liable for the cost of thelawsuit. And it demonstrates, yet again,that the capitalist courts are not "neutral"arbiters but exist to serve the interests ofthe capitalist rulers. Likewise, the copsserve to protect capitalist property nothuman life. The only way to get rid ofcop terror for good is to get rid of thecapitalist system itself. What is called foris the building of a revolutionary workersparty to lead the struggle to sweep awaythe entire machinery of capitalist staterepression.

WORKERS VANGUARD


3/12

Edward SaidPassionate Advocate of PalestinianFreedom, Human DignityAfter 12 years with leukemia, EdwardSaid, passionate advocate for Palestinianrights and scholar of modern literature,died on September 25. A tribute by theBritish Independent's Near East reporterRobert Fisk was appropriately titled:"Palestinian, Intellectual, and Fighter,Edward Said Rails Against Arafat andSharon to His Dying Breath" (26 September 2003). In his last years, everypublic appearance Said made, especially

if it involved travel, turned into a protracted battle with his advancing diseaseand the advice of his close friend anddoctor, who he was quick to remind hisArab colleagues was Jewish. But hewould not be stopped.He devoted one of his last speeches tothe dignity and courage of Rachel Corrie, the International Solidarity Movement member c r u s h ~ d to death by anIsraeli Army bulldozer in March for trying to stop the demolition of a Palestinianhome in Gaza:

"We need to remember that that kind ofsolidarity is no longer confined to asmall numbcr of intrcpid souls here andthere, but is recognized the world ovcr."Whencvcr thc facts are made known,there is immediate recognition and anexpression of the most profound solidarity with the justice of the Palestiniancause and the valiant struggle by the Palestinian people on its behalf."-CounterPunch, 23 June 2003

No one had done more than Said tomake those facts known. The sworn enemyof cant, demagogy and hypocrisy, he imbued the Palestinian cause with the integrity it deservcd and presented it as part ofa profoundly secular, universalist visionof human freedom.Edward Said was born in Jerusalem in1935. His very name expressed the confluence and clash of cultures. His father,Wadie, insisted on being called William.A successful businessman, he immigratedto the U.S. before World War I andobtained U.S. citizenship, then served inFrance during the war. His mother, Hilda,the daughter of a Nazareth Baptist minister, named her son after the Prince ofWales. Wadie imposed a strict Victorianupbringing on their children. Arabic wasforbidden at home except when addressing servants. It was banned at school.Only English was permitted, although allthe students had another native language,which they used among themselvesbehind their teachers' backs. In this stifling a t m o s p h ~ r e , Said got himself expelled from the last school he attended inEgypt, fittingly named Victoria College.Wherever he went, Said felt Out ofPlace, as he titled his 1999 memoirsabout his childhood and student days. InPalestine, the Saids were members of aChristian minority with American passports. After the 1948 Israeli-Arab War inwhich 68 percent of the Palestinian population was expelled, Edward Said spentmost of his childhood in Egypt. Therethe Saids were "Shami" in the doublemeaning in which Egyptians use thisterm, designating non-Egyptian Arabspeakers as well as people from "GreaterSyria" (Syria, Lebanon and Palestine).With the thoroughly corrupt and rottenedifice of British colonial Egypt underKing Farouk crumbling about them, theSaids shipped Edward off to boardingschool in Massachusetts. He describedthose years as the most miserable ofhis li fe, as he was the .only Arab in thevery preppy student body. He went on toPrinceton and graduate work at Harvard,9 JANUARY 2004

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where he wrote his doctoral dissertationon Joseph Conrad, the great Polish-bornnovelist who became a British citizenand wrote in his acquired language, English. Against those who tried to reducethe novelist either to his Polish background or fondness for things English,with no small measure of empathy Saidlater wrote: "Eventually we realisethat [his] work is actually constitutedby the experience of exile or alienationthat cannot ever be rectified" ("BetweenWorlds," LOlldon Review of Books,7 May 1998).After visiting the West Bank in 1998,Said was invited to speak in Nazareth.Annexed by Isracl in 1948, it is the largest Palestinian Arab city in the "Jewish

Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Rosa Luxemburg,Trotsky, and Freud":'They were a priori exceptional in that asJews they dwelt on the borderlines of various civilizations, religions, and nationalcultures. They were born and hrought upon the borderlines of various epochs.Their mind matured where the mostdiverse cultural influences crossed andfertilized each other."

-The NOll-Jewish Jew and OtherEssays (1968)Said represented that small minorityfrom the Near East who are alienatedfrom what they call home yet can neverfree themselves from it, whom the worldsees as Arabs but whose fellow Arabsoften see as foreigners, who find thcmselves caught between two very different

Northfield Mount Hermon

1935-2003state." In his lecture, Said admitted toknowing little of the Palestinian secondclass citizens of Israel

"who had been regarded in the Arabworld as little short of traitors for remaining as non-Jewish citizens of Israel."It now struck me, I said, that Israeli Palestinians had become crucial for ourfuture as a people since, given their circumstances as non-Jews in a Jewish state,they dramatised the anomalies of nationalism and theocracy throughout the Middle East. Nationalism had become thedead end of our political life. demandingendless sacrifices and the abrogationof democracy for the sake of nationalsecurity."- "West Bank Diary," Al-AhramWeekly, 10-16 December 1998

Said, the champion of Palestiniannational emancipation, was very muchthe "rootless cosmopolitan." He could notfully belong in either Palestinian or Egyptian society because his background wasChristian. At the same time, he could notbelong in American society because hewas Palestinian. In his memoirs, Saiddescribes how in some circles he wouldemphasize that his name was Edward,while in others he would emphasize Said.He embodied the heretical temperamentthat Polish Marxist Isaac Deutscher in"The Non-Jewish Jew" ascribes to "thosegreat revolutionaries of modern thought:

worlds where they belong to neither. ForSaid, modern Arab society, with its inwardness, exclusivity and religious fanaticism, was far too constricting. And Western society, with its immense arrogance,br;utality and hypocrisy, could not provide an alternative.Impact of 1967 Arab-Israeli War

In 1963 Said joined the Columbia University faculty where he was headedtoward a distinguished but otherwiseuneventful career as a scholar of modemEuropean literature and literary criticism.As he wrote in "Between Worlds":"The big change came with the ArabIsraeli war of 1967, which coincided witha period of intense political activism oncampus over civil rights and the VietnamWar. I found myself naturally involved onboth fronts, but. for me, there was the further difficulty of trying to draw attentionto the Palestinian cause. After the Arabdefeat there was a vigorous re-emergenceof Palestinian nationalism, embodied inthe resistance movement located mainlyin Jordan and the newly occupied territories. Several friends and members of myfamily had joined the movement, andwhen I visited Jordan in 1968, 69 and 70,I found myself among a number of likeminded contemporaries. In the US, however, my politics were rejected-with afew notable exceptions-both by antiwar activists and by supporters of Martin

