Volume 13, No. 30, 31 July 2014

In this Issue: Obama sanctions the USA Ukraine crisis: a creation of the U.S. and its allies Adolf Hitler back from the dead, via South Africa?

Obama sanctions the USA Editorial by Ian Beddowes and Alex Mashilo Obama's announcement of sanctions against Russia could be ascribed to his growing mental instability, but more so it is a hysterical response to the fading of U.S. hegemony. It could as well be that in his youth he watched too many old John Wayne movies and that this has affected his ability to reason. Or as Karl Marx says in ‘The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte', "History repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce". The Second World War saw the invasion of Ukraine by German Nazi forces backed by Ukrainian "nationalists", predominantly from Western Ukraine who were regarded even by the German Nazis as being extraordinarily bestial and cruel. Due to the Ukraine government making a deal with Russia which was far more conducive to Ukrainian interests than the typical "milk the poor" solution offered by the EU, the USA and its allies decided to fund the descendants of the Second World War Nazis to overthrow the government. Anybody who has had experience of the European neo-Nazi organizations will know that they are formed by declassed lumpens with the bodies of gorillas and the brains of goldfish. The idea that the current Ukrainian government can run that country for very long, is itself a subject only for laughter. For us in Southern Africa it is analogous to a government run by Julius Malema and the EFF. As for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH-17? It looks pretty certain that it was shot down by a Ukrainian fighter plane, directed, as with the gassing of the Syrian children a year ago, as a typical CIA "false flag" operation. The fact that Obama has announced that it was the "rebels" in Eastern Ukraine backed by Russia who shot the plane down without waiting for any analysis by the experts in air-crashes who are studying the wreckage and the black boxes indicates that he and his government are responsible for the outrage. In any case the Ukrainian government has massive stockpiles of Russian weaponry. Anyway the allegation that the plane was shot down with a Russian weapon has not been proven. How did Obama arrive at the conclusion? Propaganda. But let us ask another question. How many U.S. and EU weapons are used on a daily basis to massacre innocent people? What would Obama's answer be? The U.S. defines Israel as its most reliable partner in the Middle East. The two are major trade partners. Many U.S. weapons participate in the daily slaughter of Palestinians. U.S. weapons are responsible of the for the overwhelming majority of violent deaths in the world, even in their own country. The Second Nazi Invasion of Ukraine is, indeed a farce. And the sanctions? Here is what highly respected investment analyst Marin Katusa has to say about sanctions in his recent article ‘The Media Won't Touch this Story about the end of the US Dollar': "…sanctions intended in part to illustrate the US's continued world supremacy are in fact encouraging countries disillusioned with that very notion to continue their moves away from the US currency, a slow but steady trend that will eat away at its economic power until there is little left." Sanctions against Russia with its growing economy are not like sanctions against Zimbabwe with its shrinking one. There is not too much to worry about. This will only strengthen considerations, including within BRICS, to move away from the U.S. dollar and from heavy reliance on trade and investment with the U.S. The countries of the EU which are dependent on raw materials imports for their survival, will, sooner or later, be forced to move away from the U.S. with its cowboy economy and cowboy mentality. The EU is heavily dependent on Russia in critical trade areas. The EU is caught between a rock and a hard place. It will not emerge unscathed by its own sanctions. Obama thinks that he is sanctioning Russia: in fact he is sanctioning the USA.
Red Alert Ukraine crisis: a creation of the U.S. and its allies

"…the ultimate goal is Russia, which is targeted by the U.S. and EU with sanctions and all sorts of other threats because…"

By Khethiwe Marais - BA (Wits) MA (UJ)

For many weeks there has been a barrage of reports blaming and condemning Russia for the shenanigans in Ukraine, from both our national media and Western international media and experts. The problem with these reports is that they are one-dimensional as they only give the US and the European perspective. Some typical examples of this one-dimensional perspective are found mainly, but not exclusively, from articles in the Washington Post-Bloomberg. Some of these are featured in the Sunday Independent:

