The most important example missing from the USA side is the de-stabilisation of Afghanistan in 1979 the purpose of which was to provoke a Soviet invasion.
After the invasion, President Carter cynically exploited the tragedy by demanding, amongst other things, a boycott of the Olympics in Moscow. He also imposed a ban on grain sales to the Soviet Union thus helping to ensure that ordinary Russians and US farmers suffered.
You can read William Blum’s translation of the Nouvel Observateur interview with Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, by following the link below.
The Bay of Pigs invasion was 1961 not 1959, which was the date of the Cuban Revolution. Obviously US aggression against Cuba is a process, not an isolated event, but if you’re going to pick a year to pin it on, then it has to be 1961.
Also, Cambodia 1969-70 and 1980-95? What about the American bombing between 1970-74, which killed far more people that direct American action in the other two periods.
The US attacked Poland in 1980-81? I think this will come as news to most Poles.
As for Bosnia – that country was attacked, not by the US, but by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia, and (to a much lesser extent) by Franjo Tudjman’s Croatia.
There are plenty of real crimes committed by US imperalism without inventing fake ones.
There is, in my opinion (not necessarily shared by the families), an explanation for all this, an explanation so shocking that no one in high places can contemplate it. It is that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out not by Libyans at all but by terrorists based in Syria and hired by Iran to avenge the shooting down in the summer of 1988 of an Iranian civil airliner by a US warship……It follows from this explanation that Megrahi is innocent of the Lockerbie bombing and his conviction is the last in the long line of British judges’ miscarriages of criminal justice.
This isn’t one of Foot’s better articles (or lines of reasoning) IMO.
#7, Jellytot, totally beg to disagree, that is IMO one of the best of many critiques that the late PF espoused. given that he was one of only two observers who sat in during the whole trial—-the other being the UN,s own observer, Hans Kochler( see his own evaluation of the case, should you have any doubt available online), i respectfully suggest that you are the one that your post was not/is not one of your finest IMO.
#5 my first reaction to seeing the name Paul Fauvet attached to this drivel was ‘not worth the candle’, but then I wonder some casual reader might take that seriously…
So – Bosnia was NOT a country; it was a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, therefore it cannot have been under attack by the government of Yugoslavia; but more importantly not even the NATO kangaroo court in the Hague could prove that the Yugoslav govt – rather than renegade (rightly) Bosnian Serbs – was conducting operations in Bosnia. And those operations in a large part were conducted to counter Al-Qaeda mercenaries imported by the USA for exactly the same reasons they were imported into Afghanistan – to destabilise a disapproved government – and have now been imported into Syria with Paul Fauvet and his like (Seymour, Proyect) cheering on.
The USA – under the alias of NATO – also conducted military operations and aerial bombardments against the Bosnian Serbs, but of course that won’t count as attacking Bosnia because the telly says the Serbs are the bad guys.
But there is maybe a point there – that the USA attacked Yugoslavia, not Bosnia.
You can have doubts about the Megrahi trial but it’s a jump to suddenly start blaming Iran. It’s as if Foot felt compelled to find a villian of the piece in order to strengthen his exoneration of the Libyans. That villian was Iran.
Imperialism is massing for an attack on Iran (IMO this is a certainty if Romney wins in November and may even occur under Obama before then). We must be careful not to provide ammunition to the Right, which I’m sure would love to add Lockerbie to the list of charges now that Gadaffi is history. Foot’s piece could enable that.
Jellytot: We must be careful not to provide ammunition to the Right, which I’m sure would love to add Lockerbie to the list of charges now that Gadaffi is history. Foot’s piece could enable that.
This is silly.
Firstly, ‘we’ are not in a position to provide ammunition to anyone. Who do you think ‘we’ are? Our influence over these events is less than marginal.
Secondly, every credible voice on the left (at least in my eyes), has accepted to account of former CIA operative Robert Baer attributing responsibility for Lockerbie to Ahmed Jabril’s PFLP-GC, hired by Iranian intelligence to carry out the bombing in retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz on July 3 1988 by USS Vincennes.
It does us no favours to deny the overwhelming likelihood that this is what happened. It is more credible to argue that Iran’s actions were prompted by an act of mass terrorism against its own citizens, without excusing the loss of innocent lives.
I certainly can’t be accused of being anti-Iranian or pro-US imperialism. There’s no need to engage in denial to build the case against the latter. The charge sheet is there in black and white.
McTrousers – the US could not have attacked Yugoslavia in 1995, because that country had ceased to exist. The rump of Yugoslavia consisted of just two of the original six republics (Serbia and Montenegro). Bosnia-Herzegovina was an independent country recognised by most of the world. And far from attacking Bosnia, western powers eventually came to the aid of the beleagured Bosnian government – the real crime was that it took them so long to react to the naked aggression against Bosnia.
I am surprised that McTrousers brackets me with Richard Seymour and Louis Proyect, but shall take it as a compliment.
There are several other oddities about this chart. It seems to have been compiled by somebody who thinks that the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Belgian Congo are two places, whereas in fact they are two names for the same country.
The “Angola 1980″ reference is also puzzling. US support for counter-revolution in Angola began even before the country’s independence in 1975, and continued right up to at least 1990. Singling out 1980 (a quiet year in the Angolan war) is rather peculiar.
As for “Kuwait 1991″ – it was not the United States that overthrew the Kuwaiti government, but the Iraqi regime of Saddam Husseim. The US-led coalition restored the Kuwaiti government. This is a case of the US doing the very opposite of overthrowing a government!
Of course, you could argue that Kuwait wasn’t really a country at all, but just a province of Iraq. But to be consistent you might then have to argue that East Timor isn’t really a country but is (or should be) a province of Indonesia. Does anyone on the left really want to go down that road?
