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Global protest over arrest of Japanese whale activists

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Greenpeace | International — Global protest continues to mount with protests and vigils in front of Japanese embassies around the world and more than 180,000 letters being sent to the Japanese government demanding the release of Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki — the Tokyo Two.

A network of Japanese lawyers have called the arrests a violation of human rights and a challenge to the freedom of expression in Japan.

Junichi and Toru have been under arrest since the 20th of June, held without charge. On Tuesday, July 1st, a hearing will be held on whether they will be detained for a further ten days without charge.

Junichi and Toru exposed a whale-meat embezzlement scandal on May 15th by presenting a box of whale meat stolen by crew of Japan’s so-called “scientific whaling” fleet, to the Tokyo Public Prosecutor along with a dossier documenting how they obtained it.  The scam, in which prime cuts of whale meat are smuggled off the ship by crewmembers and sold outside official channels, appears to have been running for years with the full awareness of the officials that conduct the whaling expeditions.

The Japanese whaling programme is funded by taxpayers, at a cost of 500 million yen a year (4.7 million)

The Prosecutor’s office took up an investigation, but concluded there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges against any of the crew or whaling officials. The only consequences in the case were for the Greenpeace activists, who intercepted a box of meat as evidence, and were arrested in dramatic raids on their homes and offices, conducted by around 40 police officers in front of television cameras.  The police seized documents, computers, cell phones, and the Greenpeace Japan supporter list.

Other voices in Japan are saying that the arrest was a warning to other activist groups that as the G8 approaches, voices of dissent in Japan will not be tolerated.

Kyodo Reported:

    While he disagrees with Greenpeace’s anti-whaling stance, journalist Takao Saito said the way the police arrested the two men and the way they investigated the group was heavy-handed.

“(Greenpeace) is functioning as a whistleblower in our society so the authorities should give them a fair hearing to what they have to say.”  

WATCH, a network of laywers keeping an eye on human rights in Japan in the run up to the G8, issued a statement saying

“The arrest of the two activists is not only a human rights violation with regard to the unjustifiable arrest, detention and investigation, but also a challenge against the freedom of expression. Police repression against the activists’ denunciation obstructs the legitimate activities of both Japanese civil society and international society and is therefore internationally unacceptable and subject to global criticism as an affront to humanity.”

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UN expert urges U.S. to take steps to avoid unlawful killings

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Xinhua | UN human rights expert Philip Alston on Monday called on the United States to take immediate steps to improve its system of military justice and to ensure that the death penalty is applied fairly and justly in states such as Alabama and Texas.

    Alston, the special rapporteur on extra judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, had just concluded an official visit to the United States during which he met with federal and state officials, judges, and civil society groups in Washington D.C., New York, Alabama, and Texas.

    In a preliminary statement after the visit, Alston noted that it was now widely acknowledged that innocent people are likely to have been executed in the past, and he was critical of how authorities in Alabama and Texas have responded to this fact.

    ”When we are talking about a situation in which innocent people have probably been executed, you would expect a greater sense of urgency about reforming the criminal justice system,” Alston said.     

    Alston recommended that reconsideration be given to the system of electing judges in both states, that severe deficiencies in the right to counsel for capital defendants be addressed, and that each state undertake a systematic inquiry into the shortcomings ofits existing criminal justice system.

    He also called on the U.S. Congress to enact legislation that would permit federal courts to review all issues in state and federal death penalty cases on the merits.

    Alston was especially critical of Texas for failing to review the cases of foreign nationals on its death row who had been deprived of the right to consular assistance from their home countries.

    He noted that the United States had already formally recognized that there was a legal obligation to review these cases but that Texas had done nothing.

    ”It would be very easy for Texas to follow the law in these cases, but it has so far refused to do so for no reason other than proving that it can defy the federal government and international law,” he said.

    In relation to prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Alston called on the government to release the results of investigations and autopsies into the deaths of five prisoners who died in 2006 and 2007.

    He condemned the unremitting failure to provide fair trial guarantees in the proceedings against six “alien enemy combatants” and concluded that any death sentence imposed on the basis of such trials would clearly be in violation of international law.

    Alston also called on the government to publish information on civilian casualties in its operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and to make it possible for U.S. citizens, as well as Afghans and Iraqis, to follow the workings of the military justice system.

    While some important steps have been taken to ensure the accountability for killings at the hands of private military contractors, more needs to be done, he said.