Luther King. For the first time I felt genuinely divided between the newly assertive pressures of my background and language and the complicated demands of asituation in the US that scanted, in factdespised what I had to say about the questfor Palestinian justice-which was considered anti-Semitic and Nazi-like."-London Review ofBooks,7 May 1998Said always insisted that the Hebrewspeaking nation has a right to exist and toself-dete rmination in Palestine. However,it has no right to a "Jewish state" throughthe expulsion and suppression of theindigenous Palcstinian nation.The humiliating defeat in 1967 of theArab nationalist regimes as well as Jordan's King Hussein, who in 1970 carriedout the slaughter of some 10,000 Palestinians during the Black September massacres, spurred the development of Palestinian guerrilla groups. Even the largestand most moderate, Yasir Arafat's Fatah.which dominated the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), proclaimed"armed struggle" as its main strategy.However, in 1974 the PLO-Ied PalestineNational Council (PNC) adopted a 'Transitional Program" for a state in the WestBank as "a link in the chain of the strategy .. to establish the Democratic Palestine state." At the time, we warned thatsuch a "mini-state" would serve as aSouth Africa-like bantustan serving as adumping ground for unwanted refugees.Nevertheless, we would defcnd thc rightof the Palestinians to set up their owngovernment in the Occupied Territories"as a partial and deformed application oftheir right to self-determination" (WVNo. 58. 6 December 1974).Said first praised the "mini-state" proposal as an expression of thc PLO's newrealism, and in 1977 was electcd to thePNC. But he grew disillusioned with thePLO's corruption and Arafat's despotism.Finally, Said resigned from the PNC, alongwith Ibrahim Abu Lughd, AbdulmuhscnQattan, Mahmoud Darwish and Shafiq AIHout, over Arafat's support to SaddamHussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.Meanwhile in 1987, the first Intifada oruprising of Palestinian youth sweptthrough the Occupied Territories. Despitethe brutal repression by Israeli stormtroopers, dubbed the "Iron Fist," thisrebellion could not be suppressed. WithAmerica's quick military crushing of Iraqand the collapse of the Soviet Union, Arafat rushed to conclude the Oslo "PeaceAccords." This was not even a deformedexpression of self-determination but thePLO placing its "seal on the nationaloppression of the long-suffering Palestinian Arab masses" (WV No. 583,10 September 1993).Said became the most trenchant Palestinian critic of Oslo, branding it "aninstrument of Palestinian surrender, a Palestinian Versailles" (Londoll Review ofBooks, 21 October 1993). Unmentionedby the accord were the national rights ofthe millions of Palestinians in exile. Theissue of the settlements, inhabited byfanatical anti-Arab racists and outrightfascist auxiliaries of the Israeli army, was"postponed." Since 1993, the number ofsettlers has more than doubled. According to a report by B'Tselem, an Israelihuman rights group, "Land Grab: Israel'sSettlement Policy in the West Bank"(reported by the London Guardian, 15May 2002), fully 42 percent of Palestinian land in the West Bank has been seized

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Iraq ...(continued from page J)three-kilometer queue (an overnight wait)for gasoline sold at extortionist prices byKellogg, Brown & Root-a subsidiary ofHalliburton, which bilked the U.S. government for more than $120 million inscams whose costs are passed on to U.S.and Iraqi workers-and you get a glimmer of the physical suffering of the Iraqipeople today. And that's just the objectivehardships.

The population also seethes under thedaily insult and terror of foreign occupation. Israeli commandos are trainingU.S. special forces units in what's euphemistically called "preventive manhunting": i.e., killing civilians in search-anddestroy missions. Entire neighborhoodsare raided or flattened, families torn apartand jailed, the less fortunate shot on sight.Borrowing a page from the infamousIsraeli wall cut through Palestinian territory, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Sussaman commanded a battalion to surroundthe town of Abu Hishma with a razor wirefence. Aping Dr. Strangelove, Sussamanexplained: "With a heavy dose of fear andviolence. and a lot of money for projects,I think we can convince these people thatwe are here to help them" (Asia Times,13 December 2003).

Getty"War on terror" at home: Sniper in chopper patrolling over New York City onNew Year's Eve.

We had a clear side in the war: for themilitary defense of Iraq against U.S.imperialism and its allies. Today we takea clear stand for the military defense ofthose who resist the imperialist occupation of Iraq. We lend not one iota of political support to remnants of the Ba ' athist

say: Anti-imperialism abroad means classstruggle at home! U.S. troops out of Iraq!Military Occupation of IraqTargets Labor

On 6 December 2003, the Americanoccupation forces attacked the headquarters of the Iraqi Federation of TradeUnions (lFTU) in Baghdad: eight of itsleaders were handcuffed, kidnapped andheld overnight. The office was ransacked,IFTU banners, posters and other possessions were destroyed, the IFTU's nameand that of the General Union of Transport Workers on the front of the buildingwas smeared with black paint, and thewindows were smashed. The internationallabor movement protested this outrage with statements issued by the powerful South African COSATU federation,

GettyIraqi women in Kirkuk on hunger strike to demand release of family membersjailed by U.S. occupation forces.regime or Islamic fundamentalist forcesseeking to impose their own reactionaryagendas on Iraqi women, workers. ethnicand religious minorities. But we understand that there will be no freedom or justice for the long-suffering Iraqi peopleuntil the imperialist occupiers are drivenout! We fight for the immediate andunconditional withdrawal of all U.S.imperialist and allied troops and weunconditionally oppose their replacementby UN blue h e l m e t . ~ ! As communists herein the belly of the beast. we have a special responsibility to make working people in this country conscious of the intrinsic connection between the attacks ontheir living standards, their right to strikeand their basic democratic rights by theU.S. government on the "home front" andthe imperialist occupation of Iraq. We

the Italian CGIL and British trade unions.On November 23, the occupation forcesraided the office shared by the Union ofthe Unemployed in Iraq (UUl) and theWorker-Communist Party of Iraq (WCPT).When a WCPI and a UUI leader turnedup, as requested, at occupation authorityheadquarters, they were arrested. DuringJuly and August 2003, some 54 UUImembers and the union president werearrested for sit-in protests.Meanwhile, the U.S. occupation forceshave enthusiastically embraced torturers,spies, police and other government agentsof the Hussein regime to "stabilize" Iraq.They even resurrected a labor law fromthe old regime which forbids workersin the state oil industry from organizinga union. To back up Hussein-era antiworker laws, U.S. occupation chief Paul

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Bremer issued a new regulation about"prohibited activity," which is definedas encouraging anybody to organizeany kind of strike or disruption in a factory or any kind of economically important enterprise. The penalty for breaching labor law in occupied Iraq is to bearrested by the occupation authorities andtreated as a prisoner of war!Those Iraqis who find employment literally work under U.S. guns. An Iraqiconstruction worker at the Baghdad airport, Muiwafa al Saidy, described how"soldiers aim guns at us wherever we go,even to the toilet," Workers are paid $5.00per day but $2.00 is skimmed by their"translator" who tells them they will beturned in to the soldiers as "terrorists"unless he gets his cut. Adding to the tension is the continual roundup of new prisoners brought to a fenced area of theairport compound, including "childrenbrought in from the soccer fields, balls inhand, old men in their 80s, and eVen hospital patients carrying their drip bags." A20 October 2003 Internet article by DavidBacon tilled "The Occupation's War onIraqi Workers" stated that al Saidy hasseen the prisoners' food thrown on theground and also seen them beaten with~ t i c k s .

More than half the recruits for the newimperialist-sponsored Iraqi army walkedout because the pay was so low and thetreatment so bad. The soles of their bootsflapped and fell off and their uniforms arepink and green and brown camouflageand shrink dramatically if washed. AnIraqi major said, "The men ask me, 'Arewe really going out in these clothes?'''Attempts to make the new army a "rainbow coalition" of Iraq's diverse ethnicgroups blew up in a cauldron of tensions.One hundred Kurds quit in the first fewweeks.Occupation Is Big Bu$ine$$

How is it that a company like Bechtel, which built the Hoover Dam, can'tturn the light switch on in Iraq? Answer:they don't want to. An article titled"Iraq Reconstruction's Bottom-Line,"(Asia Times, 25 December 2003) states:"Another popular explanation making tperounds alleges that sabotaging the reconstruction is a conscious and deliberateeffort on the part of the occupation forcesto make the Iraqis completely dependentand subservient." The press conferenceswhere Bush and Cheney promised thatAmerican troops would be greeted as liberators were a line of crap designed towhip up domestic support for and disguise the American rape of Iraq. But it'snot mainly psychological terror, it's justthe best way for robber barons to makebig bucks in the "free market" bonanzathey drool for in Iraq. Yaarub Jasim, general director for the southern region ofIraq's electricity ministry, has been pleading with Bechtel to get urgently neededspare parts for Iraq's antiquated turbines.Parts are readily available from the companies which built the turbines-in Russia, France and Germany .. the very countries banned from getting contracts inIraq. (Washington has gone so loopy thateven that notorious "rogue state" Canada,was banned from contracts in reprisal forits milquetoast opposition to the war!)

Bechtel could let the turbines rust and

crumble until they are completely useless. Then they'll bid to build new billiondollar power plants themselves. As company founder Stephen Bechtel quipped,"We are not in the co.nstruction andengineering business. We are in the business of making money" (Asia Times, 25December 2003). And Bechtel stands tomake a ton of it, perhaps $20 billion ormore in the pillage of Iraq. Ditto forIraq's oil industry, which badly needsrepair to refine enough crude for domestic consumption. Yet the U.S. is exportingIraqi crude oil while giving Kellogg,Brown & Root, the company which issupposed to repair the refineries, thecontract to import oil from Turkey andKuwait. Charging more than twice whatthey paid for this imported fuel, KBR hadno incentive to repair Iraq's refineries.

