SocialismToday Socialist Party magazine | |
Imperialist powers have implemented a no-fly zone
over Libya to protect their own strategic and economic interests and to
restore their damaged prestige. Incredibly, some on the Marxist left
support this military intervention. PETER TAAFFE writes. WAR IS THE most barbaric of all human activity,
invested as it is in the modern era with fiendish weapons of mass
destruction. It also lays bare the reality of class relations,
nationally and internationally, which are normally obfuscated, hidden by
layers of hypocrisy and the moral turpitude of the ruling classes. It is
the ultimate test, alongside revolution, of ideas and programme, not
only for the bourgeois but also for the labour movement and the
different political trends within it. The current Libyan war – for that is what it is –
illustrates this clearly. Capitalism and imperialism, masquerading under
the moth-eaten label of ‘humanitarian military intervention’ – utterly
discredited by the slaughter of Iraq – are using the conflict in an
attempt to regain the initiative. Taken aback by the sweep of the
revolution in Tunisia and Egypt – with loyal props such as Mubarak and
Ben Ali toppled – they desperately sought a lever to halt the process
and hopefully reverse it. This is what lies behind the bloody massacre in
Bahrain, carried out by Saudi Arabian troops, with a large component of
mercenaries from Pakistan and elsewhere. Not a peep has issued from the
British government on the revelations in The Observer of widespread
murder gangs – led by Sunni Muslims linked to the monarchy – and the
deliberate attempt to foster sectarianism in what had been previously a
largely unified non-ethnic movement. The slogans of the original
Bahraini demonstrations were: ‘We are not Shia, we are not Sunni, we are
Bahraini’. Equally, the ‘Labour leaders’ – led by New Labour
chief, Ed Miliband, who promised something ‘different’ to the previous
regime of Tony Blair – have now shuffled into line to back David
Cameron’s Libyan policies and the imposition of the no-fly zone. Incredibly, this policy has been supported by some
on the left, including a few who adhere to Marxism and Trotskyism.
Amongst these must be included Gilbert Achar, who has written books on
the Middle East, and whose support for the no-fly zone was originally
carried uncritically on the website journal of the United Secretariat of
the Fourth International (USFI), International Viewpoint. His views were
subsequently repudiated by the USFI. No such uncertainty, however, exists for the
Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL). This organisation’s shrill tone,
particularly in criticising others on the left, rises in inverse
proportion to its small forces and its even more limited influence
within the labour movement. The AWL has even dragged in Leon Trotsky to
justify imperialist intervention through the no-fly zone. One headline
read: "Libya: no illusions in west but ‘anti-intervention’ opposition is
abandoning the rebels". Another priceless headline was: ‘Why we should
not denounce intervention in Libya’. (Workers Liberty website, 23 March) These latter examples fly in the face of a cardinal
principle of Marxism and Trotskyism. That is to strive to instil into
the working class and its organisations complete class independence from
all shades of bourgeois opinion and the actions that flow from this.
This applies on all questions, particularly during a war, even a civil
war, which the Libyan conflict clearly has elements of. There is nothing remotely progressive in the attempt
of the imperialist powers of Britain, France or the US to implement the
no-fly zone. The Benghazi rebels are so much small change in their
calculations. Only yesterday, these ‘powers’ embraced Muammar Gaddafi,
supplied him with weapons, bought his oil and, through Blair, visited
his ‘big tent’ in the desert and welcomed him into the ‘international
community’. This term is a complete misnomer, as is the idea of the
United Nations, used on this occasion as the screen behind which the
intervention in Libya was prepared, for naked capitalist and imperialist
class interests. Undoubtedly, there are illusions amongst many
idealistic young people and workers who look towards such bodies to
resolve the problems of war, conflict, poverty, etc. Some were also
motivated to support the no-fly zone because of the fear that the
population in Benghazi would be massacred by Gaddafi’s forces. But the
UN merely brings the capitalist nations together, dominated
overwhelmingly by the US, to collaborate when their interests coincide,
but which, equally, are very ‘disunited’ when the opposite is the case.
