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81

For Your Information / TUC Congress 2023 Convenes in Liverpool: The Need to Establish Anti-War Governme

« Last post by Roger on September 14, 2023, 02:34:49 PM »

   TUC Congress 2023 Convenes in Liverpool: The Need to Establish Anti-War Governments All Over the World Has Never Been Greater

Workers Weekly, RCPBML

Sept 9, 2023


On Sunday, September 10, this year's TUC Congress convenes in Liverpool. Once again, Congress comes at a time when workers in Britain and around the world are asserting that their voice must be heard, recognised and respected. Only the working class has an interest in providing the pressing economic and social problems of society with solutions. This is a moment in history when the working class and people are developing and continuing to fight for the perspective and vantage point that there is only one world, one humanity, and that the use of force to settle conflicts between nations and peoples must be opposed. How to bring about a situation where it is the interests and decision-making of working people which prevail, where a state with a modern democratic personality is brought into being? The need to establish an anti-war government in Britain and anti-war governments all over the world has never been greater.

One of the greatest challenges the workers face is to establish mechanisms for discussion and deliberation amongst their peers so that they can share their experiences as they organise to address the present conditions. Today, the situation in Britain and throughout the world is such that the workers cannot afford to simply adopt pre-established positions fed to them by others, but must work out their own positions and provide themselves with their own information which can reveal what must be done next.

At the TUC Congress, there are 79 motions and many debates planned around motions and composite motions, not least the fight against the new anti-union legislation, the Minimum Service Level (MSL) Act, the fight against poverty pay and for pay restoration and investment in public services such as education and health. However, at this Congress a position is being fed to the delegates by two motions posed as "Solidarity with Ukraine" suggesting that workers are supposed to support an "anti-imperialist" struggle against Russia in Ukraine with "the continuation and increasing of moral, material, and military aid from the UK to Ukraine" (1).

These motions do not address the interests of workers in Britain, Ukraine, Russia or throughout the world and in fact they represent the opposite. They serve the interests of those who are making huge profits out of continuing the war in Ukraine. What do workers have in common with a ruling elite that is using billions of pounds of public funds for schemes which further integrate Britain's economy and whole arms industry into the Anglo-US imperialist war machine and NATO's declared expansion into Eastern Europe and Ukraine up to the borders of the Russian Federation? Such motions ignore that it is the Anglo-US-led NATO warmongering alliance that has deliberately provoked and is escalating the war in Ukraine against Russia. The Ukrainian regime is now almost entirely financed and led militarily by NATO as its proxy army. These Anglo-US imperialists are using the Ukrainian working class and people as cannon fodder for their own interests to "weaken Russia", without getting directly involved themselves. Workers know through their bitter experience of matters here that the aim of the British government in the world is not to bring about peace, or democracy, or self-determination of peoples as they claim, but is to destroy whatever countries they and their oligopolies cannot control in the world.

This is why the Anglo-US-led NATO powers have continued to engage in provocations and warmongering confrontations not only to Russia but also towards the people of China and the DPRK in East Asia. At the same time, these same old colonisers of Africa are continuing to interfere and exploit the African working class and people and continue to rob the rich mineral wealth of the African nations for themselves. They are always at the centre of wars and conflicts in Africa as in the Middle East and elsewhere. None of this is in the interest of workers anywhere and the Anglo-US-led NATO alliance can never be a mechanism workers should support to settle conflicts between nations and peoples.

The working class of Britain must address that it is the only class that can lead the fight for an anti-war government in Britain. In fact, it is their internationalist duty to settle scores with the crimes that Britain's ruling elites have committed while claiming to act in the name of the British people. Britain's role in NATO must be condemned and especially its actions in escalating the war in Ukraine which is not the road to peace. Britain's membership of NATO must be opposed. Facts demonstrate that NATO is a most destructive oligopoly comprised of the military-industrial-civilian complex of the United States, Britain and other countries. Britain's involvement in wars of invasion, occupation and interference abroad have not only led to devastating loss of life and destruction abroad but have led to the militarisation of the British economy. Militarisation of the economy has diverted the resources of the economy thus contributimg to the impoverishment of working people and destruction of vital public services at home. Also, its effect here and world-wide is that it ensures that the people are deprived of the benefits of new developments in science and technology that can be harnessed to improve the life and welfare of the people and address all the pressing economic, scientific, social and cultural problems that face humanity.

These vital questions must be discussed by the workers themselves and their voice needs to be heard so as to work out their positions. Only the working class has an interest to transform the situation and harness the technological advances to serve a human-centred society that looks after the interests of working people for their prosperity and for peace at home and abroad. The working class of Britain must address that it is the only class that can save the day and lead the fight for an Anti-War Government in Britain. Workers' Weekly calls on the TUC delegates to rise to the occasion. The need to establish anti-war governments all over the world has never been greater.

Note 1. TUC Congress motions https://congress?tuc.org.uk/motion_type/all_motions/#sthash.POp0XDrO.ZbzvTp8l.dpb

82

South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

« Last post by Phil Talbot on August 03, 2023, 01:14:46 PM »

ErichMariaRemarque: 'This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and, least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of people who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war.'

83

For Your Information / Glimpses of an Endgame in Ukraine

« Last post by Roger on July 28, 2023, 11:40:36 AM »

   Glimpses of an Endgame in Ukraine
M. K. Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline posted in Internationalist 360

JUly 25, 2023


   Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) met Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, St. Petersburg, July 23, 2023

The problem with the war in Ukraine is that it has been all smoke and mirrors. The Russian objectives of "demilitarisation" and "de-Nazification" of Ukraine wore a surreal look. The western narrative that the war is between Russia and Ukraine, where central issue is the Westphalian principle of national sovereignty, wore thin progressively leaving a void.

There is a realisation today that the war is actually between Russia and NATO and that Ukraine had ceased to be a sovereign country since 2014 when the CIA and sister western agencies — Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, etc.— installed a puppet regime in Kiev.

