‘We are reviewing our troops deployed abroad. We are simply over-stretched at the moment. We have troops serving in over 80 countries.’ A British Ministry of Defence spokesperson on the decision to withdraw most of the 2,400 British troops stationed in Kosovo ready for redeployment against Iraq. Trevor Rayne reports.
On 4 July the first batch of Royal Marines returned to Britain from Afghanistan. Operations Ptarmigan, Snipe, Condor and Buzzard had failed to locate any Taliban or al-Qaida. Labour Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the mission had been a ‘success’. The commander of the returning troops remarked that operating at altitude was the high point of the exercise. Presumably the low point was the squabble between the soldiers and the Ministry of Defence over why the soldiers’ standard rifle, the SA80-A2, does not work: soldiers blame the design while the Ministry blames poor training and weapon maintenance. Either way, they have very little evidence to go on since hardly a shot was fired in action.
On 20 June Turkey took over command of the International Security Assistance Force from Britain. There are still 400 British soldiers at Bagram air base and SAS forces continue to operate in Afghanistan. 2,000 British military personnel are in the region, including on Royal Navy ships patrolling the Arabian Sea and coasts of Yemen and Somalia. 11,000 coalition forces are in Afghanistan and neighbouring Uzbekistan.
Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga (grand council) proceeded in June as the USA-led coalition intended. In a tent provided by the German government and with $5 million supplied by western governments, the USA forced the former king to renounce all political ambitions and the 1,600 delegates were ‘free’ to take the only decision they were allowed: the re-election of Hamid Karzai as president. The Tajik-led Northern Alliance maintained its domination of the government, holding the key ministries of security, intelligence, police and foreign policy.
On 1 July US planes yet again bombed an Afghan wedding party, killing 54 civilians near the village of Kakrak. The US command said they were the victims of a ‘stray’ bomb but the bombing went on for five hours. US forces then said they were attacked by anti-aircraft fire. Neither President Bush nor US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld would apologise for the killings. The following week Afghanistan’s vice president Haji Abdul Qadir was assassinated. He was a former governor of Nangarhar province bordering Pakistan, running a trading business in Dubai and Germany during Taliban rule. The assassination took place amidst escalating violence between different clans and warlords in central and eastern Afghanistan. Rockets have hit Kabul, Kandahar, Khost and Jalalabad in the past two months as rival groups fight for power. The fledgling Afghan army is massively out-gunned and it is reported that the British and US governments are resorting to payments to try and buy loyalty from warlords to the Karzai government. Following the 1 July US bombing of the wedding party President Karzai’s Afghan bodyguards have been replaced by US troops: Karzai is seen as too tame in his criticism of the USA by members of his own government. Meanwhile, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees has cut food rations to returnees by two thirds because of a shortage of funds.
Target Iraq
Imperialism is shifting its ‘war on terrorism’ towards Iraq. The British Labour government argues that Iraq is in violation of UN resolutions and that an attack on Iraq is therefore justified. Iraq has said that it will accept UN weapons inspectors in return for the lifting of UN sanctions and a guarantee that the US will not attack. The US government does not include the outcome of disputes between UN inspectors and the Iraqi government in its calculations and also says that an attack to remove the Saddam Hussein government is justified. It has no evidence of Iraqi production of weapons of mass destruction and no evidence of Iraq’s collusion with al-Qaida. President Bush has signed an intelligence order to the CIA to kill Saddam Hussein. The French and German governments say that any attack on Iraq must first be ratified by a new UN resolution.
The permanent members of the UN Security Council are the USA, Britain, France, Russia and China. Any one of these can veto Security Council resolutions. Russia and China would oppose any resolution to attack Iraq. Consequently, the British and US governments intend to act without and despite any UN authorisation. For the US ruling class this would be both a symbolic and practical demonstration to any would-be rivals of its unparalleled military might and political power. It would also help it to retain domination of the world’s most vital strategic resource: oil.
In June, addressing graduates of the US military academy at West Point, President Bush unveiled a new guiding strategy, that of ‘pre-emptive strikes’. He said, ‘We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge…our security will require…to be ready for pre-emptive action when necessary to defend our liberty and to defend our lives’. This overturns a 50-year- old strategy opposed to ‘preventative wars’ and based on ‘containment and deterrence’. In January Rumsfeld said, ‘The best, and in some cases, only defence is a good offence.’ He added that such pre-emptive strikes did not require evidence of aggressive intent, ‘Absolute proof cannot be a precondition for action’. Presumably the orders to attack will flow from the gifts of precognition.
