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BREAKING THROUGH A WALL OF POLICE PROTECTION FOR INTERNATIONAL CRIME: THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY AS A TRIAL OF THE CHENEY-BUSH-RUMSFELD CABAL OF WAR PROFITEERS By Anthony J. Hall

BREAKING THROUGH A WALL OF POLICE

PROTECTION FOR

INTERNATIONAL CRIME:

THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY

AS A TRIAL OF THE CHENEY-BUSH-RUMSFELD CABAL OF WAR PROFITEERS

By Anthony J. Hall

Professor of Globalization Studies

University of Lethbridge

Alberta Canada

(3 December, 2009)

WHO AND WHAT IS ON TRIAL?

WHEN SPLITTING THE SKY BROKE THROUGH POLICE LINES IN HIS ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT A CITIZEN’S ARREST OF FORMER US PRESIDENT, GEORGE W. BUSH, THE MOHAWK FREEDOM FIGHTER PIERCED A THICK WALL OF TYRANNY. HE BROKE THROUGH A TIGHT PHALANX OF STATE PROTECTION FOR THE PERPETRATORS OF WAR CRIMES, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, AND CRIMES AGAINST THE PEACE.

WITH HIS COURAGEOUS ACT, SPLITTING THE SKY ANNOUNCED THE UNWILLINGNESS OF MILLIONS OF GLOBAL CITIZENS TO TOLERATE ANY LONGER THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY THAT PLACES A SMALL, INTERLINKED GLOBAL PLUTOCRACY ABOVE THE LAW. BY BREAKING POLICE LINES, THE ATTICA BROTHER AND AMERICAN INDIAN MOVEMENT ACTIVIST SCOUTED A ROUTE OF LIBERATION FOR THOSE OF US SEEKING TO GET OUT FROM UNDER THE WEIGHT OF COMPLICITY IN INTERNATIONAL CRIME COMMITTED IN OUR NAME. WE ARE ALL DEEPLY IMPLICATED IN THE STATE TERROR PERMEATING THE 9/11WARS BECAUSE IT IS OUR TAX DOLLARS THAT FUND THESE IMPERIAL ASSAULTS.

SPLITTING THE SKY’S ACTION IN CALGARY HIGHLIGHTS THE ABJECT FAILURE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES TO DO THEIR JOB. IT HIGHLIGHTS THE UNWILLINGNESS OF POLICE AND THOSE WHO DIRECT THEM TO APPLY THE LAW EQUITABLY AND INDEPENDENTLY.

WHEN HE BROKE THROUGH POLICE LINES LAST MARCH, SPLITTING THE SKY BUILT ON THE MESSAGE OF MUNTADAR AL-ZAIDI, THE BAGHDAD JOURNALIST WHO FIRED HIS SHOES AT THE DEPARTING US PRESIDENT. AL-ZAIDI’S SYMBOLIC SHOT WAS SEEN AND APPLAUDED AROUND WORLD. BY DRAMATIZING THE ROLE OF SO-CALLED LAW ENFORCERS AS PROTECTORS OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME, SPLITTING THE SKY HIGHLIGHTED THAT MANY MILLIONS OF GLOBAL CITIZENS HAVE SEEN MORE THAN ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO UNDERSTAND THAT GEORGE W. BUSH AND HIS WAR CABINET ARE CREDIBLY ACCUSED WAR CRIMINALS. IF WE LIVED IN A WORLD WHERE THE INTEGRITY OF LAW PREVAILED OVER THE POWER OF MONEY, POLITICAL CORRUPTION AND MILITARY MIGHT, THE CHENEY-RUMSFELD-BUSH SYNDICATE OF WAR PROFITEERS WOULD HAVE BEEN APPREHENDED LONG AGO TO FACE CHARGES IN A PROPERLY CONSTITUTED COURT OF INTERNATIONAL LAW.

WHEN SPLITTING THE SKY PRESENTS HIMSELF THIS COMING MARCH TO A PROVINCIAL COURT IN CALGARY ALBERTA TO FACE A CRIMINAL CHARGE FOR OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, WHO AND WHAT IS REALLY ON TRIAL? WHOSE SENSE OF JUSTICE WAS REALLY OBSTRUCTED. I PREDICT THAT THE LIGHT OF FUTURE HISTORY WILL CAST THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY AS AN IMPORTANT POINT OF DEPARTURE FOR A PROCESS OF PEOPLE’S JURISPRUDENCE DIRECTED AT BRINGING TO JUSTICE THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE HIGHEST ORDER OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME.

THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY CALLS ATTENTION TO THE PARTNERSHIP LINKING BARACK OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY TO THE CHENEY-BUSH-RUMSFELD BRAND OF ORGANIZED CRIME HEADQUARTERED IN THE MILITARY SUPERPOWER’S APPARATUS OF SO-CALLED NATIONAL SECURITY. IT HIGHLIGHTS THE CURRENT US PRESIDENT’S EXPANSION OF HIS PREDECESSOR’S POLICIES OF AGGRESSIVE WARFARE AIMED AT APPROPRIATING NATURAL RESOURCES FROM INDIGENOUS PEOPLES THE WORLD OVER. CONDUCTED IN THE NAME OF AN IMPLAUSIBLE OFFICIAL INTERPRETATION OF WHAT TRANSPIRED ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, THE ONGOING 9/11WARS WIDEN AND ACCELERATE THE IMPERIAL ONSLAUGHT THAT HAS GATHERED FORCE EVER SINCE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS INITIATED A NEW WORLD ORDER IN 1492.

THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY PLACES A SPOTLIGHT ON THE RUTHLESS OF STATE TERROR AS MANIFEST IN TORTURE, GENOCIDE, AND AGGRESSIVE WARFARE. MORE THAN SIX DECADES AGO THE JUDGES SENTENCING THE CONVICTED NAZI WAR CRIMINALS AT NUREMBERG DEEMED THAT AGGRESSIVE WARFARE CONSTITUTES THE SUPREME CRIME AGAINST THE ENTIRE HUMAN FAMILY BECAUSE IT ENCOMPASSES SUCH A BROAD ARRAY OF TRIBUTARY INTERNATIONAL CRIMES.

THE POLICE LINES THAT SPLITTING THE SKY BRIEFLY BREACHED IN CALGARY ALBERTA WERE SET UP TO PROTECT THE PERSON WHOSE BLOOD-SOAKED HANDS SIGNED THE EXECUTIVE ORDERS FOR AN ORGY OF STATE-SPONSORED CRIMINALITY. THUS THE CALGARY POLICE FORCE, THE RCMP AND THOSE THAT DIRECT THEM CHOSE TO MAKE THEMSELVES, AS WELL THEIR AGENCIES, ACCOMPLICES IN HORRIFIC CRIMES— CRIMES THAT HAVE TRANSFORMED WORDS LIKE ABU GHRAIB, GUANTANAMO BAY, BAGRAM, DARK SITES, BLACK SITES, GHOST PRISONERS AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION INTO HOUSEHOLD PHRASES.

AS THE NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES MAKE CLEAR, THE IMPLICATED LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS CANNOT CLAIM IN THEIR DEFENSE THAT THEY WERE MERELY FOLLOWING ORDERS IN DECIDING TO ARREST SPLITTING THE SKY RATHER THAN GEORGE W. BUSH. WHO GAVE THE POLICE THEIR ORDERS? WHAT WAS THE CHAIN OF COMMAND? WHAT WAS THE CONTENT OF THE DIRECTIVES GIVEN THE POLICE? THE CROWN PROSECUTORS HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE PUBLIC THIS CRUCIAL INFORMATION IN PRESENTING THEIR CASE AGAINST SPLITTING THE SKY.

