Austerity hits troops as rations are cut

The organizers of this blog have explained that US capitalism cannot afford to keep its massive military machine working at its present level without driving its working class at home into poverty. This latter is happening all around us as we see wages and benefits being slashed and services in city after city being reduced or removed altogether. Now we see the reduction of the living standards of the military in the field.  Marines at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan are now about to lose a daily meal, causing some to fore go a hot breakfast and others to work without cooked food for six plus hours.

The midnight ration service — known there as “midrats" — supplies breakfast to Marines on midnight-to-noon shifts and dinner to Marines who are ending noon-to-midnight work periods. It's described as one of the few times the Marines at Leatherneck can be together in one place.
The base, which is located in Afghanistan’s southwestern Helmand Province, flanked by Iran and Pakistan, also will remove its 24-hour sandwich bar. While no Marine at Camp Leatherneck agreed to speak on the record, many are privately angry about the hit on base morale.

"This boils my skin. One of my entire shifts will go 6.5 hours without a meal. If we need to cut back on money I could come up with 100 other places,” one Leatherneck-based Marine wrote in an email this week to his wife and shared with NBC News. (The Marine declined to speak on the record.) “Instead, we will target the biggest contributor to morale. I must be losing my mind. What is our senior leadership thinking? I just got back from flying my ass off and in a few days, I will not have a meal to replenish me after being away for over 9 hours.”

“The fact is our force in Afghanistan is shrinking fast and all the creature comforts and services deployed military-members have grown accustomed to over the past decade are going to be reduced," A leading officer Gilmore wrote in an email to NBC News.

Back home, spouses and friends of the troops in Afghanistan are criticizing the loss of hot meals as a poor logistical choice that will impact the service members' overall nutrition, energy and spirits.

This same officer Officer Gilmore described cooked-meal reduction as part of a larger effort to “become increasingly austere” as the force shrinks, but he said the base members will not face an unhealthy calorie shortage. “The Marines here at Leatherneck may have to endure the monotony of a limited menu but they will not suffer from malnutrition unless they choose not to eat,” Gilmore callously said. At home, some military family members nonetheless called the change a mistake. The squeeze is tightening on US imperialism. This cutting of hot meals for its military who are fighting abroad for the US corporations is bringing closer the day when the US working class and the ranks of the US military will step up and fight for their own independent interests not the interests of the these profit addicted corporations.

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The US government and state terrorism

We share this piece for our reader's interest.  Reprinted from AlterNet.org

5 Acts of Terror By the People We Chose to Protect Us

Americans are led to believe in a terrorist threat that may or may not exist while the corporate/military/political complex creates 'terror' to safeguard the assets of the rich.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/ Suzanne Tucker

September 8, 2013  |  

Every clear-thinking American knows that education and jobs are needed more than armed guards in poor neighborhoods. But average Americans are led to believe in a terrorist threat that may or may not exist, and that in any case is greatly exaggerated, while the corporate/military/political complex creates new forms of terror to safeguard the assets of the rich.
1. War Terror

It started with our leaders comparing notes on Iraq:

Cheney 08/26/02: There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Cheney 09/14/03: We never had evidence that he had acquired a nuclear weapon.

Powell 02/05/03: Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.
Powell 09/13/04: I think it's unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.

Bush 05/29/03: We found the weapons of mass destruction.
Bush 10/08/04: I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons.

In the first  Iraqi war, two air missions per minute were conducted over 43 days, with the equivalent of  seven Hiroshima bombsdropped on a largely defenseless country. Much of the slaughter was caused by  "dumb bombs" that fell on civilian areas. U.S. troops attacked retreating Iraqi soldiers with cluster bombs and  napalm as American pilots, adopting metaphors such as 'turkey shoot' and 'fish in a barrel,' conducted target practice from above. Some Iraqis were  buried alive by bulldozers that spread tons of sand over them.

In the end, at least  190,000 Iraqi lives were destroyed in a war that cost over $2.2 trillion. A  Johns Hopkins study puts the tally much higher, with an estimate of 650,000 Iraqi deaths.

2. Drone Terror

In Pakistan, civilians can hear the  droning in the sky all day long. Said one resident: "I can't sleep...when the drones are there...I hear them making that sound, that noise. The drones are all over my brain." A humanitarian worker added, "I was in New York on 9/11...This is what it is like."

When bombings kill townspeople, their family and friends are often afraid to run to their aid, because standard procedure is to bomb the first responders. Afterwards the funerals are sometimes bombed.

A Pew survey reported that  75%of Pakistanis consider us their enemy. A former advisor to General Petraeus stated, "Every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement.." Indeed, militant groups have rapidly been forming, such as  Lashkar, which has been attacking U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan. The sentiment goes beyond Pakistan. A spokesperson for Yemen, also  under attack, told a U.S. Senate committee, "What radicals had previously failed to achieve in my village, one drone strike accomplished in an instant: There is now an intense anger and growing hatred of America."

The disease is spreading. There are now 737  U.S. Military Bases around the world, and over 2.5 million military personnel. Since 9/11 about 100 new  generals and admirals have been added to the ranks of top brass, all with private jets and chefs and guards and secretaries and drivers.

Africa, already swollen with a U.S. military presence, is under further  siege by the Pentagon.  The Economist speaks of "Afrighanistan," calling it "the next front of the global war on terror."

3. Unconstitutional Terror

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures."

Since 9/11, numerous measures have been employed in the name of national security: The Patriot Act, Homeland Security, the National Security Agency, and the National Defense Authorization Act. The  Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act has facilitated the monitoring of foreign communications in the name of anti-terrorism.

Internet privacy has been threatened by  proposals like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Privacy is at risk with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), passed in the House.