The jockeying for position and the squabbles between the different
imperialist powers over the Libyan intervention illustrate this. THE REVOLUTIONS IN the Middle East and North Africa
initially revealed the uncertainty – almost the paralysis – of the major
imperialist power, the US, to intervene. The administration of Barack
Obama has been forced to attempt to separate itself from George Bush’s
doctrine of a unipolar world dominated by US imperialism, with its
overwhelming economic and military power. It still retains this military
advantage compared to its rivals but this is now undermined by the
economic weakening of the US. There is also the problem of Afghanistan and the
fear that this is leading to military overstretch. This forced Robert
Gates, US defence secretary, to declare early on his opposition – and,
it must be assumed, of the US general staff – to the use of US land
troops anywhere else in the world. He also said that it was a
‘certainty’ that no US ground troops would be authorised by Obama in
Libya. He underlined this when he "laid into the rebels’ capabilities,
describing the opposition as a faction-ridden and disparate ‘misnomer’
whose forces lacked ‘command and control and organisation’." (Observer,
3 April) Obama, on the hoof, has sought to formulate a new
military diplomatic doctrine in line with the changed position of the
US. He has tried to draw a distinction between the ‘vital’ and
‘non-vital’ interests of US imperialism. In ‘vital’ cases, the US will
act unilaterally if the situation requires it but the US, he arrogantly
proclaimed, is no longer ‘the world’s policeman’ but, in future, would
act as the world’s ‘police chief’. This means, it seems, that the US
would lend its support, be formally at the head of, a ‘multilateral core
coalition’, so long as this did not mean the automatic actual deployment
of troops. Despite this, the pressure allegedly to prevent a
‘bloodbath’ has now compelled Obama to sign a public letter with Nicolas
Sarkozy and Cameron declaring that it would be ‘an unconscionable
betrayal’ if Gaddafi remains in place and the rebels are left to his
mercy. Libya, they declare, threatens to become ‘a failed state’. This
appears to set the scene for another somersault, particularly by Obama,
to prepare the use of some ground forces if necessary. When it has been
unable to intervene directly, because of domestic opposition for
instance, imperialism has not hesitated to use mercenaries to overthrow
a regime it did not favour or to stymie a revolution. Such was the
policy of Ronald Reagan’s administration in using hired thugs, the
Contras, against the Nicaraguan revolution. Imperialism has been forced into the latest stand by
the fact that Gaddafi appears to be winning or, at least, has sufficient
military strength and a residue of support to avoid outright military
defeat, short of a land invasion. The rebels hold only the east, and not
even all of this. The west, in which two thirds of the population live,
is still largely controlled by Gaddafi and his forces. This is not
entirely due to popular compliance with the Gaddafi regime. His forces
have most of the guns, particularly heavy weapons, tanks, etc. He has
always kept the regular army in check for fear that a coup could emanate
from this quarter. Patrick Cockburn wrote in the Independent on Sunday:
"Absence of a professional army in Libya means that the rebels have to
rely on long-retired soldiers to train new recruits". (17 April) Gaddafi
is also able to draw on tribal support, as well as the political capital
accumulated for his regime from the higher living standards in Libya,
before the conflict, than in most countries in the region. MANY SUPPORTERS OF the no-fly zone took this
position in the expectation that imperialism would be unable to proceed
beyond this. What will they do if, as cannot be excluded, land forces in
one form or another are deployed with the open or concealed compliance
of the imperialist powers of the US, France and Britain? In the House of Commons debate on 21 March, Miliband
was unrestrained in his support for Cameron’s military action. This is
further confirmation of the political degeneration of the Labour Party,
from a workers’ party at bottom into a bourgeois formation. Writers from
the capitalist class now almost casually recognise this reality: "The
Labour Party was once the political arm of the organised working class.