WHY DID GEORGE W. BUSH AND HIS HANDLERS CHOOSE CALGARY ALBERTA AS THE SITE OF THE FORMER COMMANDER IN CHIEF’S FIRST MAJOR SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT AFTER LEAVING THE US PRESIDENCY? CALGARY IS A KEY COLONIAL CAPITAL OF THE TEXAS-BASED OIL AND GAS EMPIRE THAT RESIDES AT THE VERY CORE OF THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

CALGARY IS THE POLITICAL HEARTLAND OF THE MINORITY GOVERNMENT OF CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER. HARPER’S ASCENT TO POWER WAS AS THE CANADIAN FRANSCHISE HOLDER OF THE BUSH BRAND OF NEOCON GOVERNANCE WHOSE MACHINATIONS REGULARLY SUBORDINATE THE RULE TO LAW TO JACK-BOOTED DISPLAYS OF LAW AND ORDER. THIS NEOCON APPROACH HAS SEEN OFFICERS OF THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT HAND OVER CIVILIANS CONVICTED OF NOTHING TO THE AFGHANI PUPPET REGIME FOR CERTAIN TORTURE. AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TREATMENT OF OMAR KHADR, THE LAWLESSNESS OF THE CURRENT CANADIAN GOVERNMENT MAKES HARPER AND BUSH PARTNERS IN VICTIMIZING CHILD SOLDIERS CONTRARY TO MANY INTERNATIONAL TREATIES.

A MAJOR SPONSOR OF BUSH’S TALK IN CALGARY WAS THE BENNETT JONES LAW FIRM, ONE OF THE KEY AGENCIES ENGAGED IN THE FIRE SALE OF WESTERN CANADA’S NATURAL RESOURCES. THE FOREIGN COLONIZATION OF ALBERTA’S RESOURCES OFTEN TAKES PLACE IN COMPLETE DEFIANCE OF CANADA’S CONSTITUTIONAL AFFIRMATION OF ABORIGINAL AND TREATY RIGHTS.

WILL THE ALBERTA JUDICIARY’S HANDLING OF SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL CONTINUE THE SLIDE OF MY HOME PROVINCE AWAY FROM THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CANADA? WILL THE COURT EXTEND SPLTTING THE SKY A FAIR TRIAL OR WILL THE JUDGE RAILROAD THE ACCUSED AT THE BEHEST OF POLITICAL MASTERS IN WASHINGTON, DALLAS, HOUSTON, OTTAWA AND CALGARY? WILL SPLITTING THE SKY’S RIGHT TO PRESENT A FULL DEFENSE BE RESPECTED? OR WILL THE JUDGE DEMEAN HIS OR HER COURT TO DECIDE, SAY, THAT GEORGE BUSH’S REAL OR IMAGINED “MISDEEDS” HAVE NO PLACE IN THE PROCEEDINGS.

WILL THE PROVINCIAL COURT OF ALBERTA RISE TO THE RESPONSIBILITIES INVESTED IN THIS INSTRUMENT OF CANADIAN SOVEREIGNTY? OR WILL THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY TAKE PLACE IN A KANGEROO COURT PUTTING ON FULL DISPLAY CALGARY’S COLONIAL FUNCTION IN THE AMERICAN EMPIRE? WILL THE COURT ENCOURAGE, EMBRACE AND EVEN DEMAND A FULL AIRING OF THE REAL LEGAL ISSUES INHERENT IN THE DECISIONS MADE BY SPLITTING THE SKY AND THOSE OF THE POLICE OFFICERS THAT ARRESTED HIM? WILL IT ILLUMINATE OR OBFUSCATE THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENS WHEN WE SEE AGENTS OF THE LAW UNWILLING TO ENFORCE STATUTES LIKE CANADA’S CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY AND WAR CRIMES ACT? IS CANADA’S INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION TO BE THAT OF A HAVEN FOR THE MOST RECENT CROP OF CREDIBLY ACCUSED WAR CRIMINALS?

THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES

WHATEVER HAPPENS WITH THE CROWN’S TRIAL, CALGARY WILL BE THE SITE OF A PEOPLE’S PROCESS AIMED AT DELIVERING SOME MEASURE OF JUSTICE IN A WORLD TOO OFTEN STARVED OF IT. AMONG THOSE WHO HAVE AGREED TO TAKE PART IN BOTH THE CROWN’S AND THE PEOPLE’S PROCESSES ARE RAMSAY CLARK AND CYNTHIA MCKINNEY. A FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, RAMSAY CLARK HAS A LONG HISTORY OF REPRESENTING SPLITTING THE SKY AS HIS LAWYER. THIS HISTORY BEGAN WHEN PROMINENT FIGURES IN THE UNITED STATES INTERVENED TO COVER UP THE LIES AND CRIMES OF THE ATTICA PRISON DEBACLE OF 1971. THIS EVENT CHANGED SPLITTING THE SKY’S LIFE FOREVER.

IN THE US ELECTION OF 2008 CYNTHIA MCKINNEY RAN AS THE GREEN PARTY’S CANDIDATE. SHE IS WIDELY RECOGNIZED AS AN INHERITOR OF THE QUEST FOR DOMESTIC AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE ADVANCED IN DIFFERENT WAYS BY BOTH MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. AND MALCOLM X. MS. MCKINNEY SERVED FOR FOUR TERMS AS A US CONGRESSWOMAN REPRESENTING A CONSTITUENCY IN GEORGIA. SHE HAS STOOD BRAVELY FOR THE PRINCIPLE THAT UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS EXTEND TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE. WITH HER WORDS AND ACTIONS, MS. MCKINNEY EPITOMIZES THE NECESSARY MERGER OF THE GLOBAL ANTI-WAR COALITION AND THE INTERNATIONAL MOVEMENT OF THOSE COMMITTED TO THE QUEST FOR THE TRUTH OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. IN ORDER TO STOP THE OTHERWISE NEVERENDING 9/11 WARS, WE MUST MAKE REASON AND SCIENCE PREVAIL OVER FEAR MONGERING, SUPERSTITION AND DISINFORMATION IN DETERMINING WHO WAS REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ORIGINATING ACTS OF THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR.

I PROPOSE THAT THE CONVERGENCE OF EVENTS AND PERSONALITIES, CHARACTER AND CIRCUMSTANCE, ON THE FRONTIERS OF SO MUCH CONTESTED POWER OFFERS AN IMPORTANT OPENING TO A NEW ERA OF JURIDICAL DEVELOPMENT. I PROPOSE THAT THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY PRESENTS A PLATFORM FOR THE ELABORATION OF A NEW SET OF JURIDICAL RULES AND PROTOCOLS TO BE KNOW AS THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES.

IT HAS BEEN SIX DECADES SINCE THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY AGREED TO A SUCCINCT REFINEMENT OF THE PRINCIPLES THAT EMERGED FROM THE TRIAL OF SOME OF THE TOP NAZIS AS WELL AS THEIR JURIDICAL, MEDICAL AND INDUSTRIALIST ACCOMPLICES. DURING THOSE DECADES THERE HAS BEEN AN INTENSIFICATION OF THE CULTURE OF IMPUNITY THAT IMMUNIZES THOSE AT THE TOP OF THE HEIRACHY OF WEALTH AND POWER FROM ANY LEGAL ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THEIR CRIMES.

