World Socialist Radio

Trading Blows

Market traders in war are grim reapers

Of the spoils, snatching the ground from under

The feet of those living there, torn asunder

By rhetoric, and leaders who’re keepers

Of their nations’ destiny. People, who

Have far more in common than what divides,

Acquiesce to being on opposing sides

By accepting that their just war is true.

Logic and reason having been displaced,

The bombed-out impotently sit and curse,

Wishing those named enemies receive worse:

So does human potential go to waste.

That’s how it must be forever and all,

Until people choose life and take control.

D. A.

The below is from the Socialist Standard September 2006

‘As we go to press, a serious and already escalating crisis can be expected to go into overdrive the instant the Iranian government, at the moment under a UN deadline to stop uranium enrichment by 31 August, tells the UN what it can do with its resolution.

Sanctions will no doubt be announced, but to what effect and with what response from Iran remains to be seen. Iran has already intimated it would spark a global oil price crisis in response to UN sanctions, and it is unclear whether China and Russia – each with vested oil interests in Iran – will go along with any sanctions. The worst-case scenario is that the US will express feigned frustration at Iran’s unwillingness to cooperate and use the rejected resolution as a chequered flag to attack Iran militarily.

It is against this backdrop that we can begin to set the present Middle East crisis in context, particularly the recent Israeli attack upon Lebanon. This latest act of Israeli aggression was not about capturing back the two Israeli soldiers kidnapped on 14 July but was rather, it would seem, about oil and the securing of other resources and about preparing for any wider conflict against Syria and Iran.

Planned in advance

There are numerous claims that the war in Lebanon had been planned in advance by Israel. Reporting from Tel Aviv for the San Francisco Chronicle (21 July), Matthew Kalman wrote: “More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to US and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.”

Speaking to CNN, veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said: “July was a pretext for a major offensive that had been in the works for a long time. Israel’s attack was going to be a model for the attack they really want to do. They really want to go after Iran.” (Guardian, 14 August).

In bombarding Lebanon and the Gaza strip (Gaza is still being bombed) the objective was to neutralise two opponents of Israel – and the US – Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah’s fire power and missile capabilities needed to be tested. Israel was unsure of the number of rockets in the hands of Hezbollah (some said 20,000) or indeed their range. Now they know. The Israeli bombardment of key roads and bridges and passage to Syria can serve no other function than to cut of the weapons supply route to Hezbollah. By striking pre-emptively Israel seems to have planned to destroy as many Hezbollah weapons as possible in advance of any rocket attack on Israel resulting from any US-allied bombardment of Iran.

Oil and water

Widely unreported in the Western popular media and brought to a wider audience by Michel Chossudovsky, a Canadian economics professor, on the Global Research website was the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline. This links the Caspian Sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, and was opened one day before Hezbollah’s kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers that ostensibly started the recent war in Lebanon.The BTC pipeline is anticipated to carry a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets. In attendance at the inauguration ceremony were BP’s CEO Lord Browne and senior officials from the UK and USA, along with Israel’s Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Binyamin Ben Eliezer, accompanied by a delegation of top Israeli oil officials.

The BP-dominated pipeline skirts the Russian Federation, cutting through new pro-US states Georgia and Azerbaijan, countries allied with NATO and with a standing military pact with Israel. Israel already gets 20 percent of its oil from Azeri oil fields and this new pipeline is set to increase Israeli imports from the Caspian basin. Israel is now tipped to be a key player in the East Mediterranean oil transport protection racket.

Officially, the BTC pipeline will be channelling oil to Western markets. What is not admitted, however, is that some of this oil will be redirected towards Israel via a proposed underwater pipeline from Ceyhan in Turkey to the Israeli port of Ashkelon, and from there via a pipeline system to the Red Sea. The plan not only seems to serve Israeli oil consumption needs, but also plays a part in the US’s wider game of global-politics.

