Pakistan: Trade unionists arrested as unions call for restoration of democracy

To PA blog readers,

I urge support for this appeal. Here in the United States, the repression of trade unionists (as against lawyers, judges, and politicians)in Pakistan has been invisible as the Bush administration continues to play its game with the Musharraf tyranny.

Norman Markowitz

*Pakistan: Trade unionists arrested as unions call for restoration of
democracy


The International Trade Union Confederation has called for "the immediate restoration of the rule of law, the country's Constitution and the fundamental democratic rights of its people" in Pakistan following the imposition of a state of emergency earlier this week. But while media attention outside Pakistan has focussed on well-known opposition politicians such as Benazir Bhutto and cricketer Imran Khan, there has been little coverage in the mainstream media of the arrest of trade unionists, as reported by the IUF. LabourStart has full coverage of breaking news from Pakistan, updated throughout the day.

The Price of Dictators in Pakistan

The press is reporting that the Bush administration is in something of a quandary concerning Pakistan. Even within its own ranks there are, from former officials particularly, serious criticism about the Bush policy of aiding the military dictator, General Musharraf, in order to fight bin Laden and his terrorist group (who, the press of course fails to mention, came into existence in the very Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas where they are now operating in the 1980s with CIA money and support).

Since this is our "free," aka commercial capitalist press, we must read between the lines in order to grasp the facts that these reporters know but really can't say. Musharraf has been in effect running a scam on the Bush administration for years as have many right-wing dictators whom the U.S. government supports. He takes large sums of money from the U.S. to support the "war against terrorism" even though his security services and military are heavily infiltrated with supporters bin Laden and the Taliban. He uses the money for whatever he wants, including continued support for terrorist campaigns in Indian Kashmir. He keeps under "house arrest" Dr. Khan, who with (Indian sources believe) developed the Pakistani atom weapons program (weapons that directly threaten India, and if they fall into the hands of bin Laden's friends possibly many other nations, including the U.S.), limiting U.S. access to Khan, even though Khan has sold nuclear information and technology to a number of nations, which potentially threatens an incalculable number of human lives.

Musharraf is now clearly a liability (a "bad puppet" as a Vietnamese representative once said to Henry Kissinger about the U.S. supported Saigon military dictator during the Vietnam war negotiations) whom the U.S. would like to get rid of, at least put in some power sharing arrangement with Benazir Bhutto (who by the way is no prize package either in both her willingness to serve imperialist aims and to continue anti-Indian policies that contribute to instability in the region). But that is not so easy to do. Bhutto was almost killed this week when she returned to Pakistan. Musharraf's highly touted and, from anyone who knows the situation phony attempts to develop aka purchase a peace process in the Taliban controlled tribal areas has openly collapsed. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, a right-wing military dictator, sinister clerical reactionary forces within its borders, and nuclear weapons that make it potentially one of the most dangerous places on earth.

What can be done, a question that our "free" aka capitalist media doesn't ask. First, a rational, much less progressive U.S. government should conclude that Pakistan is no ally of the U.S. in any sense, but a low level henchmen which supports U.S. imperialist policies in the hope that it can get a piece of the imperialist action.

India is, with all of its problems, a liberal democracy. Pakistan isn't. Pakistan was created after WWII through a partition of India which was itself the work of British imperialism and the conservative Muslim League of India, a partition which has had longterm destructive consequences but which cannot for the foreseeable future be reversed.

What can be done is for the U.S. and the larger world community through the United Nations to encourage the development of economic relations and an eventual larger South Asian economic union that would bring India and Pakistan together along with Sri Lanka and Bangladesh (which was formed out of what had previously been East Pakistan) together, an effective deterrent to military and nuclear arms races and potential disasters. Nuclear disarmament, not only for South Asia but for all of the nuclear powers should be a major point for U.S. policy. This would cut the legs from right-wing Muslims in Pakistan (and right-wing Hindus in India for that matter) who have a vested interest in instigating political hatreds and violence.

Of course, the poverty of Pakistan, whose record of development has been vastly inferior to India by any standard, can be addressed through such an internationally support economic reconciliation which would yield a larger peace dividend, particularly for Pakistan.