LIKE THE TOKOYO TRIALS OF THE DEFEATED LEADERSHIP OF IMPERIAL JAPAN, THE NUREMBERG TRIALS WERE A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE. THE TREND THAT BEGAN IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR HAS NEVER BEEN PREEMPTED. AGAIN AND AGAIN ONLY THOSE ON THE LOSING SIDE OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS FACE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR CRIMES.

EVEN THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL DEALING WITH THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE OF 1994 RESTRICTS ITS PROCEEDINGS TO DEALING WITH THE CRIMES OF ONLY ONE SIDE IN THE CONFLICT. ONLY HUTUS ARE TARGETED FOR PROSECUTION. THE JURISTS EMPOWERED BY THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL CONSISTENTLY VEER AWAY FROM ANY RECKONING WITH THE MANY SERIOUS CRIMES OF PAUL KAGAME’S TUTSI-DOMINATED RWANDAN PATRIOTIC FRONT.

WITH ANGLO-AMERICAN BACKING CHANNELED THROUGH UGANDA, THIS TUTSI-DOMINATED MILITARY FORCE CONQUERED ITS EXTERNALLY MANIPULATED FOES TO BECOME THE CORE UNIT OF THE RWANDAN ARMED FORCES. KAGAME’S ARMY WAS BUILT UP TO BECOME A KEY PILLAR OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN BRANCH OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. THIS EMPIRE INCLUDES MANY CANADIAN MINING COMPANIES, INCLUDING BARRICK GOLD, THAT OPERATE WITH WARLORD AND CHILD SOLDIER PROTECTION IN ONE OF THE MOST WAR-TORN ZONES ON THE PLANET.

THE IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION OF PRESIDENT KAGAME’S TUTSI-DOMINATED ARMY CONTRIBUTES SIGNIFICANTLY TO THE ONGOING GENOCIDE THAT PLAGUES THE PEOPLE OF THE RESOURCE-RICH EASTERN CONGO TO THIS DAY. THE INFLICTED DEATHS OF MILLIONS OF DISPLACED AND BRUTALIZED CONGOLESE CLEARS THE WAY FOR ILLICIT FLOWS OF BLOOD DIAMONDS, COLTAN, GOLD AND SOON OIL. THESE OPERATIONS, THAT EXPOSE THE UTTER RUTHLESSNESS OF IMPERIAL CAPITAL’S HEART OF DARKNESS, EPITOMIZE THE SEVERITY OF THE ENFORCED LAWLESSNESS THAT ENRICHES A FEW AT THE LETHAL EXPENSE OF THE MANY.

THE INEQUITIES OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE WERE ON FULL DISPLAY LAST MARCH 17 WHEN THE POLICE DECIDED TO PROTECT CREDIBLY ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL GEORGE W. BUSH AND TO ARREST AND INCARCERATE SPLITTING THE SKY. LIKE A DISPROPORTIONATELY LARGE PROPORTION OF OTHER NATIVE AMERICANS AND AFRICAN AMERICANS, SPLITTING THE SKY HAS SPENT TOO MUCH OF HIS LIFE LOCKED UP BY THE STATE.

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LEDGER IS GEORGE W. BUSH. BUSH EPITOMIZES THE CLASS THAT IS, WITH SOME FEW EXCEPTIONS, ABOVE THE LAW. IN HIS LIFE’S JOURNIES BUSH HAS DRAWN ON THE KIND OF PRIVILEGE THAT IS ROOTED IN GENERATIONS OF COLONIZATION AND CONQUEST. THE FORMER US PRESIDENT ACCELERATED THESE TRAJECTORIES OF VIOLENCE AND THEFT WHEN HE AND DICK CHENEY WERE AT THE CONTROLS OF THE MOST FORMIDABLE WAR MACHINE EVER ASSEMBLED.

IN CALGARY WE SAW CLOSE UP THE EXTRAORDINARY PROTECTIONS REGULARLY EXTENDED THIS CREDIBLY ACCUSED WAR CRIMINAL. IN MY VIEW BUSH AS WELL AS HIS PATRONS AND CLIENTS WILL NOT BE BROUGHT TO TRIAL UNTIL HUMANITY FINDS A WAY TO WITHDRAW THE LICENSE TO KILL AFFORDED BY THE INSTITUTIONALIZED INEQUITIES OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE.

A CORE PRECEPT OF THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES, THEREFORE, MUST DEAL WITH THE NEED TO MOVE BEYOND THE KIND OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE THAT BECAME INSTITUTIONALIZED FOLLOWING THE SECOND WORLD WAR. A CENTRAL PRINCIPLE OF THE RULE OF LAW IS THE NEED TO ENFORCE ITS AUTHORITY EQUITABLY AND UNIFORMLY. THIS BASIC PRINCIPLE MUST BE MADE TO APPLY TO THOSE WHO COMMIT THE HIGHEST ORDER OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME, NO MATTER WHETHER THEY ARE ON THE WINNING OR LOSING SIDE OF INTERNATIONAL OR DOMESTIC CONFLICTS.

AS THE LONG AS THE POWER POLITICS OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE CONTINUES TO PROTECT THE LIKES OF GEORGE W. BUSH AND RICHARD CHENEY, THE RULE OF LAW REMAINS A FRAUD. UNDER PRESENT CONDITIONS THE RULE OF LAW IS A SAD HOAX DESIGNED TO DISGUISE THE ROLE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AS PROTECTORS OF THE ILL-GOTTEN WEALTH OFTEN STRIPPED FROM THE BRANCHES OF HUMANITY THAT FRANZ FANON ONCE LABELLED THE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH.

THE ELABORATION OF THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES WILL HAVE TO ENTAIL THE QUEST FOR NEW LANGUAGE AND JURIDICAL CONCEPTS TO CAPTURE THE FULL EXTENT AND COMPLEXITY OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. IN MOVING THIS PROCESS FORWARD WE COULD DO WORSE THAN TO LOOK FOR INSPIRATION TO THE EXAMPLE SET BY THE GREAT POLISH AND JEWISH JURIST, RAPHAEL LEMKIN. IN 1944 LEMKIN COINED THE TERM “GENOCIDE’’ IN AN ATTEMPT TO IDENTIFY THE OUTER EXTREMES OF THE STATE TERROR THEN UNDERWAY IN AXIS OCCUPIED EUROPE.

LEMKIN’S JURIDICAL CONTRIBUTION WAS NOT THE LAST WORD IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING INTERNATIONAL LAW REFLECT THE EXPANDING SCOPE OF INTERNATIONAL CRIME. IN MORE RECENT DECADES THE TECHNOLOGY OF MASS DESTRUCTION HAS BECOME SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL AND MANY-FACETED THAN IT WAS IN LEMKIN’S DAY THAT WE NEED NEW TERMS AND PROCEDURES TO DEAL WITH THE MOVING FRONTIERS OF CRIMINALITY.

CONSIDER, FOR INSTANCE, THE NATURE OF THE CRIME THAT TAKES PLACE WHEN WHOLE POPULATIONS ARE SENTENCED TO ENDLESS FUTURES OF DISPROPORTIONATELY HIGH RATES OF GENETIC DEFORMITY THROUGH THE SATURATION OF THEIR MOTHER LANDS WITH DEPLETED URANIUM. CONSIDER THE NATURE OF A CRIME THAT WOULD SEE A DRUG COMPANY COVERTLY INTRODUCE A NEW DISEASE STRAIN IN ORDER TO MARKET A PREPARED ANTIDOTE OR VACCINE TO CURE THE DISEASE IT HAD DISSEMINATED.