Oil channelled from Ashkelon to the Red Sea will then be re-exported from the Red Sea port of Eilat to Asian markets. This will help undermine the inter-Asian energy market eventually weakening the position of Russia in Central Asia and cutting off China from Central Asia’s oil reserves. In April of this year Ankara and Tel Aviv publicised their intention to create four pipelines which would bypass Syrian and Lebanese territory. As the Jerusalem Post (11 May) reported:

”Turkey and Israel are negotiating the construction of a multi-million-dollar energy and water project that will transport water, electricity, natural gas and oil by pipelines to Israel, with the oil to be sent onward from Israel to the Far East.”

The scheme further envisages a pipeline to carry water to Israel from upstream Anatolian rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Not only is this plan catered for in the recently-announced military pact between Israel and Ankara, its implementation will be devastating for Syria and Iraq. The execution of this joint Israeli-Turkish venture requires that land and sea routes between the Ceyhan border, through Syria and Lebanon, and to the Lebanese-Israeli border, be militarised.

Michel Chossudovsky asks in his article ‘The war on Lebanon and the battle for oil:’

“Is this not one of the hidden objectives of the war on Lebanon? Open up a space which enables Israel to control a vast territory extending from the Lebanese border through Syria to Turkey.”

Israel is keen to play a more dominant role in the Middle East and seeks to achieve a degree of economic autonomy by becoming a key player in oil politics. Its military programme is increasingly looking like being tailored to the region’s strategic oil pipelines and by the Western oil companies commanding the pipeline passages. Of course to punch above its weight it needs outside help, hence alliances with the US and more recently with Turkey and NATO.

Chossudovsky’s oft-cited piece “Triple Alliance”: The US, Turkey, Israel and the War on Lebanon details the alliances and agreements which apparently underpin the war with Hezbollah.

“We are not dealing with a limited conflict between the Israeli Armed Forces and Hezbollah as conveyed by the Western media. The Lebanese War Theatre is part of a broader US military agenda, which encompasses a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean into the heartland of Central Asia. The war on Lebanon must be viewed as ‘a stage’ in this broader ‘military road map’.”

Significant, for Chossudovsky, is the Turkey-Israel alliance which involves military and intelligence sharing on Iraq, Iran and Syria, as well as joint military exercises and training.

Pepe Escobar, writing for Asia Times, stresses Israel’s water needs as partly behind the recent war in Lebanon. : “There’s also the all-important matter of the waters of the Litani River in southern Lebanon. Israel might as well prepare the terrain now for the eventual annexation of the Litani. Beyond Lebanon, Israel is mostly interested also in Syria. The motive: the all-important pipeline route from Kirkuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to Haifa. Enter Israel as a major player in Pipelineistan. So Israel wants to grab water (and territory) from Palestine, water (and territory) from Lebanon and oil from Iraq. This all has to do with the inevitable – the 21st-century energy wars.”( Link.)

Seeking greater independence and an enhanced role in the Middle East, the smell of profits all around, Israeli aggression now becomes more understandable.

Long war

Tel Aviv recently announced it was in for a “long war” – clearly not with Hezbollah. It has been stockpiling weapons for several years and was re-supplied throughout the war with Hezbollah by the US. On top of its arsenal of 200 nuclear warheads it has in excess of 500 bunker-busting bombs, only a few, by all accounts, used recently in Lebanon. Clearly Israel is preparing for a widening and intense conflict. Speaking of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: “We need to make clear to Syria and Iran that there is a choice: come into the international community and play by the same rules as the rest of us, or be confronted.”

Can this hypocritical statement be interpreted as anything other than a serious threat of violence to those Middle Eastern countries that would stand in the way of profit-hungry masters of war and their ambitions for global domination of the planet’s vital resources?

Seymour Hersh has repeatedly asserted that President Bush ordered all-out war against Iran shortly after his re-election in 2004. Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative, amongst other sources, sides with Hersh in arguing that vice-president Dick Cheney has drawn up a war plan for Iran inclusive of the possible use of nuclear weapons.

US Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld has placed US forces on alert and Lieutenant-Colonel Bruce Carlson, commander of the 8th Air Force acknowledges: “We’re now at the point where we are essentially on alert. We have the capacity to plan and execute global strikes in half a day or less.”

