Solidarity 097, 10 August 2006

“The United States respects your aspirations as citizens and we will stand with you to secure your rights — to speak as you choose, to think as you please, to worship as you wish and to choose your leaders freely and fairly in democratic elections”. Or so Condoleeza Rice said recently — attempting to exploit Fidel Castro’s illness in order to promote a “peaceful transition” to “democracy”. Meanwhile US officials announce plans for a major deployment of Navy and Coast Guard to prevent refugees from reaching the US in the event that these plans are successful. The US’s vision of a “free” and...

In an interview with the Daily Record on 7 August, leading Scottish Socialist Party member, Tommy Sheridan, fresh from the surprise victory in his defamation case against the News of the World, attacked his opponents in the SSP as “political scabs” and vowed retribution against them. Before the interview, a split in the SSP looked possible; now it looks very likely indeed. The AWL’s political criticisms of the SSP — its nationalism, its support for Castro’s Cuba, its failure to do serious work in the unions and its general softness and lack of independent working-class focus — are well known...

By Sofie Buckland Home Secretary John Reid has wasted no time in capitulating to the pressures of the tabloid press. Less than two months into his post he announced a u-turn on sentencing that will see large increases in prison places at a time when Britain’s prison population is already at a record high of 78,500. Trailed in the Sun as “Blair axes soft sentences” the new measures mean 8,000 extra prison places, adding to the 13 prisons built since New Labour came to power in 1997. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett had planned to introduce “custody plus”, a scheme under which 60,000 short...

by Paul Hampton The reality of Iraq’s drift towards civil war and break up has been inadvertently exposed by leading ruling class figures in the last week. William Patey, the UK’s outgoing ambassador in Iraq sent a final memo to the Blair government, in which he wrote: “The prospect of a low intensity civil war and a de facto division of Iraq is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and substantial transition to a stable democracy.” Patey’s view was reinforced the following day by the top US commander in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, who said Iraq could move toward...

By Amy Fisher Islamist violence against LGBT people in Iraq is reaching a new level with the extension of homophobic attacks to children. An underground network of LGBT activists in Iraq is reporting the execution of an eleven year old boy by Islamist militias for the crime of having been forced into same-sex prostitution. Ameer Hasoon al-Hasani was kidnapped from his home by police. His body was found three days later; he’d been executed with a single shot to the head. This barbaric action is condoned by the Iraqi government, and represents the gruesome logical extension of the anti-gay...

The Isreali peace campaign, Gush Shalom report the biggest anti-war march of the present war on 5 August, in Tel Aviv, Israel. 10,000 marched in spite of difficulties in movement around Israel and the war hysteria with physical attacks on the marchers. Proportionate to population this is equivalent to a demonstration of 100,000 in the UK. During the march, the demonstrators shouted (in Hebrew): “Jews and Arabs / refuse to be enemies!” , “We shall not die nor kill / in the service of the USA!”, “Children want to live / in Beirut and Haifa!”, “Peretz, Peretz resign / peace is more important!”,...

by Uri Avnery What were the aims of this war? "We shall create a new situation in the Middle East" [it was said] This aim has indeed been achieved — but not the way Olmert told himself (and us). The long-range results of the war are not immediately obvious. They belong to the category defined by Bismarck as "imponderables" — things that cannot be measured. Every day on their TV screens tens of millions of Arabs and hundred of millions of Muslims see the atrocious pictures of crushed babies, the sights of the horrible destruction. These are deeply imprinted in the consciousness of the masses...

By Dan Katz As fighting in Lebanon seizes the headlines, the crisis in Gaza — sparked by the seizure of an Israeli soldier on 25 June — continues. According to the UN, Israel has been firing 150 shells a day into Gaza. Israeli tanks move from area to area, along the length of Gaza and helicopters fly regular raids. Palestinian groups have been firing around 10 crude, short-range rockets from Gaza each day, landing in Israel’s southernmost towns. The Israeli human rights group B’tselem, claims that Israeli action has killed over 85 Palestinian militants, and a similar number of civilians...

By the Workers’ Advice Centre in Israel Since July 12, Israel has been carrying out a disproportionate and murderous war in Lebanon . It has killed hundreds of innocent civilians, including whole families. It has destroyed much of the infrastructure in the south, creating a humanitarian disaster. Those who suffer most are the workers and the poor. At the same time, the IDF continues to pummel Gaza , here too killing innocent civilians. The goal behind all this destruction is to restore the country's power of deterrence. It needs this power so that it can continue to behave unilaterally...