In addition, new  techniques such as Iris Scans, License Plate Recognition,  GPS devices in pharmaceutical products, and  Facial Recognition Technology invade our privacy.  Drones are flying over our homes. The National Security Agency is building a  data centerbig enough to store every email, text, phone call, web search, and video in the United States. With the Electronic Communications Privacy Act  on its side, government is authorized to take anything it can get.

4. Terror against Opponents of Unconstitutional Terror

In 1778 the Continental Congress created the first  whistleblower protection law by declaring "it is the duty of all persons in the service of the United States to give the earliest information to Congress or other proper authority of any misconduct, frauds, or misdemeanors committed by any officers or persons in the service of these states."

In 2008 Barack Obama campaigned with a  pledge to "strengthen whistleblower laws to protect federal workers who expose waste, fraud, and abuse of authority in government."

But Bradley Manning was found guilty of espionage for reporting extreme cases of war misconduct. And Edward Snowden faces prison for reporting abuses of the 4th Amendment by the NSA.

The hypocrisy continues with the proposed  Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act, which would have made it an act of terror to report on the terrorizing of animals. And with the efforts of  TransCanada Corporation to convince law enforcement agencies that pipeline protestors are terrorists.

Going even further, FBI documents  reveal that the agency repeatedly monitored Occupy Wall Street activities, viewing them as possible acts of  terrorism.

5. The Terror of Poverty

The largely imagined threat of foreign attacks is diverting billions of dollars into a  Homeland Security fund that safeguards the assets of the rich, while the  poverty rate for black children has risen to almost 50 percent, and  unemployment among blacks has almost doubled the rate of whites.

Meanwhile, paranoia has infiltrated our schools. As K-12  education has been cut by $20 billion over f ive years, and as funding for guidance counselors and school psychologists has dropped to all-time lows, the Department of Justice's COPS Office has awarded over $750 million for the hiring of more than 6,500  police officers for schools, even though studies show that placing armed police in schools actually increases physical dangers to youth.

People burdened by economic oppression and authoritarian rule can begin to understand Frederick Douglass' bitter words to his own country, on behalf of the American slave:  To him your boasted liberty [is] an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.

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U.S. Had Planned Syrian Civilian Catastrophe Since 2007

We share the following article as a matter of interest for our readers. It is a bit long but worth reading. From Global Research

Timeline of Military-Intelligence Operation: U.S. Had Planned Syrian Civilian Catastrophe Since 2007

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, September 04, 2013

NBC News’ report, “‘The great tragedy of this century’: More than 2 million refugees forced out of Syria,” stated:

More than 2 million Syrians have poured into neighboring countries as refugees, the United Nations revealed on Tuesday.
Around 5,000 people per day are fleeing the three-year conflict, which the U.N. says has already claimed over 100,000 lives.

“Syria has become the great tragedy of this century — a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history,” said António Guterres,  the U.N.’s high commissioner responsible for refugees.

But, while the UN and nations across the West feign shock over the growing humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in and around Syria, the goal of a violent sectarian conflict and its predictable, catastrophic results along with calls to literally “bleed” Syria have been the underlying strategy of special interests in the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and their regional partners since at least 2007.

A Timeline: How the Syrian Conflict Really Unfolded
Western media networks have ensured that a singular narrative of “pro-democracy” uprisings turning violent in the face of brutal oppression by the Syrian government after the so-called “Arab Spring” is disseminated across the public. In reality, “pro-democracy” protesters served as a tenuous smokescreen behind which armed foreign-backed extremists took to the streets and countrysides of Syria to execute a sectarian bloodbath years in the making. Here is a timeline that illuminates the true cause of Syria’s current conflict and the foreign interests, not the Syrian government, responsible for the tens of thousands dead and millions displaced during the conflict.

1991: Paul Wolfowitz, then Undersecretary of Defense, tells US Army General Wesley Clark that the US has 5-10 years to “clean up those old Soviet client regimes, Syria, Iran, Iraq, before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007.

2001: A classified plot is revealed to US Army General Wesley Clark that the US plans to attack and destroy the governments of 7 nations: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya Somalia, Sudan, and Iran. Fora.TV: Wesley Clark at the Commonwealth Club of California, October 3, 2007.

2002: US Under Secretary of State John Bolton declares Syria a member of the “Axis of Evil” and warned that “the US would take action.” BBC: “US Expands ‘Axis of Evil’” May 6, 2002.

2005: US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy organizes and implements the “Cedar Revolution” in Lebanon directly aimed at undermining Syrian-Iranian influence in Lebanon in favor of Western-backed proxies, most notably Saad Hariri’s political faction. Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005.

Image: Via Color Revolutions and Geopolitics: “As illustrated by the images above, Lebanon’s so-called [2005] Cedar Revolution was an expensive, highly-professional production.” (click image to enlarge) 

….

2005: Ziad Abdel Nour, an associate of Bush Administration advisers, policy makers, and media including Neo-Conservatives Paula Dobriansky, James Woolsey, Frank Gaffney, Daniel Pipes, Joseph Farah (World Net Daily), Clifford May, and Daniel Nassif of US State Department-funded Al Hurra and Radio Sawa, admits: “Both the Syrian and Lebanese regimes will be changed- whether they like it or not- whether it’s going to be a military coup or something else… and we are working on it. We know already exactly who’s going to be the replacements. We’re working on it with the Bush administration.” Counterpunch: “Faking the Case Against Syria,” by Trish Schuh November 19-20, 2005.

2006: Israel attempts, and fails, to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon after a prolonged aerial bombard that resulted in thousands of civilian deaths. CNN: “UN: Hezbollah and Israel agree on Monday cease-fire,” August 13, 2006.