Dan Plesch (Guardian, 8 August) suggests President Bush has at his disposal: “200 strategic bombers (B52-B1-B2- F117A) and US Navy Tomahawk cruise missiles. One B2 bomber dropped 80,500lb bombs on separate targets in 22 seconds in a test flight. Using just half the available force, 10,000 targets could be attacked almost simultaneously. This strike power alone is sufficient to destroy all major Iranian political, military, economic and transport capabilities.”

Dangerous times

We live at a dangerous stage of human history, in which the greatest crime a country can commit is to have more than its fair share of resources in a world in which the leading superpower is seeking full-spectrum dominance. Iran’s real and unforgivable crime – leaving aside its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment programme – is to have enviable oil and gas reserves, to control access to the Persian Gulf , which is a vital oil and gas transhipment route to Europe, Japan, and the rest of the world, and to have contemplated oil deals with a serious rival for US supremacy, China. With China expected to have oil demands similar to US levels within 20 years, already consuming vast resources of coal, iron and steel, not to mention almost 70 percent of the world’s cement supplies on a single dam project, the panic button has clearly been pressed.

As Socialists we are naturally fearful as we watch events unfold; fearful for our class, our fellows throughout the world and for whom we hold no ill feelings. As always, we refuse to take sides in conflict, seeing all war as rooted in the desire to make profit, and viewing workers, wherever they are, united as one class with the same basic needs and common interest, diametrically opposed to the interests of those who would urge them to kill each other.

 Before the slaughter begins again, we once more take the opportunity to declare our heartfelt solidarity with the workers of all countries, and their true common cause. We appeal to workers to organise consciously and politically and to use the power at their disposal to head off the threatening bloodshed, and secure the space we need in order to build a world of peace and stability. As ever, we appeal to the workers of all lands to join with us in campaigning for a system of society where there are no leaders, no classes, no states or governments, no borders, no force or coercion; a world where the earth’s natural and industrial resources are commonly owned and democratically controlled and where production is freed from the artificial constraints of profit and used for the benefit of all; a world of free access to the necessaries of life. A world without waste, or want, or war.’

John Bissett

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2023/09/after-hezbullah-war-with-iran-2006.html

When one thought that the insane behaviour of capitalist states couldn’t get any more demented the attack on Iran by Israel shows that the madness that drive entities to follow the fundamental aggressive nature of capitalism has now reached an unthinkable level of craziness.

The position of the SPGB/World Socialist Movement regarding war has always been absolutely and unequivocally against actions which ultimately always hurt and impact the majority working class the most

This current escalation of conflict between Israel and Iran has the potential, has as the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, to drag the world to ultimate devastation.

At the very least, depending upon the response of Iran, it could cause a severe collapse in the capitalist world economy.

The peace talks between Iran and the United States were due to take place this weekend. Some think that Israel’s actions were to ensure that successful diplomacy and negotiation did not occur.

Iran has been categorised for many years by others as a rogue state. This new threat to the world as a whole means that there are other rogue nations, Israel and the United States. The United States is complicit with Israel in the ‘Pearl harbour’ of 2025

We say a plague on all your houses but whilst capitalism continues to exist then the world depends upon the sanity of the actors within its system. The recent events of the past few years and the one which took place within the last twenty four hours demonstrate that aggression toward capitalism by the majority working class, and the replacement of capitalism with socialism, is the only rational and sensible course for the world to follow.

From the March 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘We’ll be watching the news headlines, or maybe there’ll be a news flash, and we’ll be informed that the RAF, along with the USAF’s long-range B-52 bombers, and the Israeli Air Force have carried out overnight bombing raids across Iran, targeting nuclear facilities, radar stations, airfields and anti-aircraft bases.

As in the case of Iraq, there will be the prior attempt at the mass manufacture of consent. Bush and Blair, and indeed any other European leaders who think they will have something to gain, will peddle the line about newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. They’ll say he is another Saddam Hussein who, if Iran’s nuclear programme is not halted, will be able to lob a nuclear missile at the West in a few minutes and that Iran is supporting international terrorism, financing terrorist cells all over the world, including Al Qaeda. The case will be made that Iran is still very much a part of the axis of evil, first referred to in George W Bush’s State of the Union Address in 2002, and its people, secretly harbouring thoughts of Western-style democracy, are crying out for regime change.