@12This is silly.Firstly, ‘we’ are not in a position to provide ammunition to anyone. Who do you think ‘we’ are? Our influence over these events is less than marginal.
While it is somewhat refreshing to read you admit that you have no influence, it isn’t silly. You seem to be on a mission to populate the charges made against Iran in the opening graphic of this post; a mission that can only aid one narrative in the current climate.
Why? Just to sanctify the writings of Paul Foot?
Foot was a damn fine writer and journalist (his early book: ‘Immigration and Race in British Politics’ is a superb) but was he infallible? Just google “Hanratty and DNA 2002″ may show that he wasn’t.
It does us no favours to deny the overwhelming likelihood that this is what happened.
It’s a conspiracy theory (one of a few surrounding that tragedy) and is rightly classed as such below:
When will fauvet just stop apologising for imperialist crimes? If being a servile grovelling lackey apologist of imperialism was a sport, fauvet would win a gold medal.
Do you really think that fighting against aggression in Bosnia was a crime? The real crime was that the imperialist powers left the Bosnians to fight on their own for so long. Neither the US, nor Britain lifted a finger to end the three year siege of Sarajevo.
And the western troops who were on the ground (the Dutch), to their eternal shame, allowed the fascists to butcher the men and boys of Srebrenica.
But maybe Marko is a fan of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – in which case, I don’t see how he can possibly consider himself as part of the left.
As for Kuwait – it is a simple, historical fact that the aggression cam from Saddam Hussein. It was the Iraqi army, and not the United States, that toppled the Kuwait government.
You may argue that the Kuwaiti government was (and is) undemocratic, autocratic, semi-feudal. Which is perfectly true. So was the government of the Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in the 1930s – did that justify the Italian aggression against Ethiopia?
If not, perhaps you’d care to explain the differences between Mussolini’s aggression against Ethiopia and Saddam’s agresison against Kuwait.
If the image hadn’t included sabotage then they would have a point, but the Iranian regime is not a totally neutral player in it’s region, it at some stage supported, funded and armed a number of militant, and armed, factions in the last 20 or so years in Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq all of which have been fighting against the government/occupier of those countries.
For example the PUK in Iraq, the PKK in Turkey, Hezbollah in the Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine.
Not even in the same league though as the US or the old USSR.
paul fauvet: Do you really think that fighting against aggression in Bosnia was a crime?
It depends on where you choose to start the conflict, doesn’t it? Does it start with Slovenia and Croatia’s decision to arbitrarily secede from the Yugoslav Federation in violation of the Yugoslav Constitution, encouraged by German capitalists and US support? After all, when the southern states of the US did the same in the previous century it the US Federal Government went to war at the cost of 600,000 lives.
The West of course had no reason to desire the break-up of the last socialist state in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
No, John, it starts with the abrogation of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina by Milosovic, a move designed to give him a majority on the collegiate Yugoslav presidency. That preceded the secession of Slovenia and Croatia.
As for secession being “unconstitutional” – the whole point about a federation of Republics is that they can secede.
Once Milosevic set out to impose Serbian hegemony, of course the other republics wanted to secede! You think Slovenia could have been forced to remain inside Yugoslavia against the will of most Slovenes?
As for Milosevic’s Yugoslavia being socialist, what do you mean by that? That a lot of the economy was still state-owned? Is that your sole criterion?
And even if Yugslavia had been some kind of proletarian paradise. that would still not have ended the right of individual republics to secede.
paul fauvet: s for secession being “unconstitutional” – the whole point about a federation of Republics is that they can secede.
Not without a national referendum, as per the Yugoslav Constitution, which was ratified by all six republics.
paul fauvet: No, John, it starts with the abrogation of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina by Milosovic, a move designed to give him a majority on the collegiate Yugoslav presidency. That preceded the secession of Slovenia and Croatia.
While Milosevic was certainly crude in his dealings with Kosovo, his policy there was precipitated by Albanian separatists. Add an economic crisis caused by the oil shocks of the early 70s and Yugoslavia’s foreign debt, particularly to the US, and the conditions for what followed were laid. The US began funding Croatian, Bosnian, and Kosovan separatist parties under the first Bush administration, even though in the case of Croatia we’re talking far right parties. In 1991 the US Congress passed the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, authorising aid to individual Yugoslav republics and not the Yugoslav government in clear violation of Yugoslavia’s sovereignty.
Serb nationalism rose in response to the aforementioned. It did not arrive out of thin air.
I see John has swallowed the Milosevic propaganda wholesale.
The Kosovo fuse, that would eventually set the Balkans afire, was lit, not by Albanian nationalists, but by Milosevic in his infamous 1987 “No-one should dare to beat you” speech addressed to the Serb minority in Kosovo.
The “they” he was referring to was not any nationalist organisation – it was the Kosovo Communist Party, which became one of the first victims in Milosevic’s drive for a Greater Serbia.
Milosevic set out to purge the Kosovo Party. The Kosovo communist leaders were dismissed in November 1988, despite the demonstrations in support of the Kosovo leadership by Kosovo miners.
Kosovo communist leader Azem Vllasi was then arrested on trumped-up charges of “counter-revolutionary activities”.
The first victims of Milosevic were not “Albanian nationalists” but communists. And Milosevic embarked on an openly nationalist and chauvinist drive whipping up Serb feelings about the supposedly tough times the Serb minority in Kosovo was facing.
#18 & 22 Also bear in mind that the declaration of independence of Croatia was combined with a removal of the rights as Yugoslav citizens of the substantial Serb population in the Kraijina.