    Alston said that the U.S. Department of Justice has so far failed miserably in carrying out its obligations to prosecute private contractors and others.

    ”It’s the Department of Justice’s job to prosecute private security contractors who commit unlawful killings, but it has done next to nothing,” Alston said. 

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Ex-Abu Ghraib prisoners sue US contractors, claim torture

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Yahoo | Four Iraqis announced Monday in Istanbul they are suing two US firms and their employees for allegedly torturing them at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Bagdad five years ago

Their lawsuit is against private security contractor CACI International and two of its interrogators, Daniel Johnson and Tim Dugan, and the translation agency L-3 (formerly Titan Corp) and its interpreter, Abel Nakhla, lawyer William Gould told AFP.

Their complaint was to be lodged Monday at courts in Maryland, Ohio and Washington — the US states where the alleged torturers live — as well as Michigan, where L-3 recruited most of its interpreters, said Gould in Istanbul, where he met with his clients from Iraq.

He said the court cases would show that the accused were in Abu Ghraib and involved in a conspiracy that included the torture of the plaintiffs.

Abu Ghraib prison became infamous after the publication in 2004 of photographs showing Iraqi detainees being humiliated and abused by their US guards. The scandal led to the sentencing of 11 soldiers to up to 10 years in prison.

The majority of the abuse took place at the end of 2003, when CACI and Titan employees were working in the prison, US military courts have said.

This the second set of lawsuits against CACI and L-3.

Another group of former Abu Ghraib prisoners filed complaints against the two firms last year in the states of Washington and California.

One of the current plaintiffs, Suhail Najim Abdullah Al-Shimari, 49, was taken from his Bagdad home in November 2003 and spent more than a year at Abu Ghraib, where he claims to have been subjected to electroshock and night-long cold showers in the winter.

“We think there will be people there in the United States who will want to give us back our dignity… by bringing these people to justice,” he told AFP via an interpreter.

Sa’adon Ali Hameed Al-Ogaidi, 39, said he was repeatedly beaten at Abu Ghraib and tied to door handles.

“At times, it seemed they were torturing people to have fun,” said the former prisoner, who claims to have witnessed guards sodomising prisoners.

Taxi driver Mohammed Abdwihed Towfek Al-Taee, 39, was taken to Abu Ghraib in 2003.

He has scars on his leg and head that he said came from beatings with an iron rod. He also said he was forced to drink litres of water while his penis was tied to prevent him from urinating.

“I wish I would be the last person to be detained and to be tortured,” he said.

Abu Ghraib was closed in 2006.

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ID scheme: the truths, half-truths and deceptions

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

By Geraint Bevan | THE organisation NO2ID will not be represented officially inside the Home Office’s secretive ID consultation at the Barcelo Carlton Hotel in Edinburgh today. Despite repeated requests, officials have decided that my fellow campaigners and I are not “stakeholders” in the delivery of the glorious post-ID future. Shame.

To those people who have been invited to praise the ID scheme to high heaven and develop strategies for coercion, the Home Office has distributed information packs. These contain a mixture of truths, half-truths and outright deceptions.

Critics perpetuate myths, it is claimed, by suggesting that issuing each ID card will cost more than the pollster-approved sum of £30. The Home Office’s own estimate for the cost of the scheme over 10 years (the renewal period for an ID card) is £4.4bn. Divided by 40 million UK adults, that equates to a cost per card of more than £100 - but to say so is scaremongering, apparently. Never mind that the London School of Economics estimates the costs to the taxpayer may be five times higher still. Perhaps ministers are hoping that we won’t notice if the costs are taken from our taxes and increased bank charges (verification fees), instead of all being demanded as up-front payment when applying for passports.

The ID database will hold only core identity information, the Home Office pack says, and nothing that might be deemed sensitive. Never mind that victims fleeing domestic abuse, witnesses fleeing violent criminals or medical researchers working with animals might consider their addresses to be sensitive data. No mention is made of the audit trail that will record details of every visit to a clinic, every application for credit, every occasion on which government-mandated regulations require verification of identity.

No-one will go to prison for failure to register for an ID card, the Home Office says. This is true. Instead, civil penalties will be applied. Refuseniks will be denied access to non-emergency health care, credit or travel authorisation. Meanwhile, people who fail to adhere to the new reporting requirements will be driven to bankruptcy by civil penalties, with no chance of a day in court. Ministers have said in parliament that the government will not allow the creation of “ID martyrs”. The government did learn something from the poll tax.

