British imperialism

In The Independent of 3/9/11 there appeared an article based on secret files that the paper had unearthed. We are reprinting here substantial extracts from that article. The Independent says that they “reveal the astonishingly close links that existed between British and American governments and Muammar Gaddafi.”

Since March 19th, there has been no let- up in the military intervention in Libya under the dual banner of the UN and NATO. But we needn’t worry: the last G8 summit has reaffirmed that the members of the coalition, putting their differences to one side, are 'determined to finish the job', having called on the Libyan leader to relinquish power because he has 'lost all legitimacy'.

 

 

 

If timing is the essence of comedy then David Cameron’s long-planned arms sales trip around the Gulf and the Middle East couldn’t have worked out better. But supplying butchers with the means to attack their populations is far from comic.

In July, during a visit to India no less, David Cameron, British Prime Minister, no doubt delivering a message from his earlier meeting with the US administration, accused Pakistan, or elements within Pakistan, of exporting terror and playing a double game. He should know. The export of terrorism and the double games that surround it are a speciality of British imperialism – as Pakistan well knows.

The Saville report into the events of Bloody Sunday has been widely praised for its findings. The report cost nearly £200 million and took 12 years to complete. David Cameron's apology has led to calls for him to be given the freedom of Derry. Has the world been turned upside down or is there something more cynical going on?

British imperialism is at an impasse. Humiliated and all but thrown out of Iraq, failing in Afghanistan and ignored when it tries to take the lead internationally, as at the recent Copenhagen climate change summit, it turns up the volume of propaganda to hide the reality. The deaths of the young men and women slaughtered in Helmand Province are spun into a cynical spectacle about the sacrifice and heroism of ‘our boys'.

All three main political parties propose cuts in government spending. But even though the war in Afghanistan is increasingly costly in lives and money, there's no way public sector services will be maintained by cutting the military budget or withdrawing the troops.

The fact that such an august publication as the Economist is posing such questions about the Afghan war is clear evidence that the official excuses for this military adventure are wearing very thin.

Britain's role in meddling in Iranian politics in the past is well documented, such as its part in overthrowing the elected government in 1953 alongside the USA. At the same time no brutal, corrupt and hated regime anywhere in the world will ever admit to the existence of any discontent that has not been stirred up by outside forces.

Is there any real long term trend towards stability and prosperity in Iraq? A recent upsurge in murderous suicide bombings, both in the Kurdish north and Baghdad, puts into question the idea that the US troop surge is having a profound impact on the ‘security situation' in the country. The British withdrawal from Basra is not at all an example of ‘a job well done' but of yet another retreat by declining British imperialism.

There can be no doubt about the government's determination to defend the interests of British national capital abroad. We have only to look at the UK involvement in the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain isalways pronouncing on current conflicts, even if it is powerless to influence, as it was in Georgia, and even more now with David Milliband proposing an EU force on stand-by for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Financially constrained by a deepening economic crisis, bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, its armed forces already overstretched, Britain can only afford empty rhetoric in it's condemnation of Russian Imperialism.

The number of British soldiers killed in the intervention in Afghanistan has passed the 110 mark. The figure for Iraq is more than 175. The government says that these deaths are not in vain and the army is fighting for a good cause - to establish democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq. Cleary, the government felt that this needed to be underlined, because the military interventions do appear to be futile.

In WR 312 and 313 we published articles (for the first time in English) on the evolution of British imperialism, from Bilan, the theoretical organ of the Italian Communist Left. They first appeared in 1934-1935 and gave a marxist framework for understanding subsequent developments.

The Treaty of Versailles stamped out British imperialism's most formidable competitor in the decades that preceded the war. The antagonism between Britain and Germany was at the centre of the tensions that led to the world conflict. But the threat of German expansionism was only kept in check at the cost of the growing domination of an even more formidable force...

We are publishing here the first of two articles on British capitalism from Bilan, the theoretical organ of the Italian communist left in the 1930s. ‘Evolution de l'imperialisme anglais', signed Mitchell, appeared in Bilan 13 and 14, December 1934 and January 1935.

The working class in Britain is daily faced with its sons, daughters, sisters, brothers and friends in the armed forces being sucked ever deeper in to what appears to be a growing series of wars. The chaos in Iraq is rejoined by the revival of conflict and casualties in Afghanistan, although the full extent of the victims of war is deliberately hidden by the state, which does not report the number of injured.