These people were decendents of those who had survived the Ushtase regime of 1941-45 and its German patrons, as of course significantly were the Serbs of Bosnia which was part of the Croat puppet state at that time.
One of the most sinister events of the period immediately prior to the war between Croatia on the one hand and its Serb population and Yugoslavia was the murder of an anti-nationalist Croat politician with good relations with the local Kraijina Serbs by Ushtase extremists.
And of course one of the biggest acts of ethnic cleansing in all the various wars in the former Yugoslavia was that of those very Krainja Serbs with the full conivance of Western forces.
Not surprising that so many wanted to get the retaliation in first, which of course was used to justify countless horrific crimes.
paul fauvet: The Kosovo fuse, that would eventually set the Balkans afire, was lit, not by Albanian nationalists, but by Milosevic in his infamous 1987 “No-one should dare to beat you” speech addressed to the Serb minority in Kosovo.
Again, Paul, your knowledge is lacking. The tensions with Kosovo did not begin in 1987, they began in the early eighties with Kosovan separatists’ demands to be accorded the status of a constituent republic rather than remain an autonomous province of Serbia, as it had been since the early 20th century. Serbs living in Kosovo came under threat as a result and Milosevic’s hard line followed.
The economic crisis which engulfed Yugoslavia in the mid to late 1970s exposed the contradictions of resource rich republics funding their resource poor counterparts. This coalesced with the decline in the fortunes of Yugoslavian communism after Tito’s death to set it on the path towards the return of old national enemities leading to full blown civil war.
I haven’t swallowed any propaganda, Paul. These are historical facts.
paul fauvet: perhaps you’d care to explain the differences between Mussolini’s aggression against Ethiopia and Saddam’s agresison against Kuwait.
Oh sure, there are no differences whatsoever….
Except that Iraq and Kuwait are contiguous territories, previously part of the Ottoman Empire and then the British Empire; which decided on the borders between its hitherto colonies.
Whereas Italy is in Europe, many hundreds of miles from Ethiopia.
Ethiopians speak various native languages not including Italian. Iraqis and Kuwaitis speak Arabic.
Oh yes, and Kuwait per capita is much richer than Iraq, whereas Italy is much richer than Ethiopia.
John, the calls for granting Kosovo republic status are not at all the same thing as calling for secession!
At the time, the Kosovo Albanians were led by communists, and this leadership was supported by the most militant parts of the Kosovo working class.
It was the purge of the Kosovo League of Communists, the arrests of Communist leaders such as Vllasi, and Milosevic’s abolition of Kosovo’s autonmous status which set the stage for the rise of Kosovo secessionism, and the eventual appearance of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
OK, Noah – so it was a crime for Mussolini to invade Ethiopia, but quite OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait.
Yes, the Kuwaitis speak Arabic, and Kuwait is contiguous to Iraq. Equally, the Sudeten Germans spoke German and the Sudetenland was contiguous to Germany.
Different people present the history of Serb-Albanian tensions over Kosovo/Kosova with different starting dates, depending on which nationalist narrative they wish to justify.
Here, for example, is one presentation from someone who could not ever be accused of being any kind of stooge of imperialism:
“…1912, when the great victory – the independence of Albania, was quickly followed by one of the greatest injustices of this century in Europe: Albania was cut in half – Kosova and other Albanian regions were violently annexed to Yugoslavia. Naturally, if you cut the body of a country and a people in half, and artificially attach one half to another creation, such an act cannot serve as a ‘bridge to conciliation’, ‘friendship’ and ‘fraternity’…”
paul fauvet: so it was a crime for Mussolini to invade Ethiopia, but quite OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait… Sudetenland… Germany… etc etc etc
Er, all I did was point out a couple of the rather obvious differences between these events which you implied were identical. So please, don’t invent opinions and ascribe them to me. And then you seem to raise the metaphorical stakes, from Mussolini to Hitler…
But that’s not really very original. Whoever is the latest demon in the eyes of the West, eh, Mr Fauvet? And who cares that much about Israel, Saudi Arabia etc.
Francis King: Different people present the history of Serb-Albanian tensions over Kosovo/Kosova with different starting dates, depending on which nationalist narrative they wish to justify.
Yes, Francis. For example, prior to the Ottoman conquest of the region in 1455, it was part of the medieval Kingdom of Serbia.
paul fauvet: the calls for granting Kosovo republic status are not at all the same thing as calling for secession!
It was a step towards secession. By changing its status from autonomous province to republic, it made it easier constitutionally and in the eyes of the international community to claim the right of secession.
Paul, it’s clear to me that you are so far down the path of imperialist stooge that you are all over the shop when it comes to these issues. Your exchange with Noah re Kuwait, during which you have sprayed out false historical analogies and specious historical facts is revelatory.
Yes indeed, John. In the middle ages Kosovo was part of the Kingdom of Serbia.
At much the same tme, English kings ruled over much of northern France, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania covered parts of what is today Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova, while huge swathes of Italy were directly owned by the Pope.
paul fauvet: Wheras Andy Newman’s comparision of Slobodan Milosevic to Abraham Lincoln is spot on!
I didn’t make any such anaology, I merely pointed out that your ahistorical raising of the right of a federal republic to secede as a point of principle is a specious one.