Attendees are told that there is no widespread opposition to the scheme. An old poll is cited (from long before HMRC lost the child benefit database) which found a majority of people were willing to trade civil liberties to prevent terrorism. No mention of later polls that show a large majority of the population opposed to the government collecting more personal data.

The information pack assures participants that ID cards will not be compulsory to carry. Entirely true. That will, of course, disappoint those few supporters of the scheme who hoped that police might find it easier to identify criminals or immigrants free at large on the streets. But ID cards haven’t prevented immigration, crime or terrorism in other countries anyway.

The government assures readers that the ID database will be secure and that hackers won’t be able to access the data. Four damning reports released last week about the loss of half the population’s data on the child benefit database and the personal and banking details of over half a million recruits to the armed forces might lead fair-minded people to consider otherwise. The only way to keep personal information secure is to ensure that the government does not collect it in the first place.

A blanket assurance is given that ID cards will not breach human rights. No mention of the right to privacy. No mention of the intrusive nature of this large surveillance database. Unfortunately, Home Office minister Meg Hillier has declined an invitation to attend a more public meeting to debate these issues in front of a general audience while she is in Scotland. She has more important matters which must be attended to in London, although a private meeting was offered. Why might the minister not wish to meet the public? Why was this roadshow’s visit to Scotland not advertised widely in advance? One might think that the Home Office has something to hide.

Our offer stands. NO2ID will arrange a public meeting in Glasgow or Edinburgh whenever the minister feels ready to venture north again.

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Nine held in ID card demo

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

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MEP Tries to Certify Bloggers

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Via Blairwatch | We earlier reported an initiative about the EU certifying bloggers. EU Observer has an interesting report about the outcry from this, correctly noting that this is just a proposal at the moment.

However, further down the report they do quote the proposal’s originator, Ms Mikko MEP (Who hasn’t replied to our email) saying

 So, there you have it; there is a plan to have bloggers ‘Officially Certified’ by the EU. Lets hope sanity throws this idea onto the dustbin of history where it belongs.

In the meantime, Ms Mikko can find our response by referring the reply given in Arkell Vs Pressdram.

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Pretending That Bush is Not a Tyrant

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Consortium News | All over the world down through history, political leaders who have engaged in torture and other grotesque crimes of state have justified their actions as necessary to protect their governments or their people or themselves.

 

It was true when England’s King Edward I had William Wallace – “Braveheart” – drawn and quartered in 1305 for resisting the crown’s rule in Scotland, and a gruesome death was what King George III foresaw for America’s Founding Fathers in 1776 when they stood up to his abuses in the Colonies.

 

Kings and tyrants often inflicted special pain on people they viewed as challenging their authority and – at such times – they wiped away the rules of justice. But the United States was supposed to be different.

Indeed, reaction to tyrannical monarchs was what compelled the Founders to establish a government of laws, not men, based on “unalienable rights” for all mankind, including protection against arbitrary detention and prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Which is why it was stunning to watch the June 26 hearing before the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution as two representatives of George W. Bush’s presidency responded with disdain when pressed on the administration’s extraordinary vision of an all-powerful Executive operating without legal limits.

While Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David Addington treated the committee Democrats with haughty contempt, former State Department lawyer John Yoo expressed the ultimate arrogance of power with his muddled responses and evasions of direct questions.

 

The soft-spoken Yoo, who authored some of the key legal opinions justifying the abuse of detainees, wouldn’t even give a clear answer to the simple question of what atrocity might be beyond President Bush’s power to inflict.

Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, cited a news report quoting an ambiguous response from Yoo, who is now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, about whether the President could torture the child of a “war on terror” suspect to induce the suspect to talk.

The Judiciary Committee chairman asked: “Is there anything, Professor Yoo, the President cannot order to be done to a suspect if he believes it’s necessary for national defense?”

When Yoo dissembled, Conyers posed the question more pointedly: “Could the President order a suspect buried alive?”

Yoo continued to fence with the congressman, avoiding a direct answer.

 

“I don’t think I ever gave advice that the President could bury somebody alive,” Yoo said, adding he believed that “no American President would ever have to order that or feel it necessary to order that.”

Pointedly, however, Yoo avoided a direct response to the question of whether he believed the President had the authority to do it.