This article was originally published in World Revolution 50, in June 1982. We are reprinting it in anticipation of a flood of articles and TV documentaries commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Falklands war. The article argues that the war was not, like many other wars of that period, a proxy conflict between the American and Russian imperialist blocs, nor was it fought over any serious economic or strategic conflict of interests between Britain and Argentina. It was above all a war aimed at the working class.

The deployment of 3300 British troops, mainly from the 16th Air Assault Brigade, in the southern Helmand province of Afghanistan has been given the usual government and media spin. They will supposedly bring the resurgent Taliban under control, enforce law and order, and reduce opium production... This is the same government that told us everything was going to be fine in Iraq after the fall of Saddam.

The last few months have seen no let up in the violence and chaos ravaging many parts of the world. In Iraq the civil war kills and maims hundreds every week. In Afghanistan the worst fighting since the war has shown that large parts of the country remain beyond the control of the central state. In the midst of this stand the world’s greatest powers, with the US, as the greatest of them all, at the very centre. Bush junior’s ‘war on terror’ is now mired in blood and destruction, just as Bush senior’s ‘new world order’ before it resulted in bloody disorder and helped to spread terror around the world.

When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries...

The twentieth century was a century of unparalleled barbarism in the history of humanity. In an epoch dominated by the defeat of the first world revolution and the massacre of millions of human beings in two global imperialist wars, certain bourgeois leaders arose who, in their own way, best expressed the interests of their respective national capitals and the need for ruthlessness and cunning in dealing with their common enemy, the proletariat.

'Blair out', 'Bliar', 'Tony's a Tory'.

These were the most prominent slogans on the anti-war demo in London on 27 September.

But calls for Blair to go aren't limited to the 'far left' groups who hand out placards emblazoned with these slogans.

The recent election in Zimbabwe was, according to a Guardian editorial (14/3/2) a "crime against the people". The election was "thoroughly fixed, fiddled, manipulated, and comprehensively stolen". Surveying the scene the editorial-writer found that "The evidence of massive fraud, rooted in intimidation and skulduggery of every kind, was to be found in every province, every township and every polling station. In short, the whole thing stinks."

The ruthless slaughter of thousands of civilians in New York and Washington, the majority of them workers, in the very heart of the USA, of capitalism's number one economic and military machine, was not only an abominable war crime. It also marks a giant step in the decomposition of the existing social order.

The American bourgeoisie has exploited the catastrophe of 11 September to try and reassert its imperialist power on an unprecedented scale. The British bourgeoisie has also not missed the opportunity to play its own imperialist game, to advance its own military, diplomatic and political position on the world arena at the expense of its rivals, cynically exploiting sympathy for its ‘own’ victims in the terrorist attacks.

At the time of writing, the latest atrocity in Israel/Palestine is the suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv disco, which left at least 17 young people dead and scores more injured. By the time this paper comes back from the printer, it is more than likely that the Israeli state will have exacted its revenge � perhaps another air raid on a refugee camp charged with harbouring the terrorists of Islamic Jihad who have claimed responsibility for the Tel Aviv bombing. Sharon will pretend that this is an attack on a military target, but as ever it will be defenceless civilians who will die or see their homes reduced to rubble. This in turn will provoke new acts of revenge by the Islamic groups or even by hapless, despairing individuals, like the Palestinian bus driver who drove his bus into a line of Israeli passengers.

In their election manifestos all the political parties made grand statements about Britain’s role in the world. Labour set out its “ten-year vision for British foreign policy”; the Tories talked of Britain being “one of the world’s most respected democracies, one of its most influential leaders” while the Liberal Democrats called for an “internationalist approach”. As ever, the reality behind such words is a brutal defence of national interests.

The EU observer mission sent to watch the election in Zimbabwe were not happy about the "climate of fear" and that the "Zanu-PF leaders seemed to sanction the use of violence and intimidation". However, as the Movement for Democratic Change, lead by Morgan Tsvangirai, won 57 seats, despite being only able to safely campaign in 25 of the 120 at stake, political parties in Europe declared their satisfaction. In Britain, Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat all appreciated the work of Tsvangirai, a leading trade unionist often called a ‘British puppet’ by Zanu-PF. Such accusations are based on the reality that he was in constant contact with the British government throughout the campaign, and all British coverage of the Zimbabwe election campaign was devoted to the denunciation of violence and the demonisation of Mugabe.