2007: Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker reveals that US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Hariri in Lebanon as well as the Syrian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood were assembling, arming, training, and heavily funding a sectarian extremists front, many of whom had direct ties to Al Qaeda, to unleash in both Lebanon and Syria. The goal was to create and exploit a sectarian divide between Sunni and Shi’ia Muslims. Hersh interviewed intelligence officers who expressed concerns over the “cataclysmic conflict” that would result, and the need to protect ethnic minorities from sectarian atrocities. The report indicated that extremists would be logistically staged in northern Lebanon where they would be able to cross back and forth into Syria. New Yorker: “The Redirection,” by Seymour Hersh, March 5, 2007.2008: The US State Department begins training, funding, networking, and equipping “activists” through its “Alliance for Youth Movements” where the future protest leaders of the “Arab Spring,” including Egypt’s “April 6 Movement” were brought to New York, London, and Mexico, before being trained by US-funded CANVAS in Serbia, and then returning home to begin preparations for 2011. Land Destroyer: “2011 – Year of the Dupe,” December 24, 2011.

Which Path to Persia? .pdf
….

2009: The Brookings Institution published a report titled, “Which Path to Persia?” (.pdf), which admits that the Bush Administration “evicted” Syria from Lebanon without building up a strong Lebanese government to replace it (p. 34), that Israel struck a “nascent” Syrian nuclear program, and states the importance of neutralizing Syrian influence before any attack on Iran can be carried out (p. 109).  The report then goes on to describe in detail the use of listed terrorist organizations against the government of Iran, in particular the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) (p. 126) and Baluch insurgents in Pakistan (p.132). Brookings Institution: “Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran,” June 2009.
2009-2010: In an April 2011 AFP report, Michael Posner, the assistant US Secretary of State for Human Rights and Labor, admitted that the “US government has budgeted $50 million in the last two years to develop new technologies to help activists protect themselves from arrest and prosecution by authoritarian governments.” The report went on to admit that the US (emphasis added) “organized training sessions for 5,000 activists in different parts of the world. A session held in the Middle East about six weeks ago gathered activists from Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon who returned to their countries with the aim of training their colleagues there.” Posner would add, “They went back and there’s a ripple effect.” AFP: “US Trains Activists to Evade Security Forces,” April 8, 2011.

2011: Posner’s US trained, funded, and equipped activists return to their respective countries across the Arab World to begin their “ripple effect.” Protests, vandalism , and arson sweep across Syria and “rooftop snipers” begin attacking both protesters and Syrian security forces, just as Western-backed movements were documented doing in Bangkok, Thailand one year earlier. With a similar gambit already unfolding in Libya, US senators begin threatening Syria with long planned and sought after military intervention. Land Destroyer: “Syria: Intervention Inevitable,” April 29, 2011.

Image: Real genocidal atrocities during the “Arab Spring” occurred at the hands of NATO and its proxy sectarian terrorists. Pictured is Sirte, Libya, after NATO-armed rebels surrounded it, cut off power, water, food, and emergency aid, and allowed NATO to bombard it with daily airstrikes before a final orgy of death and destruction left its streets and facades crumbling. This is the “civilian protection” the UN and its enforcement arm NATO plan on bringing to Syria.

….

2012: With NATO’s Libyan intervention resulting in a weak US-backed Tripoli client-regime, perpetual infighting, nationwide genocide, and the succession of Benghazi in the east, the NATO-backed Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), listed by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (listed #27) begins mobilizing weapons, cash, and fighters to begin destabilizing Syria. Headed by LIFG’s Abdul Hakim Belhaj, this would be the first confirmed presence of Al Qaeda in Syria, flush with NATO weapons and cash. The Washington Post would confirm, just as stated by Hersh in 2007, that the US and Saudi Arabia were arming the sectarian extremists, now labeled the “Free Syrian Army.” The Post also admits that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, as stated in Hersh’s 2007 report, was also involved in arming and backing extremist fighters. Land Destroyer: “US Officially Arming Extremists in Syria,” May 16, 2012.

Image: Brookings Institution’s Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” makes no secret that the humanitarian “responsibility to protect” is but a pretext for long-planned regime change.
….
2012: The US policy think-tank Brookings Institution in its Middle East Memo #21 “Assessing Options for Regime Change (.pdf),” admits that it does not seek any negotiated ceasefire under the UN’s “Kofi Annan peace plan” that leaves Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power and would rather arm militants, even with the knowledge they will never succeed, to “bleed” the government, “keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention.” This reveals that US policy does not view US interference in Syria as a moral imperative predicated on defending human rights, but rather using this false predication to couch aspirations of regional hegemony. Land Destroyer: “US Brookings Wants to “Bleed” Syria to Death,” May 28, 2012.

And, just this year, it was revealed that despite the West’s feigned military and political paralysis regarding the Syrian conflict, the US and Great Britain have been covertly funding and arming sectarian extremists to the tune of billions of dollars and arming them with literally thousands of tons of weaponry. Despite claims of “carefully vetting” “moderate” militant factions, the prominence of Al Qaeda-linked extremist groups indicates that the majority of Western support, laundered through Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is being purposefully put into the hands of the very sectarian extremists identified in Seymour Hersh’s 2007 article, “The Redirection.”

US Created and is Now Using Syrian Catastrophe to Justify Intervention
The non-debate taking place now to justify US military intervention in a conflict they themselves started and have intentionally perpetuated, is whether chemical weapons were used in Damascus on August 21, 2013 – not even “who” deployed them. The weakness of the US’ argument has seen an unprecedented backlash across both the world’s populations and the global diplomatic community. And despite only 9% of the American public supporting a military intervention in Syria, Congress appears poised to not only green-light “limited strikes,” but may approve of a wider military escalation.

In Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article, “The Redirection,” Robert Baer, a former CIA agent in Lebanon, warned of the sectarian bloodbath the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia were planning to unleash. He stated:

“we’ve got Sunni Arabs preparing for cataclysmic conflict, and we will need somebody to protect the Christians in Lebanon. It used to be the French and the United States who would do it, and now it’s going to be Nasrallah and the Shiites”

Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, also featured in Hersh’s report, would in turn also warn of an imminent and spreading sectarian war purposefully stoked by the West:

Nasrallah said he believed that President Bush’s goal was “the drawing of a new map for the region. They want the partition of Iraq. Iraq is not on the edge of a civil war—there is a civil war. There is ethnic and sectarian cleansing. The daily killing and displacement which is taking place in Iraq aims at achieving three Iraqi parts, which will be sectarian and ethnically pure as a prelude to the partition of Iraq. Within one or two years at the most, there will be total Sunni areas, total Shiite areas, and total Kurdish areas. Even in Baghdad, there is a fear that it might be divided into two areas, one Sunni and one Shiite.”
He went on, “I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day will come when he will say, ‘I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the people of Iraq.’ ”
Nasrallah said he believed that America also wanted to bring about the partition of Lebanon and of Syria. In Syria, he said, the result would be to push the country “into chaos and internal battles like in Iraq.” In Lebanon, “There will be a Sunni state, an Alawi state, a Christian state, and a Druze state.” But, he said, “I do not know if there will be a Shiite state.”

It would be difficult for anyone to look across the scarred landscape of today’s Syria and not see that this horrific conspiracy was realized in full. The Western media is now acquainting the public with the possibility of a partitioned Syria, echoing the warnings of Nasrallah years ago. The goals of a US military strike would be to “degrade” the capabilities of the Syrian government, while bolstering the terrorist legions still operating within and along Syria’s borders.

What we are witnessing in Syria today is the direct result of a documented conspiracy, not by a “brutal Syrian regime” “oppressing” its own people, but of a US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia radicalizing, arming, and unleashing a sectarian tidal wave they knew well ahead of time would cause atrocities, genocide, mass displacements and even the geopolitical partitioning of Syria and beyond. The intentional destabilization of the region is meant to weaken Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Iraq – and even Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, and others – to accomplish what the depleted, impotent US and Israeli forces could not achieve. Military intervention now seeks to tip the balance of an already teetering region.

The attacks on Syria are not humanitarian by any measure. They are simply the latest stage of a long-running plan to divide and destroy the region, leaving the West the sole regional hegemonic power.

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US capitalism facing another quagmire in Syria.

Kerry: only 20% of rebels are bad guys

While I can't see any alternative for US capitalism but to follow up on the threat to bomb Syria, the truth is that they are in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.  The back and forth in the US Congress is evidence of the crisis that faces US capitalism, its declining global influence, and the domestic consequences of placing its own workers and middle class on rations.

As I write, (8am Thursday morning), CNN reports that so far in the US Senate the votes stand at 24 for and 17 against US action and 97 no's and 28 aye's in the House.  The problem is that to do nothing is a defeat in that both Putin and Assad and Iran will gain from it.  An attack on Syria on the other hand could inflame the region further. The other problem is if the Assad regime is weakened to the point of losing power, what force will replace it? 

John Kerry, the billionaire US Secretary of State is wallowing in all the attention and as the WSJ stated, his legacy will be determined by these events.  Kerry, along with Nancy Pelosi and other advocates of bombing Syria knows about as much of the opposition in that country as I do.  There are 1000 private militias in Syria acting independently with no coordination at all between each other according to CNN,  yet Kerry is confident, claiming that 80% of the rebels are good guys and 20% are bad or what George W. Bush would call "evildoers". A very scientific study I'm sure. Once again, Americans are learning geography and where other countries are on this planet when their government bombs them.

The New York Times published a video today, smuggled out by a disenchanted Syrian rebel apparently.  The video shows rebel forces executing Syrian soldiers.  There have been all sorts of savage attacks and kidnapping by various groups including an attack on a Christian community yesterday; minorities have lived in relative security under the Assad regime and many in these communities fear a Sunni government and the Islamic fanatics among the rebel forces. 

Rep King, a Republican from NY who favors intervention saying that they have no choice as it would "weaken" America, admitted that he can't guarantee bombing Syria will work but if "we don't" things will really be bad. US capitalism's choices are bad and worse than bad.

Obama might decide to bomb Syria even if Congress votes against it.  It remains to be seen what Russia will do as both Russia and the US have increased military presence in the region, Russia has a lot of investment in Syria.  Russia, the UK, Germany and China as well as Iran are all opposed to intervention.  Both Iran and Iraq, with Shia majorities are also significant players in this dangerous game.

Increased regional and sectarian violence and wider regional wars are a likely outcome of a US attack and we could even see a resurgence of the Arab spring directed against US intervention in the region.
One thing certain is that behind it all is the US need to weaken Iran and its influence.  Kerry has called Assad a thug and  murderer yet in Bahrain, the US has supported thugs and murderers in the form of the absolute monarchy that rules that Island.  30,00 US troops sat idly by as government forces slaughtered peaceful protesters and imprisoned doctors that tended the wounded

The only thing certain is that the crisis in the Middle East cannot be resolved by US intervention only intensified by it.  The problem is that the choices are limited. US, capitalism drained by its never-ending war on terror which is in actuality a war fought in the interests of US corporations, will be drained even further.  The US working class will have to make more sacrifices for these predatory adventures and the willingness to do so will end at some point.  We will see the limits of patience among US workers breached at some point here.

Meanwhile, the crisis of global capitalism will continue and the resistance to austerity and permanent war will broaden.   Despite general strikes and massive protests against austerity in Europe and brutal working conditions from Bangladesh to South Africa, Cambodia to Brazil, the leadership of the traditional organizations and political parties of the working class have cooperated with the austerity agenda of the bankers and global capital.  It is the failure of this, subjective factor, the leadership of the working class internationally, to act and provide an alternative to capitalism, that is prolonging the suffering and creating a vacuum which right wing fascist elements can fill. 