All three main parties are now the political arm of the organised
corporate class. This is not a peculiarly British phenomenon. Almost
every advanced democracy, and particularly the US, struggles to control
the corporate sector". (Peter Wilby, The Guardian, 12 April) Just compare the stance of the current ‘Labour’
leader to that of Harold Wilson at the time of the Vietnam war. Much to
the chagrin of then US president, Lyndon Johnson, Wilson – although he
was not averse to supporting military action abroad if he thought he
could get away with it – refused to involve British troops. For him to
have done otherwise would have split the Labour Party from top to
bottom, probably leading to his removal as leader. In other words, he
was compelled by the pressure of the ranks of the Labour Party and the
trade unions to desist from supporting military action by US
imperialism. Now Miliband backs Cameron, with hardly a squeak
from New Labour MPs or the ‘rank and file’. He has invoked Spain during
the civil war, in justifying support for the government. He declared:
"In 1936, a Spanish politician came to Britain to plead for support in
the face of General Franco’s violent fascism. He said: ‘We are fighting
with sticks and knives against tanks and aircraft and guns, and it
revolts the conscience of the world that that should be true’." (Hansard,
21 March) The parallel with Spain is entirely false. Then, a
genuine revolution of the working class and poor peasants unfolded, with
the creation, at least in the initial period after July 1936, of genuine
workers’ power, mass committees, and the occupation of land and
factories. Spain was experiencing a social revolution. In the main, this
revolution was defeated not by Franco’s fascist forces but by the false
policies of the republican bourgeoisie which derailed the revolution,
aided and abetted by the Communist Party, under orders from Stalin and
the Russian bureaucracy. They correctly feared that the triumph of the
Spanish revolution would be the signal for their own overthrow. In this situation, the world working class rallied
in support of the demand for arms to Spain. Then imperialism,
particularly the Anglo-French powers, did everything to prevent the
Spanish workers from being armed. Yet the right-wing Tory MP, Bill Cash,
agreed with Miliband that there was indeed "a parallel with what
happened in 1936", and therefore supported the "arming of those who are
resisting Gaddafi" in Benghazi. Does this not indicate the political
character of the present leadership in Benghazi and the east, which
includes former Gaddafi loyalists like the former head of the special
forces, Abdul Fattah Younis? If the original tendency shown in Benghazi
of mass committees, involving the participation of the working class,
had been maintained there would be no question of support emanating from
right-wing Tories! Miliband gave further justification for his support
of the no-fly zone: "There is international consent, a just cause and a
feasible mission… are we really saying that we should be a country that
stands by and does nothing?" No serious left force can advocate a policy of
abstention where working people are subjected to murderous attack by a
ruthless dictator like Gaddafi. Clearly, we had to give political
support –the position of the Socialist Party and the Committee for a
Workers’ International (CWI) from the outset – to the people of Benghazi
when they drove Gaddafi’s forces from the city in a revolutionary
uprising. This is a sufficient answer to those who seek to justify
support for military intervention from the outside on the basis that
Benghazi’s people are defenceless. They used the same arguments about
the impotence of the Iraqi people in the grip of a ruthless dictator to
justify the bombardment and invasion of Iraq, with all the murderous
results that we see now. But this argument was shattered by the uprising
of the Tunisian and Egyptian peoples who, through their own multi-millioned
power, smashed dictatorships. The people of Benghazi have already defeated
Gaddafi’s forces once. This was when revolutionary or semi-revolutionary
methods were deployed. These now seem to have taken a backseat as
petty-bourgeois and bourgeois forces have elbowed aside the genuine
revolutionary forces. On the basis of mass workers’ committees, a
revolutionary army – unlike the ragtag force supporting the so-called
‘transitional government’ – could have been mobilised to seize all the
towns in the east and make a revolutionary appeal to the people of the
west, particularly in the capital, Tripoli. There are many successful examples of this in
history, not least in the Spanish revolution, which Miliband invokes but
does not understand. For instance, after the workers in Barcelona
smashed Franco’s fascist uprising in July 1936, José Buenaventura
Durruti formed a revolutionary army which marched through Catalonia and
Aragon to the gates of Madrid. This placed four fifths of Spain in the
hands of the working class and poor peasantry. This was indeed a ‘just’
war on the part of the masses who were defending democracy while
striving for a new, humane, socialist society. Moreover, it was one with
real international support from the European and world working class.
