Tony Blair, imperialist war and the Labour Party

By Chris Marsden of WSWS 

Tony Blair’s role in waging war against Iraq in 2003 has returned to haunt the ruling elite in Britain—nowhere more so than in the ranks of the Labour Party.

In a Sunday interview with CNN, the former Labour prime minister continued to defend the Iraq war, but did so in terms that only prove it was an illegal war of aggression. He apologised “for the fact that the intelligence we received was wrong” on Iraq’s supposed possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and for “some of the mistakes in planning and certainly our mistake in our understanding of what would happen once you removed the regime.” But he found it “hard to apologise for removing Saddam.”

Blair’s statement goes to the heart of the criminality of the war waged by the US and Britain. Falsely portrayed as a response to the threat posed by Iraq’s WMDs, it was in reality an unprovoked war for regime change and therefore illegal under international law. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, held to examine the war crimes of the Nazis, called the waging of an aggressive war “not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Blair still wants to maintain the lie that he and then US President George W. Bush genuinely believed that Saddam Hussein was a threat to peace. But evidence to the contrary is now overwhelming.

US General Wesley Clarke has admitted that just 10 days after the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, he was told by a general in the Pentagon, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.”

A few weeks later, with the US at war with Afghanistan, Clarke asked the same general, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” He replied, “I just got this down from upstairs [the secretary of defence’s office] today… that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

Blair himself was directly implicated in the plan to launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq. Just one week before he appeared on CNN, the Mail on Sunday published a memo from then US Secretary of State Colin Powell to Bush. Written on March 28, 2002, it proved that while Blair was formally committed to diplomacy, he had agreed to play the key role in efforts to line up reluctant European powers behind the war, possibly get United Nations backing and seek to shift public opinion.

Blair, Powell told Bush, “will be with us should military operations be necessary” and “will present to you the strategic, tactical and public affairs lines that he believes will strengthen global support for our common cause…”

It was to this predetermined end that intelligence dossiers produced by the UK were concocted, justifying war based upon claims known to be false that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction and had restarted its nuclear programme.

In 2009 Blair made a more telling admission to the BBC than anything he said on CNN. When asked whether he would have invaded Iraq “if you had known then that there were no WMDs,” he replied, “I would still have thought it right to remove him [Saddam Hussein]… I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments about the nature of the threat.”

The 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation claimed over 1 million lives and turned over 5 million Iraqis into refugees from a decimated country. Millions of people in the UK, US and throughout the world want Blair, Bush, Powell and their co-conspirators to face war crimes charges. Little wonder then that the Labour Party is desperate to distance itself from Blair’s toxic political legacy.

There are those who claim they were deceived by the prime minister. Andrew MacKinlay, for example, who sat on the foreign affairs select committee, now says “myself and the British people, all of us, were duped.”

Far more important than such self-serving and implausible statements is the claim that the election of Jeremy Corbyn, with a personal history of opposing military interventions, including Iraq, marks a new chapter in Labour’s history. Corbyn has even suggested that Blair “could be” tried for war crimes over Iraq.

Yet the fact remains that Blair walks free, and has even made tens of millions of pounds as a result of his crimes. This is because he did not act as an individual but as the representative of British imperialism and leader of one of its key political instruments, the Labour Party.

It was Labour, and not simply Blair, which backed the second war in Iraq, just as it did the first in 1990, and as it did in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. Labour MPs did so not because they believed the threat posed by WMDs—millions of people saw through Blair’s lies—but because the party has been shaped by its pro-capitalist programme and decades-long history of defending the interests of British imperialism.

MPs voted with Blair because they shared his central aim of securing the global interests of the British bourgeoisie through a military alliance with Washington. Indeed, the issue remains so politically sensitive that in 2012, then Attorney General Dominic Grieve upheld the 2009 veto by then Justice Secretary Jack Straw of any disclosure of Cabinet meeting minutes from 2003 when Iraq was discussed.

In 2011, just 11 Labour MPs voted against participation in the war against Libya, with supporters employing identical “humanitarian” rhetoric as was used to justify the devastating assault on Iraq.

The election of Corbyn changes nothing fundamental in this regard.

History records that any leader who is seen to conflict with Labour’s fundamental imperialist orientation either faces being replaced, as was George Lansbury in 1935 at the instigation of the Trades Union Congress, or will be obliged to abandon their pacifist pretensions as did Michael Foot in 1982 over the Falklands/Malvinas.