Capitalism cannot be fixed.  Its representatives cannot solve any global crises, whether regional wars, civil conflict like Syria's, horrendous working conditions in the factories of the third world, or the environmental catastrophe that threatens to end life as we know it.  Already, some areas of the world are unfit for human habitation.

The present meeting in St Petersburg of the leaders of global capitalism is a gathering of thieves.  They are thrown in to conflict, deception and treachery by forces beyond their control, as representatives of competing nation states based on the free market yet within an increasingly integrated world economy.

The reality is, US capitalism, with its vast resources and massive intelligence operations has no idea what will result from an intervention in Syria, especially if boots aren't put on the ground, something that could backfire terribly as Americans are fairly quiet about wars abroad as long as not many of us die in the process. So those of us on the outside looking in can only speculate with one exception: Capitalism cannot solve this crisis making the struggle for democratic socialist economies, a world federation of democratic socialist states, the most pressing and only real permanent solution to global conflict and environmental catastrophe.

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The crimes of US capitalism

Source: TopCriminalJusticeDegrees.org

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Attack on Syria: The hypocrisy of Obama, Kerry and co.

Two Sec's of State.  Ask her about dead children John?

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The billionaire John Kerry who also functions as the US Secretary of State is ready to teach the Syrian dictator Assad a lesson. He called Assad a "thug and a murderer", and says the US can’t let a dictator get away with such serious crimes; unless it’s one of the US’s dictators of course.  "History will judge us all extraordinarily harshly if we turn a blind eye to a dictator's wanton use of weapons of mass destruction," Kerry added.

I was watching the news tonight and it can make you feel so helpless as it is like a bunch of parrots repeating their master’s words.  Most Americans don’t really pay much attention to the forces that are at play in the world getting most of our news form CNN and other such outlets.  The US is not unfamiliar with chemical warfare as it used it in Vietnam pouring dioxin (Agent Orange) on the Vietnamese people and their food.  The chemical was even poured over their own troops.  Kerry was in Vietnam he must know that.  The US used Napalm ion Vietnam also and white phosphorous and depleted uranium in Iraq.

The phony concern coming out of the mouths of Obama, Kerry and other Wall Street politicians are seen for what they are by the vast majority of people in the world. The US spin doctors have no credibility.  The attack that has taken place, no matter who did it, killed 1,429 Syrians, including at least 426 children reports say.  But lets add a little US political logic to this scenario.  The US enforced sanctions in Iraq cost the lives of some 500,000 people, mostly women and children.  But when Madeline Albright who was also US Secretary of State was asked about this on US TV she said that the deaths were “worth it”.

From her point of view such mass slaughter is worth it of course just like the death of 3 million Vietnamese was worth it I suppose.

Wolf Blitzer had his array of “experts” on a panel, one of them the right wing Zionist Alan Dershowitz. Another one was some sort of former CIA official.  Dershowitz I think it was mentioned something about the US imposing a “no fly” zone.  They all had a nice little chat about this but no one mentioned the possibility of a “no fly” zone over Gaza. The Israeli’s used white phosphorous in Gaza, the US used it in Fallujah, Obama’s drones have been slaughtering innocent women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan for years.  This whole affair is not about human decency and rights

In the aftermath of the British parliamentary vote to oppose involvement the talk was also about having to put together a US led coalition. Oh, let’s see who will be on that team I wonder.  There’ll be the Saudi’s and the pimps that lead the Gulf States that get US weapons and protection from their own people.  There’ll be some other flunkies who will be blackmailed and cajoled in to giving whatever action is taken some sort of international legitimacy.

But this is less about Syria than Iran.  Kerry says Iran will be “emboldened”if the US doesn’t act.  We’re all supposed to be afraid of Iran.  But why would Iran not want nuclear weapons?  Israel has hundreds of them?  The US invaded the country bordering Iran and also encouraged the former leader of that country, Saddam Hussein to invade Iran and offered money, and chemical weapons to do so. Incidentally, Bremer who was the US imposed governor of Iraq after the US invaded it, repeatedly referred to Assad as Saddam on the news tonight.  What morons.

The capitalist class cannot rule with any level of stability and jumps out of the frying pan into the fire, from one quagmire to the next with working class youth at the front.  The class that rules leads from the rear in these ventures.  If the attack on Syria goes ahead and it looks more likely that it will, a few hundred million dollars of US taxpayer funds will disappear in a few minutes. The war on workers at home will continue in order to pay for it and the ranks of the terrorist groups will find new recruits.  And yet again, the  “experts”at the Pentagon are on the same team as al Qaeda or the Islamic fanatics.  Way to go boys.

The most pressing task facing the workers of the world is the class war over which class governs society and for us in the US which class represents us to the world.  Despite the many changes that have taken place in the working class in the US, the shifting of manufacturing abroad, the growth of finance capital and the service sector accompanied by an increase in unproductive labor, managers overseers, police and the like, global capitalism cannot be overthrown without the US working class settling accounts with the unelected coupon clippers that govern US society, the most heavily armed and ruthless bourgeois on the planet.

I remember when I was in my late teens and early twenties. You could travel from London to Joburg all through Africa overland, no problem.  You could go to Iran and Kashmir and Nepal and from Calais to Calcutta relatively safely. Not today.

This is how far the capitalist system has brought us. And its most powerful representatives are here in the US. We should consider that the US and the Democratic Party in particular is the only nation and the only party to have dropped nuclear bombs on civilian centers.  We should not underestimate their ruthlessness; they will not hesitate dropping nuclear weapons on their own cities if they saw their interests and their system truly threatened---United We Stand be damned.

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CIA wars aren't fought to defend US workers interests.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The Washington Post has published the secret US Intelligence budget that the paper received as part of a package of information from Edward Snowden.  The $52 billion of taxpayer funds it appears often fails to protect “national security” the Post argues.