Pulling Fingernails

Later in the hearing, Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tennessee, returned to the administration’s legal theories that Bush holds “plenary” – or unlimited – power at a time of war and that the President’s motivation, i.e. protecting the country, justifies taking extreme actions.

 

“So, if I want to take somebody’s fingernails out if I think it’s for the good of the country, that’s not torture?” Cohen asked. “If I want to cut someone’s appendage off, it’s okay as long as I think it’s important for the country? …

“Is there anything you think the President cannot order in terms of interrogation of these prisoners in a state of war?”

Again, dodging a direct answer, Yoo responded that those examples “are not addressed in these memos. … I would say there are things I don’t think any American President would order in order to protect the national security and one of those things is the torture of detainees.”

 

At this point, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-New York, subcommittee chairman, interrupted:

“This is the second time today … that you’ve said that you don’t believe an American President would order certain heinous acts. Would you answer the question, not would he order it, but could he order it under the law in your opinion?”

Yoo responded, “It’s not fair to ask that question without any kind of facts,” prompting Nadler to rephrase the question again:

“There’s nothing conceivable to which you could answer ‘no’ that an American President could not order this without knowing facts and context?”

Yoo: “I can’t agree with that because you are trying to put words in my mouth attempting to get me to answer some broad question covering all circumstances and I can’t do that.”

 

Though refusing to answer, Yoo reaffirmed – through his circumlocution – what has been a central tenet of Bush’s view of presidential power, that there are no limits to his power for the duration of the “war on terror,” even though it is a vague conflict that has no definable end and that is fought on a global battlefield including U.S. territory.

In other words, it is the opinion of the right-wing lawyers who have constructed this legal theory that Bush truly can do whatever he wants to whomever he wants anywhere in the world as long as he couches his actions under his Commander-in-Chief authority.

And when it comes to torture, other word games come into play, such as categorizing “waterboarding,” a form of simulated drowning that has been regarded as torture for centuries, as something other than torture. Reality is all in the eye of the all-powerful President.

 

Though this right-wing concept of unlimited presidential power appeals to some Americans who consider their personal safety more important than the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it is so radical a break with American traditions that even its chief advocates, such as Yoo and Addington, duck and weave when the questions are presented directly.

Election 2008

This theory of an all-powerful President now is at stake in Election 2008, as was made clear after the Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, on June 12 that the administration couldn’t deny habeas corpus rights to detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, some of whom have been held as long as six years.

In his dissent, right-wing Justice Antonin Scalia not only challenged the majority’s legal arguments but pushed the emotional hot button that by recognizing this ancient right for challenging a government’s power to imprison someone, the Supreme Court was putting Americans in danger.

The ruling, Scalia said, “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.” Three other right-wing justices – Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito – concurred in Scalia’s dissent.

 

Reacting to the Supreme Court, Republican presidential candidate John McCain backed the right-wing minority and called the majority’s ruling “one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.”

By contrast, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sided with the majority, calling habeas rights for detainees “an important step toward reestablishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law.”

If elected, McCain has vowed to appoint more justices like Roberts and Alito – George W. Bush’s choices – meaning that if a President McCain gets to replace one of the five majority justices, the new court might well reinterpret the Constitution to legalize an all-powerful President who can act much like ancient kings once did.

Then, if a President thinks that it might be a good idea to torture someone’s child or bury somebody alive, the questions about the limits of his authority might not be hypothetical anymore.

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Brussels To Sign Away Your Private Details To US

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

The Times | American authorities will be able to obtain greater access to private information such as credit card transactions, internet browsing habits and travel histories of people in Britain under a deal being finalised by European Union officials.

An internal report leaked to The New York Times yesterday said the EU was on the verge of agreeing to give US law enforcement and security agencies information about all EU citizens.

Talks on the new data-sharing deal have been going on since last year. Negotiators are trying to agree on minimum standards to protect privacy rights. This would include limiting access to information to “authorised individuals with an identified purpose” for their search. The Americans want to secure final agreement before President Bush leaves office in January.

This weekend, privacy campaigners said the move would allow the Americans to carry out “fishing” expeditions against anyone they deemed to be of interest and would further undermine individual privacy.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: “We can barely trust our own authorities with sensitive personal information. What redress will we have on the other side of the Atlantic if our details are lost or abused?”

