Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Teachers on the battle front in Mexico
From Teachers' Strike Towards Dual Power
The Revolutionary Surge in Oaxaca
By GEORGE SALZMAN
Oaxaca, Mexico
Oaxaca shares, with Chiapas and Guerrero, the distinction of being the one of the three poorest states of Mexico. These three bastions of extreme poverty, albeit among the richest states of Mexico in natural resources, lie along the Pacific coastline in southeastern Mexico. Oaxaca is flanked to its east by Chiapas and to its west by Guerrero. Its population, about 3.5 million (2003 estimate), is unique among Mexican states in containing the largest fraction, 2/3, and the largest absolute number of people with indigenous ancestry.
Which of the 31 states holds top place for corruption would probably be impossible to measure in this intensely contested Mexican arena, as highlighted in the fraudulent July 2, 2006 presidential election, but for sure Oaxaca merits high placement on the corruption scale. Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of the indigenous population is among the most impoverished. Naturally they are very sympathetic to the struggles of indigenous peoples in other parts of Mexico to better their lives, such as the attempts of the Zapatista base support communities in Chiapas, that have declared themselves "in rebellion" and asserted their autonomy, often at great cost due to state and federal efforts to crush them.
The 70,000 or so teachers in the state educational institutions, state employees, are, by Oaxaca standards, far from poor. They are part of the state's "middle class". So it's not as though the majority of poor people are usually very sympathetic. This quarter-century-long tradition of a Oaxaca teachers' strike each May never before was much more than a nuisance for the city business people, for a week or so, until the union and the state government negotiated a settlement, the teachers ended their occupation of the city center and returned to their homes throughout the state.
Why was this year so different?
It will come as no surprise to los Americanos that in Mexico, as in the U.S., there are 'conpany unions'. But here, south of the border, the 'company' is the ruling party of the federal government, a big 'company' indeed. The National Union of Educational Workers (El Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores Educativo, SNTE) is a very large and powerful union, hierarchical in structure. For over 70 years the SNTE had been in bed with the government of the ruling party, the Revolutionary Institutional Party, El Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). In fact, until recently, the General Secretary of SNTE, Elba Esther Gordillo, was second from the top of the PRI leadership, just below Roberto Madrazo.
Section 22 of SNTE is the Oaxaca part of the National Teachers Union. Among Mexican teachers there is another formation, the National Educational Workers Coordinating Committee (Comité Coordinador Nacional de Trabajadores Educativo CNTE). In Oaxaca the CNTE, whose members belong to SNTE Section 22, play a leading role in setting Section 22 policy. Section 22 has long been regarded as one of the most militant, independent sections of SNTE.
On May 15, National Teachers' Day in Oaxaca, the leadership of Section 22 of SNTE declared that if their negotiations with the state government did not progress, they would initiate a state-wide strike the following week. The teachers were demanding an upgrade in the zonification of Oaxaca, which would increase the federally-designated minimum wage for the state. The "logic" (i.e. rationalization) of the federal government for having lower legal minimum wages in poor states like Oaxaca is apparently that it's cheaper to live in a more impoverished region than in one with a higher average income. Such an upgrade of Oaxaca would affect waged workers in Oaxaca who are paid the minimum wage, but would not affect those paid above the minimum, like the teachers. For themselves the teachers demanded a salary increase. Their other demands involved improved school facilities and meeting students' needs. Much of the money supposedly budgeted for education is siphoned off by corrupt officials. There is no accountability, a process not even legally required in Oaxaca and no bookkeeping.
Negotiations from the 15th to the 22nd between the union and the state, instead of moving towards a compromise agreement, became even more acrimonious. Beginning May 22, a large group of teachers, other education workers, family members, allied individuals and members of allied organizations, numbering perhaps between 35,000 and 60,000 (hard numbers are impossible to know) occupied the center of Oaxaca City - the large central park (the zócalo) and some 56 blocks surrounding it - with their encampment. Local business, hotel and restaurant owners were, by and large, critical because of financial losses caused by the disruption. Quite normal. The ritual of an annual teachers' strike was by now about a quarter century old. But never before had it been so large, so prolonged. Even now, no end is in sight.