• 'Kiev tarnishes Putin's Sochi showpiece' by Christopher Spillane and Stephan Kravchenko, by Christopher Miller and Enjoli Liston; and 'Bloodbath reigns in the streets of Kiev' (23 February 2014).
• 'Ukraine revolution over, but what does the future hold' by Jamila Trindle and Keith Johnson, 'Ousted Ukrainian leader's assets linked to firms in UK' - author unmentioned, and 'Russia approves use of forces in Crime' by Reuters (2 March 2014).
• "Putin won't allow control to slip - Why Russia will do everything it can to prevent a 'normal' Ukraine" by Rupert Cornwell (9 March 2014).
• 'Putin's military aggression fuels Ukrainian national unity' by Adrian Karatnycky from  Washington Post-Bloomberg (16 March 2014),
• 'Time to expose Putin's weakness', Washington Post-Bloomberg by Fred Kaplan (23 March 2014).

The basic principle is that there are two sides to every story but the readership is not allowed to hear the other side of the story. There has been no attempt by the media to balance the story by giving the Russian perspective except to blame it for everything that has gone wrong in Ukraine. The rules of justice require that the accused, in this case Russia, be allowed an opportunity to answer to the accusations, but not in this media tirade! This carries the "danger": if the readers get a balanced view they will read between the lines and decide the truth for themselves. In a free society with our Bill of Rights and constitutionally guaranteed 'freedom of expression', 'freedom of the press and other media' and 'freedom to receive or impart information or ideas', how else can this be explained?

The question needs to be asked why there is this skewed reporting on Ukraine. For one, it shows that there is no objective and independent media.

The media serves the interests of those who finance it. In this case the media is serving the interests of the U.S. and European governments, who in turn serve the bigger agenda of their multinational corporations.

William Blum has given an analysis of this pattern in his latest Anti-Empire Report published on the 7 March 2014. The introduction of his article reads as follows:

"The United States strives for world domination, hegemony wherever possible, their main occupation for over a century, it's what they do for a living. The United States, NATO and the European Union form The Holy Triumvirate. The Holy Triumvirate has subsidiaries, chiefly The International Monetary Fund [IMF], World Bank [WB], World Trade Organization [WTO], International Criminal Court [ICC]… all help to keep in line those governments lacking the Holy Triumvirate Seal Of Approval: the IMF, WB, and WTO impose market fundamentalism, while foreign leaders who act too independent are threatened with being handed over to the ICC for heavy punishment, as the United States imposes sanctions on governments and their leaders…"

The source of the crisis in Ukraine has been about a certain group pushing the country to align with the West and join the Europe Union (EU). This group is backed by the US and the EU and towards this purpose they have promised Ukraine a bailout. But as experience shows, these kinds of bailouts for countries come with stringent neoliberal policies of privatisation, deregulation and the sale of all state assets to the oligarchs and big corporates of the Western world. Countries such as Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain can attest to the pains of the austerity measures that go with the EU bailout. These countries are going through financial crises accompanied by protests by those who feel the pinch of their government's sell off to the EU.

The Ukraine crisis was engineered, supported and funded by the U.S. towards the purpose of forcing it (Ukraine) to join the EU. The Ukrainian president, Yanukovych, was legitimate to the US as long as he accepted European demands for new "trade agreements" and stern economic "reforms" required by the IMF. When Yanukovych was negotiating those deals, the U.S. and the EU acknowledged him as the legitimate president of Ukraine. But when he judged the price too high and opted for a more generous deal from Russia, he immediately became a target for "regime change" by both. The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) came in handy as a financial vehicle to stir up chaos to unseat him.

According to Blum, the NED, an agency created by the Reagan administration in 1983 to promote political action and psychological warfare against states which resist U.S. foreign policy, is Washington's foremost non-military tool for effecting regime change. The NED website lists 65 projects that it has supported financially in recent years in Ukraine. In this situation, there is a need to ask why and towards what purpose those projects were funded by the NED.

Historically, the idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing the NED, declared in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA." Carl Gershman, president of the NED, wrote last September that "Ukraine is the biggest prize".

