At 04/10/01 07:20 +0100, I wrote:
>Russia to join the attack against Afghanistan?
>And despite the fact that Afghanistan has defeated all imperialist
>invasions, it could still be too tempting to consider that it would
>succumb to a simultaneous invasion of three imperialist powers.
>
>Evidence??
>
>Last night London time, my suspicions were aroused by the fact that a
>latest news item on the Guardian site on Blair's secret trip, had been
>pulled. Perhaps the explanation is innocent, but why had they not got a
>replacement ready as would be normal in a ongoing electronic news site
>these days. The Telegraph was carrying a report of a probable war scenario
>of the Northern Alliance attacking down to Kabul, and Britain and the US
>attacking up from Herat.
>So what is Blair going to do on his semi-secret trip? Blair is proud to
>think the unthinkable. Blair with the support of Alistair Campbell was
>perhaps the key figure in the Kosovo war bolstering the alliance of 19
>countries. He is more than capable of having not just a logistic alliance
>with Russia on his agenda list for talks with Putin, but a military
>alliance for a coordinated attack.
>What else? UK sources have been tight lipped about whether Blair is going
>on to Pakistan. I can't work out whether that is a distraction to allow
>vagueness about the length of his trip.
>
>We know that the day before he had a long telephone with Vajpayee. Only
>reported content to signal some sympathy about terrorists in Kashmir (NB
>almost certainly mean *unreported* script, you must must must come to some
>settlement with Pakistan over Kashmir. We will treat you with public
>respect as a nuclear power now, promise, but the world is too dangerous to
>leave disaffected muslims plotting and stewing.)
>
>Will Blair fly on to have a joint meeting with Musharaff and Vajpayee?
>entirely within his frame of reference!
Now we know.
The broad picture is fortunately that both the UK and the USA have been sending signals that the attack on bin Laden has to be even better prepared than was previously thought. There have been news stories about bombing Afghanistan with wheat, (after its air defences have been pacified...)
There has been a news report that the Russians have an SAS type unit working with the Northern Alliance, but nothing to confirm a Russian joint invasion from the north.
Instead we now know that the mystery of Blair's trip was that he was indeed going on to India, although pulling off a joint summit with VVajpayee and Musharaff is premature.
The Guardian today has what looks like an authoritative and convincing front page lead outlining a comprehensive social, political and economic restructuring of the Afghan government to remove the Taliban. This brazenly is presented as bringing greater democracy to the country, forgetting that one of the key rules of bourgeois democracy is that you are under no obligation to unite with the minority. However a broad based government will be in the interests of stability and global finance capital. It will also be in the longer term interests of the international proletariat to reduce the areas of communal conflict between people of different cultural and religious backgrounds, so why should progressives oppose it? But in liberal language there could hardly be a clearer endorsement of marxist theories that all states are about power, when Blair is reported as saying:
"Most people accept that the best thing for everyone is to have a broad-based, relatively stable and democratic as possible regime in Afghanistan."
Click on
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,564394,00.html
- for full new strategy against Taliban.
And now the leaked revelation that of course Alistair Campbell has been with Blair all along:
>As Mr Blair shuttles round the world, coalition building, Mr Powell,
>together with Alastair Campbell, Anji Hunter and a shifting cast of
>specialists, travel with him.
This in a carefully crafted article
"Blair: First among equals?"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,564344,00.html
- obviously given by Campbell to the reporter personally, carefully nuancing the reality that Blair at this moment has much greater power in his hands than the US president, to use entirely as he thinks fit. Note that while the different departments of the Presidency have to feud and skirmish among themselves, Blair is able to step over all this, and yet have all the information. He can play Colin Powell off against Rumsfeld, without the slightest suggestion that he is even doing so. He is the British Government.
Note *how* the existence of Campbell is so carefully leaked. Another name, Anji Hunter, is brought in, plus a "shifting cast of specialists" to blur the message. Campebell is there true enough, and he does occupy number 12 Downing Street, but the story here is that he is just one of a whole array of people who are part of the scenario of Blair, who in turn is modestly acknowledged as "First among equals" Question Mark. The reality that Blair is at the moment the leader of the world cannot be denied. It is best it comes out in form that gives some credence to the issue but carefully nuances it so it does not look too arrogant. Better that Bush can concentrate on getting angry with Sharon, than with Tony.
But when memoirs are written we will see that the two most influential people who have shaped the development of world history in the last three weeks have been Blair and Campbell. And it will not all be boasting.
So what of the mystery about the trip and the secret destinations? Blair has indeed gone on to meet Vajpayee. The world Coalition against Terrorism is not so powerful that it has chosen to knock all heads together and launch an attack this week, but Blair's mood music to India has been carefully pitched and is all part of a grand design to solve the Kashmir problem as well as the Afghan problem.
So in his just completed press conference with Vajpayee, Blair has gone out of his way to experess sympathy to India over Monday's terrorist attack in Kashmir. And an Indian correspondent has asked Vajpayee whether he thinks that Kashmir should be part of the equation. Vajpayee answers, Yes, with emphasis.
There will already have been a number of behind the scenes discussions which Britain will have offered to help between Pakistan and India.Blair as the leading representative of the post modernist global Empire described by Hardt and Negri, has no complexes that he is a hang-over from British imperialism. He will use the historical links to offer help and reframe the psychological agenda. We can assume there is a joint think tank having various working sessions even now, hosted by Britain, and drawing in policy makers in Pakistan and India, and probably the region, just to free up thinking.
So perhaps we will avoid the last Christian Crusade against Islam. Perhaps we will all be the Children of Abraham, with people of Hindu religion, honorary descendants. Or perhaps we need to blend the post-modernist mood music a little differently.
But unlike those who cling to dogmatic versions of marxism, do not doubt this is also about material reality, and that progressive reforms, however limited, are possible. This week, almost unnoticed, the Turkish Parliament has voted overwhelmingly for a constitutional reform, which among other things, will lead to a radio station broadcasting in Kurdish. All this under pressure from the Empire.
The Empire does not always strike back. It leans. Like the other little local difficulty, unnoticed by the progressive left this week, that the aid package to Macedonia has been delayed until the Parliament introduces more rights for the culturally muslim Albanians. Imperialist? yes. Reactionary? not necessarily. There are more important things to protest against.
History could have gone in two different directions this week. Doves are still ascendant and flying a little higher. Not primarily because of the global lobbying for peace, though that has been important. To be brutally realistic, because global finance capital prefers peace. That is still progressive.
What we must do is to analyse these processes and reinforce and support the urgency of the street demonstrations and the teach ins against the oppressive and exploitative structures of global finance capital, which render all the contradictions in the world so much more likely to be antagonistic.
For Global Economic and Social Justice.
For a New Democratic Revolutionary Transformation of the World
Chris Burford
London
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