#14, Jellytot, to get back to the thread—-so Iranian involvement over Lockerbie is just another “conspiracy theory.” let me be clear, i wholeheartedly oppose any US driven military or further economic attacks upon Iran.—-however you start from a misconceived and flawed premise here. that is the classic confusion—”the enemy of my enemy therefore is my friend.”—–indeed the outrage involved a complex web of groups/individuals from Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Jordan etc with the primary perpetrators , almost certainly a dissident Palestinian splinter group ,the PFLP-GC. the US is in the mix due to two covert and conflicting operations in the middle east,one involving drug dealing and sting operations, the other a clandestine planned military assault to release American hostages in Lebanon. a key operative involved in the latter ,Chuck McKee was himself blown up in flight 103.——-almost any one worthy of note centrally implicated Iran in the atrocity. that is not to say this was sanctioned at the highest State/govt. level, though it may well have been. but that elements of Iranian society and funding were key in the chain of events.—-indeed,that was the US,s own position for at least 18 months, prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait( which incidentally appeared to have been sanctioned by the US initially.——–Jellytot, feel free to absolve Iran, though i understand your concerns about the current implications of this, which i share.—–however i can recommend the following sources and references to widen your understanding of Lockerbie.—Paul Foot: Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice(Private Eye),Time Magazine: Pan Am 103: Why Did They Die?(27/4/92) – interview with Chuck McKee,s mother. Report and Evaluation of The Lockerbie Trial:UN Observer, Dr Hans Kochler (3/2 /01).–London Review of Books–The Framing of al-Megrahi: Gareth Pierce–Vol31-No 18(24/9/09),—various books on the subject including the recently published Megrahi: You Are My Jury(John Ashton)—–megrahimy story.net which has all the submissions that were to be presented at his 2nd (abandoned appeal—–The 832 page suppressed, but nevertheless published online,report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which identified six areas on which Megrahi may have suffered a mis-carriage of justice—-plus a recently long suppressed oficial Jordanian report which essentially concurs with the “conspiracy theorists”, being likewise published online.
I’m not absolving Iran but why are some on here trying to populate the left side of the graphic and lessen the right side?
Paul Foot showed himself fallible over the Hanratty case. Even then he wouldn’t except the truth on the premise of, “If they are right then I am wrong”.
I think it’s eminently possible that Libya was behind 103. Gaddaffi paid out a massive compensation package to the victims’ families in 2003 (while not admitting personal knowledge).
the outrage involved a complex web of groups/individuals from Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Jordan etc with the primary perpetrators , almost certainly a dissident Palestinian splinter group ,the PFLP-GC. the US is in the mix due to two covert and conflicting operations in the middle east,one involving drug dealing and sting operations, the other a clandestine planned military assault to release American hostages in Lebanon. a key operative involved in the latter ,Chuck McKee was himself blown up in flight 103
This reads like a Robert Ludlum novel – socialists avoid getting into this stuff.
#35, Jellytot, are you perhaps a member of The Flat Earth Society also? yes just totally ignore the overwhelming evidence however complex, and simply repeat your one dimensional, and unsubstantiated narrative. that truly is the ultimate fantasy novel . yes indeed socialists should avoid getting into this stuff.
and why don’t you admit that if a former very senior member of your Party, now deceased, was not so strongly associated with the initial theory then you wouldn’t be on here mounting such a stentorian defence of it.
#37, Jellytot, with respect comrade you are arguing with yourself here. it is you who ,(or it whom?) that is getting oneself tied up in knots IMO. however pray continue of course not in the biblical sense.
#37 – Not just Paul Foot, (among others). Dr Jim Swire also believes Iran may have funded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who Swire feels may well have been responsible for the shooting down, as others have previously said. Why Iran? In revenge for the U S Vincennes shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655.
#39, cliff foot, –as much as it is tempting (and i have personally tried), comrade Jellytot was never/is never going to be deflected from their position, immaterial of the evidence.
So your defence of this theory is absolutely unconnected to Foot’s long membership of and advocacy for your party? Really?!
Let’s face it, Foot, for all his undoubted talents, wasn’t above finding a “fall guy” to validate a theory he had – a kind a political version of “The Professor, in the Study with a lead pipe”. He did it in his books on Hanratty (Alphon) and in this case (Iran).
I will read the publications on this you referenced though with as near an open mind as I can manage. However, I do have a natural aversion to conspiracy theories, prompted by my reading of classic Gerald Posner’s “Case Closed” which so successfully tore apart the daddy of them all.
#41 – ? What ‘theory’? Just mentioning that someone as learned and thoughtful as Jim Swire, has an alternative opinion, shared by many. Your comment re Foot and an allusion To the game ‘Cluedo’, is pretty cheap. Gerald Posner ?! The man who swallowed lots of government bull re the JFK assassination, oh dear…Someone who Robin Ramsay of the great Lobster magazine, has debunked several times, over Posner’s willingness to believe all the guff that was in the Warren Report.
Great list, but its missing the early attempts to disrupt Communist rule in East Germany. From the farcical (stink bombs at meetings!!) to the down right evil (poisoning the children’s free milk supply!!).
John on said:
Under the Iran column should be added Lockerbie. This has just been pointed out to me.
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ex-Labour voter on said:
The most important example missing from the USA side is the de-stabilisation of Afghanistan in 1979 the purpose of which was to provoke a Soviet invasion.
After the invasion, President Carter cynically exploited the tragedy by demanding, amongst other things, a boycott of the Olympics in Moscow. He also imposed a ban on grain sales to the Soviet Union thus helping to ensure that ordinary Russians and US farmers suffered.
You can read William Blum’s translation of the Nouvel Observateur interview with Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, by following the link below.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
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Calvin on said:
The Bay of Pigs invasion was 1961 not 1959, which was the date of the Cuban Revolution. Obviously US aggression against Cuba is a process, not an isolated event, but if you’re going to pick a year to pin it on, then it has to be 1961.
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chjh on said:
Also, Cambodia 1969-70 and 1980-95? What about the American bombing between 1970-74, which killed far more people that direct American action in the other two periods.