Economic development in Pakistan is and will continue to be a cruel joke as long as the world community is largely absent and U.S. "aid" is aid to a corrupt military regime which, in the tradition of military regimes in many places, runs the country as a racket for itself. Regional development with the assistance of United Nations agencies is the key to any workable policy here. Also China, which unfortunately has had its own significant territorial conflicts with India, has an important role to play here as part of the larger international community. Improved political and economic relations between China and India would advance tremendously an overall South Asian peace process.

While these are long-range solutions, they are genuine global solutions to the problems of South Asia and ones which will yield not only a peace dividend for the people of the region but greatly undermine the terrorist groups for whom Pakistan especially remains a major base. The price of peace in Pakistan is a lot cheaper and a far better investment than the price of supporting a military dictator like Musharraf or any likely successor, since the history of Pakistan,with a few notable exceptions, has been a succession of military dictators.

Norman Markowitz

Questions For a President Left Behind

In the late 1930s, Robert E. Sherwood, a prominent playwright and also speech writer for Franklin Roosevelt wrote an anti-war play titled "Idiot's Delight." Although the play was set in Europe, I thought of it, particularly the title, when I read GW Bush's speech at an Air Force base today trumpeting the dangers of Al Qaeda in Iraq, its relationship to the central Al Qaeda leadership, and the disaster that would occur if the U..S. withdrew from Iraq. Let us ask the, to put it charitably, "left behind" president a few long unanswered questions.

1. Why did his administration fail to hold bin Laden relatives after the September 11 attacks to interrogate them about the Al Qaeda leader?

2. Why hasn't his administration concentrated on Saudi Arabia, where the Al Qaeda recruits and money have always been centered if it is serious about fighting Al Qaeda?

3. Why has the administration continued to support the Musharraf dictatorship in Pakistan to the tune of billions, providing no aid whatsoever to democratic and progressive forces in that country where pro Al Qaeda elements are part of the machinery of government and bin Laden and his top lieutenants operate, as the whole world and even U.S. intelligence knows, from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region (in a country by the way which does have nuclear weapons aka weapons of mass destruction)?

4. Why have the administration and the Congress for that matter not seriously examined the relationship between bin Laden and the Al Qaeda group he created in Afghanistan in 1988 and the Central Intelligence
Agency, which worked with and supported him directly and indirectly through its subordinate, the Pakistani Intelligence Service (ISI) through at least the 1980s? What about possible ongoing relationships leading up to the September 11 attacks, between Al Qaeda and bribed or rogue agents of the CIA and its subordinates, and the relationship of the bin Laden family, perhaps the greatest capitalist family in the region (its wealth was estimated at four billion at the time of the attacks and has grown substantially since) and its Texas oil industry and other big business U.S. friends in both the development of Al Qaeda and its post September 11 protection?

Before knee jerk readers of establishment publications start calling me a conspiracy theorist, I am not saying that I know the answers to these questions. I am saying that it is a comment on the discussions concerning "terrorism" in the U.S. that they were and are not even asked and weren't asked seriously by the "blue ribbon" commission investigating the attacks, which shied away from the larger context of events.

We have simply been told over and over again that there are no relationships, that the CIA's involvement with bin Laden, evidence to the contrary, wasn't much and doesn't matter, that his relationship with the rest of his family and the feudal-clerical Saudi ruling class simply ceased to exist when he challenged the monarchy and sought to create in Saudi Arabia the kind of regime that the Taliban did create in Afghanistan in the 1990s. That one might seriously look at the nature of capitalist class power, the privileges enjoyed by very rich who stand above the law, their undermining in the U.S. with the help of conservative political forces of public investigations into the hiding places for their wealth , their institutional and personal connections with each other, even in the past with a rogue figure like bin Laden, in order to understand the development of the Al Qaeda group and the threat that it poses to the U.S. and other peoples in the world, is out of the question for this administration and, unfortunately, for many of its establishment critics.

The Al Qaeda networks may be interconnected and may indeed be planning new and potentially terrible attacks against against American institutions and the American people (we shouldn't dismiss that completely because many fear that the Bush administration and the Republican Right need that to happen if they are prevent their defeat in 2008) . But who believes based on its record that the Bush administration can do anything to prevent that. The administration's policies have, to be very charitable, helped Al Qaeda regroup, use Iraq as a base, continue to raise large amounts of funds, and recruit foot soldiers and cannon fodder from both the same sanctuaries that it used in the past and new ones that the Bush invasion and occupation of Iraq have provided it with.