Miliband’s criteria for what is ‘just’ and what is not is situated
within capitalism and what is best for that system, not the interests of
working-class people who are in an oppositional and antagonistic
relationship to that system, increasingly so today. OUR CRITERIA OF what is just and progressive,
including wars, is that which enhances and strengthens the working
masses, increases their power, their consciousness, etc. What hinders
this is retrogressive. Capitalist, imperialist intervention, including
the no-fly zone, even if successful, will not strengthen the working
class, increase the sense of its own power, to see itself and its
organisations as the real and only lever for achieving its ends.
Instead, it directs the gaze of the workers in the east towards an
outside ‘liberating’ force, thereby lowering the consciousness of
working people in their own potential power. As even Tory MPs commented in the Commons debate,
Miliband seemed to identify himself completely with the ‘Blair doctrine’
– so-called humanitarian military intervention from the outside – from
which he had appeared to distance himself when first elected leader.
This meant justifying both Blair and Cameron’s arguments when confronted
with the choice of where and when to intervene in the world. Miliband
fell back on the specious statement: "The argument that because we
cannot do everything we cannot do anything is a bad argument". ‘We’,
that is capitalism and imperialism, cannot intervene against
dictatorship in Burma, cannot even raise ‘our’ voices against the
murderous assaults of the Israeli ruling class on the Palestinians in
Gaza. ‘We’ are mute against the vicious regimes in Saudi Arabia and
Bahrain. Nevertheless, it is ‘just’ to oppose Gaddafi – while only
yesterday ‘we’ embraced him – and to use force from the sky, at least,
against him and his regime. The ‘liberal’ Observer newspaper takes the prize for
summing up this arbitrary hypocritical approach of capitalism: "Why does
this Gulf regime [Bahrain] get the benefit of the doubt when other
authoritarian Arab rulers do not? Clearly, there is no question of
intervention in Bahrain or in any other state where protest is being
crushed. The entanglement in Libya leaves no appetite for giving active
support, whether diplomatic or military, to other rebellions. If only
one villain in the region had to be singled out for attack, Colonel
Gaddafi was surely the most deserving candidate". (17 April) Entirely missing from this argumentation is the real
reason for intervention in Libya, and that is the material interests of
capitalism and imperialism, above all of oil, with some of the biggest
reserves in Africa. Some have even denied that this is a factor – they
argued the same before Iraq. "The oil conspiracy theory… is one of the
most absurd", said Blair (6 February 2003). Now The Independent (19
April) has published a hitherto hidden Foreign Office memorandum, sent
on 13 November 2002, following a meeting with the oil giant BP: "Iraq is
the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there". WHILE THE POSITION of the likes of Miliband is not
unexpected, given the rightward evolution of the ex-workers’ parties and
their leaders, the same cannot be said of those claiming to stand in a
Marxist-Trotskyist tradition. Sean Matgamna of the AWL even drags in
Leon Trotsky to justify support for military intervention in Libya: "An
individual, a group, a party, or a class that ‘objectively’ picks its
nose while it watches men drunk with blood massacring defenceless people
is condemned by history to rot and become worm-eaten while it is still
alive". In this passage, from his writings on the Balkan wars prior to
the first world war, Trotsky denounces the spokesmen of Russian liberal
capitalism for remaining silent while Serbian and Bulgarian atrocities
were committed against other nationalities. He was not in anyway justifying support for the
leaders of one nation against another. This is clear from the rest of
the quote, which Matgamna does not cite: "On the other hand, a party or
the class that rises up against every abominable action wherever it has
occurred, as vigorously and unhesitatingly as a living organism reacts
to protect its eyes when they are threatened with external injury – such
a party or class is sound of heart. Protest against the outrages in the
Balkans cleanses the social atmosphere in our own country, heightens the
level of moral awareness among our own people… Therefore an
uncompromising protest against atrocities serves not only the purpose of
moral self-defence on the personal and party level but also the purpose
of politically safeguarding the people against adventurism concealed
under the flag of ‘liberation’." If anything, the last point from this quote finds
conclusively against the AWL. It is supporting imperialist intervention
under the false flag of ‘liberation’. Yet we find the astounding
allegation: "The would-be left is yet again tying itself in knots over a