The Foreign Office would make no comment yesterday and an EU spokesman declined to discuss the matter. Stewart Baker, assistant secretary for policy at the US department of homeland security, said that the deal would make it easier for the US to obtain private information on individuals from banks, credit card firms and other companies in Britain and the EU.

He said many firms faced sanctions from the EU if they were deemed to have passed information to the US in breach of data protection laws. The deal would in effect give them greater protection from punishment in the future. It would apply to airline passengers and anyone whom the US government had legitimate authority to obtain information about, he added.

The internal report said negotiators had largely agreed on an “international binding agreement”. The pact would make it clear that it was lawful for European governments and companies such as internet and credit card firms to transfer private information to the United States and vice versa.

Officials have still to resolve whether European citizens should be able to sue the US government over its handling of personal data. The deal is designed to resolve conflicts over information-sharing between the EU and the US that followed the 9/11 attacks in America.

The US government demanded access to customer data held by airlines flying out of Europe and by a consortium, known as Swift, that monitors global banking transfers. American officials wanted the data so that they could search for suspicious activity.

Barry Steinhardt, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said: “Clearly it’s a broad exchange of data. It’s another example of the US drawing in the rest of the world to sacrifice its principles.

“The US is essentially asking the rest of the world to conform to our very limited notion of what’s private.

“It’s not a full-scale transfer of data between Europe and the United States. But it provides for wide access to data which are supposed to be protected under EU law.”

Additional reporting: Sarah Baxter

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

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How the “Dear Leader” Blackmailed Bush

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

By Mike Whitney | After seven years of nonstop belligerence and saber rattling, the Bush administration has given North Korea everything it has demanded. In return, the US gets nothing. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, will not get access to Kim Jong-il’s nuclear stockpile or its “Top-Secret” file on weapons programs or be allowed to conduct surprise “go anywhere, see anything” inspections. Kim will continue to develop his long-range ballistic-missile delivery system, the Taepodong 2, just as he will (presumably) continue to export nuclear weapons technology to allies in the Middle East and elsewhere. The Bush administration has made a very dangerous enemy and the present agreement does nothing to mitigate that threat. It merely sends a message to America’s rivals around the world that the US can be blackmailed if the stakes are high enough. The United States has been humiliated by a man who many believe is an unstable megalomaniac and a ruthless tyrant. Was that the goal?

There was a time when George Bush would have nothing to do with Kim Jong-il, he privately scoffed at the reclusive dictator and called him “a pygmy” behind his back. He placed North Korea on the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, froze their foreign bank accounts, refused to honor the terms of the Agreed Framework (which was negotiated by Bill Clinton) and threatened to take military action if Kim did not comply with US demands.

What a difference a few years and a few nuclear weapons make. Now the blustery bravado and swaggering insolence has changed to hand-wringing and hyperactive backroom diplomacy. The Bush team has suddenly shifted from its ritual chest-thumping into damage-control mode, but the change comes too late.

On Thursday, Bush announced that he would remove North Korea from the terrorism list and lift other economic sanctions. This follows an earlier decision to provide Kim with massive quantities of oil to meet the North’s energy needs; a fact that is ignored by the establishment media. On virtually every issue, the sullen despot in the oversized Foster-Grants has gotten whatever he’s asked for. This has infuriated many of Bush’s biggest supporters. Last week, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton blasted the agreement saying:

“I think it’s actually a clear victory for North Korea.” They’ve gained “enormous political legitimacy by being taken off our list of state sponsors of terrorism and out from under the prohibitions of the Trading With the Enemy Act. … It’s a very sad day for supporters of the president. It’s the final collapse of Bush’s foreign policy.”

Indeed, North Korea is second the biggest policy failure of the Bush presidency. (Iraq is still the first, by far) Bush has staked his legacy on his ability to “keep the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world’s most worst dictators”, but his mule-headedness and incompetence have only made matters worse and pushed the world closer to nuclear Armageddon. Now that Kim has nukes at his disposal, South Korea and Japan will be forced to escalate to maintain military parity. Bush’s botched diplomatic efforts signal the beginning of another nuclear arms race. At the very least, it is the end of the NPT.