WHAT NAMES, WHAT PROHIBITIONS AND WHAT PUNISHMENTS DO WE NEED TO RESPOND TO AND DISCOURAGE CRIMES THAT INFECT POPULATIONS, DEFORM POPULATIONS, AND EVEN DESTROY WHOLE ECOSYSTEMS MAKING THE RENEWAL OF ALL KINDS OF LIFE, INCLUDING HUMAN LIFE, IMPOSSIBLE TO SUSTAIN?

THE MAKERS OF THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES WILL HAVE TO PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE ROLE OF MEDIA CONGLOMERATES, PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS AND PUBLIC BROADCASTERS IN CREATING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT THAT ALLOWS INTERNATIONAL CRIME TO THRIVE IN THE AGE OF ELITE IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION. THE SOPHISTICATED PROPAGANDA OF THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR PRESENTS A TEXT BOOK EXAMPLE OF HOW MAINSTREAM MEDIA VENUES OFTEN PLAY MAJOR ROLES IN THE PERCEPTUAL DEHUMANIZATION OF POPULATION GROUPS WHOSE NATURAL RESOURCES ARE TARGETED FOR APPROPRIATION IN AGGRESSIVE WAR.

WE SAW A\ SMALL SAMPLE OF THE ROLE OF MAINSTREAM MEDIA AS THOUGHT POLICE IN THE CENSORSHIP THAT CHARACTERIZED MOST OF THE COVERAGE OF GEORGE W. BUSH’S VISIT TO CALGARY. THE JOURNALISTS ASSIGNED TO COVER THE EVENT ALMOST UNIFORMLY DIRECTED ATTENTION AWAY FROM SPLITTING THE SKY’S ATTEMPT TO CONDUCT A CITIZEN’S ARREST OF GEORGE W. BUSH.

TWO INTERCONNECTED TRIALS

THE TRIAL OF KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED (KSM) THAT WILL TAKE PLACE IN NEW YORK CITY IN THE MONTHS AHEAD WILL HELP TO ESTABLISH THE GEOPOLITICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE FORMULATION OF THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES AND THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY. FOR MANY MONTHS KEY VENUES OF THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA HAVE BEEN ADVERTISING KSM AS THE SO-CALLED “MASTERMIND” OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS. AFTER HAVING BEEN TORTURED DOZENS OF TIMES IN US CUSTODY, THE DEMENTED KSM APPARENTLY AGREES WITH THE LABEL GIVEN HIM EVEN AS HE BOASTS OUTLANDISHLY OF THE ROLE HE HAS IMAGINED FOR HIMSELF IN MANY MORE ALLEGED TERRORIST INCIDENTS.

FOR MILLIONS OF OBSERVERS WHO DO NOT ACCEPT THE OFFICIAL CONSPIRACY THEORY OF 9/11, KSM AND THOSE WHO WILL BE TRIED WITH HIM ARE OBVIOUS PATSIES. KSM’S OWN HISTORY OF DOUBLE, TRIPLE AND QUADRUPLE DEALING ILLUSTRATES THAT THE HISTORY OF AL-QAEDA WAS INTERNAL, AND REMAINS INTERNAL, TO THAT OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE. THE OPERATIVES OF THE NATIONAL SECURITY STATE ONCE DID THEIR COMPLEX BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS WITH THEIR PET ISLAMIC THEOCRATS SUCH AS CIA ASSET, OSAMA BIN LADEN, THROUGH THE LAHORE-BASED BANK OF CREDIT AND COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL.

THE TREATMENT OF KSM IS BUT ONE SMALL PART OF THE APPLICATION OF TORTURE NOT TO UNEARTH INFORMATION ABOUT FUTURE TERRORIST ATTACKS, BUT RATHER TO CREATE A FALSE RECORD TO SUPPORT THE SPECIOUS CLAIMS ON WHICH THE 9/11WARS ARE PREMISED. THIS PROPENSITY WAS PUT CLEARLY ON PUBLIC DISPLAY WITH NEWS OF THE TORTURE IN EGYPT OF IBN AL-SHAYKH AL-LIBI. THE PURPOSE OF AL-LIBI’S TORTURE, WHICH DICK CHENEY DIRECTED, WAS TO PRODUCE FALSE TESTIMONY SUBSEQUENTLY PRESENTED AT THE UNITED NATIONS IN 2003 OF A NON-EXISTENT CONNECTION BETWEEN OSAMA BIN LADEN AND SADDAM HUSSEIN.

THE PURPOSE OF THE ANGLO-AMERICAN RESORT TO TORTURE HAS RECENTLY BEEN DESCRIBED BY CRAIG MURRAY, THE FORMER BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO UZBEKISTAN WHO HAS BECOME A WHISTLE BLOWER EXPOSING THE UNDERLYING FRAUD OF THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR. MURRAY WAS REMOVED FROM HIS JOB WHEN HE BEGAN TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN HIS POSTING TO PRISONERS FLOWN IN THROUGH ILLEGAL RENDITIONS FROM MANY PARTS OF THE WORLD.

HERE IS HOW MURRAY DESCRIBES THE PATTERNS OF TORTURE IN UZBEKISTAN, A KEY POLITY IN THE REGION’S MULTI-TRILLION DOLLAR POLITICAL BOONDOGGLE OF OIL AND GAS EXTRACTION AS WELL AS PIPELINE CONSTRUCTION. MURRAY ASSERTS, “THE WHOLE POINT OF THE INTELLIGENCE BEING OBTAINED UNDER TORTURE WAS TO ACTUALLY EXAGGERATE THE TERRORIST THREATS AND TO EXAGGERATE THE STRENGTH OF AL-QAEDA. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF WHY PEOPLE WERE BEING TORTURED, TO CONFESS THAT THEY WERE MEMBERS OF AL-QAEDA WHEN THEY WEREN’T MEMBERS OF AL-QAEDA AND TO DENOUNCE LONG LISTS OF NAMES OF PEOPLE AS MEMBERS OF AL-QAEDA WHO WEREN’T MEMBERS OF AL-QAEDA.”

HYPERLINK “HTTP://WWW.CONSORTIUMNEWS.COM/2009/102409B.HTML” HTTP://WWW.CONSORTIUMNEWS.COM/2009/102409B.HTML

BY PUTTING A FOCUS ON THE LIES AND CRIMES OF THE CHENEY-BUSH-RUMSFELD CABAL OF WAR PROFITEERS THE TRIAL OF SPLITTING THE SKY, TOGETHER WITH THE FORMULATION OF THE CALGARY PRINCIPLES, IS SHAPING UP AS A COUNTERPOINT TO THE UPCOMING SHOW TRIAL OF KSM AND OTHERS IN NEW YORK.

WE INVITE BROAD PARTICIPATION IN THE CALGARY PROCEEDINGS THIS COMING MARCH FROM JURISTS, ACADEMICS, STUDENTS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. THE CONVERGENCE OF INTEREST IN AND AROUND SPLITTING THE SKY’S TRIAL SHOULD BE SEEN AS ONE PART OF A GLOBAL UPSURGE OF POPULAR WILL FLOWING FROM THE GROWING RECOGNITION THAT OUR FORMAL MACHINERIES OF DOMESTIC LAW AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ARE LEADING HUMANITY INTO A BLIND ALLY OF DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. THE UGLY IMPERATIVES OF MIGHT IS RIGHT WILL PREVAIL OVER THE RULE OF LAW UNTIL THE PEOPLE AND PEOPLES OF THE WORLD FIND A WAY TO OVERCOME THE INEQUITIES OF VICTORS’ JUSTICE.

