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  Issue No 116 Official Organ of LaborNet 19 October 2001  

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The Soapbox

Fighting Terror With Terror

By John Passant

And so the rulers of the West have responded to terror with terror. It won't work.

 
 

In fact the attack on Afghanistan will only make the situation worse. More and more volunteers will step forward to avenge the US attacks.

Hiroshima. Vietnam. Cambodia. Chile. East Timor. Panama. Iraq. To this less than complete list of US atrocities we can now add Afghanistan.

The war against terrorism can only be understood in the context of the rulers of the US wanting to dominate the world economically and destroy any potential long-term threats to its dominance. Using military force is one way of doing that.

US imperialism will not be content with a victory over Afghanistan. To intimidate us all it must show us its strength. So after Afghanistan it will then turn its attention to Iraq. And Iran. Then North Korea. And possibly after that even Cuba. After all, if the object of the war against terrorism is to intimidate the rest of the world into accepting US hegemony, the continued existence of "rogue" states calls into question US dominance.

The real medium to long-term threat to US economic superiority comes not from the likes of Iraq and Iran but from Europe and China. By attacking so-called rogue states, the US is telling Europe and China that it is the dominant world player and that even they have to bow to its wishes.

European capital for the moment has fallen into line. It knows that ultimately it can only exist under the umbrella of US military power and so will have to pay an economic price - agreeing to the supremacy of US capital - over the next decade or so.

It is no accident that at the same time the US is waging its war against terrorism Congress has passed legislation giving US farmers an extra $140bn in subsidies on top of the $190 bn they already receive. The US makes the economic rules and as the bombing of Afghanistan shows no one can dare challenge them.

It is China which is the long-term object of the US ruling class in its military build up, of which the war on terrorism is a subset.

The Chinese economy has grown markedly over the last twenty years. Some analysts are predicting that in twenty years time the Chinese economy will be the largest in the world. While this may not be correct, it is probably true to say that China will be an economic giant in twenty years time and a rival of the US. Remember that the USSR, with half the GDP of the US, was a real military threat to the US for forty years.

The Bush administration wants to stop China from reaching the position where it could rival the US economy. The President and his advisers reason that it was military competition which eventually destroyed the USSR and its satellites. In the end these economies could not bear the burden of military expenditure imposed on them by the ongoing US increase in spending on arms. And since the fall of the USSR, production in Russia dropped 50%. Even with nuclear weapons Russia is no longer a super power threat to the US.

Bush is applying the same logic to China. The main element of this strategy before September 11 was the National Missile Defence system (NMD). Now the war on terrorism gives the Administration a further pretext to both bully weaker nations and massively increase US defence spending.

China had already been increasing its military spending. In light of NMD and now the US war on terrorism it will have to spend even more on arms. For example Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue recognized recently that NMD would give rise to a new arms race.

We need a new world. A world where production occurs democratically to satisfy human need. The alternative is what we see before us now - the barbarity that is capitalism.

John Passant is a member of the Socialist Alliance


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*   Issue 116 contents

In this issue
Features
*  Interview: The Green Machine
Nick Bolkus outlines Labor's environmental stance and lays down the gauntlet to Bob Brown's Greens.
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*  Industrial: Regaining Control
France�s 35 hour week stems from the program of the Left coalition government which went to the polls in June 1997 with the policy of �worksharing�.
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*  Unions: Home Of The Longest Day
Australia has a dubious new prize to put in its cluttered national trophy cabinet. We are increasingly the most over-worked nation in the world.
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*  Campaign Diary: Week Two: Fightback
Labor's doing everything to win a normal campaign - but this is no normal campaign.
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*  Economics: Who Will Notice When You Die?
Johann Christoph Arnold asks whether the anti-globalisation movement is the answer to an epidemic of loneliness.
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*  History: American Terror
Incredible revelations about the work of the US National Security Agency through the Cold War years help put the current War of Terror into perspective.
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*  International: Global Day of Action
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in the US last week, the ICFTU has announced that preparations for the Global Unions Day of Action on November 9 will go ahead.
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*  Satire: World Gripped by Fear as Howard Third Term Looms
The global community has uniformly condemned the recent terrorist attacks, which horrifically helped revive the re-election prospects of John Howard.
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*  Review: Flashbacks
Cultural theortician Neale Towart consults his record collection in a bid to understand the chaos gripping the earth.
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News
»  Unions Triumph in Bra Battle
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»  Ansett's Redundancy Edict: Hand in Uniforms
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»  Economic Management Libs Style: Porkbarrelling And Profligacy
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»  Long Hours Ranks Swell
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»  Extra Security Urged at Chemical Sites
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»  Regional Airport Security Ignored By Anderson
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»  "Sack or Back" Shier
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»  Backpay For Exploited Guest Workers
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»  Nurses to Test New Equal Pay Laws
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»  Libs Back Unions as Compo Police
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»  Racism Rocks Workplaces
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»  Community of Sydney to Back CFMEU
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»  Green Activist Restrictions Lifted
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»  Hotel Union Cautious About Employer Gloom
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»  International Workers to Converge on Sydney
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»  Workers' Bank Opens Shopfront
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»  Face The Music And Shove It Up The Junta!
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»  Activists Notebook
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Columns
»  The Soapbox
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»  The Locker Room
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»  Trades Hall
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»  Tool Shed
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Letters to the editor
»  Joy is at it Again!
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»  The Extra Yards
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»  Water Aid
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»  Redunancy Under Attack
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»  Orwell No Anarchist
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»  Ways Around Treaty Rights
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