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paul fauvet on said:
The US attacked Poland in 1980-81? I think this will come as news to most Poles.
As for Bosnia – that country was attacked, not by the US, but by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia, and (to a much lesser extent) by Franjo Tudjman’s Croatia.
There are plenty of real crimes committed by US imperalism without inventing fake ones.
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Jellytot on said:
@1Under the Iran column should be added Lockerbie. This has just been pointed out to me.
Paul Foot wrote about it years ago:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/mar/31/lockerbie.libya
There is, in my opinion (not necessarily shared by the families), an explanation for all this, an explanation so shocking that no one in high places can contemplate it. It is that the Lockerbie bombing was carried out not by Libyans at all but by terrorists based in Syria and hired by Iran to avenge the shooting down in the summer of 1988 of an Iranian civil airliner by a US warship……It follows from this explanation that Megrahi is innocent of the Lockerbie bombing and his conviction is the last in the long line of British judges’ miscarriages of criminal justice.
This isn’t one of Foot’s better articles (or lines of reasoning) IMO.
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iain brown on said:
#7, Jellytot, totally beg to disagree, that is IMO one of the best of many critiques that the late PF espoused. given that he was one of only two observers who sat in during the whole trial—-the other being the UN,s own observer, Hans Kochler( see his own evaluation of the case, should you have any doubt available online), i respectfully suggest that you are the one that your post was not/is not one of your finest IMO.
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jock mctrousers on said:
#5 my first reaction to seeing the name Paul Fauvet attached to this drivel was ‘not worth the candle’, but then I wonder some casual reader might take that seriously…
So – Bosnia was NOT a country; it was a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, therefore it cannot have been under attack by the government of Yugoslavia; but more importantly not even the NATO kangaroo court in the Hague could prove that the Yugoslav govt – rather than renegade (rightly) Bosnian Serbs – was conducting operations in Bosnia. And those operations in a large part were conducted to counter Al-Qaeda mercenaries imported by the USA for exactly the same reasons they were imported into Afghanistan – to destabilise a disapproved government – and have now been imported into Syria with Paul Fauvet and his like (Seymour, Proyect) cheering on.
The USA – under the alias of NATO – also conducted military operations and aerial bombardments against the Bosnian Serbs, but of course that won’t count as attacking Bosnia because the telly says the Serbs are the bad guys.
But there is maybe a point there – that the USA attacked Yugoslavia, not Bosnia.
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Jellytot on said:
@6
You can have doubts about the Megrahi trial but it’s a jump to suddenly start blaming Iran. It’s as if Foot felt compelled to find a villian of the piece in order to strengthen his exoneration of the Libyans. That villian was Iran.
Imperialism is massing for an attack on Iran (IMO this is a certainty if Romney wins in November and may even occur under Obama before then). We must be careful not to provide ammunition to the Right, which I’m sure would love to add Lockerbie to the list of charges now that Gadaffi is history. Foot’s piece could enable that.
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albacore on said:
@9 Jelly, what don’t you like about Foot’s line of reasoning, other than its potential to “provide ammunition”?
Andy may have something to say about your instrumental approach. ;^)
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Jellytot on said:
@10@9 Jelly, what don’t you like about Foot’s line of reasoning, other than its potential to “provide ammunition”?
Lack of evidence that Iran was involved in Lockerbie. It’s a big charge.
Can you provide some?
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John on said:
This is silly.
Firstly, ‘we’ are not in a position to provide ammunition to anyone. Who do you think ‘we’ are? Our influence over these events is less than marginal.
Secondly, every credible voice on the left (at least in my eyes), has accepted to account of former CIA operative Robert Baer attributing responsibility for Lockerbie to Ahmed Jabril’s PFLP-GC, hired by Iranian intelligence to carry out the bombing in retaliation for the shooting down of an Iranian passenger aircraft over the Strait of Hormuz on July 3 1988 by USS Vincennes.
It does us no favours to deny the overwhelming likelihood that this is what happened. It is more credible to argue that Iran’s actions were prompted by an act of mass terrorism against its own citizens, without excusing the loss of innocent lives.
I certainly can’t be accused of being anti-Iranian or pro-US imperialism. There’s no need to engage in denial to build the case against the latter. The charge sheet is there in black and white.
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paul fauvet on said:
McTrousers – the US could not have attacked Yugoslavia in 1995, because that country had ceased to exist. The rump of Yugoslavia consisted of just two of the original six republics (Serbia and Montenegro). Bosnia-Herzegovina was an independent country recognised by most of the world. And far from attacking Bosnia, western powers eventually came to the aid of the beleagured Bosnian government – the real crime was that it took them so long to react to the naked aggression against Bosnia.
I am surprised that McTrousers brackets me with Richard Seymour and Louis Proyect, but shall take it as a compliment.
There are several other oddities about this chart. It seems to have been compiled by somebody who thinks that the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Belgian Congo are two places, whereas in fact they are two names for the same country.
The “Angola 1980″ reference is also puzzling. US support for counter-revolution in Angola began even before the country’s independence in 1975, and continued right up to at least 1990. Singling out 1980 (a quiet year in the Angolan war) is rather peculiar.
As for “Kuwait 1991″ – it was not the United States that overthrew the Kuwaiti government, but the Iraqi regime of Saddam Husseim. The US-led coalition restored the Kuwaiti government. This is a case of the US doing the very opposite of overthrowing a government!
Of course, you could argue that Kuwait wasn’t really a country at all, but just a province of Iraq. But to be consistent you might then have to argue that East Timor isn’t really a country but is (or should be) a province of Indonesia. Does anyone on the left really want to go down that road?