The U.S. government has been known to use the CIA all over the world to topple governments it did not like and who were not serving the interests of its imperialist agenda. It has done this since the end of World War II. The US did this in Greece in 1947-1953, Guatemala in 1953-1954, Vietnam in 1950-1973, El Salvador in 1980-1994, Chile in 1974, Congo in 1960-1964, Nicaragua in 1978-1990. The list of these kinds of U.S. destabilisations and interferences is endless.

Ukraine is the latest victim in this U.S. war game. Actually the ultimate goal is Russia. Russia is being targeted by the U.S. and EU with sanctions and all sorts of other threats because it has challenged the U.S. intention towards Ukraine. Not long ago the U.S. wanted to declare war with Syria. Putin Russia thwarted this aggression. Russia also gave refuge to Edward Snowden who revealed all the dirty spying the National Security Agency (NSA) has been up to all over the world. Over and above this, Russia has got oil and gas that the U.S. is eyeing in its insatiable appetite for the control of such resources in the world. That is the reason why Russia is systematically being surrounded with U.S. missile sites. The U.S. administration will use any dirty means necessary to achieve its economic, political and military hegemonic objectives. It does not shy away from working with even the worst rightwing dictators and criminals to achieve these objectives.

Those behind the uprisings in Ukraine who staged a coup against an elected President, Victor Yanukovych, are thugs who were setting police on fire and sniper-shooting both the police and the demonstrators from the rooftops of buildings. They include the extreme ultra-right-wing such as the Chechnyan Islamic extremists militants (in other parts of the world such as Iraq and Afghanistan the US is fighting these Islamist militants, but in Ukraine they are acceptable!), a deputy of the ultra-right Svoboda Party, part of the new government, who threatens to rebuild Ukraine's nukes in three to six months. The irony is that the U.S. is always "fighting" to stop nuclear armament in other parts of the world. But here they say nothing about such nuclear threats from these right-wingers who are its allies. Among these insurgents behind the protest in Kiev there are also neo-Nazis who have openly denounced Jews, desecrating their graves and institutions, hoisting a banner honouring Stepan Bandera, the infamous Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (24 Frebruary) reported that Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman advised "Kiev's Jews to leave the city and even the country." Edward Dolinsky, head of an umbrella organisation of Ukrainian Jews, described the situation for Ukrainian Jews as "dire" and requested Israel's help. Where is the outrage and condemnation by the Western world against the neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism that accompanied these uprisings in Ukraine?

The U.S. and the West wasted no time in recognising this self-installed government of Kiev. Ukraine's new interim prime minister Arseny Yatsenyuk has been paraded in the U.S. by president Barak Obama as the new and legitimate leader of Ukraine the U.S. is prepared to collaborate with. In his visit to Brussels on 7 March, Arseny Yatsenyuk speaking to NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen invited the NATO Council to hold their meeting in Kiev as a way of strengthening Ukraine's cooperation with the West.  It is not surprising that the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in his response to the threats and implementation of sanctions from the West and the Obama administration, had this to say about the West's new-found interests in Ukraine:

 "The West wants - and this is how it all began - to seize control of Ukraine because of their own political ambitions, not in the interests of the Ukrainian people".

Subsequent to the bloodbath and chaos in Kiev, the Crimean people feared a repeat of Kiev's rightwing inspired crisis. They mobilised to have a referendum to declare themselves independent from Ukraine and to rejoin the Russian federation. The majority of people in Crimea are Russian-speakers. It is not surprising that they voted in an overwhelming majority of 97% to be part of Russia. Russia accepted the request of the Crimean people to be incorporated into the Russian Federation. The U.S. and the EU declared this democratic exercise by the Crimean people as annexation of Crimea by Russia. Fred Kaplan of the Washington Post-Bloomberg, cited in the Sunday Independent (23 March 2014) labelled it "the forcible annexation of Crimea by Russia" even though there was no force involved. The Crimean people happily and freely voted in the referendum.