Not only does the Bush administration have no social economic strategy to even pretend to address the underlying social economic problems of the Middle East (or anywhere else for that matter). It has no political-military strategy to accomplish anything in the region except strengthening Al Qaeda, the clerical regime in Iran, its avowed enemies and those whom it labels its enemies. Bush can fight stem cell
researchers, trade unionists defending their right to strike and American jobs, senior citizens seeking to protect social security, environmentalists, and many others, whom his administration has really fought an undeclared war against. But he can't fight the Al Qaeda group or his declared "war against terrorism" based on his record of the last six years.

Also, there is no evidence that his administration really has any interest in fighting them, as against his progressive opponents, since they provide an excuse for his worst policies. Bush's (or his handlers")
real assumption, in my opinion has been that the stronger and more dangerous Al Qaeda and its allies become, the more his administration's power and the power of the Republican Right remain secure.

--Norman Markowitz

Bush and the National Intelligence Estimate

There is a classic definition of a reactionary--someone who learns nothing and forgets nothing and thus keeps on doing the same thing over and over again, regardless of the circumstances. Good examples of this today by the Bush administration would be re-asserting laissez-faire capitalism in the 21st century when it was largely discredited at the end of the nineteenth century and using military force to solve what are social economic problems again and again, regardless of the outcome. This might compare with such past examples as proclaiming over and over again that the "economy is fundamentally sound" (Hoover in the Great Depression, when everyone knew it wasn't) and "There is light at the end of the tunnel" and victory will be at hand in the War in Vietnam(when events constantly showed that that was wishful thinking). Finally, that the "war on terrorism" is being fought and will be won if the U.S. doesn't "cut and run"(a term used widely during the Vietnam War period which had nothing to do with reality) by the Bush administration today.

The Intelligence Agencies have just issued a report on Al Qaeda and the "war on terrorism" which which should be news only to very extreme ractionaries. I and a great many people I know could have issued much of the report off s the top of our head in its larger interpretations - a bright Middle School Student with internet access to global sources of information could have put together its larger conclusions over the last three or four years.

Al Qaeda remains essentially the threat that it was in 2001 in spite of the hundreds of billions spent in the "war on terrorism," i.e, the earth revolves around the sun.

Al Qaeda is continuing to organize and coordinate its operations under the leadership of Osama bin Laden from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, i.e., the earth is round.

The war in Iraq has produced "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia", which is the "the most visible and capable affiliate" of the Al Qaeda network, i.e, the earth still revolves around the sun, even though Al Qaeda didn't exist in Iraq, which no one except these fanatics have called Mesopotamia for many many centuries, until the Bush administration launched its war, so maybe the administration is not yet ready to accept that the earth still revolves around the sun.

The failure to break up the center of the Al Qaeda network and capture its leaders derives from the Pakistani military dictator and Bush "ally, General Musharaff, to take serious action against the Al Qaeda forces
who are headquartered on Pakistani territory, albeit, "tribal" regions, i.e, the earth is still round and areas of Pakistan are still feudal and pre-feudal, even though the Bush administration continues to regard Pakistan as a "free nation" and major ally of the U.S. in the region so it may not completely accept that the earth is still round.

First, we should all agree with the Democrats and all other critics of the Bush administration that the report, from the administration's own intelligence analysts, highlights the disaster that its policies have created. These intelligence agencies have nothing to do with any critic of this administration or any U.S. administration. They were created after WWII largely to fight the cold war, a war on behalf of world capitalism against the forces of revolutionary socialism and anti-imperialism through the world. They have long held built in biases that lead them to ignore legitimate social movements, exaggerate foreign intervention when that intervention was Soviet or from some pro socialist source, and give their political masters in Washington the "data" to support policies that favor backing up dictators of the right like Musharaff, ignoring diplomatic and social economic solutions to international problems, and pursuing military interventionism.

The initial White House response today is that bin Laden himself as well as the Bush administration regards "Iraq as the central front in the war on terror."