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Jellytot on said:
@12This is silly.Firstly, ‘we’ are not in a position to provide ammunition to anyone. Who do you think ‘we’ are? Our influence over these events is less than marginal.
While it is somewhat refreshing to read you admit that you have no influence, it isn’t silly. You seem to be on a mission to populate the charges made against Iran in the opening graphic of this post; a mission that can only aid one narrative in the current climate.
Why? Just to sanctify the writings of Paul Foot?
Foot was a damn fine writer and journalist (his early book: ‘Immigration and Race in British Politics’ is a superb) but was he infallible? Just google “Hanratty and DNA 2002″ may show that he wasn’t.
It does us no favours to deny the overwhelming likelihood that this is what happened.
It’s a conspiracy theory (one of a few surrounding that tragedy) and is rightly classed as such below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103_conspiracy_theories
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Marko on said:
When will fauvet just stop apologising for imperialist crimes? If being a servile grovelling lackey apologist of imperialism was a sport, fauvet would win a gold medal.
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paul fauvet on said:
Don’t be absurd, Marko.
Do you really think that fighting against aggression in Bosnia was a crime? The real crime was that the imperialist powers left the Bosnians to fight on their own for so long. Neither the US, nor Britain lifted a finger to end the three year siege of Sarajevo.
And the western troops who were on the ground (the Dutch), to their eternal shame, allowed the fascists to butcher the men and boys of Srebrenica.
But maybe Marko is a fan of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic – in which case, I don’t see how he can possibly consider himself as part of the left.
As for Kuwait – it is a simple, historical fact that the aggression cam from Saddam Hussein. It was the Iraqi army, and not the United States, that toppled the Kuwait government.
You may argue that the Kuwaiti government was (and is) undemocratic, autocratic, semi-feudal. Which is perfectly true. So was the government of the Emperor Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in the 1930s – did that justify the Italian aggression against Ethiopia?
If not, perhaps you’d care to explain the differences between Mussolini’s aggression against Ethiopia and Saddam’s agresison against Kuwait.
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Pete Shield on said:
If the image hadn’t included sabotage then they would have a point, but the Iranian regime is not a totally neutral player in it’s region, it at some stage supported, funded and armed a number of militant, and armed, factions in the last 20 or so years in Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq all of which have been fighting against the government/occupier of those countries.
For example the PUK in Iraq, the PKK in Turkey, Hezbollah in the Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine.
Not even in the same league though as the US or the old USSR.
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John on said:
It depends on where you choose to start the conflict, doesn’t it? Does it start with Slovenia and Croatia’s decision to arbitrarily secede from the Yugoslav Federation in violation of the Yugoslav Constitution, encouraged by German capitalists and US support? After all, when the southern states of the US did the same in the previous century it the US Federal Government went to war at the cost of 600,000 lives.
The West of course had no reason to desire the break-up of the last socialist state in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet bloc.
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paul fauvet on said:
No, John, it starts with the abrogation of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina by Milosovic, a move designed to give him a majority on the collegiate Yugoslav presidency. That preceded the secession of Slovenia and Croatia.
As for secession being “unconstitutional” – the whole point about a federation of Republics is that they can secede.
Once Milosevic set out to impose Serbian hegemony, of course the other republics wanted to secede! You think Slovenia could have been forced to remain inside Yugoslavia against the will of most Slovenes?
As for Milosevic’s Yugoslavia being socialist, what do you mean by that? That a lot of the economy was still state-owned? Is that your sole criterion?
And even if Yugslavia had been some kind of proletarian paradise. that would still not have ended the right of individual republics to secede.
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John on said:
Not without a national referendum, as per the Yugoslav Constitution, which was ratified by all six republics.
While Milosevic was certainly crude in his dealings with Kosovo, his policy there was precipitated by Albanian separatists. Add an economic crisis caused by the oil shocks of the early 70s and Yugoslavia’s foreign debt, particularly to the US, and the conditions for what followed were laid. The US began funding Croatian, Bosnian, and Kosovan separatist parties under the first Bush administration, even though in the case of Croatia we’re talking far right parties. In 1991 the US Congress passed the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, authorising aid to individual Yugoslav republics and not the Yugoslav government in clear violation of Yugoslavia’s sovereignty.
Serb nationalism rose in response to the aforementioned. It did not arrive out of thin air.
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andy newman on said:
Did anyone ever tell Abraham Lincoln that republics can severe from a federal state?
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paul fauvet on said:
I see John has swallowed the Milosevic propaganda wholesale.
The Kosovo fuse, that would eventually set the Balkans afire, was lit, not by Albanian nationalists, but by Milosevic in his infamous 1987 “No-one should dare to beat you” speech addressed to the Serb minority in Kosovo.
The “they” he was referring to was not any nationalist organisation – it was the Kosovo Communist Party, which became one of the first victims in Milosevic’s drive for a Greater Serbia.
Milosevic set out to purge the Kosovo Party. The Kosovo communist leaders were dismissed in November 1988, despite the demonstrations in support of the Kosovo leadership by Kosovo miners.
Kosovo communist leader Azem Vllasi was then arrested on trumped-up charges of “counter-revolutionary activities”.
The first victims of Milosevic were not “Albanian nationalists” but communists. And Milosevic embarked on an openly nationalist and chauvinist drive whipping up Serb feelings about the supposedly tough times the Serb minority in Kosovo was facing.
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Vanya on said:
#18 & 22 Also bear in mind that the declaration of independence of Croatia was combined with a removal of the rights as Yugoslav citizens of the substantial Serb population in the Kraijina.