Indeed, it has already started. In his January 2005 State of the Union Address, Bush said: “Iran remains the world’s primary state sponsor of terror, pursuing nuclear weapons while depriving its people of the freedom they seek and deserve.” The White House has in fact been steadily creating an anti-Iran climate in the US for some time. The Wall Street Journal (3 February) reported that “in recent polls a surprisingly large number of Americans say they would support U.S. military strikes to stop Tehran from getting the bomb.”

Both Bush and Blair have already hinted at military intervention and Israel has previously threatened Iran. The New York Times (13 January) reported Meir Dagan, the chief of the Israeli Mossad, declaring that “Israeli policy makers all agree that a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities cannot be ruled out”. The Sunday Times (11 December) had already reported that Ariel Sharon had instructed Israel’s air force to get ready for a military attack against Iran by the end of March, when Israeli elections are scheduled. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, gave notice that if Sharon did not wipe out Iran’s nuclear installations, he would see the job was done if he became prime minister in March.

A year ago it was reported that Iran was anticipating an attack by the US and that it was ready for an impressionable response within 15 minutes. For over a year Iran has been mobilising recruits into citizens’ militia and has made plans to engage in the kind of “asymmetrical” warfare that has bogged down US troops in neighbouring Iraq.

Iran has sizeable oil reserves that look quite enticing and which other countries have been eyeing up for some time. The highly regarded Oil and Gas Journal reported last year that 125.8 billion barrels of oil were in Iran just waiting to be pumped out. Iran is also the number two producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Most of Iran’s crude oil is to be found in an area known as Khuzestan, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf and the location of Iran’s largest untapped oil fields – Yadavaran and Azadegan. There are serious profits to be had here but, tellingly, the Chinese state oil company China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation has a 50 percent stake in the vast Yadavaran field.

Russia too has a claim in Iranian oil. Three years ago Russia decided to expand its oil procuring and distribution methods by shipping Russian crude to Iran, to be refined for domestic consumption, with Iran delivering a corresponding amount of oil to Russia, thus decreasing the cost of exports via tankers loaded at Black Sea ports and making Russian oil accessible to buyers at competitive prices.

So it’s unlikely that Russia and China will agree to a UN Security Council Resolution against Iran which could justify military action if it is thought to have been breached; for they have strong vested interests in Iran which they are desperate not to jeopardise. Not that this will bother the US in the least, as both Russia and especially China are economic powers that threaten US global ambitions, so any attack on Iran, which consequently leads to the overthrow of the present regime in Tehran, upsets the long-term ambitions of China and Russia.

Iran would be no push-over. The US would not enjoy a hasty capitulation of the Tehran regime, as was the case with Baghdad, exhausted by over a decade of perpetual bombardment and sanctions. The Iranian army comprises about 350,000 active-duty soldiers and 220,000 conscripts and you can add to this 120,000 of the elite Revolutionary Guard. The country’s navy and air force total 70,000 men. Between them, the armed forces have about 2,000 tanks, 300 combat aircraft, and three submarines, hundreds of helicopters and at least a dozen Russian-made Scud missile launchers, the kind Saddam fired at Israel during the first Gulf War of 1991. Iran also has an unknown number of Shahab missiles with a range of more than 1,500 miles. With this in mind you can begin to appreciate the remarks of John Bolton, now the US ambassador to the UN, in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq: “Real men want to go to Iran”.

True, a lot of Iran’s military hardware is old, thirty years old in some cases, and no match for the state-of-the-art weaponry the US is wont to use. Nevertheless, it is still weaponry and more than capable of delivering untold damage to US forces or any other country within striking distance of its missiles perceived as being pro-US

With Iran controlling the Strait of Hormutz, oil tankers could easily be bombed as well tankers and platforms elsewhere in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. And Tehran could escalate any conflict, giving the nod for Lebanese Hezbollah militant attacks on Israel, sanctioning also assaults on US interests throughout Central Asia.