On 19 September 2003, the U.S. occupation authorities issued "Order No. 39,"which permits I OO-percent foreign ow nership of businesses. including formerlystate-owned industries, except oil, and repatriation of profits. This outright brigandage-a fire sale of Iraq's natural resources and the wealth created by the Iraqiworking people to U.S. imperialist corporations, with a few crumbs tossed toall ies-is so explosive that the U.S. isconsidering delaying their plans. A manager of the AI Daura refinery predictedthat privatization would mean firing 1,500of the plant's 3,000 workers. In light ofthe conditions in Iraq today, this managersaid, " If I dismiss employees now, I' mkilling them an d their families."Blood and Oil

Iraq's borders were drawn on a map bythe British, who carved up the old Ottoman Empire after the First World War.forcibly compacting three different peoples together in an artificial "nation" forthe benefit of imperialist exploitation ofresources and labor and for diplomaticadvantage. Together with the U.S., theBritish set up the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), which had exploration rightsto practically the entire country. After the1958 i n ~ u r r e c t i o n that i n ~ t a l l e d BrigadierAbd ai-Karim Qassim, Iraq took back99.5 percent of the land originally allocated to the IPe. In 1972, Iraq nationalized the IPC and became the first Arabcountry to take over a Western-owned oilcorporation. Nationalization of the oilwas a hugely popular move and possession of Iraq's most precious resources provided the Ba ' athist authorities with thewealth to build an extensive social infrastructure including free public servicessomething the Gulf monarchies, IranianShah or Ayatollahs surely never did. Oilwealth also provided the Ba'athists withthe economic clout to build a massivearsenal of police-state repression whichwas brutally deployed against the workersmovement and the left.

The U.S. now has its hands on the oilspigot in Iraq and Kuwait, and the "SevenSisters" are ready to leap back into Libyanow that the U.S. has morphed Qaddafifrom "international outlaw" to a reasonable man to do business with. Secretnegotiations between Qaddafi and Britishagents began as soon as the U.S. rainedits devastating "shock and awe" onIraq. Qaddafi decided to avoid "regimechange" U.S.-style and made a deal topay $2.7 billion to the families of victimsof the 1988 Pan Am je t bombing overLockerbie, Scotland, and allow UN weapons inspectors to strip Libya of whateverdefense capacity it has, in exchange for arelaxation of economic sanctions. Everthe grandstander, Qaddafi says he hopesthat his move will encourage Israel to disarm its doomsday machine. Fat chance.Arming Israel to the teeth is a linchpin ofU.S. policy in the region.

A top-secret document declassifiedin Britain on January I reveals thatU.S. president Richard Nixon consideredlaunching airborne troops to seize oilfields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and AbuDhabi in response to OPEC's oil embargolaunched in retaliation for America's support to Israel in the 1973 Near East war.Another document reveals that Nixon putAmerican forces on a global nuclear alert

WORKERS VANGUARD


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during the 1973 war. We've said that theNear East could be a trip wire for WorldWar III. Today the U.S. arsenal of deathso vastly outstrips the capacity of anyother imperialist power that no country iseager to spark a war in which the y're outgunned. But this situation will not lastforevcr, and the American machinationsin the Near East and the "Bush doctrine"of "pre-emptive war" without a UN cloakor European allies have strained the oldNATO alliance. The heightened interimperialist rivalries outline new wars tocome. Gulf War Two was as much ormore intended to "shock and awe" America's imperialist rivals as it was about oil.

To very little fanfare in the bourgeoispress, the U.S. passed a bill in earlyDecember that puts the U.S. openly andofficially back in the business of developing and testing nuclear weapons for thefirst time since the Cold War ended withcapitalist counterrevolution in the SovietUnion. The bill funds research for socalled "mini-nukes" with an explosivepower described as "only" up to a thirdthat of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima! The bill also funds developmentof "bunker buster" warheads designed togo deep into the earth and destroy buriedbunkers or command centers. To explodenuclear bombs the size the U.S. is projecting in "bunker busting" groundburstswill irradiate densely populated cities.

The "bunker busters" are part of theU.S. nuclear threat against the NorthKorean deformed workers state. Following the devastation of the Korean War,North Korea built its military apparatus asdeeply underground as possible becauseanything visible could easily be wiped

out by the U.S. again. As Bruce C u m i n g ~ , a scholar of Korea, points out, "The onlyproblem with Rumsfeld's war plan is thatno technology yet developed or imaginedcan penetrate the earth's surface for morethan about fifty feet, which is why cruisemissiles could not eliminate SaddamHussein on the night the Iraq invasionbegan ... The only answer is larger andlarger warheads, so that you target KimJong Il and wipe out a large urban neighbourhood, or maybe a city"' (LondonRevinv of Books, 4 December 2003).As the American empire redraws themap of the Near East, using the UnitedNations to disarm its targets, it could notbe clearer that nuclear weapons are theonly effective guarantee of national sovereignty. With the North Korean defo rmedworkers state in Washington's cross hairs,as part of the U.S. drive for capitalistcounterrev olution there and in China, weTrotskyists stand for the unconditionalmilitary defense of North Korea and itsright to possess nuclear weapons. Fromthe former Central Asian Soviet republicsand Afghanistan to U.S. forces in the Philippines, the Chinese deformed workersstate is now literally ringed by the worldwide expansion of U.S. military bases.China is the ultimate prize the imperialists are after, and they are applyingpressure militarily and through massiveencroachments of capital in "free trade"zones which are criminally encouragedby the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy. Thefate of the Choinese workers state willhave a profound impact on humanity,far greater even than U.S. imperialism'srape of Iraq. Capitalist counterrevolution9 JANUARY 2004

would pauperize the most populous country on earth and further devastate themasses of Asia. What's needed is a workers political revolution to defend the Chinese workers state and institute workersdemocracy, which would be a huge defeatfor imperialism and encourage proletarian struggle around the globe. We standfor the unconditional military defense ofthe deformed workers states of China,North Korea, Cuba and Vietnam! U.S.get your bloody hands of f the world!The Left Between Iraq anda Hard Place

Shamelessly, the Iraqi Communist Party(CP) serves in the "Governing Council:'the facade of stooges hand-picked by theAmericans to lend legitimacy to the occupation. The Iraqi CP boasts on its Website of "serious and frank discussions"held between the secretary of its CentralCommittee and the American top cop inIraq, Paul Bremer, and his deputy, BritishAmbassador John Sawers. As if frontingfor the occupation wasn't bad enough, theIraqi CP calls on "activating the role ofthe United Nations"-the agency thatmurdered more than one and a half million Iraqi civilians with its sanctions-"in, guiding the on-going political process inIraq, as well as its role in relie f operationsand reconstruction" (18 October 2003statement by the International Department of the Central Committee).The Iraqi Communist Party used tobe the largest, most proletarian Communist party in the Near East and recruiteda large cadre of national, religious andethnic groups. In 1958, a revolutionaryupsurge was touched off when the Iraqi

;;:'"Drc()'"::Jiiic..oc3OJ2)o::J

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Free Officers movement overthrew theBritish-installed monarchy and broughtthe bourgeois nationalist Abd aI-KarimQassim to power. A revolutionary waveswept the countryside as peasants seizedthe land. and the Communist Party madespectacular gains in the cities. Workersrevolution was on the order of the day, butthe CP and Kremlin bureaucrats insistedthat the party get no more than representation in the capitalist government. ButQassim and the anti-Communist nationalists knew the workers wanted more and sotook the offensive to repress the CPo Thiswas but a prelude for the bloodbath tocome at the hands of the Ba'athists, whobrought down Qassim in 1963 and hunteddown Communists with lists supplied bythe CIA. An estimated 5,000 were killedand thousands more jailed and tortured.(For a full discussion, see "Near East,1950s: Permanent Revolution vs. Bourgeois Nationalism," WV Nos. 740 and741, 25 August and 8 September 2000.)The Iraqi CP's hatred for the Ba 'athists isutterly correct, but to front for the American occupation against them is classtreason and likely every bit as suicidal asthe CP's earlier subordination to Qassim.What about the ostensibly more leftistWorker-Communist Party of Iraq? Whiledenouncing the "Governing Council"and opposing the U.S. occupation, theWCPI simply equates the imperialistsand their stooges with Islamic andBa'athist forces. The title of its article' ' 'Occupation' and Resistance: Two PolesWithin the Same Reactionary Camp"(Forward, 15 December 2003) gives thegame away. The article condemns the

Halabja, 1988:Kurdish victimsof .poison gasattack bySad dam Hussein.U.S. and BritishgovernmentsrewardedHussein withmillions in aidfollowingthis atrocity.