On 2 March 2014 the US Secretary of State John Kerry condemned Russia's "incredible act of aggression" in Ukraine (Crimea) and threatened economic sanctions which were subsequently imposed on Russia by both the U.S. and the EU. As reported in the Sunday Independent (23 March 2014), U.S. Vice President Joe Bidden called it a 'land grab'. This reaction is surprising, considering that the US and the rest of the West equates democracy with free elections and freedom of expression. In their vociferous objection to Russia's action, the West has cited the violation of international law. The West is applying double standards because as recently as 2008, Kosovo was immediately recognised by the U.S. and some West European countries for declaring its independence and breaking away from Serbia. There was no threat of sanctions or even disapproval of this action by both.

What has transpired during this current crisis in Ukraine exposes the old pattern of the West of seeking to demonise countries and leaders that do not agree with its imperialist agenda and creating and manufacturing enemies where even none exist. All the American generations of people have grown up with one or the other enemy of the U.S. In the 1940s, throughout the 50s-80s the Americans and the whole world were indoctrinated to the "International Communist Conspiracy" whose headquarters were in Moscow. Americans and indeed the whole world was mobilised to fear and fight communists wherever they were. But such an animal as an International Communist Conspiracy was never caught. What there was and still is a case is that people in Latin America, in the East, in Africa and the rest of the so called Third World, were fighting against brutal political oppression and economic exploitation and imperialism.

As the Soviet bloc collapsed in the 80s-90s the new enemies invented were the terrorists which manifested in the invasion of Iraq under the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). By the way the WMD were never found. Later on the story changed to getting rid of the dangerous dictator Saddam Hussein who was no longer playing the ball with the U.S. after his earlier collaboration in the 80s with U.S. in the fight with Iran. In the 2000s, another enemy was discovered in the name of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, the Taliban (which is a mutation of the Mujahadin that the U.S. was financing and supporting in their fight against the Afghanistan government and the Soviet Union) and a war with Afghanistan ensued. The cycle has come back to Russia. This is the new enemy the U.S., CIA, NED, the whole American military industry and NATO are pinning their hope on for the fight to continue and for the imperialist U.S. to expand its boundaries and implement its agenda.

In June 2014 Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire who amassed his wealth by dubious means, was "elected" President of Ukraine. He has declared war on Donetsk and Luhansk regions, claims Crimea is "Ukraine soil", encourages militias led by pro-Nazi elements and is determined to pursue anti-working class austerity measures as well as strengthening political, economic and military ties with the EU and the U.S.

Khethiwe Marais, BA (Wits), MA in Applied Linguistics (UJ) is now based in Johannesburg and UNISA in Pretoria, and writes in personal capacity. Her current reading and research interest is U.S. foreign policy. This is an edited version of an earlier article 'Another US imperialist intervention' published by The Thinker (Vol. 61, Q3, 2014) 

References

1. William, Blum. "The Anti-Empire Report" # 126 Published on 7 March, 2014.
2. William, Blum. "Freeing the World to Death - essays on the american empire" (2005). Canada. Common Courage Press.
3. Sunday Independent Newspapers of February 23, 2014, March 02, 2014, March 16, 2014 and March 23, 2014.
4. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act, 108 of 1996.
5. Infinite Unknown.net/2014/04/25/Ukraine-puppet'pm-arseny-yatseniuk-the-world-has-not. Accessed on 01 May 2014.
6. Wikipedia.org/wik/international-recognition-of-Kosovo. Accessed 01 May 2014.

Adolf Hitler back from the dead, via South Africa?

"The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

By Com Buti Manamela

In his reply to this Budget Vote the Hon. Malema was in a celebratory mood looking forward to the first Anniversary of his party, the EFF. Last month, when he was speaking here in response to the President's State of the Nation Address, he said something profound, and I quote:

"Mr. President we are here in this parliament to put firmly on the table the agenda for economic freedom in our life time, which you and your current deputy president thought you successfully suppressed when you dealt with some of us."

He went further to say "on a personal note, this can only be translated to you by the only reliable minister you have your cabinet Dr Aron Motswaledi , le ge o ka itima metse o tla bona e nwele."

This has to be explained in context, because the leader of the EFF was simply saying that even if you expel him from the ANC, he will always find a way back into politics.