During a period of barely three and a half weeks, May 22 to June 14, the strength of the teachers' opposition to Governor Ulises Ruíz Ortíz continued to grow, with additional adherents nursing their own grievances against the dictatorial regime allying with the formidable SNTE contingent. Frequent marches, and two mega-marches, the first on Friday June 2 with between 50,000 and 100,000 (the police and SNTE estimates, respectively), and the second on Wednesday, June 7, with 120,000 brought to the city demonstrations of size and vehemence never before seen here. I watched the June 7 march from the parapet on the north side of the Plaza de Danza as endless mockery of Ulises Ruíz paraded past, demanding boisterously that he leave the governorship. Undoubtedly there were state spies in civilian clothes with cameras, cell phones, video cameras and tape recorders, but no one seemed in the least intimidated or cautious. The entire event was permeated with a sense of peoples power.
On June 14, when Ulises unexpectedly ordered state police to carry out a surprise early pre-dawn attack on the sleeping teachers (many of them women with their children), destroying their tents and other camping gear and firing tear gas and bullets, even using a police helicopter that sprayed tear gas on the campers, to drive them out of the city center, he ignited a mass uprising throughout the state and beyond. The teachers fought back, drove out the police after about four hours, recapturing the city center and gaining admiration throughout the state for their gritty determination not to be terrorized into submission.
In his year and a half in office since December 1, 2005, Ulises had succeeded in generating a powder keg of hatred across the state towards him because of his tyrannical rule. This included his overt attempt to destroy the state's largest-circulation daily newspaper, Noticias de Oaxaca , his destruction of much-loved parts of the capital city's world-famous cultural patrimony, numerous killings by armed thugs tied to the ruling party, in communities struggling against corrupt and oppressive state-appointed municipal administrations. In sum, it was his attempt to rule by "excessively overt" terror, including kidnappings, jailings on baseless charges, torture, and death, and always impunity for the state thugs terrorizing the people, that turned the population en masse against him.
Moreover, history was against him. Fresh in peoples' memory was the sadistic early May attack in San Salvador Atenco in Mexico State by federal, state and municipal police, and the outrage against the authorities then - incarceration and worse for the victims, impunity for the perpetrators. There was a pervasive sense that in such a society, everyone is a "political prisoner unto death". A multitude of civic organizations in, and outside of, Oaxaca swarmed to declare their solidarity with the teachers. Immediately after the attack the teachers announced, and two days later led a huge march, their third mega-march, with 400,000, that included many new adherents. They all demanded URO's resignation or removal from office.
The show of strength quickly led to formation of a statewide assembly that termed itself the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca, Asemblea Popular del Pueblo de Oaxaca .. Though instigated as a result of the teachers' initiative and the ugly state repression, the assembly went far beyond the teachers' original demands, which had been limited to educational matters. Ousting a hated governor had been done before on three occasions in Oaxaca. Not trivial, risky of course, but not by itself a revolutionary act.
APPO is established, sets revolutionary goals
In addition to the immediate third mega-march on June 16 (two days after the assault), the popular movement of teachers and other members of civil society held the first state-wide popular assembly the following day, just three days after the attack of June 14. In this precedent-breaking assembly meeting, the Popular Assembly of the People of Oaxaca ( (APPO, by its initials in Spanish) adopted a truly revolutionary program by declaring itself the supreme authority in Oaxaca, and asserting the illegitimacy of the entire political structure, which had ruthlessly run Oaxaca as a PRI-terrorist-controlled state for nearly 80 years.