THE CORE CORPORATIONS OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX HAVE ACHIEVED SUCH A LOCK GRIP ON THE EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL BRANCHES OF MOST OF THE WORLD’S GOVERNMENTS THAT HUMANITY’S SLENDER ACHIEVEMENTS IN INSTITUTING DEMOCRACYARE BEING QUICKLY NEGATED. WHAT MEANING DOES AN “X” ON AN ELECTION BALLOT HAVE IF VOTERS HAVE BEEN DUPED BY DISINFORMATION AND SMEAR CAMPAIGNS EVEN AS THEY HAVE BEEN DRAWN INTO REALMS OF PUBLIC MYTHOLOGY THAT ARE COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED FROM THE REALITIES OF HOW POWER IS EXERCISED? THE CITIZENS OF AFGHANISTAN ARE FAR FROM ALONE IN SUFFERING THE FATE OF WHAT I CALL BALLOT BOX COLONIALISM. .

HENCE IT CAN BE SAID THAT THESE DAYS THE MOST IMPORTANT AGENCIES OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX AND THE NATIONAL SECURITYSTATE ARE THE MEDIA CONGLOMERATES. THESE AGENCIES OF PROPAGANDA FOR AGGRESSIVE WAR BOMBARD US ON A DAILY BASIS WITH MENTAL MISSILES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE.

THE CONSTANT BARAGE OF MESSAGES WE RECEIVE THAT PEACE IS TO BE FOUND IN WAR, THAT FREEDOM IS TO FOUND IN SLAVERY, THAT WEALTH IS TO BE FOUND IN INDEBETNESS, AND THAT TRUTH IS TO BE FOUND IN LIES, IS PULLING HUMANITY AWAY FROM OUR FRAGILE INHERITANCE OF REASON, RATIONALITY, AND ENLIGHTENED DISCOURSE ON THE REAL MENACES WE FACE.

EARTH’S ENDANGERED BIOSPHERE IS THE REAL SOURCE OF HUMANITY’S HEALTH, SUSTAINABILITY AND SECURITY. THAT IS WHERE WE MUST POINT MUCH OF OUR REMEDIAL ATTENTION AND CREATIVITY. TO DO SO WE MUST FIND A WAY TO PULL BACK FROM THE OBLIVION OF THE MODERN-DAY INDIAN WARS THAT ARE DEPRIVING SO MANY GLOBAL CITIZENS OF LIFE, LIBERTY AND HAPPINESS—PEACE, ORDER AND GOOD GOVERNMENT— AS WE MOVE INTO THE SECOND DECADE OF THE NEW MILLENIUM.

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Joshua Blakeney

Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro in First Run's Fidel

One hundred and sixty years ago Marx and Engels advanced the thesis in The Communist Manifesto that the capitalist system was destined to self-destruct, to be replaced by an alternative less vacuous system which they believed would be classless and communistic in nature. They suggested that the bourgeoisie was producing: “its own grave diggers”[1] based on their perpetual and wanton repression of the working classes. Contemporarily the adduced prophesy has not been vindicated insofar as the capitalist system has neither capitulated nor been emasculated and still continues to afflict humanity on an even more prolific and ubiquitous scale than at any time previously. However many of Marx and Engels’ observations about the nature of nineteenth century capitalism are highly conciliatory with twenty-first century capitalism. One example is their assertion that: “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere”[2]. Indeed the American Empire has been the leading orchestrator of such capitalist expansionism since 1945 assisting the bourgeoisie in establishing commercial networks globally by facilitating a military industrial complex to penetrate new markets. This monograph will therefore seek to deconstruct the American Empire’s oxymoronic “War on Terror” through a Marxist theoretical framework ostensibly to expose the latent weaknesses, vicissitudes and inadequacies of the prevailing global economic orthodoxy. Moreover the author will seek to critically analyze the predictions made by Marx and Engels so as to comprehend why and how proletarian revolution failed to crystallize in order to envision the conditions which could lead to revolutionary change in the future.

Marx and Engels refrained from specifying any time frame for the full and unequivocal emancipation of all humanity; they merely said that it was an inevitability. Capitalism in its contemporary globalized form systematically and militarily condemns millions of human beings every year to lives of misery, privation and malnourishment, yet despite this truism, record profits still prevail unabated and relatively unthreatened. The curious survival of the capitalist system invokes questions of how and why such a monocultural, hegemonic system could stay in existence? Equally pertinent to ponder is how it can be that a mere scintilla of humanity could be free to misanthropically despoil the planet of its wealth and riches while the vast majority stand by supinely as observers? In other words to use a Marxist analogy, why has “class consciousness” not ossified to the extent that Marx and Engels prophesized? Such questions can be unambiguously placed into the context of the so called “War on Terror” which elucidates the methods employed by the ruling class, vis-à-vis the American Empire, to maintain the domination of capital and property and intimidate and stupefy the international proletariat into a state of submission. Marx and Engels had indeed predicted the globalization of capital in The Communist Manifesto when they adduced: “The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to compromise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets”[3]. Indeed the words destruction and conquest are highly relevant contemporarily with the epochal globalization of state-terrorism visited at the bourgeoisie’s behest by supine political leaders upon the inhabitants of coveted polities.

The “War on Terror” is the epithet ascribed by the US government to its latest wave of imperialist attacks against indigenous peoples inhabiting sovereign polities throughout the world. Globalized capitalism and US imperialism are now, and always will be, two sides of the same coin in the respect that without each other neither would be able to plague the planet in the pernicious way that each of them do. Indeed the consummation of US imperialism is a world totally dominated by capital and the capitalist elites, and the oppression of humanity through wage-slavery and economic indentureship. Petras et al adduce: “globalization is neither inevitable nor necessary. Like other projects of capitalist development that preceded it -modernization, industrialization, colonialism and development – the new imperialism is fraught with contradictions that generate forces of opposition”[4]. Cuba has been one of capitalism’s most consistently resilient, vociferous and principled opponents for almost fifty years, undertaking the construction of a revolutionary society based on diametrically opposite principles to the capitalist world. The former-president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, upon receiving an award from the World Health Organization summed up the status quo lucidly:

“Why in this world which produces almost $30 trillion worth of goods and services per year, do one billion three hundred million people live in absolute poverty receiving less than a dollar a day? Why do 800 million lack the most basic health services when the cost of providing a minimal level of health care protection to all the citizens of the world- an amount estimated at 1998 dollars at $25 million billion- amounts to just 3% of the amount devoted annually to armaments? Why are there 250 million children in the world forced to work? Why do 2 million girls become prostitutes every year? Why do 15% of the world’s population consume 82% of the world’s medicine while the whole rest of the world have access to only 18%?”[5]