The fog of war is lifting and the battle lines are becoming visible. At an authoritative level, a candid discussion is beginning as regards the endgame.

Certainly, Russian President Vladimir Putin's videoconference with the permanent members of the Security Council in Moscow last Friday and his meeting with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in St. Petersburg on Sunday become the defining moment. The two transcripts stand back-to-back and need to be read together. (here and here)

There is no question that the two events were carefully choreographed by the Kremlin officials and intended to convey multiple messages. Russia exudes confidence that it has achieved dominance on the battle front — having thrashed the Ukrainian military and Kiev's "counteroffensive" moving into the rear view mirror. But Moscow anticipates that the Biden administration may be having an even bigger war plan in mind.

At the Security council meeting, Putin "de-classified" the intelligence reports reaching Moscow from various sources indicative of moves to insert into Western Ukraine a Polish expeditionary force. Putin called it "a well-organised, equipped regular military unit to be used for operations" in Western Ukraine "for the subsequent occupation of these territories."

Indeed, there is a long history of Polish revanchism. Putin, himself a keen student of history, talked at some length about it. He sounded stoical that if the Kiev authorities were to acquiesce with this Polish-American plan, "as traitors usually do, that's their business. We will not interfere."

But, Putin added, "Belarus is part of the Union State, and launching an aggression against Belarus would mean launching an aggression against the Russian Federation. We will respond to that with all the resources available to us." Putin warned that what is afoot "is an extremely dangerous game, and the authors of such plans should think about the consequences."

On Sunday, at the meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg, Lukashenko picked up the thread of discussion. He briefed Putin about new Polish deployments close to Belarus border — just 40 kms from Brest — and other preparations under way — the opening of a repair shop for Leopard tanks in Poland, activation of an airfield in Rzeszow on Ukrainian border (about 100 kms from Lvov) for use of Americans transferring weaponry, mercenaries, etc.

Lukashenko said: "This is unacceptable to us. The alienation of western Ukraine, the dismemberment of Ukraine and the transfer of its lands to Poland are unacceptable. Should people in Western Ukraine ask us then we will provide support to them. I ask you (Putin) to discuss and think about this issue. Naturally, I would like you to support us in this regard. If the need in such support arises, if Western Ukraine asks us for help, then we will provide assistance and support to people in western Ukraine. If this happens, we will support them in every possible way."

Lukashenko continued, "I am asking you to discuss this issue and think it through. Obviously, I would like you to support us in this regard. With this support, and if western Ukraine asks for this help, we will definitely provide assistance and support to the western population of Ukraine."

As could be expected, Putin didn't respond — at least, not publicly. Lukashenko characterised the Polish intervention as tantamount to the dismemberment of Ukraine and its "piece meal" absorption into NATO. Lukashenko was upfront: "This is supported by the Americans." Interestingly, he also sought the deployment of Wagner fighters to counter the threat to Belarus.

The bottom line is that Putin and Lukashenko held such a discussion publicly at all. Clearly, both spoke on the basis of intelligence inputs. They anticipate an inflection point ahead.

It is one thing that the Russian people are well aware that their country is de facto fighting the NATO in Ukraine. But it is an entirely different matter that the war may dramatically escalate to a war with Poland, a NATO army that the US regards as its most important partner in continental Europe.

By dwelling at some length on Polish revanchism, which has a controversial record in modern European history, Putin probably calculated that in Europe, including in Poland, there could be resistance to the machinations that might drag NATO into a continental war with Russia.

Equally, Poland must be dithering too. According to Politico, Poland's military is about 150,000 strong, out of which 30,000 belong to a new territorial defence force who are "weekend soldiers who undergo 16 days of training followed up by refresher courses."

Again, Poland's military might doesn't translate into political influence in Europe because the centrist forces that dominate the EU distrust Warsaw, which is controlled by the nationalist Law and Justice Party whose disregard for democratic norms and the rule of law has damaged Poland's reputation across the bloc.

Above all, Poland has reason to be worried about the reliability of Washington. Going forward, Polish leadership's concern, paradoxically, will be that Donald Trump may not return as president in 2024. Despite the cooperation with the Pentagon over the Ukraine war, Poland's current leadership remains distrustful of President Joe Biden — much like Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

On balance, therefore, it stands to reason that the sabre-rattling by Lukashenko and Putin's lesson on European history can be taken as more of a forewarning to the West with a view to modulate an endgame in Ukraine that is optimal for Russian interests. A dismemberment of Ukraine or an uncontrollable expansion of the war beyond its borders will not be in the Russian interests.

But the Kremlin leadership will factor in the contingency that Washington's follies stemming out of its desperate need to save face from a humiliating defeat in the proxy war, may leave no choice to the Russian forces but to cross the Dnieper and advance all the way to Poland's border to prevent an occupation of Western Ukraine by the so-called Lublin Triangle, a regional alliance with virulent anti-Russian orientation comprising Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, formed in July 2020 and promoted by Washington.

Putin's back-to-back meetings in Moscow and St. Petersburg throw light on the Russian thinking as to three key elements of the endgame in Ukraine. First, Russia has no intentions of territorial conquest of Western Ukraine but will insist on having a say on how the new boundaries of the country and the future regime will look and act like, which means that an anti-Russian state will not be allowed.

Second, the Biden administration's plan to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat in the war is a non-starter, as Russia will not hesitate to counter any continued attempt by the US and NATO to use Ukrainian territory as a springboard to wage a renewed proxy war, which means that Ukraine's "piece meal" absorption into NATO will remain a fantasy.

Third, most important, the battle-hardened Russian army backed by a powerful defence industry and a robust economy will not hesitate to confront NATO member countries bordering Ukraine if they trespass on Russia's core interests, which means that Russia's core interests will not be held hostage to Article 5 of the NATO Charter.

84

South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

« Last post by Phil Talbot on July 17, 2023, 03:06:18 PM »

'... bring the troops home ...' [... end the overseas military 'adventures' ...]