APPO's deliberately broad representation evidently excluded any explicitly political groups, i.e. it was to be a "non-political" formation, truly a peoples' government. As Nancy Davies wrote in her report, "Popular Assembly to Oppose the State Government", its initial meeting on June 17 "was attended by 170 people representing 85 organizations." Included, or at least invited, "were all the SNTE delegates, union members, social and political organizations, non-governmental organizations, collectives, human rights organizations, parents, tenant farmers, municipalities, and citizens of the entire state of Oaxaca." Its intention was to be open to all the citizens of the state. There was no attempt, so far as I know, to exclude wealthy people from the assembly. Naturally, most very rich people who saw their interests served by the URO regime would not want to be involved in an effort to remove him and the rest of the governing apparatus, but wealthy 'mavericks' who rejected social injustice were evidently welcome. The only 'absolute requirement' for participation was agreement that Ulises must go.
Flimsy barriers such as those that had not prevented the police assault of June 14 were clearly inadequate. APPO adherents went about establishing stronger barricades against future invasions. They began commandeering buses, some commercial, as well as police and other government vehicles, using some of them to block access roads to the zócalo and other APPO encampments. Other of the commandeered vehicles they used for transportation.
APPO's major strategy for bringing pressure to bear on the government, in order to force either URO's resignation or his legal removal, has been to literally prevent the institutional government from carrying out its functions: legislative, judicial and executive (i.e. administrative). The tactic deserves to be called aggressive civil disobedience, meaning that APPO adherents carry out their forceful "illegal" actions as civilians (unarmed, i.e. no firearms). Some of them have poles, iron rods, and even machetes, but these are for self-defense. The culture here is not one of 'turning the other cheek'. They don't sit down and pray if police attempt to beat them. They have blocked highways, occupied government buildings and made a good many tourists and potential tourists reconsider Oaxaca as a desirable destination, thereby shaking the economy
As for 'winning the hearts and minds' of Oaxaqueños, the 'hearts' part of the task has been in large part already accomplished, thanks to the arrogance and aggressiveness of URO - the hatred he managed to sow since taking office as governor on December 1, 2004 and which he's now reaping. Even people who are not thrilled with APPO are so disgusted with URO that they are more likely to be passive rather than actively opposing APPO by supporting the governor.
Winning minds, as APPO well knows, is essential. They have made that a major part of their work. The government and its corporate allies fully realize the importance of what people think. The media of communication are therefore a prime arena in the contest to influence peoples' consciousness.
The fight for the communication media
The very first action of the state forces in their pre-dawn attack on June 14 was to destroy the teachers' radio station, Radio Plantón. It had been serving not only as a source of pro-teacher propaganda since the start of the strike, but as a vital communication link broadcasting (within its limited range) 24 hours a day. Soon after the Radio Plantón equipment was smashed, students at the Benito Juarez Autonomous University of Oaxaca (UABJO in its Spanish initials) seized the university's station, a licensed station with a much more powerful transmitter, and kept it going non-stop in support of the then rapidly-growing rebellion. The student-operated UABJO station was attacked several times, first on June 22, and eventually put out of commission after a diversionary tactic the night of August 8 enabled three people who had earlier infiltrated the movement to enter and throw sulphuric acid on the equipment, ending, at least for a time, those broadcasts.
Revolutions are not, by their nature, tidy affairs. There is no simple chronology according to which, at certain key dates, one important group of actors halts its activity and a different group takes the stage. Rather, a multitude of groups fills the stage at any given time, and the flow of activity is continuous - no separation of the actions marked by curtain calls. Thus it may be a questionable effort to try to divide the flow into phases. While the attack of June 14 did clearly mark a separation of events into two different phases, the ensuing struggle has been, and will likely be a continuous flow. Nevertheless, the action of the women who seized the state television and radio stations on August 1 so powerfully upped the ante in the struggle to control the communication media that I will say that act initiated a third phase of the struggle.
On July 1, the day before participants in La marcha de las caserolas (the march of women beating their pots and pans with wooden spoons) went on to seize the state TV and radio stations, only Radio Universidad was broadcasting for the popular movement. By then it had been on the air daily for almost of seven weeks. It was to continue for another 8 days until the sulphuric acid attack shut it down. But by then Channel 9, TV Caserolas as some folks dubbed it, had been broadcasting 8 days.
