The US occupation of Iraq has entered its seventh year with no end in sight, contrary to Obama’s promise to end US combat mission in Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010. The US is ramping up its war in Afghanistan by sending 30,000 additional troops plus tens of thousands of private contractors, using the country as a laboratory for new US weaponry and combat tactics, such as the use of drone attacks. It has entered into a new nuclear agreement with India to support the latter’s military upgrading and keep the Pakistan-China alliance in check.
The US continues to use the US-Zionist alliance to terrorize the entire Middle East and to seize the oil and other natural resources. US support for Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people has resulted in the most atrocious war crimes and human rights violations by Israeli Zionism and in the humanitarian crisis such as that in Gaza.
In Africa, the US has fortified its military presence by creating the African Command or Africom, and has increased arms sales, military aid and training provided to a number of African countries, particularly in the oil- and mineral-rich countries.
The US has also recently sealed a deal to use seven military bases in Colombia for 10 years to use as its staging ground for intervention within the country and expand its “expeditionary warfare capability” throughout the region, particularly against “anti-US governments” identified by the Pentagon such as Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia. In Honduras, the US-inspired coup d’etat that deposed elected President Manuel Zelaya will mark its one-year anniversary on June 28, 2010 as rumours of other possible coups spread in Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela (and possibly in other countries that have rejected the increasingly discredited Washington Consensus). Hugo Chavez, in particular, is the object of vitriolic propaganda in the monopoly capitalist media – which is possibly a precursor to and justification for destabilization or even direct aggression against Venezuela. Even the recent humanitarian disaster in Haiti is used by the US to extend direct military control over the Haitian people and their economy.
In the whole East Asia, the US continues to apply on China a policy of engagement and containment and is increasingly exerting economic and political pressures. It is exerting more of such pressures on Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In the Philippines, the continued presence of US troops and military facilities and the continued supply of military aid underwrite the government’s vicious counter-insurgency program which targets both armed and unarmed civilians alike and props up the corrupt and fascist puppet Arroyo government.
US military aggression and intervention throughout the world is resulting in massive civilian deaths, destruction of vital infrastructure, trampling of national cultures, pillaging of natural resources, massive displacement and other gross human rights violations, spread of hunger and disease.
The Proletariat and Peoples of World Resist
The worsening conditions of global economic and financial crisis and the escalation of imperialist plunder and wars of aggression are inciting the proletariat and peoples of the world to wage various forms of struggle.
Workers of the world are confronted not only by individual capitalist bosses extracting surplus value in particular workplaces. The monopoly bourgeoisie is attacking the working masses by using the entire coercive apparatus of the state in the imperialist countries and in the imperialist-dominated countries. The workers and peoples of the world are aware that they cannot simply bargain for higher wages and benefits. They are desirous of wresting political power from their oppressors and use state power to uphold their rights and interests.
In various countries, large-scale protests mainly against governments’ responses to the crisis are breaking out and catching international attention. Greece was recently rocked and brought to a standstill by strikes and other forms of actions that oppose government plans to cut down on social spending and raise taxes to address foreign debt and mounting deficit. Farmers’ tractors were used to block roads; ferries were left tied up at the ports; hospitals, schools and other public services were shut down; and even news broadcasts were suspended as hundreds of thousands joined militant protests. The workers and people of Greece are saying “no” to government efforts to make them pay for decades of misuse of government funds for political patronage, corruption and consumption through debt financing.
In France, hundreds of thousands also joined protests against the Sarkozy regime’s plan to overhaul the national pension system by cutting pension and raising the retirement age in an attempt to solve the country’s deficit. Organizers of the protests also raised demands for job security, better working conditions and higher wages. In all countries of Europe, especially in Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Greece and Spain, the level of social discontent and protest is rising because of the increasing rate of unemployment, the erosion of social benefits and the deterioration of living conditions.