85

For Your Information / Comparison of Prigozhin with the Bolsheviks is absolutely illiterate historical

« Last post by Roger on July 01, 2023, 09:22:35 AM »

Yuri Afonin: Comparison of Prigozhin with the Bolsheviks is absolutely illiterate historically
Communist Party of the Russian Federation

June 26, 2023


   [robotic translation] First Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Yu.V. Afonin commented on statements that the leader of the armed rebellion, Yevgeny Prigozhin, allegedly did the same thing that the Bolsheviks did in 1917.

Afonin Yury Vyacheslavovich First Deputy Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Deputy of the State Duma

For the past three days, the whole country has been discussing Prigozhin's armed rebellion. In particular, there are many historical parallels. President Putin in his address compared the current situation with the events of 1917. Characteristically, however, he did not mention the Bolsheviks in any negative context. However, immediately there were commentators who tried to settle scores with the Bolsheviks again. Most of them can be ignored. But among these commentators was a former very high-ranking official - Sergei Stepashin. He literally stated the following: "Vladimir Vladimirovich compared the situation with the events of 1917. I understand what we are talking about - then the Bolsheviks betrayed and, in fact, destroyed the army, and we lost the First World War, or rather, we did not lose, but did not become winners.

Of course, as the ideological heirs of the Bolsheviks, we consider it necessary to answer.

In fact, anyone who knows history decently understands that in 1917 the Russian army and the Russian state were destroyed not by the Bolsheviks at all, but by completely different forces. And this happened long before Lenin and his associates came to power. And the Bolsheviks just became that powerful historical force that revived the Armed Forces of the country in the form of the Red Army and gathered back the already virtually collapsed state. It was the Leninists who saved Russia, did not allow it to be torn to pieces by the then collective West.

The fact that it was not the Bolsheviks who destroyed the Russian army in 1917 was recognized even by the leaders of the white movement. If you read the diaries of General Alekseev or the memoirs of General Denikin, you can see that they unequivocally link the collapse of the army with Order No. 1 of the Petrograd Soviet, issued on March 1 (14), 1917. This order gave rise to such phenomena as the election of commanders, the discussion of orders for the command of soldiers, and so on. In fact, this gave impetus to the complete disintegration of army discipline. But who was the author of the text of this order? History has preserved their names. Attorney at Law Nikolai Sokolov is a non-factional Social Democrat, Nikolai Chkheidze is a Menshevik, and Semyon Klivansky is a Menshevik. There were no Bolsheviks around. Then, in fact, the same line in the army was pursued by the Socialist-Revolutionary Kerensky, first as Minister of War of the Provisional Government, then as its head. Most of these figures, by the way, then fiercely fought the Bolsheviks.

Why did the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries turn to a policy that actually destroyed the army during a huge war? By and large, the reason is that they did not want to give the people what they wanted, but at the same time they tried to secure popularity in the army. After February, the revolutionary spirit of most of the leaders of the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries evaporated. They were frightened that the revolutionary mood of the masses was going much further than the overthrow of tsarism and stood up in defense of the property of the landowners and capitalists. They refused to hand over the landowners' land to the peasants, dragged on with the resolution of this key issue, telling tales that supposedly it could not be resolved without the Constituent Assembly. They dreamed of leaving plants and factories in the hands of the capitalists. And this is not surprising: in the Provisional Government, along with the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, were the oligarchs of that time - Alexander Guchkov, Mikhail Tereshchenko, Alexander Konovalov. The ministers of the Provisional Government wanted to continue the war in the interests of the Entente, that is, in fact, shed Russian blood for the sake of the profits of the bankers of London, Paris and New York. But at the same time, without giving anything to the people, they tried to somehow win over the soldiers to their side and did this at the cost of destroying discipline, in fact, at the cost of the collapse of the army.

It was because of this collapse of the army that the Bolsheviks later had to conclude the Brest Peace. Now the darkness of critics of the Bolsheviks has divorced, but none of them can formulate: how would they continue the war with the mighty Kaiser Germany and its allies in conditions when the army had already collapsed? It's just that they can't say anything about it.

To all those who really want to understand what happened then, I strongly advise you to watch the film "The Great Statesman". It is easy to find it on the Internet. This is a film about Lenin. We filmed it in 2020, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ilyich, and filmed it in collaboration with leading historians. There, on a large amount of factual material, we show that Lenin then acted precisely as a great statesman, under whose leadership the army was revived and the country was preserved.

The Red Army, relying on the broadest support of the people, was able to beat both the interventionists of the then collective West, and the whites, who acted as mercenaries of the West, and various nationalists, including Ukrainian nationalists - Petliurists, the ideological predecessors of the current Kiev politicians. It was thanks to the Bolsheviks that Russia then survived as a state.

The same position is taken by the Russian communists today. For us now the most important task is to preserve our state, which is subjected to the most powerful pressure from Western imperialism.

86

South Tyneside Stop the War / 73rd Anniversary of US Military Aggression against DPRK

« Last post by Roger on July 01, 2023, 08:59:59 AM »

73rd Anniversary of US Military Aggression against DPRK: Solidarity with the DPRK against the US
Workers Weekly RCPBML

June 25, 2023


   PHOTO: Korean Friendship Association UK protest outside the US Embassy in London on June 24th in solidarity with the DPRK against the US

PHOTO: South Korean protests against US military exercises

Sunday, June 25, marks the 73rd anniversary of the US-led military aggression against the Korean nation that started the 1950-1953 Korean War (1). This US-led coalition of aggression, under the flag of the United Nations, involved troops from 17 countries, with Britain as one of the leading forces. Aimed at occupying the whole of Korea, the war lasted three years until the US, Britain and the troops from the south of Korea were defeated and the US was forced to sign the armistice on July 27, 1953, 70 years ago next month. This weekend events are being held in Britain and around the world to start a month of expressing solidarity with the DPRK and against the US, and paying tribute to the heroic Korean people who continue to affirm their right to be by fighting for an independent and united Korea, and for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang mass rallies took place at different parts of the municipality on June 25, the day of struggle against U.S. imperialism. More than 120,000 working people and youth and students in the capital participated.