(1EE(1CJD(1a:

resistance as "a direct declaration of areaCt ionary war, which is not in essencepertifJent to demands and expectations ofthe masses in Iraq."Like the Iraqi CP, the WCPI calls forUN forces to enter Iraq, insisting that thisis necessary to "provide security and stability." Both the Iraqi CP and the WCPIare playing a reactionary role in tellingthe Iraqi masses that peace and stabilitydemands tacit acceptance of foreignoccupation and that salvation lies with theden of thieves in the UN. This is a reactionary call to accept the rape of Iraq byimperialist powers that are looting what'sleft of the productive capacity of thecountry, plunging the proletariat into further misery and impoverishment, whilegrabbing the natural resources for theirown profits. The U.S. raids on the tradeunion headquarters are just a hint of theterrible repression to come, includingagainst "responsible" leftists who allywith the U.S. against the Ba'athists. Tnpolitics it is essential to know thatthe enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend!Behind the CP and WCPI's reliance onthe UN andior U.S. imperialist troops tooppose the Ba' athists is their rejectionof the politically independent mobilization of the Iraqi proletariat in struggleagainst imperialist domination, capitalistexploitation. religious oh,curantis1l1 andreactionary bourgeois nationalism. It isurgently necessary to forge Trotskyistparties in the Ncar East. armed with theprogram of permanent remlution. Therewill be no emancipation of the women ofthe region, of the oppressed nationalminorities, of the exploited workers, shortof thoroughgoing socialist revolutionswhich sweep away the sheiks, colonelsand Zionists and imperialist occupiers,and which link up with proletarian revolution in the West. For a socialist federa-tion of the Near East! For world socialistrevolution!The Enemy Is at Home:U.S. ImperialismWall Street likes the Iraq occupation:the Dow Jones stock market index topped10,000, making a few more millionaireswhile the mass of American workers suffer through what the bosses cynically call"tlJe jobless recovery." The presidentialcampaign has swung into gear and thatmeans that the treacherous trade-unionleaders are plunking union funds not intostrike war chests but chiefly into the coffers of the capitalis.t Democratic Party.Between the two parties there's no choicefor working people or minorities: indeedthere's not much difference between thetwo. The Bush gang in the White Housereceived overwhelming Democratic support for the draconian Patriot Act, whichsets the pretext for stripping away thedemocratic rights of all in this country.So-calle d "antiwar" candi date HowardDean explained his campaign to beatBush as follows: "I'm going to outflankhim to the right on homeland security, onweapons of mass destruction and on theSaudis .... Our model is to get around thepresident's right, as John Kennedy didto Nixon" (New York Times Magazine, 4January). Not even Dennis Kucinich sayshe would withdraw U.S. forces from Iraqimmediately. He says, "UN in, U.S. out"and projects a three-month plan for U.S.withdrawal.

There are seething discontents in thiscountry, including in the military whichis disproportionately black and Latino.Welfare has been slashed and as the50th anniversary of the Browll\,. Board ofEducation decision approaches, Americabecomes increasingly segregated. Moreblack men in the U.S. are thrown behindbars than get into college. From growinganger with the war to fury over corporategreed and scandals reaching up to theWhite House while working people getlayoffs. plant closings, bans on strikes.unaffordable health care, diminishingabortion rights, anti-immigrant racismand cop terror in the ghettos and barrios-class and social struggles over suchissues would help crack the reactionarysocial consensus Bush has exploited sincethe September 11 attacks and the onset ofthe "war on terror."

Our message to the American workersis that the same ruling class that is waging war on the people of Iraq is wagingwar on labor. blacks. immigrants, youthand women at home. The American proletariat has to understand that the purpose of the U.S. occupation of Iraq isimperialist plunder and global hegemonyover the American rulers' rivals. It is inthe workers' own class interest to opposethis. Every strike, every protest in Iraqthat puts a dent in the American rulers'\var on Iraq is a victory for the siJe oflabor here at home. Every victory forlabor and minorities here at home is ablow to American imperialism's attackson \'.orking people abroad.The excruciating contradiction is thatAmerican worker\ hold in their h a n d ~ thepotential power to save humanity fromthe nuclear nuts in the White H o u ~ e andto use the tremendous wealth of thiscountry for socially useful p u r p ( ) ~ e s worldwide. Yet thanks to the illusionspromoted by the trade-union m i s l e a d e r ~ . there is little awareness in the proletariatof its position in this society and the enormous power it has if mobilized as a classin its own interest. The consciousness ofthe class that has the social power tochange society lags behind its objectiveconditions and development. To resolvethis contradiction it is necessary to builda revolutionary integrated workers party,and the Spartacist League is dedicatedto this purpose. Break with the Demo-crats! For a workers party to fight forsocialist revolution! All U.S. troops out ofIraq now!.

Marxism, War and the Fightfor Socialist RevolutionTwo-part article fromWorkers Vanguard Nos. 795 and 796,17 and 31 January 2003

. - ~ ~ ~ , ! t E O - - - - - ~ __Marxism, War and the FightFor Socialist Revolution

$1Order from: Spartacist Pub. Co.Box 1377 GPONew York, NY 101165


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< { C , ~ i - : ~ ~ I i . ~ ! .... t-\..;. - < . " " ' ~ ~ ___ "

..Miami FTAA Protest:Cops Rampage Against Youth, LaborWhat Strategy to DefeatThis article is based 011 eye\\'it-ness reportsJrom SYC comrades.Thousands of protesters fromacross the U.S., and to a lesser exten t

Canada and Latin America, gatheredin Miami during the week of November 17 to protest the Free Trade Areaof the Americas (FTAA), as government ministers holed up in the downtown Hotel Inter-Continental werenegotiating the pact's terms.

The FTAA represents the potential extension of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)to 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere, excluding Cuba. FromNArTA's inception in 1994, the International Communist League hasopposed the pact as U.S. imperialism's "free trade" rape of Mexico; ithas sincc brought increased miseryand pmerty to the people of Mexico.The L'.S. is pursuing the FTAA as amc:.!n." to further ccment ih controlover the ,malleI' capit:.!list states inlcntr:.!l and South America ;n theface of greater economic competition from riVed imperialist powers inEurope and Asia. The fight against:\AFTA and the FTAA is a battleagain,t imperialist domination of~ ' f e . \ i c o and all of the Americas.

One unofficial ,logan of thc antiglobalization movement is "Anotherworld is possible." Some steel work-ers in Miami even had the sloganemhlazoned across the backs of theirunion T-shirts. How to bring about thatother world? A range of political opinionswas on display. The AFL-CIO officialspre,ented the protests as an opportunity"to educate our elected officials and candidates in preparation for the 2004 elect i o n ~ " and collected "ballots" from "millions of workers" from the Americasopposing the FTAA. Liberals like those inthe coalition United for Peace and Justice(UFPJ). in a call endorsed by the reformist International Socialist Organizationand Left Turn among others, sought toinspire thc'delegates of poorer countries atthe FTAA talks to walk out, as Brazil'sLula did at the Cancun WTO meetings

6

SYC Class Series. CHICAGO

Thursday, 7 p.m.January 15: We Are the Partyof the RUSSian Revolution!University of Chicago

Cobb Hall, Room 1075811 S. Ellis Avenue

Information and readings: (312) 5630441or e-mail: [email protected]

Alternate Saturdays, 2 p.m.January 10: The Russian Revolution

3806 Beverly Blvd., Room 215(VermontBeverly Red Line station)

Information and readings: (213) 3808239or email: [email protected] ~ - - -- - - - -

Imperialism?