Naturally, representatives of the bankers and other coupon clippers that we bailed out after the crash  are already saying the Post has published material that could cause, “Significant damage “ to national security (former CIA officials Paul Pillar, now at the Brookings Institution). The Post has admitted it held back publishing some of the material for fear it would harm national security. The CIA’s $14 billion a year is aimed at knocking out competitor's computers and stealing secrets as well as spying on US citizens.

But the question we have to ask ourselves is: what constitutes national security?   The interests of Halliburton, CitiBank and the cronies that run these institutions are not the same interests as the workers and middle class that allow the US economy and society to function.  In fact, the increased attacks on US workers, our wages, benefits and general living standards, is a direct result of policies designed not to protect us but policies aimed at protecting the interests of US capitalism abroad.

It was not in the interests of US workers, or a good use of our tax money, to overthrow the government of Guatemala in 1954 or the democratically elected secular government of Iran in 1953.  The US installed the vicious regime of the Shah of Iran after that escapade so if we want to allocate blame for the presence of the Mullahs blame the Pentagon and their British colleagues.

It was not in US workers interests to invade Vietnam, slaughter 3 million people,  and support a government that couldn’t get elected by its own people.  The US also used chemical weapons on them as it did on the Iraqi people. It wasn’t in our interests to support Bin Laden against the Soviets and the religious fanatics against the government of Mohammad Najibullah.  The US supported the Taliban against Najibullah and when the Soviets could no longer offer assistance the Taliban killed him, castrated him then dragged his body through the streets.  The US had its way, the Islamic fanatics won.  That they were misogynistic 7^th century religious nuts didn’t matter as long as an oil and gas pipeline to the Arabian sea was possible and capital not restrained it was OK, violence against women be damned. US workers and the labor movement should have given critical support to Najibullah against the Taliban and their Pentagon partners.  Remember, up until 1999, every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government.

It wasn’t in our interests when our government involved itself in the murder of Patrice Lumumba and installing Mobutu who killed some two million people. The assassination of Allende and overthrow of that democratically elected government was US orchestrated.  The list of such actions taken to supposedly protect our national interests is a long one. What these activities amount to are not defensive actions but offensive ones aimed at making the world safe for US corporations and the 1% in their rapacious profit making ventures.  Who is going to invade the US?

We are told we are all Americans; that we have to unite.  But all Americans don’t have the same interests. It’s not in the interest of US workers to have fire stations closed, post offices shut down, education savaged, our national parks falling apart through lack of funds etc. It is not in our interest to have two million people in prison and millions of people without decent shelter, food or health care.

The assault on Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden by the representatives of Wall Street in Congress and the Pentagon has nothing to do with the safety and welfare of the American workers and middle class. We can't travel to half of the countries in the world due to US foreign policy mapped out behind closed doors.  What embarrassed them about the Wikileaks and Snowden releases it that they reveal their diplomacy for what it is, the diplomacy of thieves and robbers.   Their counterparts are the same of course, but as workers we have to reach out to our own class internationally.  Millions of workers just like us are suffering horrendous hardships and never ending war in the struggle for control of the world’s diminishing resources. The instability of the so-called free market is everywhere.  More bubbles are developing as the same old activities return. The countries that have been in the limelight as the example of the vibrancy of the market are slipping deeper in to the quagmire, I am talking about the emerging markets particularly the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China). China has whole towns sitting empty or unfinished including a huge replica of the Eiffel Tower, there is an explosion waiting to happen there and the same can be said about the US.  Welcome to the free market folks.

International solidarity and independent activity on the part of working people is made more difficult because organizations we have built over time, trade unions and in most other advanced capitalist economies, political parties are led by bureaucrats whose world view is the same as the bosses, the same as the bankers and Wall Street crowd. Even those claiming to be socialist support their capitalist governments. The workers of France for example, their unions and parties should take direct/industrial action against that government’s threat to bomb Syria, its former colony. Appeals and assistance from the workers of the industrial world to the workers of Syria and the Arab Spring would provide a real alternative to the Assad regime and those in opposition who want rid of it. It would undermine the Islamic fanatics and offer a real alternative to Assad or al Qaeda.

Most people have read the quote below and there is no doubt Butler had weaknesses, a sort of protectionist isolationist ideal, but his description of his role as a Major General in the United States Marine Corp is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it in the 1930’s.

Excerpt from a speech given by Major General Smedley Butler in 1933

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

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John Grishom: "Gitmo, a sad perversion of American Justice"

US justice: Making friends around the world

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

The only way one can avoid being sickened and disgusted by the existence of the Guantanamo concentration camp in US occupied Cuba is if one ignores it; and that’s what the vast majority of Americans do.  For many years growing up in Britain I paid little attention to the terrorism of the British state in Northern Ireland as well. I couldn’t avoid the news completely so the hunger strikers, the B Specials, the sectarian killings the treatment of Catholics and what it meant, all came to me through the “official”state media.  With some help, I eventually broke out of my isolation and came to understand the history behind the occupation of Ireland’s six northern counties and the troubles and violence that was still occurring there.

After spending billions of dollars of US taxpayer money arming al Qaeda and the Islamic movement in Afghanistan, the employer/employee relationship between the Pentagon and the Taliban, the backward reactionary feudal warlords, was eventually severed by 1999. (Up until 1999 every Taliban official was on the payroll of the US government, treatment of women be damned.) *  After 911, the US offered its new allies, the ruthless Northern Alliance, bounties if they captured and handed over terrorists which they did with gusto.  People were then jailed, tortured, killed and eventually drugged, hooded and flown to the concentration camp at Guantanamo. As we shared with our readers recently, many Taliban that surrendered with the promise of amnesty were brutally murdered under the guidance of US military personnel.  The fate of three British tourists, rounded up by US allies is well documented in the movie Road to Guantanamo. For the US public, burdened with the most censored media and highly efficient state surveillance and propaganda machine, we have no clue who the people in Guantanamo really are.