Labour is even now preparing for war once again. Up to a hundred Labour MPs are expected to back extending participation in US-led bombing in Iraq—already agreed in September 2014—to include Syria when it is proposed by the Conservative government. And it is Corbyn who has made this possible, first by nominating a majority of pro-war MPs to his shadow cabinet and then by promising a free vote on whether to back a Syrian intervention. It is on this basis that he should be judged.

For all those wanting justice for the crimes of British imperialism, the central issue is to understand that this is a task inseparably bound to the political mobilisation of the working class against militarism and war on a socialist and internationalist programme. This is a struggle that can only be waged in opposition to the Labour Party, whoever stands at its head.

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UK Labour Party paves way for Syria intervention

From WSWS

Prime Minister David Cameron said he would call for a vote on military action in Syria only if he had a “consensus” in parliament. In response, the Labour Party shadow cabinet has signalled its backing.

Cameron’s cautious formulation was due to the fact that in August 2013, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government was defeated in parliament on the issue of air strikes in Syria when the Labour Party, under then-leader Ed Miliband, voted “no” alongside other opposition parties and Tory rebels.

Labour felt obliged to register its protest due to overwhelming public opposition to war in Syria, as well as concerns within the military that the UK had no plan for victory.

In the aftermath of that vote, Labour did everything it could to make amends—voting for air strikes limited to Iraq in September last year with only 24 MPs voting against. Nevertheless, with a slim majority in parliament and having suffered a 30-MP rebellion in 2013, the Conservatives need the backing of an estimated 35 Labour MPs to be sure of success.

Cameron already had every reason to be confident, given reports that 50 Labour MPs would back action. But this could have been politically challenged, given that Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party by a landslide in September on the basis of his declared anti-austerity and anti-war policies. He said then that he could not think of “any circumstances” under which he would support the deployment of British troops.

However, instead of fighting for his position, Corbyn has relinquished all political initiative to the pro-war forces in the Parliamentary Labour Party. He appointed a majority of pro-war, right-wing MPs to his shadow cabinet, including Hilary Benn as shadow foreign secretary and Maria Eagle as shadow secretary of state for defence.

At Labour’s September conference, a debate on whether to bomb Syria was relegated to 20 minutes on the final day. Delegates passed a non-binding motion opposing UK bombing missions in Syria unless backed by the United Nations, but given that Russia and the US are both bombing Syria the lack of a UN resolution is no longer considered an insurmountable obstacle. In addition, the Labour Party conference motion supported setting up so-called “safe havens,” maintained by no-fly zones and troops under a UN Chapter 7 resolution permitting military action.

As soon as the conference was over, Corbyn and his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, made clear that Labour MPs would be given a “free vote on the basis of conscience” to authorize military action against Syria when it was moved by the Tories.

Even this was not enough to placate the party’s right wing.

On October 11, a joint statement was published in the Observer by leading Conservative Andrew Mitchel and Labour MP Jo Cox headlined, “British forces could help achieve an ethical solution in Syria.” The letter urged military action to “bring an end to the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis.” Cox announced the launch of an all-party parliamentary group that would insist Britain be prepared to enforce a no-fly zone inside Syria even if Russia or China vetoed a UN resolution. She was backed in her decision to work openly with the Tories by Benn.

Two days later, a selection of senior figures in the shadow cabinet met with Corbyn, including Benn, Eagle and Shadow Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer. A statement by the group “clarifying” Labour’s position on Syria drawn up by Benn and approved by Corbyn was published in the Guardian. It states that Labour could back war without UN authorisation.

The letter reads: “[I]t should now be possible to get agreement on a UN Security Council Chapter VII resolution given that four of the five permanent members—the USA, France, Britain and Russia—are already taking military action against ISIL/Daesh in Iraq or Syria or in both countries.”

However, it continues, given that “we know that any resolution may be vetoed… in those circumstances we would need to look at the position again.”

Labour MP Cox responded that Corbyn was “brave and bold” and doing “the right thing.”

None of this is any different from the “ethical foreign policy” advanced by the Labour government under Tony Blair to justify British military involvement in numerous wars, including Afghanistan and Iraq. Moreover, the demand for “safe havens” not only provides the basis for a carve-up of Syria, but also threatens direct military conflict with Russia, which is supporting the Assad government. Benn states bluntly that Russia’s intervention “changes the situation on the ground,” making “the need for action to end the Syrian civil war much more pressing.”

Events have again refuted the claim by Britain’s myriad pseudo-left groups that Corbyn’s election as leader marks the beginning of a political renaissance of the Labour Party. As Left Unity put it: “The People’s victory,” i.e., Corbyn’s election as party leader, meant that, “Everything is possible.”