Today, the US with the south Korean military are marking this anniversary by once again staging five ongoing "combined joint firepower annihilation drills" targeting the DPRK. Four of these exercises were in June. Also, last week it was reported that the USS Michigan, one of the largest nuclear missile submarines in the world, "capable of launching special forces missions", was in south Korea as part of these exercises. The statements say it is part of the recent bilateral agreements on enhancing "regular visibility" of US strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula in "response to North Korea's advancing nuclear programme". That the DPRK defends itself against US nuclear weapons, which have always been present, if not "visible" on the Korean peninsula, is not a crime but is its right in the context of the ever-present US nuclear blackmail and threats. It is the right of all nations and peoples to defend their self-determination and peaceful development.

These ongoing military and nuclear weapons exercises on this 73rd anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War are not only the largest in many years but are accompanied by false claims that such exercises are "defensive" to the Republic of Korea (ROK). It is clear that they are now openly aimed, as they were in 1950, at waging war against the DPRK, at "occupation of Pyongyang" and at a "beheading operation". As they did before in 1950, the US and its allies wheel out the false claims that it is the DPRK that is the "aggressor" and threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Kim Il Sung, President of the DPRK and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army in the Korean War.

Condemning these exercises in April when they were announced, a KCNA commentary (2) pointed out that the exercises demonstrate that the hostility of the US to the DPRK has never been greater. The commentary added that this hostility is reminding the people and army of the DPRK of the aggression of June 1950, when they were subject to this war crime against the people of Korea, and is further arousing the greatest vigilance against the military and nuclear aggression posed by the US on the Korean Peninsula. On June 15, a representative of the Ministry of Defence of the DPRK issued a strong warning against the "combined joint firepower annihilation drill" targeting the DPRK.

In the Korean War, three million people died at the hands of the Anglo-US forces in Korea. The US carpet-bombed the DPRK and there was hardly a brick left standing in the cities and towns of the north. The US and their allies did not hesitate to use terrible chemical and biological weapons, and even thought of using nuclear weapons, provoking a wave of indignation throughout the world. Hundreds of thousands of civilians in the north and south of Korea were massacred. Civilians were buried alive, dismembered, burned to death and drowned. Many were forced to dig their own graves before being executed in the same manner that the Nazis massacred civilians, particularly those who resisted (3).

This was a time when the Korean people had made tremendous sacrifices to defeat the colonial occupation by the Japanese fascists and establish their legitimate right to independence. Already President Kim Il Sung, the leader of the armed struggle against the Japanese occupying forces, and the architect of the liberation of the country, had founded the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on September 9, 1948. It was the US, Britain and their allies that could not tolerate the existence of an independent anti-fascist Korea, with its popular government and its determination to create a socialist society. It was the US, Britain and their allies that divided Korea and maintained their military occupation following the defeat of the fascist forces by the Koreans themselves.

The division of the one nation of Korea continues to this day with the US led punitive trade and economic sanctions, which also block "food and agricultural products" (4), threatening the well-being and lives of the people in the DPRK, which is a mountainous country with smaller areas of arable land than the south of Korea. With these illegal and inhumane sanctions, themselves an act of war, they hope to starve the people of the DPRK into submission and blame their socialist political system.

The dangerous militarisation of the Korean Peninsula by the US continues today as part of its hegemonic ambitions to dominate East Asia and also China. The US is conducting ongoing military and nuclear exercises on land, sea and in the air, in and around the Asian-Pacific Taiwan strait and South China Sea as well as around the Korean Peninsula. Britain has also joined the US in these dangerous military manoeuvres in the Asia-Pacific and on the Korean Peninsula into 2023. This year for the first time since the Korean War, Britain has deployed its Royal Marines to the Korean Peninsula to join the US in its war preparations against the DPRK. This act by the British government was an insulting provocation given that the former soldiers of the Royal Marines of 41 Independent Commando were the ones that had carried out amphibious raids behind north Korean lines between 1950 and 1951 as part of the armed forces of the US, fraudulently dispatched under the United Nations flag (5), which invaded and occupied Korea.

Pyongyang in 1953, the result of US-led barbarity in the Korean War

From the time of the Korean War until now, the US has refused to sign a peace treaty, which betrays its true aims on the Korean Peninsula. The DPRK, its leaders and people's government, far from being the threat to peace, have always stood for peaceful re-unification of the two Koreas and continue to take stands against the interference of the US and for peace worldwide. Unlike the US, Britain and other powers that condemn the DPRK's existence and its right to be, the DPRK has not invaded and occupied any country.

Liberation War Museum, Pyongyang

The interests of all peoples is to build their solidarity with the DPRK and the Korean people against the US to secure peace on the Korean Peninsula and to put an end to the more than 70 years of US-engineered division, militarisation, tension, and strife between north and south and oppose the criminal trade and economic sanctions against the DPRK. The peace-loving people of Britain must condemn British government for its support for these ongoing and large-scale military exercises and provocations against the DPRK and demand that Britain gets its marines and other forces out of the Korean Peninsula.

Today, when the US imperialists and their cohorts, such as Britain, are stepping up war preparations in the Asia-Pacific, it is more important than ever to remember the terrible tragedies visited upon the Korean people during that war that must never again be permitted. The working class and people must play their part to ensure that another war does not break out on the Korean Peninsula and that Britain ends its hostile stand towards the DPRK.

Notes
1. On June 25, 1950, after a whole series of incursions and military provocation against the DPRK, the forces from the south of Korea, placed under US command, crossed the 38th parallel, which separates the north from the south, with an objective to "disperse and disarm North Korea's People's Army" in order to "take Pyongyang in three days" (to cite Syngman Rhee, "President" of the South Korean puppet government at the end of 1949).