The move to seize, or as a graffiti on the wall of the control room at the transmission tower phrased it, to re-appropriate facilities paid for with the peoples' money, was a bold escalation in the struggle for the media. Channel 9 and FM 96.9 covered the entire state. For 3 weeks, from August 1 until the early morning assault on August 21, the "voices and images of the people" dominated these normally state-controlled airwaves in the struggle aimed at "winning the minds" of the people, although of course the powerful national corporate channels, TV Azteca and Televisa continued their pro-state broadcasts. But what a vision of hope sprang from the screen those three weeks! Ordinary people in everyday clothes spoke of the reality of their lives as they understood them, of what neo-liberalism meant to them, of the Plan Pueblo Panama, of their loss of land to developers and international paper companies, of ramshackle rural mountain schools without toilets, of communities without safe water or sanitary drainage, and so on, all the needs that could be met if wealth were not being stolen by rich capitalists and corrupt government agents.
And not all was about Oaxaca and its problems. The horizon of consciousness reached abroad as, on one occasion that Nancy mentioned to me, Channel 9 broadcast a documentary videotape of living conditions of Palestinians in the occupied territories. One can only imagine the level of global grassroots solidarity if the media, worldwide, were controlled by popular groups instead of transnational corporations.
This flood of uncontrolled, unmediated, spontaneous communication among the population must have terrorized the former economic and political rulers of Oaxaca by the threat it posed, but they dared not try a repeat of their June 14 heavy-handed attempt to crush the popular uprising. Rather than risk another open failure the state authorities pursued a strategy of clandestine warfare, as described vividly by Diego Enrique Osorno in his 28 August special report from Oaxaca to Narco News . The desperate authorities pursued their so-called Operation "Clean-Up". As Narco News stated, "Following the CIA's 'Psychological Operations' Manual for the Nicaraguan Contras, the State Government Has Unleashed a Bloody Counterinsurgency Strategy to Eliminate the Social Movement".
The onslaught by these clandestine heavily-armed police officials and state thugs on the transmission facilities of TV Caserola and Radio APPO up on Fortin Hill above the city revealed the government's panic. This assault, in the very early hours on Monday 21 August, totally destroyed the control equipment housed in a building at the base of the transmission tower. The racks of electronics were smashed and sprayed with automatic weapons fire, bullet holes only inches apart in some of the panels, which I photographed that Monday evening. There are, as explained to me by a student friend involved with one of the movement radio stations, several components that made up the state's TV and radio stations: 1) the studios where interviews, news reporters, panel members, etc. met, 2) a repeater station whose antenna received the signals from the studio building and "bounced" them to the transmission station, and 3) the transmission facility atop Fortin Hill, which broadcast the programs to the entire state.
By knocking out the transmission tower facility the government-directed thugs insured that APPO could not operate the occupied state TV and radio stations. The damage wrought at the transmission control room was a shocking double admission: 1) the URO government knew it was unable to retake and hold each of the three components of its broadcasting stations, and 2) the impact of the APPO broadcasts was an intolerable threat. Therefore they destroyed a key component of what they surely regarded as their own governing infrastructure.
The battle for the air waves continues. Later that day, the 21, having lost the use of Channel 9 and FM 96.9, APPO groups seized twelve commercial radio stations belonging to nine different companies. The number of seized stations broadcasting for APPO varies from time to time. This morning (29 August) we were able to pick up three, one AM and two FM at our location below the base of Fortin Hill. Apart from radio, the movement produces and distributes a great deal of printed material, videos and CDs, and seeks to spread its point of view by all means of communication. Radio of course remains particularly important.
On August 16 and 17 a national forum was held in Oaxaca to discuss "Building Democracy and Governability in Oaxaca." Sponsored by fifty organizations within Oaxacan civil society, as Davies wrote, it provided "an opportunity to analyze the crisis and propose alternative solutions from the perspective of civil society, including a new Oaxacan constitution, and by implication, a blueprint for the nation." The basic problems that beset Oaxaca exist throughout Mexico and so it is not surprising that the invitations to attend brought people from all parts of Mexico. What is taking place in Oaxaca is clearly inspiring people throughout this nation.