The political character of the Labour Party is not changed by the replacement of a leader, or even by an influx of new members. It is determined by its programme and its history of defending the interests of British imperialism stretching back over more than a century.

Corbyn may still vote against military action based upon what his “conscience” dictates. But Labour’s right wing has been handed victory without a fight—all in the name of “party unity” and the “new politics” of “collective leadership.” It is now estimated that Cameron could win the support of as many as 100 Labour MPs (out of 232) by framing military intervention as a humanitarian mission.

This past weekend, Corbyn was nominated as vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, but the Labour Party will support the retention of a nuclear capability. Corbyn last week secured a vote within the Labour Party to oppose the government’s “charter of fiscal responsibility” that would effectively write austerity into law, but Labour local authorities up and down the country will continue to impose every cut demanded by the Tories.

A genuine anti-war movement must be based upon the mobilisation of the British and international working class against the ruling class and the capitalist system, which is the root cause of war. Corbyn’s role is to prevent the growing hostility to austerity, militarism and war—the very sentiment expressed in his election—from leading to the necessary political rebellion against the Labour Party and the building of a new and genuinely socialist party of the working class.

Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden

Putin Crushes BBC Smartass

Not Keen On The Queen !

Jeremy Corbyn has snubbed a Privy Council meeting with the Queen saying that he had a prior commitment. The authorities are trying to reschedule the meeting, which was called to admit the opposition leader to Britain’s medieval Privy Council.

Speculation is rife that Corbyn was caught short before the meeting and needed to attend another privy !

On The Wild Side

Alex Wild (pictured below), the research director for the right-wing pressure group 'The Taxpayers Alliance',  has said that cuts affecting over-65s would not lose the Tories votes because some “will not be around” by 2020. He means of course that many would have by then shuffled off this mortal coil. And he apparently relishes the idea as do the Tories who refused to distance themselves from the cuts being demanded by this nefarious outfit.

Wild is one of those austerity freaks who is perfectly willing to hand over trillions of pounds of taxpayer's money to the criminal banking fraternity, but baulks at the idea of paying the measly winter fuel payments to pensioners.

Write to this outfit to demand that Wild is sacked forthwith.

Taxpayer's Alliance

Alex Wild

Obama's Penchant For Despots

The Lebanese daily Al Diyar reported late Thursday that the stampede near Mecca which left over 700 pilgrims dead was triggered by the arrival on the scene of a large militarized convoy transporting the 30-year-old deputy crown prince pictured above with Obama, who is also the country’s defence minister.

“The large convoy of Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, the King's son and deputy crown prince, that was escorted by over 350 security forces, including 200 army men and 150 policemen, sped up the road to go through the pilgrims that were moving towards the site of the ‘Stoning the Devil’ ritual, causing panic among millions of pilgrims who were on the move from the opposite direction and caused the stampede,” the newspaper reported.

Needless to say the dictatorial Saudi regime denied the whole thing. 

A Friend of Despots

Prior to his elevation to the papacy in 2013, the Pope had a long career in Argentina, where the Catholic hierarchy embraced the bloodstained military junta that slaughtered tens of thousands between 1976 and 1983. During that period, Jorge Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, was a leading clerical official in Buenos Aires.

The shameless and ignorant American media has transformed yesterday’s collaborator with a regime of torture and mass murder into today’s “People’s Pope”—the branding logo used by CNN for its nonstop coverage of the papal visit.

All five major networks broadcast the pope’s address live, and will provide round-the-clock coverage of his subsequent appearances in New York City and Philadelphia. No effort will be spared to spread religious claptrap and stultify public opinion.

The Roman Catholic Church - A Paradise For Perverts

The Pope in America

From WSWS

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

The address by Pope Francis to a joint session of the United States Congress today represents a milestone in the rightward march of the American political establishment, which is jettisoning what little remains of its democratic heritage in favor of the open embrace of reaction.

As he parades with his entourage through Washington, at the center of a massive security operation, the pope, decked out in his medieval vestments, looks out on an America whose democracy is in shambles.

No pope has ever been invited to address the American legislature, from the first meeting of the Continental Congress in 1774 to the current 114th US Congress, which convened in 2015. The pope’s unprecedented address is a direct affront to the secular foundations of the American republic as well as to the US Constitution.

The first clause in the First Amendment to the US Constitution, part of the Bill of Rights, incorporates the principle of the separation of church and state and prohibits Congress from establishing any religion. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the First Amendment was intended to erect a “wall of separation” between church and state, a measure considered essential for free thought and individual liberty.