The hunger strike at Guantanamo is continuing and some prisoners are considering the only path open to them, plead guilty to war crimes in the hope of getting some sort of trial.  That’s what 11-year resident, Sufiyan Barhoumi would like to do the Wall Street Journal reports this week.  The problem is that the Pentagon won’t charge him with anything.  One of the reasons is the legal wrangling that is going on around these detainees.  The main war US capitalism is engaged in is the “War on terror”, and “terror” not being a nation or having an army or state as it is actually a tactic, tends to complicate things.

The human beings in Guantanamo are not in America, I don’t mean physically, because Guantanamo is in occupied Cuba, but legally and other ways.  In the US under most circumstances, the justice system releases you if you are not charged with a crime after a certain time.  But not so in Guantanamo as the WSJ explains:

“Elsewhere in the American justice system, suspects go free unless prosecutors file charges. In Guantanamo, the opposite is true: Detainees who aren't charged and are presumed innocent under the Military Commissions Act of specific war crimes nevertheless face indefinite detention because the Pentagon has classified them as enemy combatants.”

“Enemy combatants” is a handy term and doesn’t fall from the sky by chance.  Language is important it seems. Being “enemy combatants” or, as we are finding out a “terrorist” strips you of rights society offers to the population as a whole or rights that soldiers have when nations enter conflict.  British colonialism refused to give the collective term “rebellion” to those who fought its occupation and theft of their land as this would give them legitimacy.  The Mau Mau were terrorists not freedom fighters, the same with Irish resistance to 500 years of British occupation. The difference is significant as convicting a Guantanamo inmate of war crimes means the thugs at the Pentagon must prove it to a military commission beyond a reasonable doubt.  But with enemy combatants, all that has to be shown is that a “preponderance of evidence”  or with as the WSJ explains “a 51% certainty”  the accused “belonged to a force associated with the Taliban or Al Qaeda”.  As I point out above you’d have to arrest the entire US Congress for that but the statute of limitation has expired on that one conveniently. What al Qaeda is if it is anything at all is a mystery as any resistance to US imperialism’s adventures are “alleged militants” “alleged insurgents” “terrorists”etc.  Friends of the Pentagon are always “rebels”.

So the methods and practices in Guantanamo are not new.  Domestically, they are used in US prisons daily.  For example, Guantanamo authorities are suggesting that they will file charges so concentration camp occupants can offer some sort of legal response and a chance of leaving the place if they testify against each other. In the present hunger strikes in California prisons this is one of the demands, stop forcing inmates to snitch on each other.  While it has been proven that not very useful information comes from torture as people will say anything to put an end to it, getting prisoners to turn anyone in for anything in order to improve their own conditions serves the authorities well, it divides the population, increases internecine gang and racial warfare and strengthens the forces of the state. This is why the struggle for prisoner’s rights must include the right to have independent unions that can represent their interests. In the case of the above mentioned Mr. Barhoumi, they want him to testify against a fellow inmate considered more important,

Being more important than Barhoumi this man was not sent straight to Guantanamo but first to a CIA torture center in Afghanistan where he was waterboarded 83 times according to the WSJ. As with inmates in the US gulag, the human character is very strong as is the hatred of organized state forces and people don’t give up others easily. It’s not a question of taking sides here but even those we oppose have to be respected at times for their principled commitment to what they believe rightly or wrongly is a just cause.  Mr. Barhoumi is “willing to work with this system and plead guilty because it’s his only alternative to indefinite detention” Capt. Justin Swick, his defense attorney tells the WSJ, but he refuses to win his freedom or possibility of it by testifying against others which is the US government’s condition to set the process in motion, “He won’t help convict someone else in a system he believes is illegitimate” says Swick.

There are some decent people in this world. Swick points out that Guantanamo authorities refused to allow John Grisham novels in to the camp as they’re “problematic”.  I’ve never read a Grisham novel so I’m not really sure what horrific dangers one could produce for US authorities or how they threaten the American way of life. But I am tempted to read Mr Grishom whose response to Guantanamo authorities concern about safety and inmate care was, “In response to all their humaneness is to ask where waterboarding fits in.” adding that “Gitmo is a sad perversion of American justice.”

Apparently, the thugs that run the place have backed off on the Grishom novels for MR. Bargoumi, perhaps as a response to the massive hunger strike that is occurring there.  Barhoumi is pleased but will wait till he’s off hunger strike before he reads them. 

The  US state apparatus combines coercion, manipulation, incarceration and the most brutal violence in its war on the workers and middle class. Guantanamo is nothing new, not the exception when it comes to the treatment of the incarcerated.Along with this, racism, sexism and blaming immigrants and foreigners for their crisis, are all tactics aimed at weakening the unity of the working class. People have an understanding that to confront this war machine is serious business and a daunting task; the lack of mass protests at the war being waged against workers in the US is not simply due to apathy. Although we have seen some resistance over the past period and tremendous support for the Occupy Movement as well as lots of isolated individual struggles around the environment,  racism, police brutality, housing etc. , I think there is still a strong feeling among the majority of the population that there’s not much we can do, so there’s a sort of numbing to it all and a “get on with my life”attitude hoping the tide will turn.  But more and more Americans are drawing the conclusion that the tide will not turn so this mood can rapidly change as US history shows and an overconfident US capitalist class can and will make some serious miscalculations that will hasten this process.

*See Michel Chossudovsky: War and Globalization 

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US military spends hundreds of millions building never to be used buildings.