In the meantime, the situation in Oaxaca remains full of uncertainty, with much seemingly dependent on the power struggle centered in Mexico City over the presidency. Those currently in the saddle are doing everything possible to insure continuance of PAN/PRI rule, but the majority of Mexicans may be ready for much more fundamental changes. Education, true education, is indeed subversive. Adelante!
George Salzman was a long-time maverick physics faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Boston Campus. Now retired, he has lived for seven years in Oaxaca. He can be contacted at george.salzman@umb.edu.
from Counterpunch.org
Mumia on Fidel
8/10/06 Copyright 2006 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The recent news of the illness of Cuban President Fidel Castro, has
unleashed a ghoulish glee in Miami, and also in the White House. The
spectacle of people dancing in the streets of Miami, at news of
Fidel's sickness was disgraceful.
Few of us who have grown up under the propaganda that passes for the
corporate media have any real idea of either Castro's or Cuba's
immense social accomplishments, while under the threat of U.S.
invasion and destruction. As a student of history, I'm often amazed
at what we don't know about other people, even those as close as
Cuba. If Americans truly supported democracy, instead of
dictatorships, the name Fidel Castro may never have become known to
us. That's because Castro, as a young man, newly graduated from law
school, endeavored to run for the Cuban Senate as a 'clean
government' candidate. His platform opposed political repression and
corruption, and how major Cuban institutions had been bought off by
the U.S.-Mafia elites. He spoke out against vende-patrias (sell-outs)
among the politicians, and also denounced the press because
journalists were being bought with botellas (or bribes). He opposed
the corruption of the dictatorship' s courts. Guess who the U.S.
supported? The U.S. supported the dictator, Fulgencia Batista, a man
who was legendary for his brutality and his corruption.
Given the legal challenge posed by the young Castro, his election was
scuttled by the Batista regime, and Castro learned that there was no
'legal' way to oppose the regime. The U.S. has always preferred its
own brutal puppets to democrats, and has done so on every continent
in the world. What we also don't hear about, is the actions of the
U.S. against Cuba, which can only be called terrorism. Under either
"Operation Pluto", "Operation Mongoose", "Operation JM Wave", the
U.S. has bombed factories, plotted overthrow, planned and tried to
carry out assassinations, worked with organized crime, destroyed
crops and other crimes. The famous Church Committee reports unveiled
several assassination attempts against Fidel, which were "coordinated
with the Mafia dons Meyer Lansky, John Roselli, Sam Giancana, and
Santo Trafficante" , all of whom owned businesses on the island.
Before the Cuban Revolution, the island was called a "Mafia
paradise", for the Mafia leaders owned casinos, nightclubs,
whorehouses, and also legitimate businesses, like banks, airlines, TV
stations, and newspapers. For example, in one 8 month period alone,
(in 1961) the CIA committed 5,780 acts of sabotage and terrorism
against Cuba, including several attempts to assassinate the Cuban
president.
The U.S.-supported repression, brutality and corruption forced Fidel,
and millions of other Cubans, to become revolutionaries, instead of
democrats. And, once a revolutionary, it forced him to become an
internationalist, supporting freedom struggles all around the world.
In late 1975, when armies of the racist regime of South Africa
invaded Angola, it was Cuba that sent 18,000 troops to assist the
beleaguered African state. By year's end, Cuba's 36,000 soldiers,
with their Angolan allies, bested South Africa in the field, forcing
them to retreat, for the first time in the history of apartheid. It
was, Fidel would later say, an "African Giron", a reference to Cuba's
battlefield victory over the U.S. in the Bay of Pigs. (The U.S., of
course, supported the South Africans, and several brutal terrorist
armies, the FNLA, and UNITA).
While it may be true that Fidel is ailing, it's also true that he,
and the Revolution that he helped lead, has been a force for good in
the world, on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressors. It has
been on the side of freedom, not slavery.
Consider, if you will, how many people, in Vietnam, in Chile, in
Argentina, in South Africa, in Iraq, in Palestine, have suffered
needlessly, because of the actions, exploitation, support of
dictators, secret wars of repression, by US presidents over these
last 50 years.