This fundamental democratic conception is nowhere to be found in the wall-to-wall media coverage of the papal visit or the comments of politicians. The empty-headed fawning and gushing over “His Holiness” is a slap in the face to atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims and all others who have a democratic right to live in a society where the state does not take any position on religion in general or any particular creed.

President Obama set the tone with his official greetings at the White House, addressing the pope as “Holy Father” and “Your Holiness,” and beginning by saying, “What a beautiful day the Lord has made.” The words “God” (5), “Lord” (2), “Jesus” (1), “holy” (6) and “holiness” (2) together appeared a total of 16 times in Obama’s 10-minute welcome. For his part, the pope spoke about family values, religious liberty and the environment, making one reference to the “Creator” and concluding with, “God Bless America.”

“You remind us that people are only truly free when they can practice their faith freely,” Obama declared. This was said with a straight face to the leader of the institution responsible for the Holy Inquisition, i.e., centuries of repression, torture and murder of Europe’s “heretical” scientists, philosophers and artists. This is the same Catholic Church that maintained close ties with the fascist regimes in Spain, Italy, Poland, Croatia and Slovakia, and signed the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany in 1933.

Beneath his white robes, the man Obama was praising, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Bergoglio, is personally implicated in Argentina’s “Dirty War” (1976-1983). In the name of the struggle against Marxism, the Church under Bergoglio’s leadership supported the military junta while it caused an estimated 30,000 workers, students and intellectuals to “disappear,” and while tens of thousands more were abducted and tortured. So much for Obama’s champion of freedom!

The mutual love-fest between Obama and Francis calls to mind the words of Jefferson: “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”

But the American media is not concerned with such things. Instead, the various news outlets are shamelessly competing to outdo each other in kowtowing before the visiting pontiff. A deluge of articles and television programs have appeared on such subjects as the minutiae of the papal wardrobe, the papal entourage, the papal itinerary and the papal automobile.

Nothing resembling democratic or historical consciousness is anywhere to be found in the vast effusion of media coverage of the papal visit. One would not know from watching this media spectacle, for example, that the United States had no diplomatic relations with the Holy See from 1867 until 1984, when relations were first established under President Ronald Reagan.

Nor would the viewer have any inkling that the election of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, was deeply controversial. As a presidential candidate in 1960, Kennedy was attacked on the grounds that his Catholic faith meant that as president he would be taking orders from Rome.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute,” Kennedy declared in a major speech responding to his critics, “where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

Kennedy prided himself on his record of “declared stands against an ambassador to the Vatican,” and added, “I do not speak for my church on public matters, and the church does not speak for me.”

The contrast between Kennedy and Obama could not be more stark. However, this is not a question of individuals, but a reflection of the protracted decay of American democracy over the past half-century. The Kennedy administration by no means represented a golden age, but it provides a reference point for measuring the impact of decades of political reaction and the increasing subordination of all of the country’s institutions to a criminal and ever-wealthier financial aristocracy.

The first decade-and-a-half of the 21st century has witnessed a direct assault on basic democratic rights and institutions across the board, accompanied by an accelerating growth of social inequality and military aggression abroad. America is a country where the government spies on all of the activities of its citizens, where torturers and killer cops enjoy complete impunity and where the president invokes the right to order the assassination of any person anywhere in the world. The electoral process has been stripped of any genuinely democratic content, reduced to a degrading contest between various frontmen for billionaire oligarchs divided between two parties completely controlled by the corporate-financial elite, the military and the CIA.

The deliberate promotion of religious obscurantism serves definite political ends. The papal visit occurs in the midst of a relentless campaign to revive medieval and reactionary notions—anti-rational, anti-scientific, anti-democratic—in order to mobilize social forces that can be used to block and suppress popular opposition.

Last year, for example, the US Supreme Court decided that Hobby Lobby, a “Christian corporation,” had the “right” to impose religious views on its employees. Last month, a reactionary campaign was organized around Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis, who refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples on the grounds of “God’s authority.” And several Republican presidential candidates are openly appealing to anti-Muslim bigotry.

The socialist position on the separation of church and state was clearly stated by Lenin in 1905. “Complete separation of church and state is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church,” Lenin wrote.

“Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule.”

The total prostration of the American political establishment and media before the pope underscores the basic fact that in our era, the defense of democratic rights, including the principle of separation of church and state, is completely bound up with the development of a mass socialist movement of the working class.

By Tom Carter

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