That means, if one is to take it seriously, that the administration is using bin Laden's propaganda about Iraq to gain funding and mobilize support for his clerical fascist "holy war" against the U.S. and many other nations and societies in order to gain funding and support to continue its disastrous war policy. It is "evidence" only that Bush and bin Laden continue to need each other to validate their policies and sustain their power.

But we on the left particularly must take stock of what has happened and is happening and begin to come forward with a foreign policy that will make sense to the U.S. working class, not simply denounce Bush with the arsenal of ammunition his disastrous policies give us.

The most important thing that a future progressive U.S. government could do in the Middle East (and we should begin to work for this now) would be to come forward with a policy that breaks decisively with the
transnational oil companies and establishes something like the old postwar United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency to develop the oil resources of the whole region in order to benefit benefit the people
of the region and as part of a global energy policy. Such an agency could also work with allied United Nations agencies to advance policies that would increase employment, wages, the standard of living and quality of life generally of the people of the region. This is the only long-term solution to the distortion and manipulation of desperate peoples religious traditions by the bin Ladens of the region and for that matter the bin ladens of all religions and creeds through the world.

.This, in my opinion, is more important than the establishment of a peace process that will end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, That is of enormous general political importance but in reality does not, except
for the Palestinian and Israeli people, really directly affect the lives of the masses of people in the region; rather provides them with a distraction from dealing with their own exploitation and oppression, and also provides a distraction for large sections of the left who focus on the national rights of Palestinians to the exclusion of all else as many people of Jewish background uncritically defend Israeli state policies as a defense of Israel against their better judgment about those policies.

Such a development policy would of course have to bring about the reorganization of Arabia and the Gulf States, the removal of the feudal regions which are the longtime accomplices of the transnational oil companies. Before everyone starts calling me an imperialist and a militarist, let me say that I am not advocating an invasion of these regions, as Bush invaded Iraq with different ends and disastrous consequences. The left and a future progressive U.S. government should and can withdraw its support to these regimes, which the U.S. and transnational oil companies have propped up for more than half a century. There are socialist oriented and secular democratic elements in these societies who deserve support. There are the workers in the oil industry, many foreign "guest workers" from Muslim countries with limited rights and no great sympathies with the feudal clerical ruling groups in the region.

Also, the left and a future progressive U.S. government should and can decisively break with the clerically based military regime in Pakistan, itself a "legacy" that the British Empire left its U.S. successors in the region. At present, regimes in Islamabad in effect blackmail U.S. governments into supporting them, pointing to the elements in their society which welcome Al Qaeda and similar groups and warning that any reduction in U.S. support will enable these groups to come to power. A progressive U.S. government should end its military support for Islamabad, strengthen its relationship with a secular multi-cultural India, and support those forces in Pakistan itself that seek reconciliation with India (one should always remember that contemporary and Pakistan were for many centuries part of the same Indian Civilization and that their separation into first two and (with the formation of Bangla Desh) three states, had its roots not in peoples histories and real needs but in the political machinations and crisis created by the collapse of the British empire after World War II.

The U.S. supported Pakistan as an anti-Communist cold war ally and stooge and also as a bulwark against an Indian government which was both neutralist in the cold war, friendly with the Soviet Union and its allies, and contained significant pro socialist elements in a country which had large Communist parties. All of this was done from the 1950s on in the name of defending "freedom and democracy" even though India was a democracy and a multi-religious, multi-ethnic society and Pakistan was through most of its history what it is today, a military dictatorship that defines its state and society as Muslim.

Pursuing such policies which will change radically both the Gulf states and Pakistan will also pay a "peace dividend" against groups like Al Qaeda, since it will eliminate both the sources of funding for such groups and also the various centers and schools (most dramatically the ones in Pakistan funded by Saudi money) which indoctrinate impoverished Muslim youth and prepare them to become foot soldiers for terrorist groups.

Pursuing such policies will also make the United States respected by the peoples of Muslim background and encourage greater understanding and respect of those people in the United States itself, where one of the
ugliest and most sinister consequences of the September 11 attacks has been the escalation of fear and hostility against the ethnically diverse Muslim minority in the U.S. and Muslims generally in the world

--Norman Markowitz