How many assassinations, bombings, stolen elections, proxy wars,
etc., etc., have been plotted in the dens of the White House against
the peoples of the world?
So we join our Cuban friends in saying: !Viva Fidel! !Viva el
Revolucion Cubano! !Venceremos!
Mumia Abu-Jamal
[Source: Nieto, Clara. *Masters of War: Latin America and U.S.
Aggression* (N.Y.: Seven Stories Press, 2003), pp. 33, 78-9, 217)]
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The richest, most well armed nation doesn't always win, you know
“Israel and the U.S. don’t like to lose”
RANIA MASRI is a Lebanese-American antiwar activist and author currently teaching at the University of Balamand in Lebanon. Her writings during the Israeli assault, circulated on the Internet, helped to expose the catastrophic effect of this latest front in the U.S.-Israeli “war on terror.”
Rania was among the organizers of a civilian relief convoy at the height of the Israeli bombing that defied the vow of the Israel Defense Force to attack any vehicles traveling on roads in Southern Lebanon. While the Lebanese army prevented the convoy from reaching its destination, the effort highlighted Israel’s attempt to prevent aid from getting to the areas that suffered the worst.
She spoke to LEE SUSTAR about the devastation caused by the Israeli military in Lebanon--and the political consequences of this month’s ceasefire.
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WHAT HAS been the impact of the Israeli war on Lebanon’s society and economy?THIS WAR was very much begun by Israel, on July 12, and it began by targeting everything that is referred to as civilian infrastructure.
Whether we talk about the highways and roads--the arteries that tie the country together--they were destroyed. Whether we talk about ports, from the North to the South--they were bombed.
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There were the factories that were bombed. There is no way that anyone can justify the bombing of milk factories, yogurt factories, rubber factories, paper factories and textile factories as having had anything to do with Hezbollah. They also, incidentally, destroyed a factory that produces mobile homes that are sent to Iraq.
This was done purely to destroy the Lebanese economy. They destroyed whatever economic capability the country had for standing on its own.
What specifically was bombed? In the city of Nabatieh in the South, where residential homes surround the marketplace, the Israelis bombed hotels, restaurants--everything. And they did this in numerous areas.
Then you have the homes that were targeted. Between 12,000 and 15,000 residential homes have been completely destroyed. And you have the thousands of residential homes that have been partially destroyed, but that need to be collapsed and rebuilt, so you have twice that number of homes destroyed.
Also, the Lebanese economy is built on trust. We aren’t like countries in the world that produce their own goods. The primary focus of the Lebanese economy is services, banking, tourism and the like. From that aspect, the damage has been done for the long term.
Here we see a consistency with Israel’s attack. Every three to six years, they hit Lebanon right in the middle of the tourist season, primarily to attack the level of trust in the economy.
Then we have the environmental aspect. Israel destroyed several electrical facilities and fuel depots. We have the largest oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea now--which effects Turkey and Syria also--as a direct result of the Israeli bombing. There is a massive environmental catastrophe.
Add to all this the human toll. More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians have been killed, among them more than 300 children. We are still gathering human bodies from under the rubble, so the number could increase to 1,500. And thousands more have been severely injured.
What makes it more ironic is that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now says he is willing to negotiate with Hezbollah the release of the two prisoners--ostensibly, the reason they attacked Lebanon to begin with.
WHAT IS the reaction in Lebanon to the ceasefire and the terms set out by the United Nations (UN) Security Council?
I DON’T believe we have a ceasefire. Yesterday [August 16], we had a Lebanese civilian killed by an Israeli sniper on Lebanese soil.
If you look at UN Resolution 1701 in detail, you will see that it grants Israel the right to defend itself, but does not grant Lebanon or the Lebanese--the government or Hezbollah--the right to defend itself. In that sense, we don’t have a ceasefire--politically or on the ground.
However, the pretense of the ceasefire was enough for hundreds of thousands of refugees forced out of their homes--one in four Lebanese--to return to them.