Oil Bourse

This month Iran intends to launch its Oil Bourse which will facilitate the future trade of oil in the euro instead of the US dollar. According to John Pilger writing in the New Statesman (13 February) this could have far-reaching consequences:

“The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding $8trn and a trade deficit of more than $600bn. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be $2trn. America’s military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China. That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran’s nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world’s central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.”

Likewise, Krassimir Petrov, Professor of Economics at the American University of Bulgaria, writing of the establishment of an Oil Bourse in the January edition of Energy Bulletin, said:

“In economic terms, this represents [a great threat] because it will allow anyone willing either to buy or to sell oil for euros to transact on the exchange, thus circumventing the US dollar altogether. Europeans will not have to buy and hold dollars in order to secure their payment for oil, but would instead pay with their own currencies. The adoption of the euro for oil transactions will provide the European currency with a reserve status that will benefit the European at the expense of the Americans … The Chinese and the Japanese will be especially eager to adopt the new exchange, because it will allow them to drastically lower their enormous dollar reserves and diversify with euros, thus protecting themselves against the depreciation of the dollar.”

Addicted to oil

George Bush, in his January 2006 State of the Union Address made an interesting statement: “The US is addicted to oil”. That’s perhaps the truest statement Bush has ever said, but he’s mistaken if this is meant to signify that the US is going into detox and will be weaning itself off oil. At the moment there is just too much US corporate interest in the Middle East and Central Asia for the US to even think of cutting back on one barrel of oil.

Furthermore, there are dangerous competitors out there, who have an insatiable thirst for oil, so it’s important that the US has a say in who has access to the world’s oil resources. The US is not that dependent upon Middle East oil for its own domestic consumption, but is aware that one way to control its foremost economic rivals is to influence just how much oil they can have and at what price. With China a fastly growing economic, political and military power, naked aggression is a strategy the US has been and will continue to be prepared to pursue throughout the oil rich regions of the Middle East and central Asia, regardless of the cost of life and the dent to the US’s global image. The dollar needs defending, the world’s oil resources need to be controlled and military bases built. Dealing with Iran is just one move in the US game-plan to maintain its global hegemony – the real enemy is yet to be confronted.

But for now Washington will use its man at the UN, John “Real Man” Bolton, to help hype a global crisis which could consequently be used to justify attacks on Iran, with or without the blessing of the Security Council. No evidence exists as to Iranian desires to create an atomic bomb, but the country is enriching uranium – legally, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which some pro-US nuclear states have refused to sign up to. This is the excuse that is being used to whip up support another war for oil.’

John Bissett

https://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2022/03/real-men-want-to-go-to-iran-2006.html

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed on the 12th June 1904.

The below is from the first issue of the Socialist Standard September 1904

 News that UK water bosses won’t get fat-cat bonuses for polluting waterways might mollify some, furious at the blatant mismanagement and grift. Britain is renowned for being cold, cloudy and wet, yet it’s now projected to run out of water by the mid-2030s, due to lack of reservoirs, and 1tn litres a year in leakage.

Water companies, some nearly bankrupt, push up charges and borrow huge sums not to fix leaks, but to service a £60bn debt mountain, as well as pay around £2bn a year in shareholder dividends.

There’s nothing efficient about capitalism. State or private, it’s always money first, people last. The whole planet needs democratic common ownership. Anything else is just a drop in the bucket.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/

Is there any reason why we should believe Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over any any politician? Putting cynicism aside the views expressed by Lavrov do indicate that Britain is firmly in the sights of Russia both as an adversary in the conflict with Ukraine.

The actions of the UK government, whether the perceptions articulated are correct or not, put Britain directly in the nuclear firing line should there be an escalation leading to a wider war than that between Ukraine and Russia.

‘There is no doubt that Britain is helping Ukraine to carry out terrorist attacks inside Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.

Speaking during the ‘Forum of the Future 2050’ in Moscow on Lavrov acknowledged that the “risk of the rise in the level of terrorist threat exists” in Russia.’ It is obvious that all this is being done by the Ukrainian side, but it would have been helpless without the support… from the British,” he said.