These people were decendents of those who had survived the Ushtase regime of 1941-45 and its German patrons, as of course significantly were the Serbs of Bosnia which was part of the Croat puppet state at that time.
One of the most sinister events of the period immediately prior to the war between Croatia on the one hand and its Serb population and Yugoslavia was the murder of an anti-nationalist Croat politician with good relations with the local Kraijina Serbs by Ushtase extremists.
And of course one of the biggest acts of ethnic cleansing in all the various wars in the former Yugoslavia was that of those very Krainja Serbs with the full conivance of Western forces.
Not surprising that so many wanted to get the retaliation in first, which of course was used to justify countless horrific crimes.
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John on said:
Again, Paul, your knowledge is lacking. The tensions with Kosovo did not begin in 1987, they began in the early eighties with Kosovan separatists’ demands to be accorded the status of a constituent republic rather than remain an autonomous province of Serbia, as it had been since the early 20th century. Serbs living in Kosovo came under threat as a result and Milosevic’s hard line followed.
The economic crisis which engulfed Yugoslavia in the mid to late 1970s exposed the contradictions of resource rich republics funding their resource poor counterparts. This coalesced with the decline in the fortunes of Yugoslavian communism after Tito’s death to set it on the path towards the return of old national enemities leading to full blown civil war.
I haven’t swallowed any propaganda, Paul. These are historical facts.
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Noah on said:
Oh sure, there are no differences whatsoever….
Except that Iraq and Kuwait are contiguous territories, previously part of the Ottoman Empire and then the British Empire; which decided on the borders between its hitherto colonies.
Whereas Italy is in Europe, many hundreds of miles from Ethiopia.
Ethiopians speak various native languages not including Italian. Iraqis and Kuwaitis speak Arabic.
Oh yes, and Kuwait per capita is much richer than Iraq, whereas Italy is much richer than Ethiopia.
Etc, etc, etc…
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paul fauvet on said:
John, the calls for granting Kosovo republic status are not at all the same thing as calling for secession!
At the time, the Kosovo Albanians were led by communists, and this leadership was supported by the most militant parts of the Kosovo working class.
It was the purge of the Kosovo League of Communists, the arrests of Communist leaders such as Vllasi, and Milosevic’s abolition of Kosovo’s autonmous status which set the stage for the rise of Kosovo secessionism, and the eventual appearance of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
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paul fauvet on said:
OK, Noah – so it was a crime for Mussolini to invade Ethiopia, but quite OK for Saddam to invade Kuwait.
Yes, the Kuwaitis speak Arabic, and Kuwait is contiguous to Iraq. Equally, the Sudeten Germans spoke German and the Sudetenland was contiguous to Germany.
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Francis King on said:
Different people present the history of Serb-Albanian tensions over Kosovo/Kosova with different starting dates, depending on which nationalist narrative they wish to justify.
Here, for example, is one presentation from someone who could not ever be accused of being any kind of stooge of imperialism:
“…1912, when the great victory – the independence of Albania, was quickly followed by one of the greatest injustices of this century in Europe: Albania was cut in half – Kosova and other Albanian regions were violently annexed to Yugoslavia. Naturally, if you cut the body of a country and a people in half, and artificially attach one half to another creation, such an act cannot serve as a ‘bridge to conciliation’, ‘friendship’ and ‘fraternity’…”
Enver Hoxha, 1982
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Noah on said:
Er, all I did was point out a couple of the rather obvious differences between these events which you implied were identical. So please, don’t invent opinions and ascribe them to me. And then you seem to raise the metaphorical stakes, from Mussolini to Hitler…
But that’s not really very original. Whoever is the latest demon in the eyes of the West, eh, Mr Fauvet? And who cares that much about Israel, Saudi Arabia etc.
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John on said:
Yes, Francis. For example, prior to the Ottoman conquest of the region in 1455, it was part of the medieval Kingdom of Serbia.
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John on said:
It was a step towards secession. By changing its status from autonomous province to republic, it made it easier constitutionally and in the eyes of the international community to claim the right of secession.
Paul, it’s clear to me that you are so far down the path of imperialist stooge that you are all over the shop when it comes to these issues. Your exchange with Noah re Kuwait, during which you have sprayed out false historical analogies and specious historical facts is revelatory.
You do it time and again. Stop.
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paul fauvet on said:
Yes indeed, John. In the middle ages Kosovo was part of the Kingdom of Serbia.
At much the same tme, English kings ruled over much of northern France, Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania covered parts of what is today Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Moldova, while huge swathes of Italy were directly owned by the Pope.
Isn’t history fun!
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paul fauvet on said:
So my historical analogies are specious, says John. Wheras Andy Newman’s comparision of Slobodan Milosevic to Abraham Lincoln is spot on!
I always thought that socialists, particularly marxists, were supposed to learn from history, not shovel it under the carpet.
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Andy Newman on said:
I didn’t make any such anaology, I merely pointed out that your ahistorical raising of the right of a federal republic to secede as a point of principle is a specious one.