That is one of the reasons we saw such a quick Israeli withdrawal. Israeli forces are still in Lebanon, but one of the reasons most withdrew so fast is that the large numbers of displaced wanted to go home, even though their homes may not have been standing any more.
IS THE legacy of the long Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 and the occupation of Palestinian land that people didn’t want the Israelis to consolidate control?
THAT’S PARTLY it. But much more deeply ingrained is the fact that since [the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948], the people of Southern Lebanon have literally not had one week of peace from Israeli aggression.
There is a heroic sense of resilience--and I don’t mean that romantically. They are like an olive tree--their roots are deep into that land and community. They can be nowhere else.
WHAT ARE the implications of the multinational force that is supposed to be deployed in Southern Lebanon?
QUITE CLEARLY, the multinational force will not be defending the Lebanese people from Israeli aggression. Nor do I think, tactically, that they are going to be defending Israel from rockets either. So what are they going to be doing?
The French initially said they would lead this force of 15,000 troops, but then said they would send only a few hundred.
The rumors that we’re hearing is that Israel is taking a break--and it will resume its aggression against Lebanon pretty soon, and then against Iran in maybe six months. And when that aggression resumes, the multinational force will not be able to do anything.
Even sadder is that fact that the 15,000 Lebanese Army soldiers now in the South are hostages to the Israeli military, because our army is equipped like a police force, not a military one. It is absurd to think the Lebanese Army has the means to defend our country--it never did. Nor will the international community allow it to equip itself like a decent army.
I want to make it clear that I am against any non-Lebanese military force on Lebanese soil in all aspects.
HOW DOES Israel’s war on Lebanon and the Israeli offensive in Gaza fit into what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls “the birth pangs of a new Middle East?”
I AGREE with Seymour Hersh’s article in the New Yorker--that the Israeli war on Lebanon followed the blueprints for a U.S. war on Iran.
Militarily speaking, everyone agrees that Israel lost in this war. In that sense, what Hezbollah did was not only key for Lebanon, but also for Syria and Iran. It put a wedge in the U.S. plans for a new Middle East.
I think it would take an amazing level of idiocy for the Bush administration to start another war so soon before their term is over--unless they want to lead the Republican Party to suicide. But the Democratic Party would probably go along anyway--we don’t really have a Democratic Party anymore.
Many of us here believe that what has happened in Lebanon has at the very least deterred a war on Iran--because nobody was expecting the level of military skill that the Hezbollah fighters showed.
THE RATIONALE for Israel’s attacks on the Lebanese economy was apparently to try to create a backlash against Hezbollah among other communities and parties in Lebanon. Has this happened?
IRONICALLY, THE communities that were hardest hit have become the closest supporters of Hezbollah, regardless of their previous political positions. The communities that were previously most antagonistic to Hezbollah were also the communities that were least hit. They used this war a pretext to continue their antagonism toward Hezbollah.
The war didn’t cause people to become hostile to Hezbollah. Quite the contrary, people who were in the middle have become more supportive of them, especially after they saw them fighting. When we look at the people who lost their homes, who lost their loved ones--you might think that they would turn against Hezbollah, but they were brought closer.
WHAT IS the political landscape like in Lebanon now?
I AM not optimistic, and I haven’t found anyone in this country who is optimistic about the postwar period--if you can call it that.
We have a country that desperately needs to be rebuilt, we have an environment that needs to be cleaned, we have people who have been traumatized who we need to take care of. At the same time, we have a scary amount of opposition in this country--the same forces that have always been antagonistic to Hezbollah.
It’s become a really divisive issue. It’s not a majority--really, it’s a loud minority. But it’s minorities that have pushed the country into civil war in the past. There is a fear that the war that is coming next will be a civil war.
What scares me the most is that Israel does not like to lose--nor does the United States. And both have lost in Lebanon. They will try their best to win--militarily, economically, politically, in Lebanon. I don’t believe that they will let us be.