2. "War Maniacs' Reckless Move", KCNA commentary, April 2, 2023
http://www?kcna?kp/en/article/q/55cc18c6b08e669b07a7abf7b8c9dce3.kcmsf

3. All this was documented by the Commission of the Women's International Democratic Federation to Korea May 16-27, 1951. In their report We Accuse! the Commission condemned these crimes that were being committed against defenceless civilians and called for the UN to demand an end to all fighting, that all foreign troops be pulled out of Korea and for the Korean people to determine their own affairs.

4. Democratic People's Republic of Korea sanctions: guidance
https://www?gov?uk/government/publications/democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-sanctions-guidance/democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea-sanctions-guidance

5. The US accused the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) of "starting the war" when it was they who were interfering in the internal affairs of Korea which, through the efforts of the people themselves, had won its independence by defeating the Japanese occupation in August 1945. First the US illegally divided Korea into north and south. It then mobilised the UN to intervene in a civil war which constituted foreign interference in the internal affairs of a country and is illegal under the UN Charter. The UN Security Council used the fact that the People's Republic of China had not yet been permitted to take its seat because the US was supporting the deposed Nationalist Chinese regime of Chiang Kai-shek that had taken refuge in Taiwan, and Russia was absent in protest of this refusal to seat the legitimate government of China, to adopt the resolution. The resolution to wage war on the Korean people was adopted in contravention of Article 32 of the UN Charter which calls for parties to the dispute to be present at the discussions of the problems. It is also in contravention of paragraph 3 of Article 27 of the UN Charter, which provides that a Security Council resolution is only valid if approved by a vote of Council members, including approval by all permanent Council members. Neither condition was met since, at the time, neither the Soviet Union nor China were present.

87

South Tyneside Stop the War / Declassified files expose British role in NATOs Gladio terror armies

« Last post by Roger on July 01, 2023, 08:57:56 AM »

Declassified files expose British role in NATOs Gladio terror armies
The Grayzone by Kit Klarenberg

June 19, 2023

   Newly declassified British Foreign Office files have added disturbing details to the history of Operation Gladio. The covert operation was uncovered in 1990, when the public learned that the CIA, MI6 and NATO trained and directed an underground army of fascist paramilitary units across Europe, deploying its assets to undermine political opponents, including through false flag terror attacks.

Among them was a young Silvio Berlusconi, the media oligarch who served as Italian Prime Minister in four separate governments between 1994 and 2011. Listed as a member of the P2, the secret Cold War-era cabal of political elites devoted to Gladio's aims, Berlusconi undoubtedly took some weighty secrets to the grave when he died this June 12th.

It is almost impossible to believe that inconvenient truths were not weeded from Britain's documentary record on Operation Gladio prior to declassification. Nonetheless, the recently released material is highly illuminating. Covering a fraught twelve month period after the first public disclosure of Gladio's existence, the papers illustrate how London's foreign intelligence apparatus kept a keen eye on the continent as events unfolded.

The papers not only shed fresh light on the conspiracy, they underline Gladio's relevance as British intelligence joins its America counterparts in contemporary plots involving secret partisan forces from Syria to Ukraine.

Various passages dotted across the tranche strongly suggest the British knew much more than they publicly admitted about egregious criminal deeds, including the attempted overthrow of an allied Italian government and the kidnap and murder of its leader.

A ‘clandestine resistance network' goes to work

Gladio consisted of a constellation of "stay behind" anti-communist partisan armies whose ostensible mission was to fend off the Red Army in the event of Soviet invasion. In reality, these forces committed countless violent and criminal acts as part of a "strategy of tension" designed to discredit the left and justify a security state clampdown.

As Vincenzo Vinciguerra, a Gladio operative jailed for life in 1984 for a car bombing in Italy that killed three police officers and injured two, explained:

You were supposed to attack civilians, women, children, innocent people from outside the political arena. The reason was simple, force the public to turn to the state and ask for greater security People would willingly trade their freedom for the security of being able to walk the streets, go on trains or enter a bank. This was the political logic behind the bombings. They remain unpunished because the state cannot condemn itself.

The scandal triggered in Western capitals by the exposure of Gladio dominated mainstream headlines for months. The European parliament responded by passing a resolution condemning the existence of a "clandestine parallel intelligence and armed operations organization which escaped all democratic controls, may have interfered illegally in the internal political affairs of member states and have at their disposal independent arsenals and military resources thereby jeopardizing the democratic structures of the countries in which they are operating."

The resolution called for independent judicial and parliamentary investigations into Gladio in every European state. But aside from inquiries in Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland, nothing of substance materialized. What's more, investigators heavily redacted their findings while avoiding having them translated them into English. This may help explain why the historic scandal has been largely forgotten.

In this context, the newly declassified documents may be one of the most valuable primary sources to date offering new insights into the origins and internal workings of NATO's secret terror militias in Italy.

Take for example an aide-mémoire (see it here) prepared by Francesco Fulci, Italy's permanent representative to the UN, which was shared at a "super-restricted" November 6th 1990 meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's principal political decision-making body, then forwarded to senior British officials at home and abroad.

Based on a note provided by Rome's then-premier Giulio Andreotti to "the Head of the Italian Parliamentary Commission investigating terrorist incidents," the aide-mémoire begins by noting that following World War II, Western intelligence agencies devised "unconventional means of defence, by creating in their territories a hidden network of resistance aimed at operating, in case of enemy occupation, through information gathering, sabotage, propaganda and guerrilla warfare."

According to the aide-mémoire, authorities in Rome began laying the foundations of such an organization in 1951. Four years later, Italian Military Intelligence (SIFAR) and "a corresponding allied service"—a reference to the CIA—then formally agreed on the organization and the activities of a "post-occupation clandestine network":

Gladio] was; formed by agents active in the territory who, by virtue of their age, sex and activities, could reasonably avoid eventual deportation and-imprisonment by the foreign occupiers; easy to manage even from a command structure outside the occupied territory; at a top secret level and hence subdivided into ‘cells' so as to minimize any possible damage caused by defections, accidents or network penetration.