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iain brown on said:
#14, Jellytot, to get back to the thread—-so Iranian involvement over Lockerbie is just another “conspiracy theory.” let me be clear, i wholeheartedly oppose any US driven military or further economic attacks upon Iran.—-however you start from a misconceived and flawed premise here. that is the classic confusion—”the enemy of my enemy therefore is my friend.”—–indeed the outrage involved a complex web of groups/individuals from Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Jordan etc with the primary perpetrators , almost certainly a dissident Palestinian splinter group ,the PFLP-GC. the US is in the mix due to two covert and conflicting operations in the middle east,one involving drug dealing and sting operations, the other a clandestine planned military assault to release American hostages in Lebanon. a key operative involved in the latter ,Chuck McKee was himself blown up in flight 103.——-almost any one worthy of note centrally implicated Iran in the atrocity. that is not to say this was sanctioned at the highest State/govt. level, though it may well have been. but that elements of Iranian society and funding were key in the chain of events.—-indeed,that was the US,s own position for at least 18 months, prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait( which incidentally appeared to have been sanctioned by the US initially.——–Jellytot, feel free to absolve Iran, though i understand your concerns about the current implications of this, which i share.—–however i can recommend the following sources and references to widen your understanding of Lockerbie.—Paul Foot: Lockerbie: The Flight From Justice(Private Eye),Time Magazine: Pan Am 103: Why Did They Die?(27/4/92) – interview with Chuck McKee,s mother. Report and Evaluation of The Lockerbie Trial:UN Observer, Dr Hans Kochler (3/2 /01).–London Review of Books–The Framing of al-Megrahi: Gareth Pierce–Vol31-No 18(24/9/09),—various books on the subject including the recently published Megrahi: You Are My Jury(John Ashton)—–megrahimy story.net which has all the submissions that were to be presented at his 2nd (abandoned appeal—–The 832 page suppressed, but nevertheless published online,report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, which identified six areas on which Megrahi may have suffered a mis-carriage of justice—-plus a recently long suppressed oficial Jordanian report which essentially concurs with the “conspiracy theorists”, being likewise published online.
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Jellytot on said:
@34Jellytot, feel free to absolve Iran
I’m not absolving Iran but why are some on here trying to populate the left side of the graphic and lessen the right side?
Paul Foot showed himself fallible over the Hanratty case. Even then he wouldn’t except the truth on the premise of, “If they are right then I am wrong”.
I think it’s eminently possible that Libya was behind 103. Gaddaffi paid out a massive compensation package to the victims’ families in 2003 (while not admitting personal knowledge).
the outrage involved a complex web of groups/individuals from Iran,Syria,Lebanon,Jordan etc with the primary perpetrators , almost certainly a dissident Palestinian splinter group ,the PFLP-GC. the US is in the mix due to two covert and conflicting operations in the middle east,one involving drug dealing and sting operations, the other a clandestine planned military assault to release American hostages in Lebanon. a key operative involved in the latter ,Chuck McKee was himself blown up in flight 103
This reads like a Robert Ludlum novel – socialists avoid getting into this stuff.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24837
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iain brown on said:
#35, Jellytot, are you perhaps a member of The Flat Earth Society also? yes just totally ignore the overwhelming evidence however complex, and simply repeat your one dimensional, and unsubstantiated narrative. that truly is the ultimate fantasy novel . yes indeed socialists should avoid getting into this stuff.
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Jellytot on said:
@36
and why don’t you admit that if a former very senior member of your Party, now deceased, was not so strongly associated with the initial theory then you wouldn’t be on here mounting such a stentorian defence of it.
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iain brown on said:
#37, Jellytot, with respect comrade you are arguing with yourself here. it is you who ,(or it whom?) that is getting oneself tied up in knots IMO. however pray continue of course not in the biblical sense.
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cliff foot on said:
#37 – Not just Paul Foot, (among others). Dr Jim Swire also believes Iran may have funded the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who Swire feels may well have been responsible for the shooting down, as others have previously said. Why Iran? In revenge for the U S Vincennes shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655.
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iain brown on said:
#39, cliff foot, –as much as it is tempting (and i have personally tried), comrade Jellytot was never/is never going to be deflected from their position, immaterial of the evidence.
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Jellytot on said:
iain brown and cliff foot.
So your defence of this theory is absolutely unconnected to Foot’s long membership of and advocacy for your party? Really?!
Let’s face it, Foot, for all his undoubted talents, wasn’t above finding a “fall guy” to validate a theory he had – a kind a political version of “The Professor, in the Study with a lead pipe”. He did it in his books on Hanratty (Alphon) and in this case (Iran).
I will read the publications on this you referenced though with as near an open mind as I can manage. However, I do have a natural aversion to conspiracy theories, prompted by my reading of classic Gerald Posner’s “Case Closed” which so successfully tore apart the daddy of them all.
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cliff foot on said:
#41 – ? What ‘theory’? Just mentioning that someone as learned and thoughtful as Jim Swire, has an alternative opinion, shared by many. Your comment re Foot and an allusion To the game ‘Cluedo’, is pretty cheap. Gerald Posner ?! The man who swallowed lots of government bull re the JFK assassination, oh dear…Someone who Robin Ramsay of the great Lobster magazine, has debunked several times, over Posner’s willingness to believe all the guff that was in the Warren Report.
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Jellytot on said:
@43The man who swallowed lots of government bull re the JFK assassination, oh dear
Don’t want to get into the miasma that is the JFK assassination but this is fairly compelling too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txk52JPqUdQ
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cliff foot on said:
Posner was caught a couple of years back, plagarising an article, so his credibility, as well as his willingness to believe whatever the official line was re the JFK assassination, aint high http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/press_box/2010/02/plagiarism_at_the_daily_beast.html…
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Sean on said:
Great list, but its missing the early attempts to disrupt Communist rule in East Germany. From the farcical (stink bombs at meetings!!) to the down right evil (poisoning the children’s free milk supply!!).
SeanQuote text Reply
cuvajte se ustase i turci on said:
Time for awsome Serbian folk music !!!!
http://youtu.be/YvalWJntmd4
check out subtitles if you dont understand serbian language.
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Vanya on said:
#40 It’s the PFLP(GC)-distinct group from the PFLP.
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ali on said:
you forgot IRAN 1979
aliQuote text Reply