What also scares me is that the Israeli military machine has to prove itself to its own public. The easiest way to do that is to decimate the Palestinian people--and as we see, the level of aggression against the Palestinians is increasing, and likely will continue to increase.
AMONG U.S. antiwar organizations, there was a weak reaction to the Israeli war on Lebanon, as a result of support for Israel as well as Islamophobia. What’s your view?
WHAT UPSETS me is that a lot people say, “We condemn this war, but Hezbollah needs to be disarmed.” My response is that, first, whether Hezbollah needs to be disarmed is completely an internal Lebanese issue. It would be akin to a Lebanese person commenting on the right to bear arms in the United States.
Second, before we disarm Hezbollah--before we disarm a national liberation movement that has proven its ability to liberate our country--we need to first arm our army. So long as our army is not militarily equipped to defend our country, calling for the disarmament of Hezbollah while not calling for the full disarmament of Israel is hypocritical.
It’s a double standard. It’s put Lebanon in the position of being a cat forced to defend itself against a lion--especially when we have a history of Israel being the aggressor and Lebanon being the defender.
So I am against the disarmament of Hezbollah. I am more against foreigners dictating how or when or if Hezbollah is disarmed.
The main violator of international law is Israel. If people are going to bring up UN Resolution 1559 [which requires Hezbollah’s disarmament], let them bring up UN Resolution 425 and 426 [restraining Israel after its 1978 invasion of Lebanon] and 242 [which called for Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza and other territories occupied after the 1967 war], and all the other UN resolutions that Israel has been in violation of since 1948.
Selectively using UN resolutions is contradictory, hypocritical and speaks of a great misunderstanding of the issue.
The same thing applies to the question of whether Iran has nuclear arms. If people are going condemn the possibility that Iran may have nuclear arms, we need to start by condemning first our own countries’ use of nuclear arms.
For Americans to look at Iran and say, “You don’t have right to have nuclear arms,” those same Americans must demand that the United States gives up its nuclear arms. As long as the U.S. has nuclear arms, no American, I believe, has the right to condemn any other countries’ pursuit nuclear arms.
The same hypocrisy is used in the Israel-Palestinian dialogue, in which Palestinians are condemned for using suicide bombers. If you want Palestinians to stop using suicide missions, arm them with F-16s, and I guarantee they won’t use suicide bombers.
HOW DO you respond to the argument in the U.S. antiwar movement that we can’t take on Zionism because it would isolate us from potential allies?
SHOULD WE choose our battles based upon what’s right, or choose them based on what’s easiest?
In the United States, did people fight against slavery because they thought they could win? Absolutely not--they did it because it was right and just. The same is true of the labor rights struggle, the right for women to vote, the struggle to stop child labor.
The same logic applies here--we fight for what’s right, rather than base our logic on what we can win. If we don’t do that, we will lose on every issue. Otherwise, instead of fighting to stop oppression, you are asking, “Could you just do it a little less? Could you just kill me a little bit softer?”
from Socialistworker.org
A blog of anti-capitalist news and views
Like many people who live and breath politics, I have been considering starting a blog for a long time. My closest co-thinkers and I have been constantly combing on-line newspapers, the alternative press, activists publications and webpages, and every other source of news and ideas about social justice movements and sending the links to eachother for ages. Find an article on a strike in Mexico and pass it along, find a webpage featuring the writings of political prisoners and pass it along ... we're always sharing these sources with each other, so why not post it and make it more public? If we personally think that an essay or an article was helpful to our understanding of a specific struggle or issue, maybe radicals and revolutionaries from across the web might be just as interested.
So that is what I want to do here.
I want to provide a clearing house for information, news, views, and ideas relevant to the wide spectrum of political and social movements that, defined broadly, make up the anti-capitalist revolutionary left.
Every day you can surf over to this blog and get news from the front lines of the movement: from Detroit to Durban, Seoul to Sao Paulo, from womens liberation to the class struggle.
I will also post articles of historical interest and also materials related to radical culture and music. There will also be orginal commentary and reporting by some of the finest minds that the radical left has to offer!
In Struggle,
Brad in Detroit