APMiami, November 20: Direct action protest at security fence surrounding meeting siteof FTAA talks.earlier last year. Many youth activists,identifying themselves as anarchists andrejecting reliance on any governmentofficials, wanted to disrupt the FTAAmeeting through direct action. None ofthese tactics will actually stop the FTAA.The FTAA talks did end a day early,without a broad agreement. But this failure was not a result of the protests. Asone radio reporter observed, at the InterContinental the demonstrations went unheeded by the delegates, confident in theprotection accorded by the armed policecamp in the downtown area. Instead, thisfailure was due to the competing nationaleconomic interests of the capitalist governments involved in the FTAA.Ultimately there is no way to stop capitalist exploitation and bring about ajust world short of working-class socialist revolution. We look to the workingclass as the only force in society that hasthe ability and class interest to defeatimperialism.Miami Blues:Armed Police Camp

Miami was witness to a massivepolice mobilization, now routine at antiglobalization demos. Th e "security" measures were underwritten by $8.5 millionfrom the federal government, allocated inthe spending bill for the Iraq occupation.Also borrowed from the "war on terror" inIraq: Miami police invited reporters to"embed" with them in armored \ chicle,and helicopter,. The hourgeois media.civic Icadeh and r-.1iami police engagedin an orgy of anarchi,t-bashing: in thelead-up to the prutests; se\Cral "suspected

anarchists" (youth with backpacks walking down the street) were arrested. Daysbefore the protests began, the Miami CityCommission passed an ordinance banning the use and possession of commonitems like glass bottles and the puppetsused in street theater.

On Thursday, the main day of protests, the cops totally shut down centralMiami. Stores and offices were closcd.the streets were empty, the elevated railsystem was locked up, with cops perchedat the stations. The police, many in fullriot gear, unleashed a variety of weaponsfrom batons and tasers to rubber bulletsand water cannons. Youth were allowedto gather at Government Center Park at7 a.m. but were swarmed by cops whenthey broke of f into smaller groups engaging in direct actions.Later that day at the end of the AFL

CIa-sponsored parade demanding "No to

Cops wenton rampage,assaultingand arrestingprotestersthroughoutthe main dayof demos.

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meetings. This impulse to fight the "system" through well-intentioned, but futile,acts of self-sacrifice sprang from a guthatred of their "own" government andits attempts to ride roughshod over therest of the globe. What often was behindthis justified hatred was a misplacedfeeling of responsibility for the fundamentally oppressive character of American capitalism.

But youth and the working masses donot share the blame for the crimes of thehrutal U.S. ruling c l a ~ s , which exploitsworkers, makes life miserable for blackpeople and goes to war for itself alone. Itonly scrves the ciass enemy for radicalyouth in this country to feel guilt forthese crimes, because this guilt flowsfrom the dangerously false idea that thecapitalist U.S. is or could be pressurcdinto being a democracy "for the people"if only the anti-globalization youth weredetermined or creative enough to makethe rulers pay attention. Under the circumstances of the anti-globalization protests, the cops will assault, brutalize andarrest youth without fail. Lacking a perspective of mobilizing the working classagainst the rule of capital, such confrontations with the cops amount to thestreetfighting face of reformism.Ultimately what is at work is an idealist conception of social change, whichsees the transformation of society asresulting from enlightening the "misinformed" or tempering social attitudeslike "greed" and racism in capitalist society. From the exploitation of the workingmasses to the racial oppression of blackpeople, the evils of the capitalist world arenot simply a matter of retrograde ideas;they are materially rooted in a s y ~ t e m bascd on exploitation and oppression.This material reality we seek to change.

The direct action protests were meantto "raise consciousness" and inspire others to follow, thereby building a m a ~ s mO\cment again,t "glohalization" andbringing closer victory in the future. Wh owas to be inspired? For some, it wasthe representatives of "progressive" ThirdWorld c o u n t r i e ~ at the FTAA negotiatingtable, e.g . the Brazilian and Venezuelangovernments. A speaker from Venezuelaat an anti-globalization conference on theUniversity of Miami campus that Fridayhailed Hugo Chavez for supposedly carrying forward the "Bolivarian Revolution" by refusing to sign on to an FTAAlacking human rights provisions and,above aIL protections of national sovereignty. Stickers from the group Alternativa Bolivariana para America Latina(ALBA), an outfit with ties to the Venezuelan government, were popular. Mention of Lula likewise brought praise andadmiration for his leading the walkout atthe Cancun WTO meeting.

A Spartacus Youth Club supporterresponded to the Venezuelan speaker inthe discussion round, pointing out howthe Chave7 government is tied in a thousand ways to e imperialist system. Shecounterposed the blow to that systemdelivered by the working class in the1917 Russian Revolution. Whether it isthe social democrat Lula attacking theBrazilian pension system or the nationalist strongman Chavez deregulating theVenezuelan banks, these politicians protect and defend the capitalist order. Notwithstanding the differences in theircountries, their backgrounds and theirpolitics, both Lula and Chavez are openlyservile to the IMF, enforcing economicausterity dictates to curry favor with theimperialist powers. As well, both havesought to bring powerful unions to heeland rcneged on promises of agrarianreform. Lula went so far as to recentlyexpel left-wing critics of his economicpolicy froll1 his OWI1 Workers Party. Asour comrades in the Grupo Espartaquistade Mexico ohsencd:"Thc history of Latin American capitalism hes bCl'1l one' or COil stant s\\ in>:!:shdv.L'L'11 populi,t protL'ctionism al;dnati{)l1alI,t rhltoric Oil the one hand and'free market' trade liherali{,llion on theother. Alternati\ely. the bourgeoisic of9 JANUARY 2004

wrongly imply that the governments ofcapitalist states could betray the fundamental interests of their propertied cIa"and that the imperialist system could he apeaceful one.

All the talk in recent years ahout "globalization" is a reilection not of any profound new economic transformation butrather of a tremendous political defeat,the collapse of the Soviet Union. As wenoted in our pamphlet on "globalization":

Young SpartacusUNITE contingent in AFL-CIO march, November 20. Class-struggle laborleadership must be forged to unleash power of multiracial working class.

"A fundamental political condition forthe present triumph of capitalist 'glohalization' wa, the retreat of Soviet glohalpowcr under Gorhachcv. tbe di,intcgration of the Mo,cO\\ Sta linis t hurcaucraC\and tile COlllltc!TC'\olllti()nan de'trueti" ;1of the Soviet Union in 19() 1-92. It I'. a-;no accidcnl lhat the electoral 0 \ ('rthrollof the [Nicaraguan] Sandini"ta regime in1990. capping a contra war armed andorganized hy Washington, coincided withthe beginning of a massive investmentboom by U . S ~ banks and corporations inMexico. At the same time, capitalistcounterrevolution in the former Sovietsphere has opened up a new, huge spherefor exploitation. especially for Germanimperialism."

these countries. frightened by the unrestof the masses. resorts to populism andprotects its industry with tariff barriersand sub,idie" Then, under the politicalpressure of imperialism and because ofits own internal inefficacy, this modelfails. The bourgeoisie. handing over theeconomy to the imperialists. resorts againto 'free market' liberalism. which in a fewyears fails, too. as it destroys the internalmarket and condemns the masses to evengreater impoverishment. and then thecycle begins again. The rise of bourgeoisrulers with populist rhetoric like Chavezin Venezuela and the social democratLula in Brazil points to the latter. Theonly constants in this inhuman wheel offortune are imperialist suhjugation andthe human misery of millions of peasantsand workers."- "jPor movilinlciones obrerascontra el TLC, el ALCA y lasprivatizaciones!" [For WorkersMobilizations Against NAFTA.FTAA and Privatizations'J.Espartaco No. 20 (SpringSummer 2003)More consistent left-leaning anarchist

youth had little affection for the capitalistgovernments of the Third World. Oneyoung woman observed how Lula puthimself forward a, a leftist candid:\te ofthe vvorkers but was act ually doing exactlywhat the U.S. demanded of him. Another"hoped to cause headaches" to the U.S. hyarousing the Latin American masses.

Naomi Klein expressed a clearly reformist take on this position in her article onthe Miami protests: "Despite the [Bush]brothers' best efforts, the dream of a hemisphere united into a single free-marketeconomy died last w e e k ~ k i l l e d not bydemonstrators in Miami but by the populations of Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia,who let their politicians know that if theysign away more power to foreign multinationals. they ma y as well not come home"(London Guardian, 25 November 2003).This perspective, too, is the dead end ofseeking to pressure bourgeois governments, in this case those of Latin America.to stand up to the depredations of capital.