To begin to comprehend how such an insidious system could prevail and why exactly Marx and Engels’ thesis (with notable exceptions) is yet to be vindicated, it is crucial to understand the imperial “War on Terror” and the subsequent proliferation of capitalism within a historical context. It is axiomatic that all empires need justifications for their anti-democratic systems of purloining and despoliation. The British Empire constructed the highly offensive concept of a “White Man’s Burden” in order to justify its amoral antics to domestic concerned opinion as well as to entice vast swathes of the proletariat in Britain to pick up a bayonet and don a British military uniform to help crush indigenous anti-imperial revolts around the world. As the British Empire declined after World War II, the American Empire entered the center stage as the capitalist world’s sole protagonist. It too embraced racist, Social Darwinian mythology as a means of justifying the plundering of indigenous people’s wealth and resources. The rise of the American behemoth coincided with the rise of the Soviet Union, a nation whose revolutionary beginnings had been greatly inspired by The Communist Manifesto and who gave the American Empire an ideological antithesis to contend with, hence fostering a degree of global equilibrium. The two superpowers competed with each other over spheres of influence in the Third World each installing puppet regimes to collaborate with their informal empires. The US government during this time masked their imperial pursuits behind the mythology of the threat of: “The Red Menace” and under this rubric suggested that nefarious and murderous interventions, both domestically and internationally, were a means to an ends, in order to crush Marxist-inspired egalitarian movements. As Hall asserts: “Ever since the United States entered the Second World War it has maintained the planet’s most active and elaborate apparatus of global intervention. The Cold War provided the rational for the continuing military mobilization of the United States on a global scale. . .the US military machinery was increasingly crafted as capitalism’s ultimate police force.”[6]

The American Empire has intervened in no less than fifty-three nation’s affairs since 1945[7] ostensibly to sustain and proliferate the “war economy” which was incubated in the Second World War. US backed ventures have included heinous crimes such as the massacring of three-million Vietnamese people with chemical weapons, murdering democratically elected presidents such as the Congolese President-elect Patrice Lumumba[8] and the President-elect of Chile Salvador Allende[9] as well as orchestrating coups against Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah[10], Guatamala’s Benito Arbenz and Indonesia’s Sukarno[11] all of whom equally possessed democratic credentials. All of these men had professed sympathy to the socialist principles which were the manifestation of the class analysis opined by Marx and Engels. Such subventions were the product of overt class antagonism whereby the ruling classes wished to install “comprador” regimes that would suppress all grass-roots, democratic resistance and guarantee preferential access to their people’s resources and markets in exchange for bribery and extortion of the highest kind. Marx and Engles’ description of the capitalization of feudal society is comparable to the Americanization of foreign countries: “into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economical and political sway of the bourgeoisie.”[12]

Hence the Cold War incubated and nurtured the rapacious and murderous military industrial complex which emerged victorious in 1991 when the alcohol soaked, western puppet; Boris Yeltsin staged a coup against the Gorbechev government at the behest of Washington, tearing down the world’s only impregnable opponent to US imperialism[13].The post Cold War chimera’s which were propagated by the victorious ruling class suggested that it was “the end of history” and ipso facto capitalism was the only tenable economic system due to the failure of the Soviet experiment. Cuba, now beleaguered by global capitalism, was resolute and offered a different message, one of resistance, socialism and empowerment to indigenous peoples who were struggling to eradicate racism, misogyny, poverty and all other forms of bigotry and inequality. In a speech in Durban, South Africa, entitled: “There is No End of History” Cuban President Fidel Castro continued to light a path for others to follow. He fulminated:

“Neoliberal globalization is rapidly destroying our natural environment, poisoning our air and water, deforesting our lands, eroding our soils into wasteland, squandering our natural resources, changing our climate. How and with what shall 10 billion human beings live? International development aid is decreasing…The fact that the population of Africa is left with AIDS. . .and dozens of old and new diseases is not an issue for the multinationals or the blind eye of the world markets. . .the unipolar world and its accompanying world order are wiping out sovereignty and independence. . .Globalization is inevitable, but not the globalization that they want to impose on us, not that neo-liberal globalization. Globalization is a product of science, technology and the development of the productive forces that should be at the service of humankind.”[14]

Despite enlightened, foresightful analysts such as Fidel Castro, the aplomb of the post- Cold War bourgeoisie was unremitting and unequivocal. They dismissed Marxism and Socialism (and all other forms of humanism) based solely on failure of the Soviet experiment and believed that they had an unopposed mandate to further globalize their exploitation. The adduced indefatigability of one monocultural system which could dominate the globe forever was clearly morally vacuous, and from a Marxian perspective dubious from the outset. As already emphasized all empires have historically manufactured a litany of propagandistic myths to justify their cant and double-standards, ostensibly to stymie the aspirations of the working classes, and prevent them from realizing their subjective similarities with the colonized victims of that same system. The global ruling class soon came to realize that they needed a new foe in order to command the fidelity of large sections of the proletariat to their military industrial complex. The international bourgeoisie required somebody who could be scapegoated to justify the corporate crusade which was bubbling under the surface of post-Cold War society. The American Empire was equally bereft of an opponent to perpetuate its “war economy” against. The Cold War had not in fact been “Cold” at all. It was an epoch of military interventions, proxy wars, and colonial occupations all of which had contributed sizably to sustaining the American Empire’s military industrial complex. The prior existence of an alternative system which had purported to be communistic in nature, yet had ultimately failed to edify into a truly communist society, had also provided the international ruling class with an easily sold justification for suppressing any political forces for social change within their own jurisdictions. The collapse of the Soviet Union had bequeathed the international bourgeoisie the conundrum of having no tenable opponent to contrast their system against, leaving them exposed to scrutiny from class conscious proletarians who were no longer content to nurse their wroth obediently. Hence with the equilibrium lost and with bourgeoisie’s swords sharpened, capitalism looked to Washington for orders.

Then came September 11^th 2001. Nobody truly knows how, why, or by who, the attacks of September 11^th 2001 occurred. The unproven, uncorroborated, Washington conspiracy theory that three striding buildings could be felled by two planes into a pile of ash, and that the culprits for this massacre were cave-dwelling guerilla fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan, has been exposed as highly tendentious and increasingly incipient as voluminous evidence to the contrary has emerged. Nevertheless the sardonic torque and spin which circumscribed the 9/11 massacre was evidently a boon for US imperialism and its consummation – globalized capitalism. The capitalist classes, who marketed the tragedy as a justification for indiscriminate retribution against an enemy undefined, have by invading the sovereign country of Iraq, caused the deaths of over one-million Iraqi, men, women and children and have engendered a further four-million refugees – many of whom now live lives of misery begging on the streets of Damascus and Oman – testament to the reprehensible and odious crimes of the international ruling class. The retribution for the 9/11 massacre was a flagrantly illegal war crime yet the two war criminals responsible, namely George W Bush and Anthony Blair still walk free and still await impeachment for their violations of International Law. As Mamdani explains:“the emergence of the United States as the world’s only superpower has gone hand in hand with its demand to be exempt from any international rule of law.”[15]By defenestrating all enshrined international protocols, including: The United Nations Charter, The Geneva Convention, and The Genocide Convention Bush and his fellow war criminal Blair have illuminated that capitalisms victory has been to the detriment of humanity and that very little has changed since Marx and Engles published their inspirational manifesto other than the magnitude to which the bourgeoisie have expanded their nefarious activities.

