Changing topics, Patrick Martin (WSWS) reports:
Democratic candidates coming from the CIA and military, and Republican candidates espousing openly fascist and racist views won numerous primary contests Tuesday, the last major day of candidate selection for the two capitalist parties before the general election in November.
The further rightward shift by both of the officially recognized parties of the financial aristocracy has been the overriding feature of this year’s election campaign, although it has been largely concealed by the media. Their coverage has instead focused on candidate personalities, the ups and downs in the influence of Republican ex-President Donald Trump and horse race projections of likely outcomes in November.
The August 23 primaries in New York and Florida were no different, with most attention given to the member-on-member contest in New York’s 12th Congressional District between two longtime Democratic Party representatives, Gerry Nadler and Carolyn Maloney, thrown together by redistricting, and on the outcome of a special election for an open seat in New York’s 19th Congressional District, won narrowly by Democrat Pat Ryan over Republican Marc Maldonado, who had been favored.
The first contest had little significance, although Nadler adopted a slightly more liberal posture than Maloney. He was also far better known through his role as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, which handled some of the preliminaries of the first effort to impeach then-President Trump in the fall of 2019.
The second contest was for the Hudson Valley seat left vacant when two-term Representative Antonio Delgado resigned in order to accept the position of New York’s lieutenant governor, chosen by Governor Kathy Hochul to replace her initial choice, Brian Benjamin, who quit in a bribery scandal. Delgado only narrowly won the district in 2018, and given the presumed shift towards the Republicans in the 2022 midterms, the Republican candidate Maldonado was expected to win.
Democrat Pat Ryan, however, won by a 52-48 percent margin in a heavier turnout than usual for a mid-August special election. The result was an indication of the political impact of the Supreme Court’s reactionary decision two months ago in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization to repeal Roe v. Wade.
Ryan focused on the issue of abortion rights, declaring repeatedly that “choice is on the ballot,” one of the main slogans floated by the Democrats for the general election. While abortion is a democratic right of fundamental importance to the working class, the Democratic Party’s professions of devotion to it are duplicitous in the extreme.
Democrats did nothing to strengthen right to abortion
In the 50 years since Roe v. Wade, no Democratic president or Democratic-controlled Congress, including the current ones, has made the slightest effort to strengthen the legal position of abortion rights or push back against state efforts to encroach on it. Rather, the Democrats have themselves collaborated in chipping away at abortion rights, particularly through acceptance of the Hyde Amendment, which bars most federal funding for the medical procedure.
Viewing the special election as a “referendum on Dobbs,” as Ryan put it, allowed the media to ignore a more significant and sinister aspect of Ryan’s own primary contest and of many others, particularly in New York state: the continuing transformation of the Democratic Party into a direct political instrument of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the national securty advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?
Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention [emphasis added throughout].
Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?
B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Q : When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them . However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime , a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
One day before the six-month anniversary of the imperialist-provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, US officials told the Associated Press that the White House is about to announce another $3 billion in spending to aid and train Ukraine’s military. This comes on top of $10.6 billion in direct military funding provided by the Pentagon since the beginning of the war, as well as over $17 billion for US weapons manufacturing for Ukraine.
Based on anonymous US officials, the AP reported Tuesday that the new package is intended to provide weapons and ammunitions that may not arrive in Ukraine for a year or two. In other words, it is designed to fund the new “forever war” by US imperialism in Ukraine, which has already killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and thousands of civilians, while displacing over a fourth of the country’s population.
Speaking in a similar vain, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated on Tuesday, “Winter is coming, and it will be hard, and what we see now is a grinding war of attrition. This is a battle of wills, and a battle of logistics. Therefore we must sustain our support for Ukraine for the long term.”
AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, before we go, we have 30 seconds, and I wanted to ask you about the situation of Julian Assange. We just did a segment on the Julian Assange lawyers and journalists suing the CIA and Mike Pompeo personally, the former CIA director, for working with a Spanish company in bugging the embassy, videoing, audioing, taking visitors’ computers and phones, downloading them, interfering with client-attorney privilege. Could this stop the extradition of Julian Assange, who faces espionage charges in the United States?
TARIQ ALI: Well, it should, Amy — that’s the first answer — because this has been a political case from the beginning. The fact that senior officials discussed whether to kill Assange or not, and that’s the country to which the British government and judiciary, acting in collusion, are sending him back, claiming this isn’t a political trial, this isn’t a political victimization, it’s deeply shocking.