Such activities were previously backed by both the US and the UK, but “now we would have to do solely with the British,” Lavrov claimed.

The diplomat was referring to the fact that the UK remains one of Ukraine’s staunchest supporters, despite the US changing course under the administration of US President Donald Trump towards trying to restore dialogue with Moscow and to broker a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict.

“Although who knows, maybe there are still some special services in the US that are participating in such activities by inertia, but the British are 100% involved in them,” Lavrov stressed.

Last week, Moscow’s ambassador to London, Andrey Kelin, similarly accused the UK of participating in Ukrainian drone raids on Russian airbases.

“This kind of attack involves, of course, provision of very high technology, so-called geo-spatial data, which can only be done by those who have it in possession. And this is London and Washington,” Kelin told Sky News. He added that he did not believe that the US was somehow involved due to Trump denying any knowledge of Kiev’s plans.

Downing Street has neither confirmed nor denied the UK’s participation, with a government spokesman saying: “We never comment on operational matters at home or abroad.”’

‘The UK has pledged to supply 100,000 new drones to Ukraine by April 2026, in addition to the 10,000 UAVs it sent last year. The announcement coincides with Britain’s newly unveiled Strategic Defence Review, which proposes steps to rearm its military in light of what it paints as a threat posed by Russia.

London has allocated £350 million ($470 million) from its £4.5 billion Ukraine military package to fund new drone deliveries to Kiev, according to a government statement.

“Ukraine’s Armed Forces have demonstrated the effectiveness of drone warfare,” London stated, admitting that Kiev’s demand for UAVs has provided a boost to the UK’s economy. (Our emphasis).

It also unveiled plans to use Ukraine’s drone experience to train its own military. In order to “learn the lessons from Ukraine,” the UK would allocate over £4 billion for autonomous systems and drones for its armed forces.

. Russia has claimed that Kiev’s Western backers, particularly the UK, France, and Germany, are puhing drone warfare in order to derail the talks and to serve their own political agendas.

London framed its new Strategic Defence Review as “a message to Moscow,” declaring Britain is “ready to fight, if required.” The UK intends to spend £1.5 billion on new weapons plants, £6 billion on long-range arms, and £15 billion on nuclear warheads, among multiple other new expenses.

Russia has repeatedly dismissed claims it plans to attack Western Europe as “nonsense,” accusing the West of using scare tactics to justify shifting public funds toward military spending.

Moscow has warned that foreign involvement, including arms deliveries would obstruct peace efforts and ultimately fail to stop Russia from reaching its military goals. Moscow has also criticised the UK’s and EU’s respective militarisation drives, warning they risk triggering a broader conflict in Europe.’

On the 6th June 1944 after over one hundred and fifty thousand military landed on Normandy beaches to continue the capitalist war begun in 1939  the Socialist Standard of August 1944 was already posing the question as to whether a third world war was inevitable.

 ‘War, said Clausewitz, is a continuation of politics by other means. “Without armed forces it will not be possible to have a foreign policy at all,” said Lord Cranbourne, Dominions Secretary and Leader of the House of Lords, speaking to that august body, the Manchester Conservative Association (Daily Express, April 18th, 1944). It would be labouring the point to show the similarity of ideas expressed here. It is, however, a vindication of the Socialist contention that so long as capitalism remains in existence, war or the threat of war must likewise remain to torture our minds and bodies. The above quotation is a frank recognition by one of the leading spokesmen of the capitalist class of the essentially warlike nature of their system of exploitation and profit-making. As if to reassure us of this, Lord Cranbourne went on to say, “I put it forward as a main principle of the Conservative policy, that we must regard expenditure on armaments as the most essential item of national expenditure.” What price “Atlantic Charters,” “brotherly co-operation of nations,” and other vaporous nonsense with which numerous reformers of capitalism would have us believe that war, or at any rate world war, can be avoided!

HOW THE US STOLE CENTRAL AMERICA WITH BANANAS (ZOOM)