Equally reprehensible was the precursor to the Iraq crusade, the illegal imperial war to occupy and colonize Afghanistan, a country which is the door-way to the lucrative Caspian oil fields. Independent journalist John Pilger recently visited occupied Afghanistan and in his account of the conflagration educates the reader: “The potential of the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian basin has excited imperialists since the discovery of oil there at the end of the nineteenth century.”[16] Pilger quotes Hitler as saying that after invading Russia (echoing George W Bush) he intended to ‘take the saving prize of Caspian resources, then drive south for the even greater prize of Persia and Iraq’[17]. In Afghanistan Bush, Blair and their popinjay collaborators propelled NATO forces to fight an enemy which the US and Britain had themselves created, namely the so called mujahedin. Pilger opines: “The Afghani mujahedin-and the Taliban and al-Qaida-were effectively created by the CIA, its Pakistani equivalent the ISI, and Britain’s MI6”[18]. Mamdani expounds: “America learned to distinguish between two types of terrorism theirs and ours – and cultivated an increasingly benign attitude towards ours. But then it turned out that their terrorism was born of ours.”[19] These imperial hypocrites under the banner of NATO have punished the Afghan people, bombing them back into the stone-age, for having a government which the west had itself installed a mere two decades previously to subvert the socialist PDPA government at the time. Pilger quotes a young Afghani women who warmly reminisced about life under the PDPA government which the west colluded to overthrow:

“Every girl could go to high school and university. We could go where we wanted and wear what we liked. . .We used to go to cafes and the cinema to see the latest films. . .It all started to go wrong when the mujahedin started winning. . .They used to kill teachers and burn schools. . .It was funny and sad to think these people the west had supported.”[20]

In Afghanistan Canada, Britain, and the US have conducted a bellicose and indiscriminate massacre of tens of thousands of Afghani civilians – often with the use of illegal chemical weapons – all justified under the assumption that the inhabitants whose heads the bombs land upon were: “The Taliban”, in a similar way that the US imperialists in their illegal war against the people of Vietnam justified the death of every Vietnamese villager as having been a feat against the: “Vietcong”, with General Midwinter famously opining: “we had to burn the village to save the villagers.”[21]When a Pentagon spokesman was asked about a wedding party which had been bombed by NATO – killing ninety-three civilians – the spokesman replied: “the people there are dead because we wanted them dead.”[22] Canadian troops have assisted their imperial masters in erecting a gulag known as Bagram Air Base where additional crimes against humanity are known to be committed daily including torture and forced confession. Pilger interviewed one Afghani who had been kidnapped by the NATO occupiers, incarcerated and then: “tortured for sixteen days, standing for ten consecutive days until his legs became so swollen that the shackles around his legs stopped the blood flow.”[23]

As a result of these most recent fascistic blunders the world has been made a fantastically more dangerous place, extremism is rife and the west is perceived as the enemy of most of the world. Each western bomb which massacres Afghanis and Iraqis acts as recruiting sergeant, luring alienated young Muslims onto the rocks of obscurantism and sectarianism. Indeed a myriad of questions remain to be posited in order to expound the theories enunciated by Marx and Engels within the context of the so called “War on Terror”. Such questions include: why and how has this unmitigated disaster been able to ensue? Who has benefitted from a more volatile and fragmented planet? And how do these grotesque crimes against humanity relate to the class analysis which Marx and Engels adumbrated?

The pugnacious War of Terror unleashed by the American Empire is only explained cogently and lucidly through a Marxist paradigm. It was often suggested in Trotskyite circles that fascism was merely: “capitalism with its gloves off.”[24] This recent attack against Islam – by the polity which Hall refers to unambiguously as the “American Empire of possessive individualism”, with collaboration from the empire’s potentate regimes in the Middle East – have provided the ruling class with access to strategic bases, vast swathes of oil, justifications for domestic repression of civil liberties as well as the conjuring of a ubiquitous phobia against a whole group of people, namely the Islamic citizens of the globe. Never before has the vilified enemy of an empire been so nebulously defined as the Islamic community has been contemporarily. The Islamic community constitutes around a sixth of humanity and spans across every continent. Despite the scope and diversity of the Islamic world, the media-led demonization process has stigmatized all the totems of Islam and has dehumanized and traduced the non-radical majority thus fostering the racist sentiments amongst non-Muslims which buttresses the bourgeoisie and their iniquitous agenda. Mamdani adduces: “The self-appointed leaders of the ‘the West’. . .(are) taking on an entire civilization. . . the implication is unmistakable and undisguised: whether in Afghanistan, Palestine or Pakistan, Islam must be quarantined and devil exorcized from it. . .This is why the point of the Crusades was not to convert Muslims but to exterminate them. . .the Crusades demonized the Muslim as evil incarnate.”[25] This egregious tactic employed by the ruling class, of using fear to corrode the equanimity of the proletariat, imbuing many proletarians with an affinity to their leaders, serves the bourgeoisie greatly. The fostering of troglodytic perceptions of the planet compounds globalized divisiveness and inculcates fear amongst workers from different polities which fragments solidarity amongst workers and strengthens the hand of the ruling class. The allegiance and obedience of the international proletariat to the hidden agenda of the ruling classes is therefore neither myopia nor a natural occurrence it is an orchestrated, planned tactic to thwart the emancipatory aspirations of the international working class. The hawkish propaganda against Islam encourages the working classes to become patriotic, nationalistic and jingoistic all of which benefits the ruling class and detracts from humanity.

The British 18^thcentury, anti-imperialist, parliamentarian Dr Johnson referred to the unenlightened concept of patriotism tersely as: “The last refuge of the scoundrel.”[26]British jingoism was only able to perpetuate whilst the ruling classes were able to control the minds of the proletariat. Once working class men and women begun to identify with the anti-colonial struggles being led by the so called “terrorists” of the epoch, such as Gandhi and Nehru in India, Nkrumah in Ghana, Kenyatta in Kenya, Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus[27]and many more, the ruling class were bereft of the clout and authority which they required to maintain their oblique existence, resulting in the dismantling of the British imperial despoliation machine. Indeed contemporarily the globalization of capital has not led to the globalization of people. The ruling classes still incarcerate the proletariat within the confines of the nation-state so as to diffuse class conscious internationalism and ensure an abundance of young men and women willing to fight at the behest of their masters. Proletarian internationalism and globalized capitalism are two diametrically opposite, irreconcilable concepts; the former is yet to come into fruition whilst the latter is in its most unfettered and rapacious expression currently.

Marx and Engels irrefutably made many astute observations in regard to the capitalist system. However less conciliatory was their proposition that: “Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class” and in regard to the bourgeoisie specifically: “It’s fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.”[28]Whilst revolutions did occur, the counter-revolutions were always invariably stronger. Marx and Engles hypothesized that: “The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. . .the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself.”[29]This proposition must be seen as axiomatically fanciful in light of the truism that the bourgeoisie since 1848 has in fact ossified its economic position rather than engendering “it’s own grave diggers.”[30] Whilst humanity’s foot soldiers sported tattered green berets and fought with decrepit Kalashnikovs, the defenders of capitalism had US trained mercenaries toting AK47s, Nuclear tipped missiles and a plethora of Weapons of Mass Destruction, allowing them to preserve their economic interests. The hypothetical “weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism” from the nineteenth century, became real weapons -refined by workers in factories and improved by scientists in laboratories – in the twentieth century, and then were utilized by the bourgeoisie to fell class conscious proletarians into the twenty-first century. For every inspirational movement which attempted to overthrow the bourgeoisie in the latter half of the twentieth century, the American Empire used its hegemonic influence, money, and military might to subvert the revolutionaries by buttressing their “comprador” colluders, funneling guns and dollars to them aboundingly.