The "clandestine resistance network" was subdivided into separate branches, covering information operations, sabotage, propaganda, radio communications, cypher, reception and evacuation of people and equipment. Each of these structures was to operate autonomously,

with liaison and coordination ensured by an external base.

SIFAR established a dedicated, secret section to recruit and train Gladio operatives. Meanwhile, it maintained five "ready deployment guerrilla units in areas of special interest" across Italy which awaited activation on a continuous basis.

"Operational materials", including a wide variety of explosives, weapons—such as mortars, hand grenades, guns and knives—and ammunition were stashed in 139 secret underground caches across the country. In April 1972, "to improve security," these arsenals were exhumed, and moved to offices of the Carabinieri, Rome's military police, near the original sites.

Only 127 of the weapons storehouses were officially recovered. The aide-mémoir states that at least two "were very likely taken away by unknown persons" at the time they were buried, in October 1964. Who these operatives were and what they did with their stolen arms is left to the imagination. British involvement in the coup effort

Fulci was eventually quizzed by attendees of the North Atlantic Council summit "as to whether Gladio had deviated from its proper objectives." In other words, beyond operating strictly as a "stay behind" force, to be activated in the event of Soviet invasion. While "he could not add to what was in the aide-mémoire," Fulci confirmed "weapons used in some terrorist incidents had come from stores established by Gladio."

This may reflect the fact that political violence was one of Gladio's "proper objectives." A June 1959 SIFAR report unearthed by historian Daniele Ganser confirms guerrilla action against "domestic threats" was hardwired into the operation from its inception. In the Italian context, this entailed systematically terrorizing the left.

As the Italian Communist party surged in polls ahead of the country's 1948 election, the CIA pumped money into the coffers of the Christian Democrats and an attendant anti-communist propaganda campaign. The cloak-and-dagger effort was so successful in preventing the outbreak of a left-wing government in Rome that Langley secretly intervened in every one of Rome's elections for at least the next 24 years.

Yet the covert CIA operations were insufficient to prevent Italians from occasionally electing the wrong governments. The 1963 general election saw the Christian Democrats prevail again, this time under the leadership of left-leaning politician Aldo Moro, who sought to construct a coalition with the Socialists and Democratic Socialists. Over the next year, protracted disputes erupted between these parties over what form their administration would take.

In the meantime, SIFAR and CIA black ops specialists such as William Harvey, known as "America's James Bond," cooked up a plot to prevent that government from taking office. Known as "Piano Solo," it dispatched Gladio operatives for a false flag assassination attempt on Moro that would deliberately fail.

According to the plan, the kidnapper was expected to claim they were ordered to kill Moro by communists, thereby justifying the violent seizure of multiple political party and newspaper headquarters, along with the imprisonment of troublesome leftists at the Gladio chapter's secret headquarters in Sardinia. The plan was ultimately aborted, though it remained on the table throughout 1964.

Moro became Prime Minister without incident and governed until June 1968. Piano Solo fell under official investigation four years later, yet the results were not published until the public first learned of Gladio's existence. Though the findings omitted any reference to Britain's role in the planned coup, the newly released documents strongly suggest London's involvement.

Doomed Italian PM Aldo Moro's photo while in captivity of the Red Brigades

Italy's then-President Francesco Cossiga requested the ministry hand over "details of UK stay behind measures in 1964," according to a detailed February 1991 Foreign Office memo on recent developments in the scandal.

Cossiga apparently made this enquiry as a result of a judge "whose investigations into unsolved terrorist attacks first brought Operation Gladio to light," and who took the "unprecedented step" of demanding the president testify about the conspiracy under oath. By this point, Cossiga had admitted learning of the "stay behind" force while serving as a junior Defense Minister in 1966.

His Foreign Office query strongly suggests British intelligence played a role in Piano Solo, and that the Italian President was well-aware of the plot. "one or more of Moro's kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus"

On March 16th 1978, a unit of the leftist militant Red Brigades kidnapped Moro. He was on his way to a high-level meeting where he planned to give his blessing there to a new coalition government that relied on communist support, when the kidnappers violently extracted him from his convoy. Five of Moro's bodyguards were murdered in the process.

After almost two months in captivity, when it became clear the government would neither negotiate with the Red Brigades nor release any of its jailed members in return for Moro, the kidnappers executed the former Italian Prime Minister. His bullet-riddled corpse was left in a car trunk to rot, and for authorities to find.

Moro's murder has inspired widespread and well-founded suspicions that Gladio operatives infiltrated the Red Brigades to push the group to commit excessively violent acts in order to foment popular demand for a right-wing law-and-order regime. More than perhaps any other incident, his killing fulfilled the objectives of the security state's strategy of tension.

Whether or not Moro was a casualty of Gladio, a declassified November 5th 1990 Foreign Office memo authored by Britain's then-ambassador to Rome, John Ashton, makes it clear that London knew much more about the case than has ever been disclosed publicly by any official source. (Read the full Ashton note here).

circumstantial evidence MR Online"There is circumstantial evidence one or more of Moro's kidnappers was secretly in touch with the security apparatus at the time; and that the latter deliberately neglected to follow up leads which might have led to the kidnappers and saved Moro's life," Ashton declared.

What's more, according to the British diplomat, the presidential crisis committee responsible for attempting to rescue Moro was part of the notorious P2—the "subversive Masonic lodge" composed of political elites loyal to Gladio.

According to Ashton, P2 was just one of many "mysterious right wing forces" striving "by terrorism and street violence to provoke a repressive backlash against Italy's democratic institutions" under the "strategy of tension." And President Cossiga was completely unaware it had infiltrated his crisis committee.