It was "the people" that the more radical youth wanted to inspire. But "the people" invariably consists of members ofdifferent classes that have their own distinct interests. Lula and the Brazilianbourgeoisie have some interests in opposition to the U.S. imperialists, but aredependent on imperialism to maintaintheir own class rule and are not going tochallenge the system as a whole. Theexistence of imperialism has arrested thedevelopment of the Third World, as theimperialist countries have already dividedup the vast majority of the wealth andpower. The investment of imperialist capital in countries like Mexico has resultedin uneven and combined development;age-old conditions of subjugation in thecountryside exist alongside modern industry and a powerful proletariat.

As our comrades in the GE M wrote:"The social. economic and cultural development of Mexico can only he achievedthrough a socialist revolution which putstbe proletariat in po\\er. leading the peasan t and i n d i g e n o u ~ masses and all theoppres,ed. and estahlishes a planned.socialist econom),. From its inception. avictorious workers state in a backwardc ( ) u n t r y ~ w h i c h also shares a border with

the U . S . ~ w o u l d have to fight to promoteproletarian revolution inside the American imperialist beast and on a worldscale. A socialist revolution in Mexicowould really have an electrifying effecton the workers in the U.S."Fighting the Imperialist OrderIt is essential to understand whatimperialism actually is in order to defeat

it. Imperialism is a system, capitalism atits most developed stage, and is markedby the export of finance capital. What itis not is a series of belligerent government policies. Th e imperialist hourgeoisies, in pursuit of profits and spheres ofeconomic influence, exploit the world'sbackward countries for raw resources,cheap labor and new markets. The constant competition and conflict betweennation-states over such influence is theimpetus to war. War is therefore an ine\itahlc charactcriqic of imperialism.

Although it is an agreement betwecngovernments. the FTAA is referenced asanother case of "globalization." suppcsedly a nevv world s),stcm in which50 \ ereign nation-states arc (J \ , : n ~ l k c l l bytransnational corporations. But the,e corporations do not and (annul operate without a national base. For example. many ofthe corporations invo!v'ed in "rehuilding"Iraq today are multinational in the sensethat they have capital invested in morethan one country. Yet the corporationsstill retain their national b a s e ~ i t is ultimately the U.S. military and none otherthat enforces the property rights of thesecorporations.

Several groups claimed that "globalization" promotes war. Typical was theUS Labor Against the War statement,which concludes: "Unfair trade policiesdestroy American jobs, impoverish workers around the globe, and lead to violenceand military conflicts." Likewise, in aleaflet it distributed. the UFPJ argued:"Globalization undermines the ability ofgovernments to regulate and mitigate thedamaging effects of the market, whichleads to an intensification of all of theeconomic causes of war." There is no fundamental separation of interests hetweenthe bourgeois state and its capitalisteconomy, whatever the particular policies of the government. The above views

-Imperialism, the "GlohatEconomy" and LahorRefomz(l"I/z (September 1999)We had several lengthy discussions

with youth about the Soviet Union. Oneanarchist youth dismissed the USSR as a"statist" superpower; his attitude was onesuperpower down. one to go. To the contrary, the collapse of the bureaucraticallydegenerated Soviet workers state clearedthe field for the hegemonic power of theU.S. The Soviet Union when it existedwas a counterweight to L'.S. imperialism.

A member of the North Eastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists arguedthat the precipitous drop in the standardof living in post-Soviet Russia was duenot to the restoration of capitalism hutrather to the defeat of the USSR at thehands of (and its subsequent economictrampling by) the U.S. He made a comparison to the economic devastation inGermany following the first World War.He cOn';idered tbe class chardL'ter of thcsocidy and ih form of economic organization to he subordinate to the degree towhich the state "interfered" with peopIe's daily lives.

But the Soviet Union was not a capitalist country, in which production is forprofit; it was a society based on the establishment of collectiviLed property anda planned economy, made possible bythe expropriation of the capitalist class.Despite the degeneration of the Sovietworkers state under Stalinist misrule, itwas a measure of the power of theplanned, collectivized economy that itprovided jobs, housing, education andhealth care for all. Today, however, Russian life in all aspects is in drasticdecline.

Opposition to imperialism requiresdefense of those gains the internationalworking class has already won. We Trotskyists fought tooth and nail against capitalist restoration in the Soviet Union.Treachery of theLabor Bureaucracy

The fundamental contradiction in capitalist society is the antagonism betweencontinlled on page 8

This pamphlet presents a comprehensivehistorical analysis of the origins of anarchismand the views of its leading figures throughthe 1871 Paris Commune an d the split inthe First International an d discusses theimpact of the 1917 October Revolution. Thefirst article addresses radical youth todaywho, in an ideological climate conditionedby the so-called "death of communism,"are drawn to all variants of anarchism,Green radicalism an d left liberalism. Thepamphlet is dedicated to th e fight to wina new generation to revolutionary Marxism.

$2 (56 pages)Make checks payable/mail to:Spartacist Publishing Co .Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116

7


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Defend the Berkeley ThreelAt the University of California atBerkeley, three antiwar student leadershave been found guilty by the administration and penalized for their opposition to the imperialist rape of Iraq.

The convictions stem from the students'role in organizing a demonstration on20 March 2003, the day U.S. imperialism embarked on its terror bombingof Iraq. Approximately 4,000 studentsfilled Sproul Plaza and about 400 occupied the front entrance of Sproul Hall,the main administrative building. Theprotesters demanded that the administration declare the University of Baghdad its sister school and that the university not increase student fees or cutstaff wages during the war. They alsodemanded that the university not givestudent records, especially those- ofinternational students, to federal agencies. 119 sit-in protesters were draggedout by the police, arrested and threatened with discipline.The administration ultimately droppedthe charges against most of the studentsarrested, but fingered three prominentantiwar students-Snehal Shingavi,Rachel Odes and Michael Smith, allorganizers of the Berkeley Stop the War

FTAA Protest...(continuedfrom page 7)lahor and capital. Workers create thewealth of this society with their labor andcan bring the capitalists to their knees bywithholding that lahor power. With itsvast numbers, its location in the urbancenters and its hands on the means of production in the factories, where the common experience of workers lays the basisfor solidarity and organization, the proletariat is the key social force to bring aboutthe shattering of the imperialist order.More than one youth argued that theAmerican proletariat no longer has anysocial power due to the disappearanceof johs and the transformation of theAmerican economy from manufacturingto service-oriented industries. One proworking-class anarchist youth arguedthat proletarian centrality is impossihletoday, essentially claiming that onlyby defeating the FTAA and other supranational economic institutions will theworking class recapture its social powerin this country and save the ThirdWorld proletariat from the ravages of the"multinationals."

The decline of the American labormovement is not fundamentally causedby the objective effects of "globalization" but by the defeatist and treacherouspolicies of the AFL-CIO misleaders. Thetransfer of production to low-wage areasin semicolonial countries has led to asharp decline in unionized manufacturingjobs here, particularly in the Northeastand Midwest. But instead of seeking to organize international class struggle against attacks on jobs and unions,