Cuba is the one country which has defied the American Empire, despite the barrage of hostilities directed against them. When the Cuban people arose against the US backed tyrant Fulgencio Batista in 1959, and rapidly constructed a more just and egalitarian society, the American Empire and its comprador puppets in Latin America collaborated to visit sabotage, subterfuge and terror attacks upon the besieged island in order to subvert the revolution. The wrathfulness arose exactly because Cuba was an example to the world of another way to organize a society. Due to the repugnance evoked by the humanism and collectivism displayed by the Cuban revolution, the US trained and armed terrorists who invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, blew up power stations and infrastructure, and since have tried to murder Fidel Castro over six-hundred times.[31]The American Empire has also illegally imposed a forty-six year long embargo upon the island in a failed attempt to strangle the island’s economy and diffuse the revolutionary fervor. Whenever revolutions have occurred throughout the world, the American Empire and its supine collaborators have been able to employ coercion, propaganda and terror attacks to overwhelm all with the exception of Cuba’s revolution.

Thus Marx and Engels’ prescribed destiny for the working classes, namely the formation of a classless and non-exploitative society, has not in anyway lost its resonance. Neither were they misguided when they asserted that: “Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of private property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like a sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.”[32] In fact the statement is arguably more applicable to the modern era that is was in 1848 when the manifesto was published. Rather it was the two author’s underestimation of the international bourgeoisie’s ability to overwhelm the international proletariat which is where the two sages’ thesis is rendered bereft. Nevertheless it is also evident that the American Empire is overstretched and the system it represents is increasingly discredited throughout the world; a truism which perhaps offers sanguine prospects to humanists, socialists and communists contemporarily. Almost two decades after capitalism declared “the end of history”, the left has made a decent revival. Nepal recently elected Maoists, Cyprus have recently elected the Communist Party as have Moldova. Spain is lead by a party also purporting to be socialist and anti-imperialist. Latin America has made a significant shift to the left led by Venezuela where the sagacious Hugo Chavez has lit a path, along with Cuba, for others to follow. The Venezuelan revolution is eradicating illiteracy and poverty, providing universal healthcare and nationalizing the means of production in a gradualist manor, whilst subverting the embargo on Cuba, paying off the IMF loans of other Latin American countries, and encouraging unity and solidarity against the leviathan to the north. In Nicaragua the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, whose revolution was subverted by the American Empire in the 1980s, is now the president elect of the country. Evo Morales in Bolivia has become the first indigenous president in the Americas running on a leftist platform. In Ecuador, President-elect Rafael Correa, a man of Quechua ancestry, is contributing stoically to the Bolivarian revolution which is taking place hemispherically. The American Empire is undoubtedly in decline and the People’s Republic of China is rising which raises the potential for a globalized, multi-polar world, more conducive to collectivism, redistribution and ultimately revolutionary change. China is a country which was founded on Marxist principles and whose revolution has dragged more people out of poverty than any government has in the history of humanity. A multi-polar world would not implicitly expunge all forms of social inequality neither would each power necessarily be governed by paragons of virtue. However with the Marxist leanings of countries like China and the countries which make up the Bolivarian movement in Latin America – who are equally embracing Marxism with indigenous characteristics as their guiding philosophy – if further empowered will stand to fetter the rapacious corporate crusade which afflicts the world currently. Fidel Castro’s analysis of Marx’s legacy is apposite:

“Marx knew more about capitalism than he did about socialism, because Marx conceived socialism as a society that would come afterwards. He did not try to describe how a socialist system would be, and even less to say how a socialist constitution should be. He was well aware it was not his task. His task was to thoroughly study a social system, a historical law. He was absolutely certain that that society would inevitably have to be replaced by another, not because of anybody’s whim, nor because of anybody’s wish, but as a real and objective need of human development”[33]

Marx and Engels envisaged revolution not reformation, they envisaged systemic breakdown not systemic evolution. This was all prophesized prior to the production of nuclear weapons and the commodification of knowledge via the corporate media. Previously for the proletariat to arm themselves and militarize was a legitimate threat to the exploitative minority. Currently this is not the case. Lenin defined the noun gun, as “a weapon with a worker at both ends”, currently the same is true for the imperial wars where proletarians are being pitched against fellow proletarian. But contemporary revolution is not conducive to the militarized class consciousness of yore because the agents of state-terror can massacre workers and commit pogroms with their stealth bombers and apache helicopters without any real need for confrontations to ensue. Rigoberta Menchú exposed the extent to which the ruling classes would go to visit pogroms in her native Guatemala. Her book: I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatemala [34] expounds the truism that the bourgeoisie are better equipped and better funded that any indigenous inhabitants of any polity. The proletariat must hence follow Castro, Chavez, Morales, Correa, and the other socialists as foot soldiers in the “battle for ideas” and struggle to recalibrate the world, redefine sovereignty and ferment grass roots politics, which will engender genuine socialist societies. As Chavez says: “Our ideology, our conviction, our awareness and our constitution are all weapons.”[35]Fidel Castro endorsed the non-violent solution to the world’s afflictions at a ministerial meeting:

“The world’s problems cannot be solved with nuclear weapons. Bombs can kill the hungry, the sick and the ignorant, but they cannot kill hunger, disease, ignorance or the people’s just rebellion. In a holocaust, the rich will also die. They have the most to lose. Let us try to solve the world’s problems in a civilized way. That is our responsibility, and the indispensible requirement for mankind’s survival”[36]

In conclusion it is true that Marx and Engels’ prophesies were astute and noble, but their methods were ambiguous and unsubstantiated. The Cuban revolution occurred in a different epoch with different conditions and therefore to aspire to replicate the 1959 defenestrating of the bourgeoisie – in the style Fidel’s army illuminated – would be undoubtedly futile in contemporary conditions. The revolution is however forthcoming but it will be through internal power struggles within the multi-polar context which will eventually inosculate the working classes leading to proletarian internationalism and the classless society aspired to by Marx and Engles.

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[1]Karl Marx and Frederick Engles, The Communist Manifesto (London: Verso,1998),18.

[2] Marx et al, 39.

[3] Marx et al, 42.

[4] James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Globalization Unmasked (Nova Scotia: Fernwood Publishing Ltd, 2001), 12.

[5] Anthony J Hall, The American Empire and The Fourth World (Quebec: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2003), 520.

[6] Hall, 471.

[7] William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Common Courage Press, 1995), 15.

[8] Adam Hochschilds, King Leopold’s Ghost (New York: First Marina Books,1999), 301.

[9] Pilar Aguilera and Ricardo Fredes, Chile: The Other September 11(Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2006), 5.

[10] David Birmingham, Makers of the Twentieth Century: Kwame Nkrumah (London: Cardinal Books,1990),94.

[11] Michael Mann, American Empires: Past and Present (University of Saskatchewen 2007),17.

[12] Marx et al, 41.

[13] Mann, 26.

[14] Fidel Castro, Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today (Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2000), 78-101.

[15] Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War And The Roots of Terror (New York: Three Leaves Press, 2005), 78.

[16] John Pilger, Freedom Next Time (London: Transworld Publishers, 2007), 371.

[17] Pilger, 371.

[18] Pilger, 364.

[19] Mamdani,87.

[20] Pilger, 365.

[21]Mark Hamilton Lytle, America’s Uncivil Wars: The Sixties Era from Elvis to the Fall of Richard Nixon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 191.

[22] Pilger, 351.

[23] Pilger, 386.

[24]Noam Chomsky, Profit Over People: Neo Liberalism and Global Order (New York Seven Stories Press, 2003),9.

[25] Mamdani, 24-25.

[26] George Galloway, I’m Not the Only One (London: Penguin Books, 2005), 62.

[27] David Birmingham, Decolonization of Africa (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1995), 1.

[28] Marx et al,50.

[29] Marx et al,50.

[30] Marx et al,50.

[31] See the movie: “638 Ways To Kill Castro”.

[32] Marx et al,41.

[33] Castro, 37.