It explains how bad the idea of the EFF is and that irrespective of the propaganda that they may preach, it remains a personal project of an individual, and that individual is the Hon. Malema whose mission is to prove to you that he will always find a way, no matter how, to get to that which you thought you are disconnecting him from, the desire for personal power and office.

Let me take you down memory lane.

In the 1920's there was an incident in Germany. A young man who was supposed to be at the helm of the country's political elite was side-lined and ultimately elbowed from the limelight of German political elitism, dismissed as unstable and politically immature.

Not to be deterred from what he believed was a calling, a set date with political destiny, he started mobilising others who were moved by his ‘rhetoric' and stood to benefit by his ascension to power.

Addressing beer halls, open public theatres and other available public platforms, he drew some of the German unemployed and working class into a singular vision and dream that their plight is not because of the global capitalist crisis of that time but that it was because of The Jews.
 
"They eat our bread.
They sleep with our desperate and hungry wives.
They keep our husbands from their homes.
They are the scum that should be wiped out from OUR Germany.

The conditions of the working class in Germany drove them to believe in short cuts, half-baked solutions, demagoguery, political opportunism - and resorted to genuflecting before fake gods."

This happens often in history, although not a permanent or common historical feature.

Just as Marx wrote, "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

At the time of Marx, the clowns would not have reappeared on the stage of history as frequent as in ours to mock his dialectics and to expose our travesty at accepting these political frauds as the alternative to the society we desire.

Each time they appear in history, worst if they succeed, the transition, Marx explained, is reversed for lifetimes and workers struggles go on auto-reset. We are forced not to only deal with our own internal weaknesses, but to also divert some of our energies to personages whose efforts, at face value seem legitimate and genuine, but are in truth, a reversal of what our original task was.

The reason why the EFF is a painful idea is because it is not based on the cause and course of the people whom it claims its vision represents - the working class and poor youth. It is the dream of an individual to be in office, whatever the cost.

Hitler, for instance, declared his ideology national socialism. It sounded nice and resonated with the people. In fact it was more popular than the socialism that the German Socialist Party pursued. Those who disagreed faced the wrath of beer hall drunks or the SS as we saw (last week) at the Gauteng legislature.

Those who were not prepared to push the workers into a German cliff-hanger were labelled sell-outs.

I am under no illusion that the desire for power and political office can surpass the need for a political vision that changes the lives of our people, as may ultimately be the case with the EFF.

But their politics have become more a function of public relations than real commitments to the people's cause. It has become an art of convenience and has been entangled into mass marketing.

The messaging, even of the painful idea of EFF, is more of a strategy to get more seats (in parliament, provincial legislature and councils) than to truly liberate the working class and the poor, and has no consistency in policy or even commitment.

In fact, the EFF is the first political party to break its electoral promises by jumping into the buffet of parliament's menu. Justified why they are staying in parliamentary villages when they promised to go and stay in the informal settlements, and are inconsistent with the hot under the collar overalls that they only wear when the media is watching.

It is also more about attacking personages and subjecting them to persecution on the one hand, and saving personalities from current prosecution than leading a class into national revolution.

The pain of this personal project lies in the idea that we can decorate our foreheads with berets merely to illustrate our hatred to individuals whom we declared, opportunistically, to kill for; then to kill, and ultimately refused to wish them recovery when they are sick all in the name of an ideology.

The workers struggle in our country cannot be dependent on the short-term political misfortunes of individuals. We cannot be driven into struggles that are about an individual's change of fortunes or misfortunes which are presented as collective political setbacks when in real terms, the same struggles can be pursued through the same ANC and the liberation movement.

I am not a party hack. If at all I at times prefer the Party position over the class, it will at all times be in the interest of the class. But the painful idea that we narrow the thesis even further, and prefer the person over the Party, makes me shake in my boots, because here, before our eyes, not Eugene Terreblanche as Hon Maimane suggested, but Adolf Hitler has come back from the dead.

Cde Buti Manamela is YCLSA National Secretary and SACP Central Committee Member. This is an extract of speech last week in Parliament during budget votes in his capacity as ANC MP and Deputy Minister in the Presidency.