8

CampusFrom left: Rachel Odes, Michael Smith, Snehal Shingavi.Coalition-for prosecution by StudentJudicial Affairs. At the university's kangaroo court hearings, the students' privately retained lawyer was preventedfrom effectively defending his clientsand the doors were barred by universitycops and security guards in an attempt tokeep the students from mobilizing campus support. We say: Cops of f campus!The three faced bogus charges including "disturbing the peace and failingto comply with an official" but wereselected and prosecuted by the administration on the basis of "pri or offenses,"that is, having organized and led demonstrations in the past. As the campus news-

paper, the Daily Californian, aptly commented, "The message sent by the university seems to be that free speechincludes the right to participate in aprotest, but not the right to organize one."Now the university administration,acting as the ideological watchdog forthe bourgeoisie, has sentenced Shingaviand Odes to 20 hours of community service and placed a letter of reprimand intheir permanent academic files. Thesetwo students are not just leaders of theBerkeley Stop the War Coalition, butsupporters of the International SocialistOrganization. Despite our very real differences with the reformist ISO, we vig-~ " . - ~ , ~ - ~ ~ , ~ - - ' - - - ~ - " - ~ ' - - - ' - - - - - - - - - - - - '

the AFL-CIO bureaucracy limits unionstruggle to what is acceptable to the U.S.capitalist rulers.The strength of the unions is not intheir paid lobbyists on Capitol Hill butin their numbers, their militancy, theirorganization and discipline. What is crucial is the question of leadership. Theexistence of "multinationals" only underscores the historic need for an internationalist class-struggle perspective thattranscends parochial, nationally limitedtrade unionism. We are for a classstruggle leadership in the trade unions.This is part of the fight to huild a revolutionary workers party that mobilizes theworking class and all the oppressedagainst imperialist rule.In Miami, the labor tops worked tokeep the radical youth separate fromthe union ranks and the working classaway from radical politics. Union marshals wearing "Peacekeeper" badges forcihly kept any youth wearing hlack fromentering the amphitheater where theunion rally was held; security patteddown those who were not in labor contingents and used metal detector wands onthem. Youth were disgu sted by this exclusion, and we found anger at the treatmentof the leftist youth among the workers.Given that the protest was to "raiseconsciou sness" against globalization, the "unity of anti-FTAA forces" was veryimportant for many youth, irrespective ofthe broader political program of any ofthose forces. Whether one was for oragainst capitalism did not so much matter;in fact, an "anti-corporate" attitude wassometimes what youth meant when theysaid they were against capitalism. By thisthey meant opposition to "large monopo-

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Edward Said ...(continued from page 3)by the Israeli government and designatedfor Zionist settlements. Using the advancedmilitary hardware generously supplied bythe U.S., the Israeli juggernaut crushedwhat existed of a West Bank economy, ravished social institutions and reduced Palestinian collective life to a pre-modern level.In his 1996 book, Peace and Its Discontents, Said eloquently denounced thePalestinian Authority (PA) as a "kingdom of illusions, with Israel firmly incommand." He further noted that "aslave mentality prevails among Arableaders, for whom a favorable receptionin Washington is the summit of theirpolitical lives." Said would later write,the "peace process" that began in 1993"has simply re-packaged the occupation,offering a token 18 per cent of the landsseized in 1967 to the corrupt Vichy-likeAuthority of Arafat, whose mandate hasessentially been to police and tax hispeople on Israel's behalf" (New LeftRel'iew, September-October 200 I).

Said was an uncompromising truthteller-reminiscent of the late Israel Shahak who was a courageous opponent ofthe semi-theocratic Zionist state and itsbloody repression of the Palestinian people, and a declared enemy of racism,chauvinism and injustice wherever hefound it. Both Said and Shahak werefighters against the reactionary featuresof their own societies. In the same NewLeft Review article cited above, Saidwrote of the Palestinian Authority leadership: "Could they not once speak ashuman beings, rather than third-rate imitations of Kissinger and Rabin?" And hebitterly declared: 'The Palestinian peopledeserve beller." It is little wonder that thebooks of this courageous and independentthinker were banned in the Occupied Territories by the corrupt and venal PA.Said: A Genuine Humanist

In his fight for P a ! c ~ t i n i a n nationalSaid ha d many enemies. He ha d

countless times declared his repudiation

EfeEdward Said with his close friend,Israeli conductor Daniel 8arenboim.

Some anarchist youth we talked todefended Cuba and the gains of its revolution (e.g., education, health care) butdid not like Castro, whom they considered an authoritarian. A group of youthasked about the dollarizatioll of Cuba outof justified concern over the threat to theCuban Revolution. Indeed. making U.S.tender legal opened a breach in the statemonopoly of foreign trade, a serious danger making the Cuban deformed workersstate more susceptible to capitalist forces.This has sharply increased social divisions. particularly affecting women andblack Cubans.

The Cuban Revolution has surviveddecades of CIA plots, a U.S. blockadeand imperialist economic penetration.Miami itself is a haven for the gusanos,the counterrevolutionary Cubans whofled the 1959 Revolution. In fact, thestretch of Biscayne Boulevard wheremuch of the anti-FTAA protests tookplace was renamed Jorge Mas CanosaBoulevard. after one of the more vicioushistoric gusano leaders.9 JANUARY 2004

Edward Saidtossing a stoneover border incelebration ofIsraeli withdrawalfrom Lebanon,July 2000.

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of terrorism in all its forms, whether Palestinian or Israeli. Nevertheless, CO/1l-mentar.v, that voice of Zionist zealotsand die-hard Cold Warriors, in its August1989 issue ran a calumny on Said titled"Professor of Terror." Just before that,the fascistic Jewish Defense Leaguecalled him a Nazi and his Columbiaoffice was firebombed.

Said made a family visit to Beirut in2000, where he also gave a couple of lectures. Earlier that year the Israeli armyhad conducted a humiliating withdrawalfrom southern Lebanon after a 22-yearoccupation that cost some 20,000 lives.Said made a daylong excursion to thearea, which included the notoriousKhiam prison, built by the Israelis in1987. Some 8.000 were incarcerated andtortured there under bestial conditions.Next stop was an abandoned border postin an area deserted except for Lebanesevisitors who came in large numbers tothrow stones of celebration across thestill heavily furtified border. Said joinGdin and cast a pebble.

Unknown to him, a photo was takenthat would find its way to Israel andacross the Atlantic, where it became thesource for a vicious witchhunt. He was~ h o w e r e d with hate mail and deaththreats, a media blitz of defamation, anda campaign to get him fired from Columbia, where he had taught for 38 years. Aneditorial in the campus Columbia DailySpectator branded Said's pebble throw a"violent act." In a protest letter to theSpectator, the New York Spartacus YouthClub wrote:"The Zionist rulers hurl not stones but

bullets and bombs at innocent civilians ....Israel has repeatedly bombed Lebanesetowns and cities, killing thousands anddriving hundreds of thousands morefrom their homes. In 1982. the Israelirulers orchestrated the massacre of wellover a thousand Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Thousands of Palestinians languish in Israel'storture chambers, and thousands more

Although the Cuban workers state wasdeformed from the outset by the rule ofthe nationalist Castro bureaucracy and theabsence of the proletariat in the revolution, the smashing of capitalist class rulein 1960-61 has enabled the Cuban massesto make great strides forward in their living conditions. The restoration of capitalism would bring many horrors to the people of Cuba and would further emboldenU.S. imperialism in exploiting the peoples of Latin America. more than any"free trade" agreement could ever do.

It is part of our struggle against imperialist capitalism that we stand for theunconditional military defense of Cuba,China, North Korea and Vietnam-theremaining deformed workers s tatesagainst imperialism and capitalist counterrevolution. Simultaneously, we call fo[ workers political revolution to oust thesellout Stalinist bureaucrats and fight toextend proletarian rule to the advancedcapitalist countries.

World socialist revolution is the prerequisite to raising the productive forces

have been killed by occupation forces inthe West Bank and Gaza. But the only'violence' the Zionist apologists at theSpectator see is a stonc falling on emptyground in Israel. The Spartacus YouthClub says: Defend the Palestinian peopleagainst Zionist state repression! AllIsraeli troops and settlers out of theOccupied Territories I"- WV No. 743, 6 October 2000

The huge blind spot in Said's work wasthe 1917 Russian Revolution. No singleevent did more to unleash and shape thestruggle for social emancipation in the20th century. The ascendancy of counterrevolution in the former USSR in 1991-92is an unparalleled defeat for working people all over the world, decisively alteringthe political landscape, not the least in theNear East. It w a ~ precisely the destructionof the Soviet Union, removing a key baseof political and financial support to thePLO, that paved the way for the 1993Oslo accords. In h i ~ Nell" Left Rel'iell(1\loyember-December 2003) tribute toS"id. left-wing writer Tariq Ali recalled,"When I asked if the year 1917 meantanything to him, he replied without hesitation: 'Yes, the Balfour Declaration'."(T\amed after the British foreign secretaryArthur James Balfour. the declarationsupported the Zionist claim to a "nationalhome for the Jewish people" in Palestinein order to mobilize Jewish supportbehind the British in the First World Warand stake out Britain's claim to Palestineas war booty.)