A nuclear-armed North Korea also creates bigger challenges for the US in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal summed it up like this in an editorial on Friday:

“Most troubling is the message all of this sends to Iran, or other rogue states. The lesson is that when you build a weapon, your political leverage increases. Play enough brinkmanship, and you can even receive diplomatic absolution without admitting to having the kind of nuclear device you exploded less than two years earlier. We understand that diplomacy often includes winks and nods, but it shouldn’t require denial.” (Wall Street Journal, “Leap of Faith”)

There’s no doubt that Tehran is watching Bush’s backpedaling with great amusement or that the Mullahs have figured out that the only way to stop the relentless hectoring of the US is by building a nuclear weapon. The only difference between North Korea and the last-remaining member of the “axis of evil” (Iran) is five or six 15 megaton nuclear warheads. If that’s what it takes to gain the respect of the “international community”; so be it.

The western media has described Bush’s capitulation as “a triumph” because Kim blew up the already “out of commission” cooling tower at Yongbyon. Big deal. The celebratory photos can be found in any of America’s leading newspapers. But North Korea did not develop its nuclear weapons at the plutonium plant, but in a parallel, underground program which made bomb fuel from enriched uranium. No one denies this. The demolition of the tower was meaningless public relations photo-op to confuse the American people and help Bush save face. The people who follow developments with North Korea know the truth, that the Bush administration has once again dragged the US through the mud.

The harshest critics of the new deal have been Bush’s far-right supporters, like Claudia Rosett, of “The Rosett Report” (a favorite at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute) Here’s what she says:

“The lesson to date is that America, faced with nuclear blackmail, will bow down, dignify and fortify tyrants, fork over loot, and celebrate the process as a victory for diplomacy. Were North Korea to detonate a nuclear bomb over Los Angeles tomorrow, I start to wonder if Condi Rice and Chris Hill, would describe the cataclysm as “troubling” and then re-cast it as a candid and informative addendum to North Korea’s promised declaration of its nuclear program.”

Rosett is right. The message to foreign leaders is clear; the only way to change minds in Washington is by putting a loaded gun to their heads. Countries without WMD simply have no bargaining power. That’s the real lesson here and other countries are bound to draw the same conclusion. In 2002, Dick Cheney made his famous statement, “We don’t negotiate with evil; we defeat it”.

Baloney.

Immediately after the North detonated a nuclear bomb in 2006, Bush administration officials met in a face-to-face meeting in Berlin. The meeting was kept secret to conceal the administration’s willingness to meet one-on-one with their North Korean counterparts. Up until then, the arrogant Bushies had refused to negotiate in person; choosing instead to hide behind the 6 party talks. Kim’s nuclear experiment changed all that and brought about a sudden reversal in the administration’s approach.
“According to Japan’s Asashi newspaper, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding under which North Korea would make steps towards denuclearization at the same time as the US resumed annual shipments of 500,000 tonnes of oil, which were halted in 2002.” (UK Guardian) Bush was only too happy to oblige.

So much for Cheney’s “We don’t negotiate with evil”. In fact, we don’t negotiate; we cave in and give away the farm.

Other parts of Clinton’s “Agreed Framework” are still being hammered out, but one thing is certain, Kim is not going to back-down on the one thing he wants more than anything else; written assurances that the United States will not preemptively attack North Korea. The Bush administration has resisted providing “security guarantees” in the form of treaties because they conflict with the so-called Bush Doctrine which asserts that the US can attack whoever it chooses to protect its own vital interests. That doctrine is about to meet its greatest challenge; a loony autocrat with a fistful of nukes. Kim would be crazy to accept anything less than a signed treaty, and he will probably get it, because no one in Washington wants to see the Korean Peninsula transformed into a WMD-production factory. That’s the nightmare scenario that everyone wants to avoid.

The crisis with North Korea could have been avoided with skillful diplomacy and a willingness to compromise on the central issues. Now Bush has backed himself into a corner and will have to grovel his way out. That means he’ll have to engage in two-party negotiations and work out a deal at the bargaining table. Good luck.

Presently, Kim Jong-il has a stockpile of 6 to 10 nuclear warheads. With a few finishing touches to his Taepodong ICBM-system, he’ll be able to wipe out the 9 western states with a flip of the switch. Bush’s bungling has put half the country in the crosshairs of a man whose sanity has always been in doubt.

You’re doin’ a heckuva job, Georgie!

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Is Britain moving to the right?

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Socialist Review | It’s hard to remember that only nine months ago 1 May was projected as a likely general election day. Then, the theory went, Gordon Brown would be able to take Labour to a fourth election victory, strengthen his position as elected prime minister and continue for another four or five years. Brown was at that time – again hard to remember – enjoying a honeymoon following the unlamented departure of Tony Blair.