false political dilemma: the belief that in order not to give general
support to the British-France ‘liberal intervention’ in Libya, they must
stridently oppose them on this and on every specific thing they do. Or
at least on every military action. In fact it is a dilemma of their own
making". Trying to square the circle, Matgamna then adds: "Of course,
socialists should not give positive political support to the governments
and the ruling capitalists of Britain, France, the USA, or the UN, in
Libya or anywhere else". A child of ten can recognise that support for
military action of whatever kind is ‘positive political support’. The
AWL claims that it can neatly separate support for action of this
character from the wider perspectives of the powers that take such
action. It is, in effect, the political attorney and apologist for
France and Britain: "The UN, with Britain and France as its instruments,
has set very limited objectives in Libya. There is no reason at all to
think that the ‘Great Powers’ want to occupy Libya or are doing other
than a limited international police operation on what they see as
Europe’s ‘southern border’." Gratuitously the AWL says: "The bitter
lessons of their bungling in Iraq are still very fresh to them". It goes
on: "In the name of what alternative should we have told them to stop
using air power to prevent Gaddafi massacring an incalculable number of
his own people? That is the decisive question in all such situations".
If you do not go along with this nonsense you are incorrigible
pacifists, according to the AWL. To show how far these latter-day ‘Trotskyists’ are
removed from Trotsky’s real views on war, look at his position during
the Spanish civil war on the issue of the military budget of the
Republican government. Max Shachtman, at that time one of his followers,
opposed Trotsky who had argued in 1937: "If we would have a member in
the Cortes [Spanish parliament] he would vote against the
military budget of Negrin". Trotsky wrote that Shachtman’s opposition to
this position "astounded me. Shachtman was willing to express confidence
in the perfidious Negrin government". He later explained: "To vote for the military budget
of the Negrin government signifies to vote him political
confidence… To do it would be a crime. How do we explain our vote to the
anarchist workers? Very simply: We have not the slightest confidence in
the capacity of this government to conduct the war and assure victory.
We accuse this government of protecting the rich and starving the poor.
This government must be smashed. So long as we are not strong enough to
replace it, we are fighting under its command. But on every occasion we
express openly our non-confidence in it: it is the only one possibility
to mobilise the masses politically against this government and to
prepare its overthrow. Any other politics would be a betrayal of the
revolution". (Trotsky, From a Scratch to the Danger of Gangrene, 24
January 1940) How much more scathingly would Trotsky assail the AWL’s
shameful support for imperialist intervention in Libya today. INCREDIBLY, THE AWL’s apology for imperialist
intervention allegedly defends ‘independent working-class politics’. But
there is not an atom of an independent class position in its approach.
We opposed military intervention, but so did the masses in Benghazi in
the first period. The slogans on the walls read, in English: ‘No to
foreign intervention, the Libyans can do it themselves’. In other words,
the masses had a much sounder class instinct, a suspicion of any
military intervention from the outside, particularly by the powers that
formerly dominated the region: Britain and France. They correctly feared
that a no-fly zone, despite protestations to the contrary, would lead to
an invasion, as it did in Iraq. Does this mean that we remain on the level of
general slogans, that we are impassive in the face of a possible attack
by Gaddafi on Benghazi? No. But in such a situation we emphasise the
need for independent class politics, for the masses to rely on their own
strength and to give not a scintilla of support for the idea that
imperialism has the best interests of the masses at heart. Truly, we
cannot react – as did Alex Callinicos, a leader of the British SWP – to
the arguments of the possible massacre in Benghazi with the statement:
"The sad fact is that massacres are a chronic feature of capitalism. The
revolutionary left is, alas, too weak to stop them". Physically, the forces of Marxism may be too weak to
prevent massacres – in Rwanda, for instance. Nonetheless, we are
obligated to advocate that the broad labour movement should adopt the
most effective position politically to defend and enhance the power and
influence of the working class in a given situation. In Northern Ireland
in 1969, for instance, Militant supporters (predecessors of the
Socialist Party), opposed sending in British troops to defend the
Catholic nationalist areas of Belfast and Derry from a murderous assault