Said opposed the dead-end and reactionary programs of nationalism andreligion and advocated a binational andsecular solution to the Israel/Palestineconflict. In his later years, he recognizedthat the Palestinian and Hebrew populations were so interpenetrated that herejected a two-state solution. But asIsrael/Palestine, the Balkans and Northern Ireland have demonstrated repeatedly' under capitalism the only possibleoutcome to geographically interpene-

of society to a level where materialscarcity is eliminated. Opposition to tradebetween nations leads either to support for protectionism or to primitivisteconomic decentralization and isolation,programs that would exacerbate the differences between the industrial and theunderdeveloped worlds. It is only throughcentralized planning on an internationalscale, based on global exchange terms

trated peoples who claim the same landis one nation on top with the otherseither exterminated, expelled, subjugatedor some combination thereof.

The only genuinely democratic resolution requires the conquest of power bythe multinational proletariat that hasthe material interest in the fullest development of all peoples irrespective ofnationality. Here the greatest example isthat provided by the Russian Revolution,which Said ignored. The Bolshevik Revolution, despite its later bureaucraticdegeneration under Stalin, brought unparalleled and all-sided social development and national collaboration to themost oppressed regions of the tsaristempire, like the Caucasus. Likewise, inthe Balkans, long a seething cauldronof inter-ethnic bloodshed, the social revolution led by Tito in Yugoslavia laidthe foundation for almost 50 years ofnational peace and social development.The restoration of capitalism in bothcountries also restored the old nationalisthatreds and murderous "ethnic cleansing," aided and abetted by the imperialistpowers.

Said's many books included l1is muchlauded and controversial 1978 work,Orienta/ism, which, along with severalof his other works, attempted to delveinto the relationship between culture,domination and imperialism. Adding tothe breadth of his interests, Said was alsoan accomplished pianist and musicologist. In his last years, he took much satisfaction in cofounding with the greatmusician and fellow iconoclast DanielBarenboim an orchestra that broughttogether musicians from both Israel andthe Occupied Territories. They named itthe West-East Divan, after Goethe'sgreatest coJlection of poetry, which inturn was inspired by the 14th-centuryPersian lyric poet Hafiz and his collection of sonnets, Dim/1. Joined by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma, they held one of their firstworkshops in Weimar, the city whereGoethe lived. only a few miles from theBuchenwald concentration camp. In anAtlantic interview (22 September 1999)Said recalled:

"My role there was to k:ld the discussions that we had every other night. Thenight hefore we \\ ent to Buchenwald Iga\e a talk, and said, 'Look, if you justgo to this and see it as part of the Jewishexperience. it's wrong, because it's partof the human experience, which we ashuman beings have to understand. Inother words, universaliLe it and understand it as a horror that afflicts all ofhumanity' ."Though not a Marxist, Said stood head

and shoulders above the many other intellectuals who dealt with the Near East; hewas a genuine humanist. But Said alsofound himself in an impossible situation:He was at boltom a l iberal-an honestand sincere liberal, but a liberal nonetheless- in a situation where liberalismcould offer no realizable solutions. Weowe him a great debt and would do wellto learn from both his weaknesses as wellas his strengths.

favorable to underdeveloped nations, thatthe divide separating the impoverishedof the world from the wealthy of thiscountry can be overcome. Th e way forward is to build a revolutionary partythat can infuse the working class withan understanding of its historic task tooverturn the imperialist order and reorganize society on an egalitarian socialistbasis.

"War on Terror"=War on Immigrants, Workerslabor Must Fight Ottawa's Racist Dragnet!

Saturday, January 17, 6 p.m.International Student CentreUniversity of Toronto, 33 S. George Street

TORONTO For more information: (416) 593-4138 ore-mail: [email protected]

9

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. F f ~ m ( D ~ a t ~ ~ Q W , This Is Mumia Ab:u-Janial"Good Police Procedure"

in Cin. City

For far too many men and women, it is no laughingmatter.There is not a social explosion in the last half of the20th Century that did not stem from events of just thisnature. From Watts of 1965 to Los Angeles of 1992,the trigger has been the same-police violence againstBlack people. Courts have issued judgments up intothe billions (in total), but to no avail.Like cancer, it goes on and on .. and on.It matters not a whit what color the police chief, ormayor is.It matters not whether there is a police accountability board or not."Here we go again," laments a Cincinnati religiousleader as local and national TV stations broadcast theharrowing footage of cops beating a black man, striking him with long truncheons perhaps two dozentimes.

and proclaim them "not guilty," ignoring videotapeevidence!)It matters not whether there is a Republican orDemocratic Administration in power, nationally, orlocally.

The Rev. Damon Lynch, Jr., pastor of New Jerusalem Baptist Church, is not alone in that sentiment.

Now, a man named Nathaniel Jones is beaten to apulp on tape in Cincinnati. When he dies, the firstthing the corporate media proclaims is his size. Onsome early reports, Mr. Jones was described as "nearly400 pounds."

How many politicians, whether they are runningfor president or dog catcher, have raised the issue?How many have offered anything close to a solution?Cincinnati is but the latest of a long train of abuses,this latest is based on that often-used pretext: "theBig N----- Defense."

It took a day or so to shrink to around 350 lbs.The solution will not come from City Hall. Indeed,often, City Hall is the problem!

It was used in the infamous beating of Rodney Kingin L.A. (one of the cops charged spiced up the imageryby likening him to a "gorilla"). A decade before Rodney King became a household name, a man namedDelbert Africa was beaten, rifle-butted, and repeatedlykicked while giving up after the 1978 Phila. policeassault on the home and headquarters of the MOVEOrganization.

Still, we see the rudiments of the BND: "Big N----Defense." Six cops, each armed with a variety ofweapons, were threatened by the BND syndrome.The solution will come from the people themselves, who organize themselves to make a difference, directly.

Of course, almost predictably, drugs have beenintroduced into the case.Our history provides many examples of average,everyday people, organized to change social problems.

I f it were not so tragic, it would be almost comical. That time has come again. '.One is reminded of a stand-up routine by comedianDave Chappelle. He describes cops beating a Blackperson into the concrete. The cops get together, andone tells the other, "OK-let 's just sprinkle somecrack on 'em, and get outta here."

7 December 2003 !D2003 MlIlI1ia Abu-Jamal

Initially, the city's police chief denied Africa wasbeaten (in fact, all the men were beaten that day) butthe videotapes made it difficult to disprove Delbert'spummeling.The line never fails to score laughs from the audience.It is so deep in American consciousness, that it'sbecome a national, private joke.

Send urgently needed contributions for Jamal'slegal defense, made payable to "National LawyersGuild Foundation" and earmarked for "Mumia"to: Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 130Morningside Drive, Suite 6C, New York, NY 10027.When a trial took place, the cops took the standto announce they were in fear of Delbert because

of his muscles. (The judge would dismiss the juryIt is a joke that stems from something deadly serious. And it stems from a national problem that showsno signs of abatement.

I f you wish to correspond with Jamal, you canwrite to: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM8335, SCI Greene,175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370.

Padilla ...(continued from page 2)seized upon the Oklahoma City bombingto pass the Anti-Terrorism and EffectiveDeath Penalty Act, the Bush administration seized upon the criminal attack onthe World Trade Center. What the Bushadministration is seeking to do is to makeits array of repressive laws and measurespermanent features of the American legalsystem.When the government has allowedsuch legal niceties as lawyers and trials,several of their "anti-terrorism" prosecutions have faltered. In October, a federaljudge barred the government from seeking the death penalty against Al Qaedasupporter Zacarias Moussaoui or arguingthat Moussaoui was involved in the September I I attacks based on the prosecution's refusal to let the defense haveaccess to detainees who could exonerate him. And on December 16, a federaljudge in Detroit formally admonishedAshcroft for violating a "gag" order during the trial last spring of four membersof an alleged Islamic terrorist "sleepercell." Despite Ashcroft's efforts, one

defendant was acquitted and another wasfound guilty only of document fraud.Based on the government's withholdingof evidence helpful to the defense, thejudge also indicated he might order anew trial.Last summer, the Spartacist Leagueand Partisan Defense Committee submitted an amici curiae (friends of the court)brief on Padilla's behalf, warning thatthrough his detention the government isasserting nothing less than the right todisappear citizens. " If the imperial President is upheld," we wrote, "Padilla'sdetention threatens to become the DredScott case of our time, a declaration that'Citizens have no rights that the government is bound to respect'." The "waron terror" has served

workers vanguard no 817 - 09 january 2004

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