Instead the local elections in parts of England, Wales and London on 1 May, alongside the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, were terrible defeats for Labour. On the basis of these results, the Tories would have a 116 majority in parliament if there were a general election now. We can therefore be pretty certain that there will be no election, if Labour has anything to do with it, until late in this parliament.

These elections mark a watershed in a number of ways. Most importantly, they presage the return of a Tory government for the first time in more than a decade. May also saw the election of a Tory mayor, after eight years in office for Ken Livingstone, who won first as an independent against Labour in 2000, and then as the Labour candidate four years later. Alongside the election of Boris Johnson, the fascist BNP won a seat on the London Assembly.

None of this is good news for the left. While some right wing candidates made advances in the London elections (the notable exceptions being UKIP and the English Democrats) candidates from the Lib Dems leftwards either lost votes or only just maintained their previous ground (as in the case of the Greens).

It would, however, be a mistake to see the result as simply a shift to the right. Much more it represented a collapse of support for Labour with the Tories being the main beneficiaries. Why did that happen? Firstly, the election as a whole was fought on the basis of right wing politics. Crime and immigration dominated the issues being discussed, and this was a deliberate decision on the part of the main parties. When that happens it is much harder for a space to the left to open up, especially when Labour goes along with the consensus of more police on the streets and being tougher on crime.

More fundamentally, traditional Labour voters were punishing Labour for the 10p tax, the rise of food and utility prices, the housing crisis and much more besides. In the circumstances of a right wing and unpopular Labour government, staggering on after 11 wasted years, it is unsurprising that some voters saw little difference between Labour and the Tories.

It is instructive to consider two feature articles which both appeared on the same day a week after the election results. One, by Ken Livingstone in the Guardian, heralded his support for and in the City of London. The second, by David Cameron in the Independent, appealed to all those who were progressive on green or equality issues to join the Tories. No wonder voters were confused.

At the same time as these electoral gains for the right, there was another story during the election period. Teachers, lecturers and civil servants struck and demonstrated on 24 April. The demonstrations on that day were some of the youngest and most militant workers’ demonstrations for at least a generation.

The carnival held in London’s Victoria Park the weekend before the elections attracted 100,000 in opposition to the BNP.

Immigration

In addition, there is no evidence that attitudes on a range of issues – from privatisation to war – have changed in the course of the election or that the results are likely to lead to such a change of views. In many instances the general public remains to the left of politicians on these questions and on many more. There is one major exception to this – immigration.

The consensus here is much more right wing, with even those who claim to be anti-racist and pro-diversity (which even Tories like Johnson now boast) saying that there have to be limits on immigration. Or, as it’s sometimes put, “the country’s full up”. This, plus the growing wave of Islamophobia, has given a base for the BNP to grow. Even liberal opinion has played its part in this. The BBC’s White Season showed a concern for the “white working class” not evident when reporting strikes, or the class bias in education, or the housing crisis.

Even in the case of the BNP vote, however, it is clear that for many it represented a protest against the Labour government by people who felt they had been ignored or left behind by Labour. That does not mean we should dismiss the vote. While the proportion of the vote was not much higher than four years ago, the absolute number of votes was higher, and the election of an assembly member for the BNP gives them a profile and a level of confidence which they have not had in London for many years.

The BNP vote also highlights the contradictory nature of the politics in the recent elections. There is a sense of frustration and disgust with the policies of the mainstream parties and politicians, who are widely seen as corrupt and only in it for themselves, and this sentiment can be channelled in different directions. In these last elections the main beneficiaries were right wing parties, particularly over the question of immigration. But this was at least partly because the main parties have taken up and promoted anti-immigrant policies.

Most shamefully, New Labour continued to do so in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, held just weeks after the local elections. Literature for the Labour candidate highlighted “concerns” over immigration and invited voters to consider, “What do you think is the biggest problem facing the area?” offering “immigration” as a tick box reply.

The left failed to meet the challenge presented by this election. In London it became a Boris and Ken show, with little substantive differences on most policies, and some of those not to Labour’s advantage (for example on ID cards or conductors on buses). The other parties were squeezed, especially UKIP whose vote fell most dramatically from over 100,000 to just over 20,000 and who lost two seats previously held on the assembly; and the vote I received in 2004 for Respect at around 61,000 first preferences fell to under 17,000 this time. It’s clear that many voters did not want to risk voting for a smaller party for mayor in case it led to the defeat of their favoured candidate.