Previously the US ruling class understood that pre-emption and anticipation could not be formulae for action because of the threat of retaliation. Now the Soviet Union has gone; Russia is viewed as compliant and the USA intends to build the National Missile Defence system to provide it with immunity from retaliation. ‘Containment and deterrence’ conformed to the post-1945 balance of world power. This balance was recognised in the formation of the UN Security Council and its means of settling disputes. Self-defence was justified on grounds of being subject to ‘armed attack’, not the possibility of being attacked. When Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 on grounds of prevention British Prime Minister Thatcher said: ‘Armed attack in such circumstances cannot be justified. It represents a grave breach of international law’ (Michael Byers, London Review of Books). The UN Security Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning the Israeli action as illegal.
In the past 18 months the US government has refused to agree to the Kyoto Agreement on global warming and refused to ratify the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. It has announced it will tear up the anti-ballistic missile treaties to pursue its National Missile Defence system. It has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by developing ‘battlefield nuclear weapons’ and has opposed the International Criminal Court to try war criminals on the grounds that no international body has jurisdiction over US forces. Now the UN is to be dispensed with and the world will be ruled by raw power.
The British Labour government is tightly bound to the new US strategy and plans. Prime Minister Blair wants to prevent debate about the justifications for attacking Iraq. He said, ‘I suggest we have that discussion when the decisions are actually about to be taken.’ There are now about 200,000 US forces in the Gulf region. US arms manufacturers are working over-time and weapons are being stockpiled. The decision for war has already been taken. In July Britain hosted a conference of Iraqi exiles, including 80 former officers, with US officials in attendance plotting to depose Saddam Hussein. In March the Labour Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon chillingly endorsed the pre-emptive strike doctrine when he referred to Iraq: ‘I am absolutely confident, in the right conditions, we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.’ This is the kind of thinking that Blair and his Labour government does not want debated. In his July Spending Review Chancellor Brown said that to support the international war against terrorism the British armed forces budget would grow from £29.3 billion this year to £32.5 billion in 2005-06, ‘the largest sustained real terms increase in defence spending in 20 years’.
While the choice for war has been made, implementing the decision is not so easy. Senior US and British government officials tour the Gulf states and others thought crucial for staging an attack offering an assortment of bribes and threats. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey have all indicated reluctance to host the attacking forces. The Saudi ruling class knows that further collaboration with the USA, when US and Zionist policy is killing Palestinians, will bring resistance from the masses and the elements that formed al-Qaida. 60% of Jordan’s population is Palestinian. If Jordan hosts the US and British attack troops, the Jordanian government would be in peril. Turkey is undergoing economic and political turmoil. Defections from the governing party threaten to bring down the government. A high profile role for Turkey in an attack on Iraq would polarise the country and make Turkey’s debt management even more infirm. Additionally, the tumbling US stock market and anxiety in US ruling circles makes the choice for war seem potentially reckless when the desire is for stability, and war could send oil prices soaring.
Above all it is the wrath of the masses of the Middle East, seething with anger at the Zionist and US treatment of the Palestinian people, that makes an imperialist strike against Iraq so precarious. Some of that anger must rise here in Britain if we are to stop the Labour government leading us into permanent war at the side of the USA.
Nepal
The British Labour government described its recent decision to supply military aid and training to the Nepalese government as ‘part of the overall battle against terrorism’. Equipment to be supplied includes helicopters, but the British government refused to specify how many British troops are already in Nepal.
The World Bank describes Nepal as the eighth poorest country in the world. Income per head is below $200 a year. Life expectancy in the capital Kathmandu is 71 years; in the rural areas it is 34 years. 93% of the people are engaged in agriculture. 46% of the people have access to safe drinking water. One in ten children die by the age of five years. 39% of male adults are literate, 22% of women are literate. Tourism is the biggest earner of foreign exchange: the government charges $50,000 to any expedition wanting to climb Mount Everest.
In 1996 guerrillas from the Communist Party of Nepal launched an armed struggle against the social and political forces that enforce this poverty, destitution and humiliation. It is this revolt that the British Labour imperialists wish to help crush.
In 1860 the Nepalese monarchy agreed to allow the recruitment of Gurkha units for the British Indian Army and also accepted British ‘guidance’ on foreign policy. Today there are almost 4,000 Gurkhas serving in the British Army. They served in the Falklands/Malvinas in 1982 and in every major military expedition launched by the British state since. Today they will be readied for combat in Iraq: New Labour, old imperialism.
Trevor Rayne
FRFI 168 August /September 2002