In April 1981, magistrates in Milan raided the villa of Licio Gelli, an Italian financier and self-identified fascist who founded P2. There, they uncovered a list of 2,500 members which read like a "Who's Who" of Italian politicians, bankers, spooks, financiers, industrialists, and senior law enforcement and military officials. Among the cabal's most prominent members was Silvio Berlusconi.

Moro's "historic compromise," under which the communists "made possible Andreotti's government", would be the party's "final step before their own entry into government." Ashton stated that this development "was anathema to P2," which was "then in virtual control of Italy's security apparatus," and also to many non-P2 establishment politicians, and also to the U.S.," and sought to "eliminate once and for all any possibility that the Communist Party might achieve national power."

Ashton acknowledged "circumstantial evidence" of "US support for P2." In reality, P2 founder Gelli was so well-connected to Washington's national security and intelligence apparatus, the CIA's Rome station had explicitly charged him with establishing an anti-communist parallel government in Rome.

Subsequent investigations showed how Henry Kissinger helped oversee the recruitment of 400 high-ranking Italian and NATO officers as P2 operatives in 1969. The U.S. was so grateful for Gelli's anti-communist purge that it made him a guest of honor at the inauguration ceremonies of U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Ashton concluded his revealing note by noting the truth about Washington's involvement in Rome's bloodspattered "Years of Lead" would "probably never be known." The full extent of Britain's involvement in terrorist attacks, government overthrows, destabilization campaigns and other heinous skullduggery under the aegis of Operation Gladio, not merely in Italy but throughout Europe, will almost certainly remain a secret as well, and by design.

It was not until 1993 that the public learned how the U.S. and British gifted munitions to Gladio operatives to foment bloody acts of terror across Italy. As Francesco Fulci told his NATO friends at the "super-restricted" meeting, Washington and London supplied the perpetrators of mass casualty attacks including the 1980 bombing of Bologna Centrale railway station, which killed 85 people and wounded over 200.

Those responsible for these hideous crimes have eluded justice in almost every case. Several of the Bologna massacre's chief suspects, including committed fascist and confirmed MI6 asset Robert Fiore, escaped to London. Britain refused to extradite him and his co-conspirators despite their convictions in absentia for violent crimes.

The extensive experience British intelligence obtained in Operation Gladio raises questions about the lessons the MI6 has applied to current covert operations in theaters of conflict. As The Grayzone revealed in November 2022, British military and intelligence veterans have trained and sponsored a secret partisan terror army in eastern Ukraine to carry out acts of sabotage in Crimea and other majority-Russian areas. The plan called for the training of cells of ideologically dedicated Ukrainians to "shoot, move, communicate, survive."

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For Your Information / FSB spooked the CIA on Prigozhin coup

« Last post by Roger on June 30, 2023, 08:05:19 PM »

FSB spooked the CIA on Prigozhin coup
Indian Punchline

June 26, 2023


   June The CNN, followed by the New York Times, broke the story on Sunday that the US and western intelligence were indeed aware of the failed coup attempt on Friday night by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group of Russian military contractors, "for quite some time and making preparations for such a move, including by massing weapons and ammunition."

What we do not know is at what point Russian intelligence got wind of it. The Kremlin acted forcefully, decisively and with foresight in real time to scotch the coup attempt within hours. By Saturday evening, the foreign intelligence chief Sergey Narishkin announced that the coup attempt had failed. The Russian authorities were waiting for Prigozhin to make his move.

It is only natural that Russian intelligence kept a strong presence right inside the Wagner tent all through. Damn it, it is a war zone where Russia's fate is hanging in the balance. The lyrics of the famous Sting song come to mind: ‘Every breath you take / And every move you make / Every bond you break / Every step you take / I'll be watching you '

And the Chorus sings, thereupon: ‘Oh, can't you see / You belong to me? / How my poor heart aches / With every step you take '

Just as the CIA or most intelligence organisations do, the FSB also psychoanalyses the remarks of their targets for profound meanings. They do that routinely and have trained analysts who do only that.

It wouldn't have escaped the attention of Russian intelligence analysts that Prigozhin's ranting and ravings from Donetsk from last autumn and winter began originally on the operational aspects of the Bakhmut war front in Donetsk oblast, but incrementally began acquiring political overtones, culminating finally in his incredible statement that the raison d'être of the special military operation in Ukraine since February 2022, was all baloney.

Even more strangely, this man who physically witnessed the Battle of Bakhmut, came to the bizarre conclusion that Kiev or Nato had no mala fide intentions toward Donbass or Russia.

Therefore, the ‘known known' here is that the Russian intelligence was under instructions to be in ‘listening mode,' give the eddies a free flow in the Battle of Bakhmut where Wagner was in the driving seat. (Interestingly, though, at some point, much to Prigozhin's annoyance, Moscow also began deploying regular troops selectively on the Bakhmut front alongside the Wagner fighters. )

On Saturday, top US intelligence officials sprang into action to brief the media as it emerged that Russian authorities were literally waiting with a road map to squash Prigozhin's coup attempt. Even the Chechen militia was put on standby.

The crucial element in the deal struck with Prigozhin has been that he will not be prosecuted but must simply get lost. And where else could his exile be arranged better on Planet Earth than in Belarus under the benevolent eyes of President Alexander Lukashenko?

Now, we may get to know at some point from Lukashenko, who struggles to keep secrets for long, as to when exactly would Putin have taken him into confidence on a ‘need-to-know basis.' It strains credulity that such a complex dealmaking was possible within a clutch of hours via tortuous 3-way negotiations between Moscow, Minsk and Rostov-on-Don even as the renegade Wagner column was approaching Moscow.

An intriguing sub-plot here is that amidst all this heavy traffic, Lukashenko also negotiated with Nurusultan Nazarbayev, the former Kazakh dictator who headed a pro-western regime in Astana and was ousted from power after reigning for nearly three decades, following the failure of a similar US-backed coup attempt like Prigozhin's in the winter of 2021-2022, which too was crushed with the help of the CSTO forces (Russian troops) led by a Russian general.