While this squeeze affected the votes for mayor, the split in Respect and the divisions on the left did no one any favours in the list elections when they were in direct competition. The left vote was therefore split in London, with neither the Left List nor George Galloway’s Respect getting close to winning. There was clearly great confusion over the name. In addition, any division leads to political confusion with some people taking the view that they will vote for neither. The Left List vote was disappointing. It is clear that the weeks which we had to publicise a new name were not sufficient and that some people voted for Respect thinking they were voting for us.

It was, however, right to stand in the elections. When we took part in hustings we made a real impact, helped to pull the campaign to the left and put distinctive policies on housing, crime and immigration onto the agenda. We were also able to intervene around the teachers’ strikes and against the BNP putting a political alternative. It would have been wrong to take part in an election campaign where no one challenged the dominant consensus.

At the same time, it was also right not to put all our emphasis on elections. Elections are a very useful snapshot of consciousness among working class people at any one time, but they don’t tell the whole story. Of necessity, they reflect the past more than the present in the sense that people still vote mostly on past loyalties or on issues which particular parties have or have not taken up in the past. The different groups of workers going on strike over pay, or the 100,000 who attended the carnival, or those becoming radicalised over the banking and economic crisis and the high cost of food and commodities, or the students who have campaigned for fighting unions, have a specific weight regardless of if or how they vote.

Any socialist or left organisation has to relate to them, as well as to ethnic minorities suffering immigration raids, or the Muslim community suffering racism and attacks on civil liberties. Opposition to the war continues, as does defence of women’s rights, especially over abortion and the reactionary attempt to reduce the time limit. The outcome of the various struggles that take place in the coming months can have a greater impact on the balance of class forces, on people’s lives and their willingness to engage in further struggle than where they put their cross on a ballot paper.

Where does the left go from here? Firstly, this is a time when many on the left want to discuss why Livingstone lost, whether a Tory government is inevitable and how the left can organise to defend ourselves. We have had nearly a decade when the movement has seemed on the rise, since Seattle in 1999, and this is a reverse which requires explanation and serious analysis if it is not to lead some to despair.

Secondly, we have to engage in activity which can counter despair and point a way forward for the left: whether against fascism, for higher pay or over housing needs. But that activity on its own is not enough. We also need political solutions to the major ideological and political questions that face us. Socialists are well placed to do this: we have a set of ideas which attempt to understand the world in order to change it, also because we take a wider view of the working class movement.

The crucial questions facing the movement today are how do we develop successful struggles and how do we build an alternative to Labour which has so badly failed generations of working people? The election results were bad for the left overall in London – although even here there were some very good votes in north and east London which show the left can present an alternative – but in parts of the country the results were extremely good, for example in Sheffield and Preston. Other results, for example the anti-academies councillors in Barrow, who won four seats, show there is space to the left of Labour that needs to be filled.

That is why it would be a mistake to abandon the electoral field, and why the Left List should continue to organise locally, through meetings, networks and activities which can allow us to build a base in the localities. In London we began to establish very good networks among different ethnic minorities and trade unionists, but in this election they did not translate into votes. We have to build on our areas of success to find a way of winning more votes in future.

The left also needs to build links and organisation on every issue which confronts us – war, fascism, a growing housing crisis, attacks on living standards – which at present will fall short of total electoral or programmatic unity, but which should aim to go beyond single-issue campaigns. Labour MP John McDonnell has put forward a list of demands that Labour should adopt to win the next election and these sorts of issues are ones which can unite the left.

Finally, socialists are too few in number to bring about the changes and policies we need. That has to change, both by winning more people directly to socialist ideas, and by deepening our influence where we can make a difference and where we have already shown the importance of socialist organisation. That also means spreading our influence geographically, especially to areas such as outer London where the fascists have gained support in recent years.

The world is changing very fast. We do not know the full extent of the economic crisis – only that it is already affecting jobs, wages and housing. We can see the terrible impact of neoliberal policies as people riot in different parts of the world to gain enough to eat. We know that there is great disillusion with existing politics and a sometimes inchoate desire for change. Socialists can give a lead and make a real difference by fighting on the economic, political and ideological fronts.

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