by the predominantly loyalist B-Specials. The SWP, despite later
denials, supported sending in the British troops. When the troop did go
in, they defended these areas from loyalist attacks and were welcomed as
‘defenders’. But, as we predicted, at a certain stage this would turn
into its opposite and the troops would come to be seen as a repressive
force against the Catholic nationalist minority. This is how events
actually worked out. However, faced with a possible massacre of the
Catholic population we did not adopt a ‘neutral’ or passive position. In
Militant (now The Socialist), in September 1969, we argued "for a united
workers’ defence force, the withdrawal of British troops, disband the
B-Specials, end of all discrimination, jobs, homes, schools, etc, for
all workers". We stood, in other words, for class unity and for working
people to rely on their own forces and not on the capitalist state
forces. Only a similar approach based on the foundation of complete
class independence, adapted to the concrete conditions in Libya and
elsewhere in the Middle East, can lead to success for the workers’
struggle in a very complicated situation. We cannot follow Achar either when he declares: "Can
anyone claiming to belong to the left just ignore a popular movement’s
plea for protection, even by means of imperialist bandit-cops, when the
type of protection requested is not one through which control over their
country could be exerted? Certainly not, by my understanding of the
left. No real progressive could just ignore the uprising’s request for
protection". It is wrong to identify the ‘uprising’, which was
originally a genuine mass movement – as we pointed out – with its
present leadership, stuffed with bourgeois and pro-bourgeois elements,
including remnants from the Gaddafi regime. Moreover, it is entirely
wrong to equate Lenin’s acceptance of food and even arms from one
imperialist power to be used to repulse another, without any military or
political strings attached, to support for imperialism’s no-fly zone –
as some have done. It is not a question for Marxism only of what is
done, but who does it, why and how. ULTIMATELY, IMPERIALISM’S intervention is to
safeguard its power, prestige and income from the threat of the
unfolding revolution in the region. A spokesman for the Obama
administration made it clear that it is not Libya that is the main
concern but what happens in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, where most
of the oil reserves upon which world capitalism depends are
concentrated. But they see a successful intervention in Libya as a
firewall against the threat of revolution in these states and the whole
region. They are also concerned about the regional influence of Iran,
which grew enormously as a result of the Iraq war. The situation in Libya is extremely fluid. The
outcome of the present conflict is uncertain. At the moment, it looks
like deadlock with neither Gaddafi nor the rebels able to strike a
decisive blow for victory in what is now a drawn-out civil war. This
could lead to the effective partitioning of the country, already the de
facto case. In this situation, all the latent tribal divisions – held in
check partly by the terror of the Gaddafi regime – could come flooding
to the surface, creating a new Somalia in the centre of the Middle East,
with all its instability, not least in the struggle over Libya’s oil
reserves. On the other hand, imperialism is desperate to avoid the
impression that Gaddafi could come out as a partial victor in this
struggle, enhancing the perceived impotence of the imperialist powers to
decide the outcome of events. But the responsibility of the labour movements in
Britain and worldwide is clear. Absolute opposition to all outside
imperialist intervention! Let the Libyan people decide their own fate!
Maximum support, from the world working class and labour movement,
including the supply of food and weapons, to the genuine forces of
national and social liberation in Libya and the Middle East! Imperialism will not be able to stop the forward
march of revolution in North Africa and the Middle East. Yes, there is
disappointment, as the CWI predicted, amongst the masses that the fruits
of their victories against Mubarak and Ben Ali appear to have been
stolen for the moment by the regimes that replaced them. The hated
security apparatus and state machine which existed before, despite the
mighty labours of the revolution, remain largely intact. But they are
being opposed by the mass movements. The revolutions endure and millions have learnt
enormously in the course of this movement. Hopefully, their conclusions
will lead to a strengthening of the working class and the development of
independent class politics. This would be symbolised by the development
of the workers’ own organisations, new powerful trade unions and
workers’ parties with the goal of socialist transformation, accompanied
by democracy in Libya and the region as a whole. |
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