On the previous day, in fact, Putin had spoken with two Central Asian leaders — Kazakh President Jomart Tokayev and Uzbek President Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev. Did he share any crucial intelligence? In fact, both these countries have been facing western plots for regime change lately. By the way, Given Moscow's preoccupations in Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping has stepped in to take a hands-on role to consolidate the stability and security of the Central Asian region. (Please see my recent articles — China takes leadership role in Central Asia ; An "Axis of Seven" to supplement SCO ; and, Russia, China take holistic view of the Pamirs and Hindu Kush.

Clearly, something was seriously afoot in Kazakhstan, which is sandwiched between Russia and China and is the most crucial piece of real estate in geopolitical terms in Central Asia.

In all probability, this was what the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken alluded to when he told ABC on Sunday that the situation with the attempted coup in Russia "is still developing I don't want to speculate, and I don't think we saw the final episode." That said, however, Blinken has piled up a consistent record for being horribly wrong on his assessments on Russia — starting from the deathly blow the ‘sanctions from hell' were expected to give to the Russian economy; Putin's hold on power; Russia's catastrophic defeat in Ukraine; Russian military's deficiencies; Kiev's inexorable military victory, and so on.

In this case, he has reason to feel embittered particularly because of the spectacular unity of the Russian state, political elite, media, regional and federal bureaucracy, and the military and security establishment in rallying behind Putin. Arguably, Putin's political stature is now unchallengeable and unassailable in Russia and the Americans have to live with that reality long after Joe Biden's departure from the scene.

Going forward

The Kremlin has adopted a very thoughtful strategy. From available details so far, it has the following five key elements:

Principally, the top priority is to avoid bloodshed so that life moves on and the focus on the war in Ukraine, which is at a tipping point, doesn't suffer; In immediate terms, get the few renegade Wagner fighters and Prigozhin to leave Rostov-on-Don and return to their camps in Lugansk; Clinically separate Prigozhin from the rest of Wagner Group (In fact, not a single Wagner commander or officer joined his revolt); Offer immunity to the bulk of the Wagner Group — except the participants in the coup, of course — and facilitate their formal integration into the defence ministry. That is, the logic behind the creation of Wagner Group by the Defence Ministry (and an unnamed top secret internal security agency) holds good still, but it will no longer be a quasi-state force, but will have a habitation and name and led by designated professional military commanders instead of free-wheeling fortune hunters like Prigozhin.) Get Prigozhin to leave for Belarus, which was not difficult once he realised that he should request mercy from none other than Putin (who agreed to the oligarch's safe passage to Belarus.)

The last element is utterly fascinating. The Kremlin is extremely annoyed with Prigozhin for his seditious behaviour but is also aware — presumably on the basis of intelligence inputs — that he has been manipulated by western powers. Of course, there is going to be a price to pay. Prigozhin will never get back his towering stature as an oligarch with a personal fortune of $1.2 billion or the fabulous lifestyle he led.

But at least, the 62-year old oligarch is spared a possible twenty-year prison term. This is of a piece with Putin's handling of oligarchs in general. (Read my article The Rise and fall of a Russian oligarch.)

Make no mistake, Lukashenko will eventually make Prigozhin sing — sooner rather later — and the song will be transmitted live to the Kremlin. And that accounts for the great nervousness in Washington, which has raised the spectre of nuclear war, etc. to give the spin to distract attention from the CIA's plot to destabilise Russia. The irrepressible Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov calls it a "turbulent stream of consciousness."

To be sure, now that the CIA-MI6- Prigozhin plot has failed, out of its debris, new western narratives will be born like a Phoenix out of the ashes. And the US' sleeping cells abroad, including in the Indian media, will parrot that narrative.

But, not for long. For, what lies ahead is the manifestation of the steely resolve of the Kremlin — and Putin himself — to seek an all-out military solution to the Ukraine crisis. Putin declared last week — most likely in anticipation of the storm brewing on the horizon — that the war will be over when no Ukrainian army will be left on the battlefield, or NATO weapons.

Read the official transcript of a videoconference that Putin took last Thursday, in the immediate run-up to Prigozhin's coup attempt, with the full quorum of the Security Council (post-Soviet Russia's ‘Politburo'), which gives a flavour of the mood in the Kremlin and will provide some clues to what to expect on the battlefields of Ukraine, going forward. It is a huge signal in advance to the "collective West" that nothing will be forgotten.

89

South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

« Last post by Phil Talbot on June 24, 2023, 08:59:43 PM »

cross-chan[n]ell small boats filled with people: asylum/freedom-seekers ... or ... economic migrants ... ?

90

South Tyneside Stop the War / Re: Notes towards a new anti-war 'epic' ...

« Last post by Phil Talbot on May 28, 2023, 03:39:53 PM »

Maurice Bowra [Homer, London, 1972, 80ff] - quoted in J.V. Luce, Homer and the Heroic Age, Futura p/b, 1979, p52 - suggests three possible reasons for people, or nations, being led to view their past as 'heroic':
1. when conquered [they] 'console themselves for lost grandeur by exalting the past to spread glory';
2. when leaving homeland for some new home overseas a people 'keeps touch with its past by glorifying it in legends';
3. when 'a political system disintegrates, and success and dominion give place to dissolution and decay'.
+
Britain and the 'heroic' age?
Dunkirk Myth?
Sense that, post-WW2, 'success and dominion' gave place to 'dissolution and decay' - or, at least, gradual decline into 'mediocrity'.
Dunkirk [& Battle of Britain] as last act of Britain's 'heroic age' - after which national imperialistic 'energy' used up; 'Dunkirk spirit' died; slow 'decline' [or 'civilization'?] ... expansion ends ... contraction begins ... contraction ends ... expansion begins ...
'Hard Power'? 'Soft Power'?