Imperialism & war

The Stop the War Coalition Sydney released the statement below on May 24. * * * The NATO announcement on May 21 that it will “withdraw” troops from Afghanistan in 2013 is an admission of defeat. But there are no victors in this war. The country is no closer to peace and security today than when the Taliban were forced out in 2001.

Anti-war soldiers headed a protest against the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20. Thousands poured through the streets in the largest anti-war demonstration seen in the United States for some time.

Democracy Now! broadcasts from Chicago, site of the largest NATO summit in the organization's six-decade history. On Sunday, veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, as well as members of Afghans For Peace, led a peace march of thousands of people.

More than 1000 Sydneysiders hit the streets on May 12 demanding equal marriage rights, but prominent left-wing journalist John Pilger criticised the march in his recent article “Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue”.

Towards a Socialist Australia was adopted as a draft by the 8th National Conference of the Socialist Alliance, held in Sydney, over January 20-22, 2012. Socialist Alliance also voted to consult with members, supporters and allies in the social movements over the coming months to improve this draft and deepen our collective understanding of the current political climate and the nature of the economic and environmental crises.

Green Left columnist Carlos Sands rants, raves, and is literally moved to tears by the arguments of defenders of Israel in his second outing on Green Left TV. And as 19 Palestine solidarity activists face court in Melbourne, he has some choice words for Max Brenner and the Murdoch media.

On more than one occasion, I have referred to the infamous agreement which the United States imposed on Latin American and Caribbean countries when the Organisation of American States was founded in Bogota on April 30, 1948. Just by sheer coincidence I happened to be there on that date, helping to organise a Latin American students’ congress with the objective of struggling against European colonialism and the bloody tyranny imposed by the United States in this hemisphere.

You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security's National Operations Centre may monitor whether you are typing not merely "al-Qaeda", but "exercise", "drill", "wave", "initiative" and "organisation": all proscribed words. The British government's announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years.

Socialist Alliance gay and lesbian rights spokesperson Rachel Evans spoke in Sydney on April 24 at a rally calling to free accused WikiLeaks’ source Private Bradley Manning from prison in the US, where he is being held in solitary confinement. The protest was part of an international day of protest for Manning, who faces a court martial and possible life in prison if convicted. Evans’ speech is below. * * *

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s April 17 speech to the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute was widely reported in the global media as announcing an early withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan. But the April 20 Australian Financial Review said government ministers had reassured Australia’s allies in the US-led multinational occupation of Afghanistan that the speech did no such thing.

This article is republished from Overland magazine. * * * Anzac Day celebrates forgetting. Its revival, the transformation of a ceremony nearly extinct in the 1980s into today’s turbocharged festival, coincides with the excision from national consciousness of the most important aspects of the Great War.

Ahmed Ben Bella, a leader of Algeria's fight against French colonial rule, died on April 11 aged 95. Ben Bella was the north African nation's first president after it won independence in 1962, until a 1965 coup. Ben Bella was active in fighting French rule from the 1940s. After the French were forced to grant Algeria independence in 1962, Ben Bella sought to promote a socialist path for the Algerian revolution ― promoting policies such as agrarian reform and workers' self-management. The right-wing coup in 1965 that overthrew his rule ended Algeria's socialist trajectory.