In one province of Afghanistan a new 64,000 square foot military base sits empty. It has tiered fancy chairs, spacious offices, powerful air conditioning and a theatre. It cost $34 million to build. In  a different province $45 million has been spent to build another military facility. Also never to be used. In yet another province another facility also to be unused has been built at the cost of $80 million. And this is only the tip of the ice berg when the total costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are looked at.  The military industrial complex and the US war machine have their snouts in the trough or to be more accurate are robbing the US tax payers. .

Think about what this money could be used for. It could be used to build, homes, hospitals, schools, roads etc. in Afghanistan. This would be far more effective in providing "security" for the US population. This spending could also be used to build homes, hospitals, hire more health care workers and teachers and rebuild the infrastructure here in the US.

I attend a public hospital for my various illnesses. There is a very serious shortage of facilities and workers there. The money that is being squandered in these empty bases could be spent there. Hagel the secretary of defense says that it is difficult to stop a military spending project once it gets started. There is truth in this but the issue is why is there truth in this? It is because the politicians who runs Washington, that is the Republicans and Democrats, are in the pockets of the military industrial complex and Wall Street.

Producing weaponry is, when you think about it, the producing of scrap metal. Weapons are either blown up in battle, or in so called war games or become obsolete and are replaced by newer weapons. This is a complete waste of raw materials and skilled labor. Not only that it creates inflation. It adds to goods entering the market which do not add value to society yet money is spent buying these goods . It is inflationary.

The trillions of dollars spent on military spending, that is the production of scrap metal and empty buildings should be redirected to satisfying the needs of the working people of the world.

Sean.

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Sana Saeed, Guardian: How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse

by Jack Gerson

We reprint a Guardian op ed by Sana Saeed that pulls no punches about how rape is used to terrorize women in Egypt, and how mob sexual violence in particular is an open tool used to discourage women from taking part in demonstrations and other political activity. But she also takes on the racist and chauvinist media propaganda prevalent in the West that sexual violence against women is mainly attributable to religious and cultural roots: Islam, Hinduism, Middle East, Indian subcontinent. But as she discusses, Egypt and India have no monopoly on sexual violence -- we need look no further than the U.S. (especially, but not only, the U.S. military).

How We 'Other' Sexual Assault to Ignore Our Own Norms of Abuse by Sana Saeed (Guardian, 7/7/13)

On 30 June, as “the Coup That Must Not Be Mentioned” was being celebrated in Tahrir Square, Cairo, news of over 80 reports of mob sexual violence and harassment emerged as a reminder of an ugly undercurrent behind the two-and-a-half-year-long anti-regime uprising. Sexual harassment and violence in Egypt is a daily occurrence – an epidemic, even – with 99.3% of women (pdf) claiming to have suffered some form of it.

Mob sexual violence, however, carries a certain brand of particularity as a near-explicit political tool used to discourage women, who make up nearly half of the total population, from attending demonstrations. Maria S Muñoz, co-founder and director of the anti-sexual assault initiative Tahrir Bodyguard, traces the advent and use of organized mob sexual assaults to the days of Mubarak, pointing to the 2005 assault of journalist Nawal Ali by hired “thugs” during a demonstration. Despite being aware of the risk of attending political demonstrations, women, Muñoz notes, “have continued to share the public space in protests, becoming an essential part of the opposition’s voice and presence.”

The culture of sexual violence and harrassment, in Egypt, has received considerable media attention, often highlighting the efforts of groups such as Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment/Assault, HarassMap and Tahrir Bodyguard as people-powered initiatives tackling sexual violence and harassment head-on. Despite this, it is apparently still difficult to have an honest discussion over why it happens.

On 5 July, US author Joyce Carol Oates (whom I know primarily from her having never written this) decided to join in with the sea of insta-Egypt Twitter experts and opined:

If 99.3% of women reported being treated equitably, fairly, generously–it would be natural to ask: what’s the predominant religion?
— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) July 5, 2013

Despite the brevity of “Oatesgate”, the rhetorical question of a well-respected literary figure highlights popular characterizations of sexual violence and harassment when it takes place elsewhere. Rarely does sexual violence and harassment in our own societies – as it is perpetrated, prosecuted and cultured – allow the sort of cultural reductionism that seems to come with ease when sexual violence is associated with “the other”.

When a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern is brutally gang-raped and beaten in Delhi, we speak of “India’s woman problem”; when an incapacitated 16-year-old student is raped, photographed and filmed for six hours by peers – who share the images on social media – the incident is treated as an isolated act of unfortunate deviance and not part and parcel of a larger endemic culture that normalizes rape and the appropriation of women’s bodies as public property.

Child groomers of Muslim and South Asian backgrounds become cultural ambassadors raised on a steady diet of “savage” notions of sex embedded in anti-white biases and misogyny. Revered coaches and university administrations hiding decades of child sex abuse, on the other hand, become their own victims.

Thus there are no protests, no calls of a “woman problem”, no “natural” inquiries into the predominant religion when a country has ranked 13th in the world for rape, 10th for rapes per capita (pdf) and where 26,000 military service members reported sexual assault in 2012 alone. There are no popular anthropological undertakings by stiff-haired anchors of the inner secrets and dark forces of American culture, religion and society. No white American woman asks why the white American male hates “us”.

None of this is to provide a level playing field for discussing sexual violence. It is to highlight how understanding of sexual violence is reliant on how it is reported and how this, in turn, is reliant on who is involved. In the case of Egypt, the extent to which there is sexual harassment and violence is abysmal and even unique in how it occurs. Yet, this violence did not emerge overnight, nor does it occur in a political and socio-economic vacuum. It is the result of decades of state, legal and political decay. It is the result of a state that itself has created a culture of acceptability of violence and torture, often sexual, inside its own walls.

In the explicit act of violating bodily sovereignty, there is an active search for the conquest of power and control in a space where these have become vulnerable. This requires no sermon, book or belief to legitimize it; it only needs submission.

To read this article on the Guardian website, please go to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/07/sexual-assault-norms-abuse/print 

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