Well, I hope that this trial brings some more facts forward and some action is taken, because this extradition really should be stopped. We are all trying, but the politicians, by and large, and mainly of both parties — and the Australian new prime minister in the election campaign pledged he’d do something. The minute he becomes prime minister, he just completely caves in to the United States — barely a surprise. But in the meantime, Julian’s health is bad. We are extremely worried about how he’s being treated in prison. He shouldn’t be in prison, even if he is going to be extradited. So, I hope for the best but fear the worst, because one shouldn’t have any illusions about this judiciary.
AMY GOODMAN: Tariq Ali, historian, activist, filmmaker, author of Uprising in Pakistan: How to Bring Down a Dictatorship. His latest book, Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes.
Around the world people are watching as Julian Assange remains persecuted by US President Joe Biden. Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian. WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs. And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own. For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs. Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:
A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident
US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have
leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters
and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
•
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a
notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after
they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in
previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no
official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081
non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.
Iraq's security forces will not be dragged into the political conflict the country is facing, Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi said as the Supreme Judiciary Council resumed work on Wednesday.
Supporters of Moqtada Al Sadr continued to hold their sit-in outside the judiciary's headquarters in Baghdad on Tuesday, forcing the institution to close and stoking tension between the populist cleric and his rivals, the Co-ordination Framework.
Mr Al Sadr's supporters demanded the dissolution of Parliament and an to end corruption.
Late on Tuesday, the cleric called on his followers to withdraw from the gate of the Supreme Judicial Council. However, they continued with their sit-in, which began on July 30.
On August 10, Mr Al Sadr gave the country's top court a week to dissolve Parliament to end the political standoff. However, the court said it lacked the authority to do so.
The sit-in in front of the judiciary coincided with a move by supporters of the Co-ordination Framework to hold a protest against Mr Al Sadr's followers and call for the formation a new government after the October legislative elections.
They want a transitional government before new elections are held.
The US Embassy in Baghdad expressed concern over the "unrest in Baghdad today at the Supreme Judicial Council" and urged "all parties to remain calm, abstain from violence and resolve any political differences through a peaceful process guided by the Iraqi Constitution.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq also criticized the move against the Judiciary and told protesters that the “state institutions must operate unimpeded in service of the Iraqi people, including the SJC.”
Upon his arrival, Kadhimi met head of the Badr Organization and prominent leader of the Coordination Framework Hadi al-Amiri.
They discussed the prime minister's initiative for national dialogue and how to revive it under the recent escalation.
Following the abovementioned statements and positions by national and international figures and parties, Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from the Judiciary building; some tents were left behind as a sign of protest against the politicization of the Judiciary.
Soon after, the Judiciary Council said it was returning to its normal work schedule.
The Coordination Framework, which is the rival Shiite group against Sadr, also issued a strong statement calling for the protection of state institutions and rejecting any kind of assault against them.
What raised more concerns, however, was a statement issued by the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) — which has some some political parties affiliated with the Coordination Framework — accusing the government of not taking responsibility in protecting state institutions and expressing readiness to protect the state.
“As the Popular Mobilization Authority declares its readiness to defend state institutions that guarantee the interests of the people, foremost of which is the judicial and legislative authority, the political system and the constitution, it calls on the caretaker government to take responsibility, and seriously, in protecting the constitutional state institutions,” the statement read.
Since Moqtada's string of tantrums began a few weeks back, it's been noted repeatedly that The October Revolution protesters were targeted, were beaten, were stalked and were killed. However, 'caretaker' prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is clearing waving these protests through. The security forces do nothing over and over.
As Turkey escalates its campaign against Kurdish militants in the north of Syria and Iraq and Kurdish politicians within its borders, Masoud Barzani, the preeminent leader of Iraq’s Kurds, recalls a time when Ankara’s policy toward his people was distinctly different.
In the fifth volume of his memoirs published on Aug. 16 and titled “Barzani and the Kurdish Freedom Movement,” Barzani describes how Turgut Ozal, the iconoclastic liberal who governed Turkey first as prime minister and then president from 1983 until his sudden death in 1993, floated the idea of “annexing” Iraqi Kurdistan and the oil-rich province of Kirkuk as well as Mosul, which had been “unjustly” taken from Turkey and made part of Iraq by the League of Nations in 1924. It’s the first time Barzani has publicly shared this information.
Barzani says he was “puzzled” by Ozal’s frankness and decided to raise the matter with the Americans. The Americans said they would get back to him on “this great subject that is worthy of further research” but then never did.
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